SITA's efforts to reach small and mid-sized airports around the world took off yesterday when it concluded an agreement with Turkish aviation operations and airport construction company TAV certifying it as the exclusive Turkish reseller of SITA's AirportConnect CUTE, AirportConnect Kiosk, BagManager and BagMessage products. The deal marked the launch of SITA's new strategy to establish a "global network of partners" to provide the company's IT solutions to airports handling 5 million passengers or fewer per year.
Defunct Independence Air was granted approval by the US Bankruptcy Court to sell its lease at Washington Dulles to United Airlines for $4.3 million. The lease includes 35 gates on Concourse A, which serves commuter flights. The move comes a day after UA exited three years in bankruptcy. While there has been speculation that the gates would be used to increase Regional flying, United spokesperson Jeff Green told ATWOnline the airline is "not providing any details" on future operations at Dulles. Independence Air, which declared bankruptcy in November, shut down Jan. 5.
El Al will launch twice-weekly Miami-Tel Aviv service on March 28 using two-class 767s. It replaces a twice-weekly direct service. Separately, El Al will introduce an onboard calling service on its 767s through the Iridium satellite network for $1.60 per min. Gilat Satcom through its GayaCom subsidiary is supplying the Iridium terminals and calling card services.
Norwegian will launch daily Oslo-Munich service from May 2. Alpine Air began operating a new cargo route between Honolulu and Lihue Saturday. Its contract runs through June 26, 2008. American Eagle will launch twice-daily Dallas/Ft. Worth-Charleston service aboard ERJ-145s from April 3.
Swissport and Ryanair announced a six-year agreement under which Swissport will handle more than 54,000 flights per year at London Stansted, including those presently handled by Stansted Ground Operations. The deal becomes effective Feb. 20. Under the new agreement, Swissport will provide full passenger, ramp and ticketing services for all operations. The accord also will see some 120 current SGO employees transfer to Swissport.
Air Tran will offer service from White Plains, N.Y., to Atlanta (twice daily), Orlando (daily) and West Palm Beach (daily) beginning April 4 aboard 717s. Frequency to Atlanta will increase to thrice-daily May 9. Separately, AirTran launched a new cargo website yesterday enabling customers to track shipments 24 hr. a day, among other features. It also announced a partnership with Kayak.com to distribute fares and ticket availability through that search engine. Kayak.com was created by Orbitz, Travelocity and Expedia.
If China is to become the world's largest aviation market by 2020, it will have to move mountains of earth to provide enough runways. The country has just 196 certified airports for transport aircraft and 329 "GA Temporary Landing Points" to serve a population of just over 1.3 billion. By comparison, the US with 270 million people has 14,807 airports, while Australia with just over 20 million has 444 and tiny Iceland has 100.
SAS Group's Spanair subsidiary is adding 30 weekly flights between Spanish tourist destinations Malaga, Alicante and Palma Majorca and Scandinavian markets Copenhagen and Stockholm. All flights will be aboard one-class MD-80s. Individual city-pairs will be serviced 2-4 times weekly.
UPS opened its expanded package sorting hub at Cologne/Bonn Airport after 2.5 years of construction. The new $135 million, 813,000-sq.-ft. facility can handle 110,000 packages per hr., nearly double the original hub's capacity. It represents UPS's largest facility investment outside the US.
Air Baltic will add an eighth 737-500 this spring to help drive a route expansion from its hubs in Riga and Vilnius. New services from Riga will include to Dusseldorf four-times-weekly from March 1, to Warsaw six-times-weekly from March 26, to Simferopol twice-weekly from April 11 and to Bergen thrice-weekly from April 14. Twice-weekly service to Baku and Tbilisi will commence in May, the latter pending approval from Georgian authorities. The carrier also will launch flights from Vilnius to Budapest, Dusseldorf, Stockholm and Warsaw. No details were provided.
Delta Air Lines will increase service to Mexico, adding Saturday flights from Boston and Washington Dulles to Cancun. Service begins June 3 aboard 737-800s. Romanian Regional carrier Carpatair will add a 10th destination to its domestic network. A Saab 340 will start thrice-weekly flights from Timisoara to Suceava on March 7. The carrier also plans thrice-weekly Timisoara-London Stansted service from March 27 using F100s. Carpatair operates two F100s, nine Saab 2000s and three Saab 340s.
ANA's new cargo airline joint venture with Japan Post will operate as ANA & JP Express or AJV, with flights scheduled to begin in August with three 767Fs ( ATWOnline, Oct. 25, 2005).
LAN Peru will introduce four-times-weekly Sao Paulo-Los Angeles service from March 22 aboard 767s. Finnair is adding three weekly flights from Helsinki to St Petersburg from May, bringing weekly frequencies to 10.
