Air China is eyeing Shanghai Airlines and plans to deepen cooperation with its Star Alliance partner following the formal rejection of its bid for Shanghai-based China Eastern Airlines last month. Sun Yu, CA's head of planning, revealed that the carrier keeps "close contact" with SAL and plans to expand their collaboration. "But whether we can reach an agreement with SAL is up to the Shanghai municipal government," the airline's controlling stakeholder.
Ryanair is reviewing all of its major costs, including airport expenses, staffing, fuel and currency exposure, in an effort to offset the rise of oil prices to more $100 a barrel.
Star Alliance carriers Air Canada, Air China, ANA, Asiana Airlines, Austrian Airlines, LOT Polish Airlines, Lufthansa, SAS Scandinavian Airlines, Shanghai Airlines, Singapore Airlines, Thai Airways, Turkish Airlines and United Airlines each completed the transfer of their operations to Beijing International's Terminal 3 yesterday. The move was part of the collocation plan developed as a result of Air China and Shanghai Airlines joining the alliance last year. A similar collocation will be completed at Shanghai Pudong on April 29.
AWAS said it finalized the purchase of six new A330-300s from Airbus for lease to Singapore Airlines. Transaction is valued at $1.2 billion at list prices and first delivery will be next year. The lessor said the order "reflects our goal to further diversify our aircraft portfolio and broaden the appeal to our airline customers." It ordered up to 100 A320s two months ago ( ATWOnline, Jan. 10).
ANA confirmed to ATWOnline that it is looking seriously at establishing a low-cost carrier to take advantage of a fourth runway at Tokyo's downtown Haneda Airport. CEO Mineo Yamamoto yesterday flagged the new venture to Nikkei Business Daily. The LCC may be set up as early as the next fiscal year, which ends March 31, 2009. An ANA spokesperson told this website, "We are seriously examining the market and the likelihood of [other] LCCs flying into Haneda after its fourth runway opens in October 2010, and how we will take them on if they do."
Consortium including Portuguese-Canadian investment fund Longstock Financial Investment Fund and Madrid-based Gadair European Airlines has offered €450 million ($693 million) for Spanair, Longstock President Vitor Pinto da Costa told Diario Economico. He said the offer is well above Iberia's bid of €300 million, yet he admitted it could fall though owing to an SAS condition that the consortium pay €100 million before the deal is completed, according to Reuters.
US Transportation Security Administration acknowledged that a US Airways pilot and member of the Federal Flight Deck Officer program "accidentally" discharged his handgun on a Saturday flight between Denver and Charlotte. It said the flight "was never in danger" but that it will "take this matter seriously and an investigation is underway." The A319 has been removed from service, US told the Associated Press, and the pilot is on leave.
Air France KLM appears willing to make some concessions to Alitalia's unions amid reports that AZ rival Air One is interested in making another offer for the flag carrier.
AirAsia X will exercise its 10 A330-300 options in a deal worth $2.1 billion, CEO Azran Osman Rani told media in Kuala Lumpur. It already has 15 of the type on firm order. A signing ceremony is expected to take place this week. Separately, Aero Ventures, a holding company that holds 48% of AirAsia X, announced that ACE Aviation Holdings Chairman, President and CEO Robert Milton has invested in the group. "My involvement with AirAsia X has provided me with the exciting opportunity to participate in the newest and most promising airline business model today," Milton said.
Oman Aviation Services, parent of Oman Air, will invest $4.2 million over four years to upgrade IT at Muscat International. SITA will install and maintain AirportConnect Open, its common use passenger processing system that supports CUTE, dedicated and Web applications on the same common use workstations, in addition to SITA BagManager and PassengerHandler. Last year Oman Air carried more than 1.5 million passengers to and from Muscat, a 22% increase over 2006.
VLM Airlines reported net income of €3.6 million ($5.5 million) for 2007, up 13.3% over €3.2 million earned in 2006 and the regional's 10th consecutive profitable year. Revenue rose 12.6% to €112.5 million while expenses increased 11.6% to €106.8 million, producing operating income of €5.7 million, up 33.9% over €4.3 million the previous year.
