Groundforce announced five new ground handling contracts. Its deal with Clickair covers the provision of all ramp handling services to March 2009 at Lisbon and Porto. It signed a deal with Emirates for ramp handling at Barcelona until November 2009, while LatCharter signed a three-year contract with Groundforce Morocco for full handling services at Fez, Casablanca, Marrakech and Agadir. It also will provide full handling service on an ad-hoc basis for AtlasJet for two years at the same four airports.
S7 Airlines now is operating its Moscow Domodedovo-Irkutsk service with a 128-seat A319. It has leased six of the type this year. It suffered a fatal crash in July when a A310-300 operating the route slid off a wet runway at Irkutsk and crashed into buildings ( ATWOnline, July 11). Separately, S7 helped open the new arrivals hall at Novosibirsk's Tolmachevo Airport, bringing passengers in from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. The terminal has been increased by 10,000 sq. m.
Hochtief announced last week that a consortium led by its Hochtief AirPort subsidiary signed an MOU with airports operator BAA for the "potential acquisition" of the British firm's stake in Budapest Ferihegy. BAA purchased a 75%-minus-one-share stake from the Hungarian government last year for £1.26 billion ($2.37 billion) ( ATWOnline, Dec. 20, 2005).
JetBlue Airways last week launched daily service from Boston to Columbus and Raleigh-Durham. Japan Airlines will add a fourth daily Tokyo Narita-Shanghai passenger service and a sixth weekly cargo flight on the same route from Oct. 29. Separately, JAL and Malev Hungarian Airlines expanded their codeshare agreement to include Malev's daily Budapest-Amsterdam service from Oct. 29. Spanair will increase winter service between Barcelona and Lanzarote to six weekly flights from
United Airlines will launch daily Washington Dulles-Rome Fiumicino service on April 1 aboard a 777. Flyglobespan said that its planned Liverpool-New York service will operate to JFK instead of Newark as originally intended, as slots at JFK have become available. Flights begin May 25, 2007.
Swiss International Air Lines will increase long-haul frequencies during the winter schedule with the addition of two A330-200s to its fleet. Zurich-Miami service will rise to daily from five-times-weekly. Santiago via Sao Paulo service will increase to six weekly flights from five and flights to Riyadh and Jeddah will be four-times-weekly instead of three.
Southwest Airlines is ready to "bring the Dallas/Fort Worth area into the 21st century of low-fare air travel" following President George Bush's signing of a law last week that will weaken and ultimately repeal the Wright Amendment ( ATWOnline, Oct. 17).
Icelandair will launch new services from Keflavik to Bergen (thrice-weekly), Gothenburg (twice-weekly) and Halifax (thrice-weekly) next spring and will increase frequencies to Paris Charles de Gaulle, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Helsinki, Boston and New York JFK. It will discontinue its San Francisco service today. By spring it will offer 150 weekly flights from KEF, a 17% increase over the 2006 schedule.
Frontier Airlines, which recently announced it will launch a new Regional subsidiary, issued an RFP to smaller communities seeking air service within a 1,200-mi. radius of its Denver hub. Frontier, which ended its codeshare agreement with Horizon Air in September, has ordered 10 Q400 turboprops to start its own Regional operation expected to launch in mid-2007 ( ATWOnline, Sept. 21).
Clickair announced 12 routes to launch next year. The no-frills startup, in which Iberia holds a 20% stake, will begin service from its base at Barcelona International Airport to Malaga (five-times-daily), Munich (daily) and Porto (daily) on Jan. 1. It will start flying to Prague (daily) and Berlin (daily) on Feb. 1 and to Amsterdam (twice-daily), Frankfurt International (twice-daily), Dublin (daily) and Basel (daily) on March 1. It also will commence flights from Seville and Valencia to London Heathrow on Feb. 1.
Wright Amendment repeal, initiated with a June compromise struck by the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth, American Airlines and Southwest Airlines ( ATWOnline, June 16) and introduced as legislation one month later ( ATWOnline, July 17), became US law Friday when President Bush signed a bill that will eliminate the restrictions in eight years and immediately allow Dallas Love Field airlines to sell tickets to any city in the country as long a
Centavia will launch regular services from Belgrade to Podgorica and Zagreb on Oct. 25. The Serbian LCC startup said it intends to add other European destinations this fall. AirTran Airways will begin daily flights from White Plains to Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers and Tampa from Dec. 21 aboard 717s. Dragonair will relaunch its Hong Kong-Phuket service, suspended in January 2005 following the Indian Ocean tsunami. It will operate daily A320 flights beginning Dec. 15.
AirTran Airways will launch 717-200 service from Daytona Beach to Atlanta (flights begin Jan. 12, service becomes four-times-daily by Feb. 15) and Baltimore-Washington International (daily from Feb. 15). Japan Airlines expanded its codeshare agreements with China Eastern Airlines and Xiamen Airlines. It will place its code on China Eastern's daily Fukuoka-Shanghai service from Oct. 29 and its thrice-weekly Osaka Kansai-Kunming service from Dec. 12. JAL already operates its own service on the former route and serves Kunming through Beijing.
