ABX Air yesterday "unanimously rejected" Astar Air Cargo's proposal to acquire it for more than $450 million in cash. ABX and Astar are DHL's primary subservice carriers in the US and the latter late last month issued an "indication of interest" to purchase the former and merge their air operations, which both are based at DHL's Wilmington, Ohio, hub ( ATWOnline, July 2).
Gulf Air's board of directors yesterday accepted the resignation of CEO Andre Dose, effective immediately, ending the former Crossair and Swiss International Air Lines CEO's tenure less than four months after he joined the Bahrain-based carrier and unveiled a major restructuring program.
SITA and CarTrawler agreed to integrate CarTrawler's car rental distribution platform within the SITA Horizon portfolio of passenger management solutions, allowing SITA to offer it to its airline customers and enabling the customers to increase ancillary revenue through car rental sales, according to SITA.
Continental Airlines, Northwest Airlines and Delta Air Lines yesterday jointly launched SkyCorp Direct, an online travel management tool designed to provide companies with a "one-stop solution" for corporate travel needs. "The site allows employees to easily book their own flights, hotels and rental cars while providing corporations with the ability to track and manage employee travel costs," said John Slater, Continental MD-distribution planning and e-commerce.
China Eastern Airlines said it sealed a deal to buy 10 A320s valued at $613 million. The carrier said in a statement that relevant government authorities have approved the transaction and the 10 aircraft are set to be delivered between March 2011 and June 2012. They will be used to meet increasing domestic demand for short/medium-haul flights.
Lufthansa and TAP Portugal are analyzing the possibility of launching an offer for Spanair and have requested financial information from the airline, according to several reports in Spanish media outlets.
United Airlines parent UAL Corp. promoted VP-Financial Planning and Analysis Kathryn Mikells to VP-investor relations and named Robert Sahadevan as MD-Mileage Plus. BAA announced that Divisional Director and CEO-London Heathrow Tony Douglas is leaving the company to join Laing O'Rourke Group as COO.
Qatar Airways launched daily service to Washington Dulles last week and also announced a new codeshare agreement with United Airlines that will strengthen the Middle Eastern carrier's presence in the US market.
Norwegian is expanding profitably, reporting second-quarter net earnings of NOK44.7 million ($7.8 million), more than double the NOK18 million earned in the second three months of 2006. Operating revenue climbed 33.3% to NOK1.02 billion against a 25.2% rise in costs to NOK857.3 million. Operating profit doubled to NOK161.5 million from 79.6 million.
Oasis Hong Kong Airlines asked the US Dept. of Transportation to amend its exemption and allow it to "exercise the full authority granted to Hong Kong carriers" under the countries' bilateral agreement. Its current exemption allows it to serve Oakland and Chicago, but it "wishes to have this authority in place so that future US services can be planned and implemented without delay."
Continental Airlines confirmed last week that it reached an agreement earlier this month to sell 10 737-500s to Transaero for delivery later this year and in 2008. It also said it is in discussions with another airline regarding the sale of five more -500s. The sales are in line with the carrier's decision to slow 2008 capacity growth to 3%-4% from the 5%-7% ASM growth rate originally planned, with most of the slowdown coming on domestic services. "It's also necessary to keep turning over the fleet to keep it young," a spokesperson said. "We want to phase out some of our older planes."
Aviapartner Handling won several new contracts in France. In Lyon, it secured contracts with Aer Lingus, Austrian Airlines, bmi, British Airways, British Regional Airlines, City Airlines, Spanair and Thomas Cook. In Marseille, it added BA and Lufthansa to its portfolio. BA also contracted the group to handle its flights in Nice and Toulouse. Separately, Aviapartner announced the reorganization of its Handling Services Business Line around regions rather than individual countries.
Southwest Airlines and Boeing reached an agreement last week under which the LCC deferred delivery of five 737-700s slated to arrive in 2008-13 and exercised options for 25 additional -700s for delivery in 2013 and 2014.
Airbus said Friday that "final preparations" are underway for the October delivery of the first A380 to Singapore Airlines. The manufacturer said the aircraft returned to Toulouse after undergoing cabin interior installation in Hamburg.
AVIC I plans to partner with a strategic investor and launch a new regional airline by year end, MD Lin Zuoming announced yesterday. "We will maintain controlling stake in the new regional entity while opening the door to airlines or an international investment bank as our strategic investor," he said, noting that AVIC I already has discussed its plans with CAAC. At last year's Zhuhai Air Show, Vice MD Gu Huizhong revealed that the new carrier will have registered capital of more than CNY80 million with total capital reaching several hundred million yuan.
Alitalia flew 3.47 billion RPKs in June, up 1.5% on the year-ago month, against a 0.9% climb in ASKs to 4.44 billion. Load factor rose 0.5 point to 78.2%.
Virgin America began selling tickets yesterday on its website and through a toll-free phone number for flights to San Francisco, New York JFK, Los Angeles, Washington Dulles and Las Vegas.
WestJet said yesterday that it has discontinued negotiations with Travelport on installing aiRES and will incur a noncash pre-tax writedown of C$31.9 million ($30.6 million) as a consequence of the failure to implement the reservation system to replace its aging OpenSkies platform.
Italian government is scheduled to discuss today the fate of its national carrier following the withdrawal of all previously committed and potential bidders from the privatization process ( ATWOnline, July 19). Liquidation is among the options, Economy and Finance Minister Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa told Corriere della Sera.
Continental Airlines posted second-quarter net income of $228 million, up 15.2% over a profit of $198 million in the year-ago quarter, on a 5.8% lift in revenue to $3.71 billion.
3m FKI Logistex won a contract from Australian air Express for two cross-belt sortation systems. The two S-3000CB sorters will be installed in June 2008 in AaE's purpose-built domestic freight processing centers in Melbourne and Sydney.
China Eastern Airlines may post a net profit as high as CNY40 million ($5.3 million) for the first half of 2007, a source told ATWOnline. The carrier expects to release its financial results next month and, as a listed company, was unable to confirm the figure. China Eastern Group President Li Fenghua said this month that CEA is targeting the black following a net loss of CNY2.78 billion last year ( ATWOnline, July 4).
One day after reporting a 16.5% decline in second-quarter earnings and promising that the company will take a more cautious approach to growth, Southwest Airlines announced that Executive Chairman Herb Kelleher and President Colleen Barrett, the faces of the carrier that irrevocably altered US commercial aviation, will step down from their positions in 2008 at the conclusion of their contracts and leave the company five years later.