JDA Aviation Technology Solutions of Washington, DC, was hired by Southwest Airlines "to evaluate its maintenance programs and to make recommendations on how the airline can improve its maintenance process," JDA announced. The move follows SWA's failure to comply with a US FAA airworthiness directive that resulted in the temporary grounding of 34 737s and a proposed $10.2 million fine ( ATWOnline, March 19).
Boeing's Airplane Health Monitoring software was ordered by Qantas for its fleet of 30 747-400s to better evaluate inflight data and manage unscheduled maintenance events. QF also will use AHM for its 65 787s. More than 44% of the world's 777 and 747-400 fleets are covered by AHM technology.
Kronos said Air Canada Flight Operations selected its Altitude Manpower Planning solution featuring resource allocation intelligence, enhanced planning capabilities and various cost efficiency strategies.
Indonesia's National Transport Safety Committee determined that the fatal Adam Air 737-400 crash on Jan. 1, 2007, was caused by pilot error and faulty navigation equipment. All 96 passengers and six crew were killed when the aircraft plunged into the ocean. "The [CVR] revealed that both pilots were concerned about navigation problems and subsequently became engrossed with troubleshooting. . .Inertial Reference System anomalies for at least the last 13 min.
Iberia flew 4.1 billion RPKs in February, up 2.6% on the year-ago month. Capacity climbed 4.1% to 5.19 billion ASKs and load factor slipped 1.2 points to 79.1% Rossiya carried 366,681 passengers in January and February combined, up 13.1% over the year-ago period. Domestic passenger numbers climbed 2.7% to 188,809 and international rose 26.9% to 177,782. The airline carried 3.2 million passengers in 2007.
Hainan Airlines reported a net profit of CNY651.4 million ($92.2 million) in 2007, nearly quadrupling the CNY166.8 million earned the previous year, on a 3% lift in operating revenue to CNY12.82 billion.
FlyLAL Lithuanian Airlines has been invited to join SkyTeam as an associate member, the carrier announced, joining Spain's Air Europa, Panama's Copa Airlines and Kenya Airways in the alliance's associate program. Tarom of Romania and Beirut-based Middle East Airlines also are potential associate members. FlyLAL said the invitation followed a two-year negotiation and that "final criteria for admission" and a join date "will be confirmed in the short run." It currently operates three 737-300s, five 737-500s and four Saab 2000s. It plans to introduce a 737-200 on April 1.
LAN Airlines flew 2.27 billion RPKs in February, up 15.8% from the year-ago month, against a 15.1% increase in capacity to 2.8 billion ASKs that lifted load factor 0.5 point to 81%. TAM flew 1.88 billion domestic RPKs in February, up 21.8% from the year-ago month, against a 17.2% rise in ASKs to 2.67 billion. Load factor lifted 2.7 points to 70.5%. International traffic was up 65.2% to 1.22 billion RPKs, capacity grew 55.1% to 1.65 billion ASKs and load factor increased 4.5 points to 73.9%.
International Air Carrier Assn., which claims its members account for nearly 40% of flights to Egypt, reached agreement with Egyptian aviation authorities to improve airport infrastructure in the country. Upgrades will include improved and increased fueling facilities, more cooperation in security screening and the addition of more female screening personnel and professional slot coordination conforming to international standards.
American Airlines parent AMR Corp. is forecasting a consolidated mainline first-quarter unit cost of 12.66 cents, up 16% year-over-year, as fuel expenses increase to an expected $2.73 per gal., it said in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Full-year mainline unit cost now is expected to be up 7.4% to 12.9 cents. First-quarter mainline and consolidated passenger unit revenue is expected to rise 6.9%-7.9% year-over-year, AMR said.
Ryanair said last week that the European Court of First Instance dismissed an Aer Lingus request for an injunction against the LCC that would force it to sell its minority shareholding in EI ( ATWOnline, Nov. 20, 2007).
Skybus Airlines CEO Bill Diffenderffer has resigned, the startup LCC announced yesterday, and will be replaced by CFO Mike Hodge. The news comes several days after the carrier announced some cuts in service from its Columbus and Greensboro hubs in favor of more point-to-point flying.
