While discounting safety concerns and acknowledging some competitive issues, DOT is urging a continuation of the ban on electronic gambling on board foreign services in its study "Video Gambling in Foreign Air Transportation." Mandated by the Federal Aviation Authorization Act of 1994, the study concludes that if the ban were lifted, U.S carriers could earn up to $300 million per year without raising significant safety issues. On the other hand, the continued prohibition would allow foreign carriers access to these revenues, in some cases at the expense of U.S.
America West kicked off financial reporting for the first quarter of 1996 with record pretax earnings of $25.4 million, a 132% increase from the $10.97 million in pretax earnings the carrier collected in the first quarter of 1995. The airline reported net income of $13.73 million for the quarter, or $0.27 per share on a fully diluted basis. The net income result represents a 164% increase from first quarter 1995 levels and a 135% gain for fully distributed shares.
FAA yesterday named J.C. Johns to head its Global Positioning System team. His responsibilities include development and installation of the Wide Area Augmentation System and the Local Area Augmentation System. Johns has been a leader in developing WAAS and headed the acquisition part of the program, FAA said.
FAA still plans to complete by the end of April its proposal for assessing $150 million in new user fees during fiscal 1997, Administrator David Hinson said yesterday. At a House Appropriations transportation subcommittee hearing on the FAA budget, Hinson committed to having the agency's proposed schedule in time for the subcommittee's markup of fiscal 1997 funding, but he declined to outline specifics of the plan. He confirmed under questioning, however, that certain fees are being considered closely.
FAA published a notice in yesterday's Federal Register asking airlines to provide more information to support their claim that their compensation for collecting and remitting passenger facility charges should be increased above the current eight cents.
Fuel Cost and Consumption U.S. Majors, Nationals and Large Regionals March 1995 - February 1996 Total Total Cost Gallons (Dollars) 1995 March Domestic 1,081,585,267 562,499,369 International 353,694,597 205,136,520 System Total 1,435,279,864 767,635,889
U.S. travel industry has established the Ronald H. Brown Memorial Scholarship in honor of the late Commerce secretary. The scholarship will be administered by the Travel Industry Association of America Foundation. A $3,000 scholarship will be awarded each year to a minority student committed to a career in the industry. Travel industry members are encouraged to contribute to the scholarship. So far, more than $30,000 has been pledged by organizations and individuals.
Air Canada flew 19.4% more revenue passenger miles last month than in March 1995, logging 1.52 billion RPMs. Capacity for the month was 2.28 billion available seat miles, an increase of 9.1%, lifting the load factor 5.8 percentage points to 66.9%. Air Canada's international traffic grew 22.2% during the period. while domestic RPMs increased 14.3%. For the first three months of the year, the carrier's traffic rose 19.3%, compared with the same period in 1995, to 4.12 billion RPMs. Capacity increased 10.7% to 6.62 billion ASMs.
Hawaiian Airlines and Korean Air are joining the American Express Membership Rewards program, effective June 2. The program gives members one point for every dollar spent on American Express and Optima cards. Points can be redeemed for travel and merchandise. On Hawaiian, one roundtrip interisland ticket is valued at 10,000 Gold Plus miles, and one roundtrip mainland coach ticket is 40,000 miles. One Membership Reward point equals one Gold Plus mile. Korean is the first Asian airline to join the program.
Traffic carried by ATA member airlines rose 7.9% last month, compared with March 1995, according to the Air Transport Association. Fourteen of the nation's largest airlines enplaned 5.8% more passengers. The group's capacity increased only 1.8%, pushing the load factor up four percentage points to 71.7%. "Despite the persistent winter weather this year, which continued well into the spring, the first quarter passenger figures are quite impressive," said ATA President Carol Hallett.
Midway Airlines, which has been slowly shrinking over the past two months, says it is finally holding steady at one A320, 12 F100s and its current level of employees. The carrier had been leasing A320s to fly to the Caribbean, but its plans were dashed by the hurricane season, which "decimated the Caribbean from a traffic standpoint," said Midway VP- Corporate Communications John Ross. He said the carrier will refocus on the business market along the East Coast. Where possible, it will stay in leisure markets that have been profitable.
Hawaiian Airlines March traffic rose 27.4% to 334 million revenue passenger miles from 262.2 million in March 1995. Available seat miles increased 23.9% to 424.5 million from 342.8 million, and the load factor was 78.7%. Hawaiian carried 467,585 passengers during the month, compared with 411,146 in March 1995. For three months, RPMs rose 24.8% to 935.5 million, capacity was up 23.2% to 1.244 billion ASMs and the load factor was 75.2%.
