Airlines & Lessors

OnAir reached an agreement with Shenzen Airlines to provide inflight communication services including e-mail, SMS and voice calls aboard the carrier's fleet of 737s and A320s by mid-2009. "We are very proud to be the first airline in China to provide passengers with the ability to communicate during flights," Shenzen President Li Kun said. The OnAir service will enable passengers to use Blackberry-type devices and mobile phones to send and receive text messages and e-mails and to make and receive phone calls inflight.

Singapore Airlines and its parent Temasek agreed to purchase 15.7% and 8.3% stakes respectively in China Eastern Airlines, giving them a combined 24% holding valued at HK7.15 billion ($917 million). Based on the agreement, about which there has been speculation for months ( ATWOnline, July 4), SIA and Temasek will be entitled to nominate two and one CEA board members respectively. In addition, CEA and SIA will cooperate on marketing and sales, personnel training and flight management.

Air Europa, Copa Airlines and Kenya Airways officially became SkyTeam's first "associate airlines," which the alliance said grows its network by 47 additional destinations and nearly 500 additional daily flights. SkyTeam associate airlines will enjoy many of the benefits of full membership, such as linking loyalty programs, sharing airport lounges and "seamless" flight connections to SkyTeam carriers.

Air New Zealand appointed Norm Thompson, currently GM of its Shorthaul Airlines unit, to the newly created role of deputy CEO.

Singapore Airlines sold the first ticket for the A380's first commercial flight on Oct. 25 to Sydney resident Julian Hayward for $100,380 via an eBay auction. SIA plans to fill both the initial Singapore-Sydney flight and the Oct. 26 return by auctioning tickets and giving the proceeds to charity.

Oman Air will lease three Airbus aircraft as part of its plan to launch new long-haul services in November, the Arab Air Carriers Organization confirmed ( ATWOnline, July 9). The first two aircraft, an A330 and an A310, will arrive in October. The A330 will operate to Europe while the A310 will fly on Middle Eastern routes and to Bangkok and other destinations.

Alitalia intends to scrap 150-170 of its 340 daily flights from Milan Malpensa as part of a new business plan aimed at stopping the troubled carrier's financial bleeding, Italian media reported following management's meeting with union leaders earlier this week.

STG Aerospace said Oasis Hong Kong Airlines ordered five shipsets of the latest ColorMatch variant of STG's floorpath marking system for its 747-400 fleet.

BAE Systems Regional Aircraft said Indonesian startup PT Linus Airways signed lease agreements for two BAe 146-200s for delivery this summer.

AeroMexico's board said all its members consider last month's $100 million offer from the Saba family to be "reasonable." The carrier is controlled by state holding company Consorcio Aeromexico, which has been trying to sell it to private investors since 2005 ( ATWOnline, Aug. 23). Archrival Mexicana was sold to an investment group led by Grupo Posadas in late 2005 for $165.5 million plus assumption of liabilities that brought the total value of the deal to $1.46 billion.

Dragonair will officially join oneworld as an affiliate member on Nov. 1, the alliance said yesterday, significantly expanding its reach in mainland China by more than doubling its destinations there.

Malaysian LCC AirAsia followed Qantas into Vietnam by signing a letter of intent to launch a budget airline in the country in partnership with Vietnam Shipbuilding Industry Group, one of the nation's largest state-owned corporations, according to AirAsia. Last month, Qantas took an 18% stake in Vietnam Pacific Airlines that eventually will rise to 30% ( ATWOnline, Aug. 1).

American Airlines' stunning $1.3 billion terminal at New York JFK, which was inaugurated formally last week ( ATWOnline, Aug 30), opens at an opportune time for the airline as it confronts a growing challenge from Delta Air Lines. DL has made JFK a key platform for its aggressive intercontinental expansion, which includes adding more than 50 international routes in the past two years.