Aeroflot said last week that it now will operate its cargo unit as a separate, wholly owned subsidiary and will lease six MD-11 freighters for delivery in 2008 to replace four aging DC-10s that will be relegated to domestic duty. Aeroflot Cargo will focus on continuing to build up operations at its European freight hub at Frankfurt Hahn, which recorded a 20% year-over-year increase in cargo traffic for the first six months of 2006.
Lufthansa's winter schedule will include a new thrice-weekly Frankfurt-Kolkata service beginning Dec. 1 and a daily FRA-Cape Town flight in addition to the codeshare service operated by South African Airways. Both routes will be served with an A340-600. In all, LH's winter schedule will comprise flights to 183 destinations in 78 countries, representing a 3.3% year-over-year increase in capacity.
JetBlue Airways reportedly has revised its request for landing authorizations at Chicago O'Hare down to four, half the number it asked for last month. It expects to announce details of its proposed ORD service later this month and commence flying by Jan. 27.
Delta Air Lines announced another international expansion yesterday and CEO Gerald Grinstein signaled that he will retire after the carrier emerges from bankruptcy next year.
Northwest Airlines will revamp 10 757-200s for an expansion of its transatlantic network announced yesterday. The routes include two new destinations from NWA's Detroit hub and the first nonstop transatlantic service from Hartford's Bradley International Airport. "The combination of our customer-focused WorldGateway at the Detroit hub, competitive costs and the Boeing 757 aircraft, which allows us to match capacity with economically viable demand, has made this major expansion possible," President and CEO Doug Steenland said.
London City Airport has been acquired by a consortium comprising AIG Financial Products, a subsidiary of American International Group, and Global Infrastructure Partners, a joint venture between Credit Suisse and GE Infrastructure. Dermot Desmond, the Irish billionaire who bought the loss-making airport in the London Docklands for £14.5 million ($27 million) in 1995, announced his intention to sell the airport earlier this year. Last month he said he would sell LCY, which handled 2 million passengers in 2005, to "whoever provides the most money."
Ryanair will base three new 737-800s at Madrid Barajas and open 14 routes from the airport beginning Nov. 22, making it its second Spanish and 18th European base. The LCC will fly daily to Dublin, Eindhoven, Faro, Porto, Marseille and Paris Beauvais. It will fly thrice-weekly to Bournemouth, Gothenburg, Malmo and Shannon and four-times-weekly to Billund, Brussels Charleroi, Nottingham East Midlands and Oslo Sandefjord. Approximately 1 million passengers will travel each year on the new routes, Ryanair said.
Delta Air Lines will launch service from Trenton to Boston (thrice-daily) and Atlanta (daily) on Dec. 18. Both routes will be operated by Comair aboard 50-seat CRJs. Delta also will start thrice-weekly flights from Mexico City to Orlando and Salt Lake City on Dec. 1 and a twice-weekly Atlanta-Pointe a Pietre service on Dec. 13, all aboard 737-800s. It will begin flights from Los Angeles to Managua (twice-weekly from Dec. 16) and Puerto Vallarta (daily from Dec. 15) and increase LAX-Guatemala City service to four-times-weekly from weekly on Dec. 17.
Atlantic Airways BAe 146-200 skidded, overran the runway and caught fire at Stord Airport in southwestern Norway yesterday morning, killing three of 12 passengers and one of four crewmembers, the Faroe Islands carrier said. The flight was a charter operation contracted by Norway's Aker Kvaerner engineering company. It originated in Stavanger and was stopping at Stord to pick up passengers on its way to Molde. The accident was under investigation yesterday. The runway reportedly was wet from rain although landing conditions were otherwise normal.
Wizz Air will launch six new routes from Katowice for the summer schedule, increasing capacity from the airport by 50%. The carrier will base a new A320 there from May 2007. New services are to Belfast and Eindhoven (both thrice-weekly from May 29), Bourgas and Heraklion (both weekly from June 2), Bournemouth (thrice-weekly from July 14) and Coventry (thrice-weekly from July 28). Summer flights to Athens and Barcelona also will resume. Lufthansa Cargo will launch a twice-weekly MD-11F service from Frankfurt to Los Angeles via Chicago O'Hare on Oct 29.
Airlines serving Dallas/Fort Worth will benefit from the airport's deal with Chesapeake Energy Corp. to mine the natural gas produced on DFW's 18,000 acres. The "monumental deal," as DFW CEO Jeff Fegan characterized it, includes an initial payment of $185 million and a 25% royalty on the value of the gas. Fegan said nonaviation revenue will reach "new highs for the next couple of decades," which will "help keep costs lower for airlines, making DFW a more attractive market, and create new airline competition." Natural gas production is expected to begin within two years.
Southwest Airlines launched its Washington Dulles service yesterday. The carrier will use two gates on the B Concourse and operate 12 daily flights to Chicago Midway (seven), Orlando International (two), Tampa (two) and Las Vegas (one). It will base 40 employees at IAD.
