Armavia launched a daily Yerevan-Moscow Sheremetyevo frequency, its fourth daily flight to the Russian capital. Aer Arann and Aer Lingus will interline on the former's five-times-daily flights between Cork and Dublin and the latter's US services.
Smiths Detection announced the launch of a handheld vapor detector "for volatile chemicals commonly used in homemade bombs." According to Smiths, the Sabre EXV uses ion mobility spectrometry to "detect and identify explosive substances including peroxide-based chemicals" similar to those used by attempted shoe bomber Richard Reid "in as little as 10 seconds."
US Airways and Air China signed a codeshare agreement that will put the US code on CA flights to Beijing from Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York JFK, plus some connecting flights to Shanghai, while CA will put its code on US service from LAX and SFO to Phoenix, Las Vegas, Charlotte, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
Cargolux commenced weekly Vienna-Hong Kong service. Ryanair will launch daily West Knock-Liverpool on Oct. 27 and in November will fly from Shannon to Gdansk, Katowice and Lodz.
EasyJet expanded its Milan Malpensa operation with an 11th based aircraft and announced it will base two additional aircraft at MXP by the beginning of the winter schedule. Aircraft will fly on new routes to Copenhagen, Stockholm Arlanda, Sofia, Brindisi and Lamezia Terme. In addition, it will increase frequencies to Barcelona, Naples, Amsterdam and Paris Charles de Gaulle in October. It opened its MXP base in March 2006 and last year carried 2.2 million passengers through the airport. It expects 3.5 million this year and by January 2009 plans to base 15 aircraft in Milan.
Delta Air Lines will offer a rebate of the $25 second-checked-bag fee to customers who purchased tickets before April 9 and traveled on or after May 5, making a "one time exception" to its policy of enforcing rules effective on the date of travel. It said the decision was "in response to customer feedback and as a matter of goodwill." It announced the new policy on April 9 and it became effective May 5. Separately, DL will launch five-times-weekly New York JFK-Buenos Aires on Dec. 18.
Ryanair will launch service from Nottingham East Midlands to Faro, Fuerteventura and Prague at the end of October. At the same time it will begin flying from Liverpool to Faro, Gdansk, Scezecin and Knock. Meanwhile, the LCC said it will suspend all services to Arad, just north of Timisoara, on July 31 for what it called a "lack of cooperation" from the county government. It will replace the service with a thrice-weekly Bergamo-Berlin Schoenefeld.
Airports Council International-North America VP-Policy and External Affairs Deborah McElroy shared results of a three-month environmental benchmark survey that ended in February, reporting that 23 of the 73 responding airports currently have an Environmental Management System. Speaking at last week's Eco-Aviation conference presented by Air Transport World and Leeham Co. in Washington, McElroy said six of those EMSs are certified and 15 of the respondents, which represent nearly 60% of US/Canada passenger traffic, publish a regular environmental report.
Southwest Airlines will invest $175 million to implement RNP fleetwide for use at 64 US airports, the LCC announced yesterday at the Eco-Aviation conference presented by Air Transport World and Leeham Co. in Washington.
Australian Transport Minister Anthony Albanese will meet with EU officials next month to finalize an open skies agreement, the impact of which remains uncertain. Last week, European transport ministers approved a mandate for the European Commission "to negotiate an EU-wide open skies air services agreement with Australia," Albanese told Australian parliament this week. The agreement will cover only Australian and European carriers, although only British Airways operates to Australia on its own.
Six major Chinese carriers--Air China, China Eastern Airlines, China Southern Airlines, Hainan Airlines, Xiamen Airlines and Shanghai Airlines--have been chosen to operate the first weekend charter flights across the Taiwan Strait, according to CAAC. Based on last week's agreement between the Strait Exchange Foundation (Taipei) and the Assn. for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (Beijing) ( ATWOnline, June 16), 18 flights will be permitted each weekend (including Fridays) beginning July 4.
Emirates will add 18 weekly flights to India from July through October, when it will operate 132 weekly flights. From July 2, New Delhi will increase to 18-times-weekly from 14; eight-times-weekly Bangalore service will increase to 15 with two additional flights in July and five in October; 11-times-weekly Hyderabad will be served 16 times in July and 18 in October.
Ryanair launched its 25th base yesterday at Birmingham International and said it will start service to Alicante, Derry, Fuerteventura, Katowice, Kaunas, Krakow, Palma, Malaga and Murcia in October with one 737-800. It will base two aircraft at BHX initially, rising to 10 by 2012. It will invest $700 million in the operation, which is expected to handle 5 million passengers annually by 2012. Separately, Ryanair launched a new Flight Tracker service with Sentient Solutions that will deliver flight information to UK and Irish mobile phones.
Aer Lingus's short-haul winter schedule includes a new twice-weekly Dublin-Sofia, extension of summer DUB-Hamburg to year-round and the relaunch of winter service to Salzburg, Agadir and Newcastle. Expansion brings EI's DUB network to 50 routes. In addition, it will increase frequencies to Paris Charles De Gaulle, Dusseldorf, Warsaw, Bucharest, Geneva, Milan (it flies to both Malpensa and Linate), Barcelona, Malaga, Lisbon and Manchester.
Lufthansa Chairman and CEO Wolfgang Mayrhuber remains confident that the current downturn in the industry will not force the German carrier to reduce capacity like European rivals British Airways and Air France KLM.
US Dept. of Transportation is considering an extraordinary request by the six US legacy carriers and Alaska Airlines to issue a "blanket waiver of all dormancy conditions" for up to two years that would allow airlines to scale back or stop serving "limited entry" international routes without losing coveted traffic rights.
US FAA Acting Administrator Robert Sturgell yesterday announced the elimination of flight caps at Chicago O'Hare, saying that the city "has outdone itself when it comes to boosting capacity" by completing the extension of one runway two months early and adding a new runway by year end. In October 2004, arrivals at ORD were capped at 88 during most hours of the day, but Sturgell said the upgrades will allow for an additional 4-5 arrivals per hr., or 56-70 each day. FAA claimed that "this additional capacity is expected to result in a modest decrease in delayed flights."
TAM will operate twice-weekly Sao Paulo Guarulhos-San Carlos de Bariloche service July 3-Aug. 10 aboard an A320. The route currently is served only by charter flights, according to TAM, which said it will evaluate the viability of the route for scheduled service.
Airlines are concluding preparations for the launch of commercial charter flights across the Taiwan Strait, which are expected to start July 4, after an agreement between the Strait Exchange Foundation (Taipei) and the Assn. for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (Beijing) was signed Friday in Beijing.
Deutsche Flugsicherung reached agreement with Office National Des Aeroports in Casablanca to provide a €2.4 million ($3.7 million) training simulator with 17 workstations. Software features en route and approach control procedure testing and ATM system simulation. Contract covers training courses for ATC instructors and technical staff.
Nav Canada yesterday announced a proposal to maintain a 1% reduction in its service charges that was implemented on a temporary basis on Aug. 1, 2007, and was set to expire Aug. 31, 2008. The air navigation services provider said continuation of the lower rates will save customers an estimated C$13 million ($12.7 million) in FY09.
UK CAA said flight punctuality fell in the first quarter. Overall ontime performance of scheduled flights at the 10 UK airports monitored dropped by 4 points year-over-year to 68%. London Luton, Gatwick, Stansted and Birmingham all improved, whereas the situation at Heathrow deteriorated by 9 points to only 56% and London City dropped 12 points to 58%. Average delay across all flights monitored rose to 18 min. from 16 min. in the first quarter of 2007.