SkyEurope Holding reported a consolidated net loss of €5.1 million ($7 million) in the fiscal third quarter ended June 30, much improved compared to the €16.5 million deficit in the year-ago period. Revenue increased 26% to €66.6 million owing mainly to a 32% rise in passengers to 927,018, partly stimulated by promotional fares.

Hainan Airlines posted a CNY189.71 million ($25.18 million) net profit in the first half of 2007, a better-than-eightfold increase over CNY20.8 million earned in the year-ago period, on a 13.1% lift in operating revenues to CNY6.53 billion.

Shanghai Airlines said it plans to order five A321s in the face of increasingly stiff competition from China Eastern Airlines as it reported a loss for the January-June period of CNY134.5 million ($17.85 million), improved from a CNY137.1 million deficit in the year-ago half-year, on a 26.8% year-over-year lift in operating revenue to CNY5.58 billion.

SAS appointed Bjorn Alegren president of its SAS Ground Services subsidiary and Patrik Knutsson VP-corporate purchasing and chief purchasing officer. Alegren has held a number of senior positions at SAS including since 2005 the purchasing role taken on by Knutsson, who joins SAS from IBX. Alegren succeeds Hans-Otto Halvorsen, who is leaving the company "following a decision made mutually with Group management."

Xiamen Airlines is the customer for 25 737-800s listed as unidentified on Boeing's Orders & Deliveries website in early August. The order is worth $1.9 billion at 2007 average list prices. "This order of 25 737-800s plus 10 purchase rights allows us to simplify our fleet with the most cost-efficient and superior-performance airplane in its class," said Xiamen Airlines President Yang Guanghua in a statement.

COMPANY CULTURE IS EVERYTHING, and at Southwest Airlines, especially in flight ops, that culture is consummately conservative. The carrier "has always prided itself on the way our guys [hand-fly] the airplane," says Senior Director-Flight Operations Jeff Martin.

The company cited "commercial reasons" for the decision. FACE was intended to support the core processes of passenger airlines, such as schedule distribution, reservations, inventory, ticketing and departure control. The next-generation system was touted as more flexible and more cost-efficient than traditional reservations systems. Lufthansa Systems did not elaborate on the commercial reasons for its decision, but the move came on the heels of Cathay Pacific Airways' announcement that it planned to migrate to the Amadeus Altéa passenger services platform.

Milan's Malpensa International Airport handled 21.8 million passengers last year and remains Alitalia's second most important hub. But with the beleaguered Italian flag carrier growing by just 1% at MXP and its future in doubt, the airport and operator SEA are focusing on alternative growth opportunities, including an increase in international traffic provided by foreign airlines and a possible alliance with other airports in northern Italy.

Some of the world's leading airlines got their starts through the heroic competitive struggles of aviator entrepreneurs who began with a couple of little planes and built empires gradually over decades. The origins of Air Canada, which celebrates its 70th anniversary this year and its first passenger flight this month, aren't quite so romantic: It was created by an Act of Parliament and started from scratch by government bureaucrats. But as its long and successful history has shown, the bureaucrats got it right.

AAR tapped Terry Stinson as group VP-Structures & Systems segment. Alaska Air Group promoted Megan Lawrence to MD-government & community relations. Crane Aerospace & Electronics appointed Allan Day GM & director-Electronics Manufacturing Solutions business. El Al named Offer Gat CEO-North & Central America. FlightSafety International welcomed Lowell Faulkenberry as dir.-finance. Frontier Airlines selected Patrick Zachwieja as VP-market planning. Gulf Air chose Bjorn Naf as acting president & CEO, replacing Andre Dose. London Luton Airport named Glyn Jones MD.

The second quarter was the first reporting period since the 2002 third quarter that ended with no US legacy carriers operating under Chapter 11 protection, a notable signifier that the world's largest air transport market has finally completed its long and painful slog through restructuring. With the

CAE completed its acquisition of Flightscape Inc., an Ottawa-based firm that provides flight data analysis and flight sciences.