Southwest Airlines announced schedule adjustments for the Jan. 9-March 12, 2010, period featuring elimination of 92 individual flights and addition of another 42, including new service from St. Louis to Boston and Minneapolis-St. Paul beginning Jan. 10. It temporarily will suspend Albuquerque-Portland, Ore., Manchester, N.H.-Pheonix and Kansas City-Seattle service. AirBaltic yesterday launched twice-weekly Riga-Pskov service aboard an F50. IndiGo will launch twice-weekly Kolkata-Dibrugarh service on Sept. 16.
Wizz Air yesterday announced the addition of a third aircraft in Prague in June 2010 in response to SkyEurope Airlines' shutdown ( ATWOnline, Sept. 1). It also will increase frequencies on existing services to London Luton, Rome Fiumicino, Bergamo, Brussels Charleroi and Eindhoven in September and October. Meanwhile, Niki CEO Otmar Lenz confirmed to ATWOnline that the carrier will look to expand into areas that lost service as a result of SkyEurope's demise.
Emirates chief Tim Clark said Monday that he expects that the carrier's Airbus 380 flights will return to New York in the first six months of 2010, because passenger demand should be recovering by then, reported The Associated Press.
Etihad Airways has said it will open a new premium lounge at London Heathrow airport as part of the airline's flights moving from Terminal Three to Terminal Four on 30 September 2009.
Milwaukee's General Mitchell International, which has felt the pinch of a faltering economy and a failing local carrier, is looking forward to better times with the arrival of Southwest Airlines this fall. Over the past year, the airport was affected adversely by the financial problems of Midwest Airlines and a subsequent 40% reduction in flying. In prior years, Midwest accounted for more than half of the flights out of MKE. In the first five months of 2009, traffic was down some 15% compared to 2008.
US Department of Homeland Security will add 13 airports to its Global Entry pilot program aimed at streamlining the arrival process for enrolled travelers returning from international destinations. Airports in Boston, Dallas, Detroit, Fort Lauderdale, Honolulu, Las Vegas, Newark, Orlando, Philadelphia, Sanford, San Francisco, San Juan, and Seattle now will be included. The program uses biometric identification including a digital photo, which can be entered into a special kiosk where the traveler is issued a receipt used to clear Customs and Border Patrol stations.
BORN IN A DAY WHEN AIR TRAFFIC WAS burgeoning, planners saw perimeter taxiways as a way to cut both runway incursions and fuel costs. Now that traffic has tumbled and fuel isn't quite as terrifying, the issue is whether they still make sense. It depends. There is more than a modicum of validity to the old saying, "When you've seen one airport, you've seen one airport."
Vienna International Airport continues to face challenges as construction costs for its new Terminal SkyLink have skyrocketed at the same time that passenger traffic is falling. Airport officials are going back to the drawing board to review existing contracts in an effort to cut costs on the 450-m.-long facility. Construction work was halted on June 30.
Still years away from completion, the Chicago O'Hare Modernization Program already is reducing delays at the world's second-busiest airport. New Runway 9L-27R and the 3,000-ft. extension to runway 10L-27R, as well as the new north ATC tower, all opened last year, improved the airport's ontime arrival rate by 22%, according to the Chicago Dept. of Aviation.
Iberia, its associated carriers Iberia Regional Air Nostrum and Vueling as well as oneworld partners American Airlines, British Airways, Finnair and Royal Jordanian, will move to Barcelona El Prat's new Terminal 1 on Sept. 9. The Puente Aereo (Air Bridge), Iberia's 60-flights-per-day walk-on shuttle service between Madrid and Barcelona, will have its own mini-terminal in the T1 building.
ALL GOOD THINGS MUST COME to an end and airport passenger growth is no exception. After five years of robust expansion (2003-07), airports experienced an anemic 0.9% increase in passenger throughput last year compared to 2007 and the outlook for the current year clearly is dismal. Vienna Airport, for example, reported a 12.7% drop in passenger traffic for the first half of 2009 while Brussels Zaventem plunged 11.7%.
WHILE THE AVIATION WORLD AWAITS with great anticipation the fuel saving promises of the Single European Sky and the related ATC modernization, air navigation services providers and airports around Europe already are achieving greater environmental efficiency in today's skies.
In late July and early August, the US Commodities Futures Trading Commission held three days of hearings on whether federal position limits should be set by the CFTC for "commodities of finite supply" such as the energy markets.
German court approved a €4 billion expansion of Frankfurt International, which will include a fourth runway and third terminal and a cargo maintenance center. The new runway could be opened for operation by 2011.
Airports are not the major cause of the economic woes of the airline industry, Airports Council International World Director Angela Gittens told ATW's Airports Today. In recent months, IATA and the Assn. of European Airlines, as well as individual carriers like Ryanair, have complained about airport fees and charges in vocal and sometimes harsh terms. IATA even erected a metaphorical "Wall of Shame" with the names of airports it believes are guilty of overcharging airlines.
JetBlue Airways and Lufthansa, which owns 15.6% of the New York JFK-based LCC, yesterday announced a codeshare agreement. Subject to US Dept. of Transportation approval, LH initially will place its code on connecting flights from JFK and/or Boston to Austin, Buffalo, Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, Raleigh-Durham, Rochester, San Juan, Syracuse, Tampa and West Palm Beach.
Oman Air will launch flights from Muscat to Frankfurt (four-times-weekly from Sept. 30) and Munich (thrice-weekly from Oct. 1) aboard A330-200s. Routes will be operated with A330-300s from December. Eastern Airways will launch five-times-weekly flights to Bergen from both Newcastle and Aberdeen on Oct. 5.
