New Orleans Aviation Director Roy Williams is looking to the US government to make up much of the estimated $300 million in damages and lost revenue to the city's principal airport from Hurricane Katrina.
Lufthansa will start a six-times-weekly Frankfurt--Dnipropetrowsk (Ukraine) service from Oct 30. Additionally, it will increase flights from Frankfurt to Sophia from seven to 14 per week and Capetown and Bangalore will become daily operations. From Munich, LH will offer 11 weekly services to Strasbourg. New service will be launched from Dusseldorf to Basel (11 flights), along with six weekly services to Belgrade and Sophia. Southwest Airlines will resume service to New Orleans tomorrow, offering two daily roundtrips to Houston Hobby.
Narita International Airport Corp. finalized a previously announced agreement with airlines on a new system that will reduce landing charges significantly at the airport ( ATWOnline, June 3). The charges, effective Oct. 1, will be based upon noise levels generated by aircraft types. Fees for the quietest aircraft (Category A) will be more than 31% lower than the present level, but even the noisiest aircraft (Category F) will see a reduction of 15%. Aircraft such as the A340 and 777 fit into Category A while the 767 is in category B and the 747-200 is in category F.
FAA's Airport Movement Area Safety System is not adequate to prevent serious runway collisions, according to National Transportation Safety Board Acting Chairman Mark Rosenker. Speaking to the American Assn. of Airport Executives this week, Rosenker listed several recent incursion events in which AMASS did not live up to expectations. At Boston Logan on June 9, an Aer Lingus A330 and a US Airways 737 "nearly collided at the intersection of Runway 9 and Runway 15R owing to a controller error." The aircraft passed through the intersection at flying speed with about 170 ft.
SkyEurope said it will launch service from its base at Bratislava to Sofia and Bucharest on Dec. 9 and Dec. 12 respectively with fares starting at €25 one-way excluding taxes. Frequencies were not disclosed.
Ryanair will establish its 15th European base at Nottingham East Midlands with a pair of 737-800s. Ten routes will be opened from March 7, adding to five already being operated at the airport. New destinations are Berlin, Derry, Nimes, Carcassonne, Nantes, Dinard, Limoges, Lodz, Wroclaw and Bergerac. Ryanair already serves Dublin, Shannon, Murcia, Barcelona and Rome.
Southwest Airlines, the largest carrier at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport prior to Hurricane Katrina with around 50 daily flights, intends to resume limited service early next week with a pair of daily roundtrips to Houston. Exact date and times will be released later this week. Northwest Airlines was the first to resume service at New Orleans, which reopened for commercial flights Tuesday.
Starflyer, a Japanese startup, filed for an AOC and proposes to operate three A320s on the Tokyo Haneda-Kitakyushu route from May when the new airport at Kitakyushu opens. The airline is planning a 12-times-daily shuttle. It is backed by Kyushu businesses including Kyushu Electric Power Co. and Kyushu Railway Co.
Ryanair announced Cork as its 15th European base. From Nov. 24 it will base a 737-800 there and introduce service to Dublin and London Gatwick, bringing to four the number of routes it will serve from Cork. The LCC said it expects to deliver more than 1 million passengers per year through the airport. In addition, it will launch a twice-weekly service from its Shannon base to Malaga from Nov. 2, bringing the number of destinations it serves from Shannon to 17. It will add a new daily service from Knock to London Luton Oct. 30.
Gol will launch direct flights to Buenos Aires from Porto Alegre and Florianople Friday, offering a single daily roundtrip in each market. The carrier began international service to Buenos Aires eight months ago. AirTran Airways will operate a daily seasonal nonstop service to Southwest Florida International Airport in Ft. Myers from Jan. 12 to May 3. Separately, it will add a sixth daily roundtrip between Boston and Philadelphia Dec.15 and a seventh Feb. 15.
American Airlines and United Airlines have written a letter to European Commission Director for Transport Daniel Calleja complaining about the Italian government's refusal to allow them to add their codes to flights operated by their respective EU partner airlines between Milan Linate and European gateway cities, ATWOnline learned from a source close to DG TREN.
Air India Express is taking over more Air-India routes. The LCC will operate Delhi-Bahrain from April and Thiruvananthapuram-Dubai from October. Alaska Airlines began double-daily service Monday between Seattle and Dallas/Ft. Worth with continuing service to and from Anchorage on one of the flights.
CLR Photonics said its WindTracer pulsed Doppler lidar system was deployed at Las Vegas McCarran International Airport in a joint program with US FAA to demonstrate and evaluate it as a windshear detection solution and complement to the terminal Doppler weather radar currently in operation at the airport.
AirAsia Indonesian affiliate AWAIR's new domestic service actually is intended to attract passengers from Singapore and southern Malaysia. The daily service between Jakarta and Batam beginning Thursday is the airline's way of getting around Singapore's refusal to permit it to operate between Jakarta and the Lion City. Batam has become a new gateway for travelers from Johor and Singapore to Jakarta and vice versa at lower fares. A high-speed ferry serving Batam from key centers in Singapore and southern Malaysia competes the connection.
Denim Air dropped the three routes it operated in codeshare with Swiss International Air Lines from Zurich to Bologna, Venice and Florence Monday. Termination of the contract follows the acquisition of Swiss by Lufthansa and subsequent reorganization of their networks. The codeshare agreement was set to expire at the end of the current summer schedules. The two freed-up F50s will be used Denim Air in wet-lease activities. Eindhoven-based Denim Air Group was acquired by Panta Holdings at the end of July. Panta is controlled by Jaap Rosen Jacobson and also controls VLM Airlines.
FedEx Express announced a new MD-11F flight offering what it says is the first overnight express service between India and China five times per week. The flight is part of a new eastbound around-the-world route connecting Europe, India, China and Japan with the Memphis hub. SAS Cargo is boosting capacity between Chicago and Copenhagen by 130 tons per week from Sept. 22. Service will offered twice weekly via a blocked-space agreement using a 747-400F operated by Singapore Airlines Cargo.
Germanwings will add new routes from its Stuttgart base to Dusseldorf, Milan Malpensa, Paris CDG, Bologna, Verona and Prague as well as a third daily frequency to Hamburg on Oct. 30, bringing to 24 the number of destinations it serves from the airport. It currently bases five A319s at Stuttgart and said it will add a sixth and use the fleet more efficiently, making the service additions possible and making it the biggest carrier at the airport.
Delta Air Lines will cut capacity at Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport, its second-largest hub, by 26% effective Dec. 1 and will sell 11 767-200s to ABX Air. Additionally, it will drop nonstop service operated by Delta Connection carriers in nine Cincinnati markets in favor of connecting service via Atlanta. In a letter to staff, the company said the reductions will result in around 1,000 job eliminations at the hub among Delta and Comair staff.
Aviapartner signed a three-year contract with Lufthansa to provide ramp handling services for Lufthansa Regional at Cologne/Bonn effective Sept. 1. Lufthansa Regional includes Lufthansa CityLine, Eurowings and Augsburg Airways. Aviapartner said it invested €2 million to undertake the contract, which covers a variety of fleet types.
SN Airholding reported an unaudited consolidated net profit of €15.2 million ($19 million) for the first half ended June 30. The figures represent, after amortization of goodwill, the six-month result of SN Brussels Airlines and the second quarter of Virgin Express and its subsidiary Virgin Catering. The Virgin companies were integrated into SN Airholding as of April 1.
