Virgin Atlantic opened a "Clubhouse" airport lounge in Newark last week for up to 70 of its "Upper Class" business-class passengers. The facility includes a library, bar/cafe area and Sony listening facility equipped with laser discs and compact disc players.
Millon Air and DOT's enforcement office have reached a settlement on alleged violations of wet-leasing regulations. The carrier has been assessed $60,000 in civil penalties, of which it must pay $20,000. The remainder will be forgiven if the carrier does not commit more violations. Millon operated flights between Miami and Guatemala from July 1994 until June 1995 on behalf of Lineas Aereas Mayas.
- In Federal Register dated Feb. 9...Issued final rules covering harmonization of regulations with the European Joint Aviation Authorities for small aircraft...Revised the gust load design requirements for transport aircraft...Proposed an airworthiness directive on certain Beech 125-800A and Hawker 800 aircraft to require modifying the airframe structure.
Worldspan has enhanced its global Car Select rental car system by adding point-of-sale information on rates and rules. The improvement enables car associates to provide subscribers with information specific to countries, states, provinces and cities. Initial participants are Avis, Hertz, Alamo, Budget, Thrifty, Enterprise and Sears.
Former Morris Air executives have created a ticketless computer reservations system designed for internal use by airlines. The system, OpenRes, in use by airlines in Canada and Belgium, will be installed at a South Pacific carrier next month. The company is negotiating with several U.S. airlines. OpenRes was designed by former Morris Air President David Neeleman and former Morris VP-Information Systems David Evans. The system is designed to serve the needs of carriers ranging in size from a two- aircraft startup to a major airline with hundreds of planes.
FAA issued a type certificate to Hamilton Standard for the FV4000-2TC general aviation aircraft engine, developed jointly with Toyota. The four- liter, twin turbocharged V-8 engine with full authority digital engine control is designed for aircraft that carry four passengers. "We are proud to be working with Toyota to offer the world's first application of a FADEC for general aviation aircraft with reciprocating engines," said Vin Misciagna, director of Hamilton Standard's general aviation business.
The joint frequent flyer program of Swissair and Austrian Airlines is the best in the world, according to the annual "Freddie Awards" sponsored by MCI and InsideFlyer Magazine. The program, known as Qualiflyer, was judged to have the best rewards, promotions, newsletter, elite-level program and customer service.
U.S. National Carriers Traffic January 1996 January January % 1996 1995 Change Alaska Revenue Passenger Miles (000) 632,000 588,000 7.5 Available Seat Miles (000) 1,170,000 1,089,000 7.4 Load Factor (%) 54.0 54.0
Granted orally an exemption to Continental for service between New York and Quito, Ecuador, via Bogota, Colombia...Granted orally an exemption to Continental for service between Newark and Guatemala City via San Salvador...Granted orally an exemption to Excalibur Airways for charter service between the U.S. and the U.K...Granted orally an exemption to Northwest for service to Dortmund and Paderborn, Germany, via Amsterdam under its code-sharing arrangement with KLM.
Air Canada's traffic rose 15.5% last month, compared with January 1995, on a 10.5% increase in capacity. The carrier flew 1.14 million revenue passenger miles during the month on 2.04 million available seat miles. The load factor was up 2.5 percentage points, to 58.4% from 55.9%. Canadian RPMs grew 11.7% and international RPMs 17.6% Domestic ASMs were up 2.5%, and international capacity rose 15.4%.
Delta is doing something about its consistently mediocre-to-poor on-time performance. In a company-wide reliability campaign, it is asking every operational division to find ways to speed things up. First steps: Get the first flight of the day off on time, and close the boarding bridge door two minutes earlier than usual. The carrier is testing a completely revamped boarding process in Atlanta and plans to field it throughout its system in 30 days.
Daimler-Benz Aerospace (DASA) reported losing $2.9 billion (4.3 billion Deutschmarks) in 1995, largely due to expected losses by Fokker. The deficit is up sharply from the DM438 million the company lost in 1994. Sales also declined, to DM15 billion ($10.2 billion) last year from DM17.4 billion in 1994. DASA reported that talks have broken off concerning a merger of its MTU subsidiary with the BMW/Roll-Royce venture. Manfred Bischoff, DASA president, said the talks failed because of MTU's ties with Pratt&Whitney.
Retirement rate of Stage 2 and newer aircraft is being "materially slowed," MBA says in its newly issued 1996 edition of Future Aircraft Values, and the rate over the next 10 years will be about 40% lower than manufacturers' and analysts' projections. "As a result, current prices of these older jets have more than doubled in the past year and are continuing to rise," says MBA.
Japan Airlines plans to use its new Boeing 777s to bolster its domestic service as it explores possible international use of the twinjet. The carrier took delivery of its first 777-200 last week in Seattle. It has 10 on order, plus five stretched 777-300s, and holds options for 10 additional 777-200s. After training and familiarizing its personnel with the 777, JAL will introduce it April 26 on domestic service between Tokyo Haneda and Kagoshima.
Virgin Atlantic expects to introduce inflight gambling through its Arcadia entertainment system by the end of the year, a company official said last week. The carrier still is trying to find a way to limit bets placed with credit cards - to protect customers from losing too much money while flying Virgin.
Delta Connection SkyWest flew 49 million revenue passenger miles in January, a 39.9% increase from the same month one year ago. Capacity increased 31.3% to 103.1 million available seat miles from 78.6 million, allowing load factor to rise three percentage points to 47.6%. Enplanements increased 25.1% to 191,138. SkyWest Chief Operating Officer Ron Reber said, "Our operational group delivered in what was a very challenging weather month. We definitely needed the snow in our ski markets," but "We didn't need the fog on the west coast."
The recent purchase of four new Fairchild Metro 23 aircraft has given the regional carrier Asia Pacific the opportunity to develop new markets and to serve those markets with lower risk, according to Hairun Nisa Abu Bakar, chief executive of the Kuala Lumpur-based airline.
In its first profit-sharing payments since airline deregulation - outside of bankruptcy - Continental has distributed $31 million to its employees for 1995. Combined with on-time bonuses paid last year, Continental has dispensed more than $50 million to employees. Continental ranked in the top five on-time performers in nine of 12 months last year and was the on- time leader for the fourth quarter. In 1995 it paid $65 per employee for each month its on-time performance ranked in the top five.
Following a review of ice shape testing on the Embraer EMB-120 Brasilia, FAA confirmed that the regional turboprop is not susceptible to roll control problems in freezing drizzle conditions, and it deemed other handling characteristics of the airplane acceptable, Embraer said. The Brasilia is one of several regional turboprops undergoing an icing test program that began last summer.
Midwest Express Holdings' board of directors has elected Dennis O'Reilly to the newly created position of assistant treasurer. O'Reilly, business analyst since 1990, will be responsible for aircraft financing and relations with analysts and investors.
SAS has started negotiating with the Baltic state of Estonia about taking a stake in government-owned Estonian Air, an SAS spokeswoman said. The talks are being held with an Estonian government privatization commission, which was charged with taking bids for the carrier in December (DAILY, Dec. 22). The spokeswoman said the commission would make a final decision on a sale after considering the issue for 120 days.
Delta's contract negotiations with the Air Line Pilots Association reached a "very intense level" this week at National Mediation Board headquarters, according to the union. The pilots' Master Executive Council meets in special session this weekend to discuss the status of the talks. The union plans its first-ever systemwide teleconference Feb. 21, live from Atlanta with downlinks to each pilot base and Fort Lauderdale, as a "continuation of our strike preparedness process."
