Delta Air Lines President Ed Bastian said last week that the company is "using the downturn to accelerate" the integration of DL and Northwest Airlines. With the carrier cutting capacity ( ATWOnline, June 12), it is able to eliminate overlapping services more quickly, he explained. "Our expectation is that by spring 2010, we will be a single company," he told the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Transportation Conference in New York, available via webcast.
GE Capital Aviation Services announced the promotion of Norman Liu, 51, to president and CEO. Liu will take over executive management of the business from Henry Hubschman, 61, who will take on the new role of chairman of GECAS. Changes are effective July 1. Liu is a 22-year veteran of GE Capital including 14 years at GECAS, where he most recently served as executive VP-commercial operations. Hubschman joined GECAS in 1997 and oversaw the growth of assets from $10 billion to more than $46 billion during his tenure.
Boeing yesterday said that commercial aviation is "cyclic and has a long history of declines and upturns" as it revised downward its 20-year forecast only slightly to a market demand of 29,000 new passenger and freighter aircraft worth $3.2 trillion.
Air France KLM flew 16.41 billion RPKs in May, down 8.1% from the year-ago month. Capacity fell 5.7% to 21.24 billion ASKs, lowering load factor 2 points to 77.3%. Finnair flew 1.34 billion RPKs in May, down 11% year-over-year, against a 16.3% decline in capacity to 1.94 billion ASKs. Load factor rose 4.2 points to 69.1%. Copa Airlines flew 445.6 million RPMs in May, a 2.3% drop year-over-year. Capacity rose 18.4% to 686.9 million ASMs and load factor plunged 13.8 points to 64.9%.
United Airlines reassured investors that the RFP it submitted to Boeing and Airbus is for "fleet renewal" and not growth and expressed confidence it will be able to finance any order it places. The carrier's credit facility rating was downgraded earlier this week by Fitch Ratings, which cautioned that UA faces "a deepening liquidity crisis" and questioned its ability to finance a large long-haul aircraft order ( ATWOnline, June 11)
Cathay Pacific Airways Chairman Christopher Pratt said this week that "demand and yields seem to have stopped falling" but that rising oil prices are contributing to what "continues to be a very nasty situation" for the airline, which lost HK$8.56 billion ($1.1 billion) in 2008 ( ATWOnline, March 12) and suffered a 22.4% drop in first-quarter revenue.
Air China is cutting its international capacity owing to the market downturn but will not go so far as to defer any aircraft deliveries this year, MD Lou Yongfeng told ATWOnline at this week's IATA annual general meeting in Kuala Lumpur.
Singapore Airlines will fly the A380 to Hong Kong beginning July 9. The daily flight will replace an existing 777-300ER frequency and will bring to five the number of airports served by SIA's A380 fleet (Sydney, London Heathrow, Tokyo Narita and Paris Charles de Gaulle). It operates five daily SIN-HKG flights.
Skytech-AIC announced the lease of two 747-400s to Eagle Aviation Europe. The first aircraft was returned by the previous lessee in March and already has been delivered; the second will be delivered to Eagle on July 31. Skytech also said it has been selected to remarket four additional 747-400s for an unidentified customer.
Delta Air Lines and American Airlines yesterday announced additional capacity and job reductions in the second half of 2009, with international flying in particular taking a bigger hit than previously planned, and other US carriers said they are considering further capacity reductions.
CTC Aviation Group announced that it will be launch customer and host of two next-generation full flight simulators featuring Rockwell Collins CORE simulation architecture. The first, a 737NG, will be delivered to the company's training center near Southampton in late summer.
SkyWest said it is "aggressively pursuing other opportunities" for the 12 CRJs that are being removed from the Midwest Airlines fleet after that carrier ended its air service agreement with SkyWest and struck a separate deal with Republic Airways to provide regional lift.
Delta Air Lines flew 15.85 billion system RPMs in May, a 9.7% decline from the year-ago month. Capacity dropped 7.9% to 19.27 billion ASMs and load factor was down 1.6 points to 82.3%. Lufthansa Group airlines flew 12.65 billion RPKs in May, down 7.1% from the year-ago month. Capacity fell 1.6% to 17.05 billion ASKs and load factor dropped 4.4 points to 74.2% Air Canada and Jazz flew 3.86 billion RPMs in May, a 10.3% drop year-over-year. Capacity fell 6.1% to 4.86 billion ASMs and load factor slipped 3.7 points to 79.5%.