Air Canada intends to challenge Qantas between Los Angeles and Sydney next year, operating fifth freedom services as part of a daily Toronto-Sydney service that will commence during the first half of 2007 when its new 777-300ERs and dash 200LRs begin arriving. Air Canada said it will use authority contained in the recent open skies agreement between the US and Canada and will apply to Canadian and Australian authorities for permission to operate the route.
Delta Air Lines will launch Raleigh/Durham-Los Angeles service daily except Saturday from June 8 aboard 737-800s. It will start daily service from Boston to Nashville and Savannah from April 3. Flights will be operated by Delta Connection carrier Comair aboard 50-seat CRJ200s. Iberia will launch a daily La Coruna-London Heathrow service from Feb. 1 aboard 150-seat A320s. JetBlue Airways announced it is seeking permission to start twice-daily flights from New York JFK to Bermuda in May.
Air New Zealand will suspend its twice-weekly nonstop Christchurch-Los Angeles service during the off season from April 3 to Oct. 28. Emirates will launch four-times-weekly service to Copenhagen from Oct. 3 aboard two-class A330-200s, increasing to daily on Oct. 29. It is the carrier's first passenger service to Scandinavia.
International Air Transport Assn. expressed outrage at Aeroports de Paris' plan to raise charges at Paris CDG 5% per year for the next five years, calling ADP "greedy." According to IATA, the French government ignored airline pleas and the report of an independent consultant to approve "the ridiculously high increase" in airport charges. "This is yet another demonstration of how airlines are caught between a rock and a hard place in their relationship with airport monopolies," DG and CEO Giovanni Bisignani said. "ADP clearly does not understand the need for efficiency.
FAA yesterday said it has saved $1.4 million in overtime expenses and achieved a 75% reduction in operational errors at the troubled New York Terminal Radar Approach Control facility since reasserting authority over scheduling practices and taking a more hands-on management approach there ( ATWOnline, June 3, 2005).
KLM will launch a twice-weekly Amsterdam-Chengdu service from May 28 using 777 200ERs in cooperation with China Southern Airlines. Chengdu is KLM's fourth Chinese destination. United Airlines will launch weekly Chicago-Puerto Vallarta service from March 4. Service will become daily Dec. 15. Weekly Los Angeles-Cancun service also will begin March 4, increasing to daily service on Ted from June 8. All flights will be aboard A320s. UA is awaiting approval to begin Chicago-Cancun service and flights from LAX to San Jose del Cabo and Puerto Vallarta.
ATA Airlines announced new service from Hawaii, Oakland and Houston yesterday and an accompanying expansion to its successful codeshare agreement with Southwest Airlines. ATA announced that new service from Oakland to Honolulu (twice-daily), Hilo (daily) and Maui (daily) will begin April 27 replacing its operations at San Francisco. The following day it will launch daily Honolulu-Ontario service and on May 25 it will add a frequency to its Honolulu-Los Angeles service.
Delta Air Lines will add service from New York LaGuardia to Chicago O'Hare and Dallas/Ft. Worth this spring. Service will be operated by Shuttle America aboard 70-seat Embraer 170s. Five-times-daily flights to ORD and twice-daily service to DFW will commence April 3. A third flight to DFW will begin May 1. Norwegian Air Shuttle will operate flights from Oslo to Varna and Bourgas in Bulgaria beginning in May.
Delta Air Lines announced that its New York JFK-Kiev Borispol service will operate five-times-weekly from June 5. Delta will be the only US carrier serving Kiev. Separately, the carrier said it is increasing summer service on Delta Connection to Orlando International with new daily flights from Bloomington, Ill. (May 25-Sept. 4 on Freedom Airlines), Moline, Ill. (May 25-Sept. 4 on Comair), Newport News/Williamsburg (May 25-Sept. 4 on Freedom Airlines), Rochester (May 25-Sept. 4 on Comair) and Wichita (May 27-Sept. 2 on Atlantic Southeast). All flights will be aboard 50-seat RJs.
SAS achieved what it called the first "four dimensional (4DT) managed revenue flight ever made." The event occurred on Jan. 19 and involved a 737 from Lulea to Stockholm Arlanda. It also marked the first Advanced Continuous Descent Approach into Arlanda. During the flight, the approach controller and tactical supervisor at Arlanda used data link to set up the approach procedure, enabling the 737 "to calculate its optimum trajectory." The ground also assigned a Required Time of Arrival for the runway threshold.
American Eagle operated its last flight out of its 13-gate, 25,000-sq.-ft. satellite terminal at Dallas/Ft. Worth International Airport yesterday. It now will fly out of Terminals A (domestic) and D (international) while gates in Terminal B are retrofitted to handle its smaller aircraft, according to the Fort Worth Star Telegram.
Swissport signed a five-year deal with Tiger Airways to handle its entire ground operation at Singapore Changi, where Tiger will become the first tenant of the new Budget Terminal. Value of the agreement was not disclosed.
