Niki plans to increase capacity by more than 30% next year as it endeavors to fill the void left by SkyEurope Airlines and a restructuring Austrian Airlines. "This is my chance and I'm going to take this opportunity," President Niki Lauda told ATWOnline. On Feb. 1 the LCC will begin daily flights from Vienna to Belgrade, Sofia and Bucharest Otopeni and on March 26 it will launch daily services to Barcelona and Nice and a six-times-weekly flight to Copenhagen. Its fleet will grow from the current 11 aircraft to 17 A320 family jets and E-190s next year.
Southern Air Holdings, parent of Connecticut-based ACMI freight carrier Southern Air, announced the appointment of DHL Express Asia/Pacific CEO Daniel McHugh as CEO effective Jan. 1. He succeeds Southern founder James Neff, who is retiring but will remain a board member. Southern operates 16 747 freighters and plans to introduce its first two 777-200LRFs in the 2010 first quarter. It will operate the aircraft for Thai Airways.
Wizz Air will begin serving Latvia next spring with flights from Riga to London Luton (thrice-weekly), Oslo Torp (thrice-weekly) and Turku (twice-weekly) launching on March 28. Twice-weekly Prague-Bari and Budapest-Turku flights will begin at the same time.
Finnair is expected to cancel more flights today as ground staff represented by the Finnish Aviation Union continue to walk off the job at Helsinki Vantaa in protest of the outsourcing moves announced Monday ( ATWOnline, Dec. 1). Around 20 flights were cancelled yesterday. Talks between the carrier and the IAU were scheduled for today.
American Airlines is partnering with TPG Capital to offer to invest $1.1 billion in Japan Airlines to assist with the ailing carrier's restructuring and ensure it remains in the oneworld fold.
Republic Airways Holdings promoted Director-Flight Operations Don Osmundson to VP-flight operations and Director-Human Resources Kathy Woolridge to VP-human resources and named Frontier Airlines VP-Planning and Strategy Daniel Shurz as VP-planning and strategy and Midwest Airlines VP-Planning and Revenue Management Greg Aretakis as VP-revenue production for Republic's branded airline operations.
Aer Lingus will "resort to other measures" in its pursuit of its required cost savings, with capacity reductions and immediate and "compulsory" redundancies in the pipeline, CEO Christoph Mueller said after negotiations with several unions broke down late Tuesday.
ExpressJet named board member T. Patrick Kelly as interim CEO following the resignation of Jim Ream, who left the regional carrier to join American Airlines as senior VP-maintenance & engineering ( ATWOnline, Dec. 2). Kelly has been on the board for two years and previously was an executive at both AA and Sabre. ExpressJet said it would be "considering candidates to fill the CEO role on a long-term basis."
Nigerian Eagle Airlines, formerly Virgin Nigeria, signed an MOU with Delta Air Lines "to explore areas of commercial cooperation that will expand travel options," the carriers announced yesterday. The agreement opens the door for loyalty program linkage and a codeshare on DL's New York JFK-Dakar-Abuja service. Nigerian Eagle also announced a "network-wide" codeshare and interline deal with Ethiopian Airlines.
Both Delta Air Lines and Continental Airlines said year-over-year unit revenue declines are down to around 8%, providing some statistical indication that the US industry has weathered the worst of the demand storm.
Allegiant Air flew 350.5 million RPMs in November, up 25.3% from the year-ago month. Capacity rose 24.6% to 387.9 million ASMs and load factor increased 0.6 point to 90.4%.
ARINC announced a comprehensive technology replacement agreement with Avicom Japan, that country's service provider for airline and civil aviation communications, under which it will enhance Japan's ACARS data link infrastructure with "efficient ACARS multiple-service technology." New technology will allow for increased data link message traffic while enabling Avicom to prepare for eventual controller-pilot data link communications and aeronautical telecommunications network operations, according to ARINC.
Frankfurt Airport operator Fraport announced an agreement with airline representatives regarding airport charges in 2010 and 2011. Charges will increase 4% on July 1 and an additional 3% on Oct. 1. On April 1, 2011, they will rise by another 3% and then by 2.5% on Oct. 1, 2011. In total, charges will rise 12.5% over the two-year period. The agreement is contingent on a deal setting a charge schedule in 2012-15 that must be reached by Feb. 19. In the absence of such a contract, charges will rise 8.4% on April 1.
TUI Travel, the tourism conglomerate that includes TUIfly, Thomson Airways, Arkefly, Corsairfly and Jet4you, among others, reported a £24 million ($39.6 million) deficit in its fiscal year ended Sept. 30, a 91% improvement from the £267 million loss suffered in the prior year. CEO Peter Long said the result was a reflection of "the effectiveness with which we have delivered merger synergies" and the fact that "the main summer holiday is an essential expenditure" for customers.
Shenzhen Airlines promised to maintain its operational stability following the Sunday arrest of controlling stakeholder Li Zeyuan, who was accused of economic crimes. Shenzhen President Li Kun has taken charge of the carrier in the interim. Launched in 1995, Shenzhen originally was a state-owned airline but was privatized when Shenzhen Huirun Group and Shenzhen Yiyang Group purchased a 65% share in May 2005. Li Zeyuan holds 89% of Huirun. CAAC and Air China, which holds a 25% stake in Shenzhen Airlines, have sent a working group to the carrier to help maintain stability.
American Airlines yesterday named ExpressJet President and CEO James Ream as its new senior VP-maintenance & engineering. He will take over on Jan. 1, succeeding the retiring Carmine Romano. Ream held various positions at AA between 1987 and 1995 and led ExpressJet for the past eight years.
What distinguishes these "high performers"? Accenture recently released a comprehensive study, "Achieving High Performance in the Airline Industry," that may provide some clues. The consultancy--which has spent the last six years conducting a wide-ranging research project trying to determine what distinguishes high-performance businesses across a range of industries--turned its attention to airlines, closely examining and analyzing the financial performance of carriers from around the world for the period 2001-07.
In October, Iberia disclosed plans to create a new short- and medium-haul carrier feeding its growing long-haul network of mainly Latin American services through its Madrid hub. The announcement was unexpected given that IB has a solid short/medium-haul network into MAD spanning all 38 domestic airports, 47 destinations in Europe and eight in North Africa that it serves with a fleet of 81 Airbus family aircraft.