United probably was too aggressive in introducing the 777 when it started flying the aircraft last June, the executive responsible for the aircraft at the carrier said. "We were really overconfident," said Gordon McKinzie, 777 project manager for United. "Had we really babied the airplane, allowed for longer turns and major maintenance stations, we would have done better. But we went really hard line and treated it just like any other aircraft on day one," McKinzie said. Dispatch reliability of the aircraft is improving.
KLM has named Robert Hougee VP-cargo operations. Hougee takes over for Jan Meurer, who was named senior VP and manager for KLM passenger sales and services in North America and Mexico. He joined KLM in 1978 and previously was divisional controller for passenger sales and services. He also holds a seat on Air UK's board of directors.
Collins Air Transport Division is holding discussions with the Chinese on co-production of its traffic alert and collision avoidance systems for Asian markets.The joint venture could be ready to turn out TCAS units in two years, a Collins official says. The company also is developing a new avionics suite for China's 100-passenger airplane.
Laker Airways has signed up Phoenix Information System Corp. to provide it with reservations services. The carrier plans to offer charter service between Orlando, Fla., and Gatwick, England, as of May 2. Service between Fort Lauderdale and Prestwick, Scotland, will start July 5.
The profits of U.S. carriers may continue to grow in 1996, but it will take years for the group to lower its debt, said Fitch. The ratings agency calculated that the top eight U.S. carriers generated $4.9 billion in operating profits in 1995, the most profitable year for the industry since deregulation in 1978, but that by contrast, the same group of carriers had $62 billion in debt at the end of last year.
U.S. National Carriers Traffic March, 3 Months 1996 March March % 1996 1995 Change Alaska Revenue Passenger Miles (000) 835,000 663,000 25.9 Available Seat Miles (000) 1,220,000 1,115,000 9.4 Load Factor (%) 68.4 59.5
Following the lead of U.S. civil aviation officials, the director of the International Air Transport Association said yesterday that "zero accidents is what we in IATA are aiming for as an ultimate goal." Pierre Jeanniot, speaking at a seminar in Vancouver for transport officials of the Asia/Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, said IATA's initial objective is to "reduce the annual aircraft loss rate by 50% by the year 2004." That "means removing nine to 10 aircraft from the crash statistics - saving a lot of lives, passengers and crew - every year," he said.
Airbus Industrie has named Kiran Rao president of Airbus Industrie India, based in Delhi. Airbus said the appointment recognizes the importance of the Indian subcontinent, which it forecasts will need more than 400 new airliners worth more than $30 billion by 2014. Rao joined Airbus in 1992 as airline marketing manager and later was director-airline marketing, North America.
GE Aircraft Engines has begun development of a 100,000-pounds-thrust version of the GE90 for future variants of the Boeing 777, officials said yesterday. The project, undertaken with revenue-sharing participants Snecma, IHI and FiatAvio, is expected to result in certification of the GE90-100B in 1999. Project Manager Russ Sparks said the engine will have "significant" advantages in low noise and emissions, which will allow twice as many takeoffs and landings as competing engines at noise-restricted airports, such as London Heathrow.
Delta is offering Georgia SkyMiles members an opportunity to win tickets to the Olympic Games in Atlanta this summer. The "Just for You Georgia" program will reward the 100 SkyMiles members who fly the most segments on Delta or a Delta Connection carrier between April 15 and May 31.
United's world headquarters near Chicago has adopted a new telephone prefix. A new area code of 847 already replaced 708, and the new prefix is 700, which replaces 952.
AlliedSignal Aerospace said yesterday it has begun customer deliveries of its Bendix/King KLX 100, "the world's first hand-held aircraft radio that combines a global positioning system (GPS) and communications transceiver in a single unit." The equipment is intended for recreational pilots flying home-built aircraft, who can use them as their primary means of communications and navigation, and corporate and airline pilots, as a backup or supplement to aircraft systems.
Southwest and American are keeping it in the family. The only airlines ever to rank first and second in the six-year-old Airline Quality Rating took the top honors again in 1995, this time with Southwest regaining the number one spot. The annual rating is conducted by researchers at the University of Nebraska at Omaha's Aviation Institute and the W. Frank Barton School of Business at Wichita State University. The nine major airlines rated, in order, were Southwest, American, United, Delta, America West, Northwest, USAir, TWA and Continental.