Jetstar Airways launched services in New Zealand, taking over parent Qantas's flights between Auckland, Christchurch, Wellington and Queenstown. The QF mainline, which operated a small fleet of 737-400s in New Zealand, will withdraw from domestic service there.
Jet Airways blasted a move by authorities in Delhi and Mumbai to hike airport costs as a "disaster," according to The Economic Times. "Airport charges are crazy. This is a disaster. This is absolutely not fair to the industry," Jet Airways Chairman Naresh Goyal told media at IATA's annual general meeting in Kuala Lumpur this week. He said Jet would cut capacity on its US service by 30% to reduce costs. The paper reported that each city's main airport increased charges by 10% while Mumbai raised development fees 278% and Delhi 137%.
United Airlines' credit facility rating was downgraded yesterday by Fitch Ratings, which warned that the carrier is facing "full-year passenger RASM declines of more than 10%" and "could report substantially negative free cash flow for the final three quarters of 2009."
Emirates Airline President Tim Clark told ATWOnline at the IATA annual general meeting in Kuala Lumpur that year-to-date passenger numbers are up 13% year-over-year but that first and business class traffic have plunged 50% on certain routes, a dynamic he believes will alter the industry's pricing regime in the long term.
British Airways CEO Willie Walsh is persisting with his message that "our business is under threat," and while promising that he "intends to do everything possible to ensure we don't become the next [General Motors]," which filed for bankruptcy protection last week, he reiterated that "in order to survive we all need to take long-term action, and do it quickly."
Airports Council International Europe said April passenger traffic at European airports fell 4.8% year-over-year while freight traffic dropped 25.4%. Flight movements were down 9.3%. For the first four months of 2009, passenger throughput declined 10.4% whereas freight traffic plunged 24.4% and movements decreased 9.7%. Separately, BAA reported a 7.3% year-over-year drop in passenger traffic at its seven UK airports in May, including a 6.5% fall at London Gatwick and an 18.5% decline at Stansted.
Aerosource was awarded a five-year LRU service contract by Bombardier Aerospace covering MRO of the air driven generator used on both CRJ and Challenger aircraft. Aerosource also is the OEM for the DC-10 and MD-11 air driven generator.
Air France's largest pilots union said yesterday that management had informed it that at least two of three pitot tubes on each of the carrier's A330s/A340s will be replaced "within days," while EASA issued a statement declaring that all A330s "are airworthy and safe to operate." AF has said that it began replacing pitot tubes on A330s/A340s in late April, but its pilots expressed concern that the replacements weren't being done quickly enough given the focus on the possible role of pitot tubes in last week's A330-200 crash. The French BEA has stated that data transmitted by Flight 4
Air Canada said it reached tentative agreements on a "21-month pension funding moratorium and collective agreement extension" with three of its five unions representing more than 60% of its unionized workers that stand to gain an "equity stake" in the airline. Around 16,500 employees represented by the Canadian Auto Workers, the International Assn. of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and the Canadian Airlines Dispatchers Assn. would be covered by the tentative deal aimed at providing relief that AC insists it urgently needs.
China Southern Airlines and Air France KLM have postponed the launch of their cargo joint venture indefinitely owing to the rapid slump in the global cargo market, CZ Chairman Si Xianmin told ATWOnline at the IATA AGM in Kuala Lumpur.
Midwest Airlines said it obtained $12 million in additional debt financing, divided evenly between TPG Capital, the majority owner of the Milwaukee-based carrier, and Republic Airways. Midwest also announced an agreement with Republic to operate 12 37- and 50-seat ERJs, which will be phased into service from July through January 2010. Republic struck a deal with Midwest last September to operate 12 E-170s. As it expands its partnership with Republic ( ATWOnline, Sept.
Cathay Pacific Airways CEO Tony Tyler was named chairman of the IATA Board of Governors for 2009-10 at the organization's AGM in Kuala Lumpur yesterday, succeeding Royal Jordanian CEO Samer Majali. Speaking to media here, Tyler said his first priority is to achieve "a workable, sensible approach to [airline] emissions." On Monday, IATA announced a commitment to achieving carbon neutral growth from 2020 ( ATWOnline, June 8).
