Northwest Airlines will offer dedicated boarding lanes for its premium customers starting next week at its Detroit hub and airports in Bismarck and Fargo, N.D., Phoenix and Portland, Ore. The lanes will be introduced at all Northwest loading bridge-equipped gates at US airports within the next two months.
Boeing named Jim Schlueter VP-communications for Boeing Commercial Airplanes, reporting to BCA President and CEO Alan Mulally and Tom Downey, Boeing Co. VP-corporate communications. For the past two years Schlueter led Commercial Airplanes media relations and international and sales communications efforts. Prior to that he was director-international communications for Boeing's corporate offices. He has spent more than 19 years with the company.
Virgin Atlantic reported a pre-tax profit of £41.6 million ($75.6 million) for the fiscal year ended Feb. 28, more than double the £20.1 million earned a year ago, a jump it attributed to a "large increase" in business passengers at primary subsidiary Virgin Atlantic Airways. The company, also parent to Virgin Nigeria Airways and tour operator Virgin Holidays, posted annual revenues of £1.91 billion, up 17.2% from £1.63 billion in the previous fiscal year.
MAIR Holdings, parent of Mesaba Airlines and Big Sky Airlines, reported a loss of $82.8 million in a fiscal year ended March 31 that turned on the bankruptcy of its primary subsidiary last fall ( ATWOnline, Oct. 14, 2005).
Varig's future is up in the air again as NV Participacoes, the employee-led investor group that was the only bidder at the June 8 auction of the bankrupt carrier, failed to make an initial $75 million down payment Friday, forcing a Rio de Janeiro bankruptcy court to cancel the deal.
Thales will supply a Level D full flight simulator to Turkish Airlines. It will be ready for training in December and will be installed at THY's training center at Istanbul Ataturk. Thales also will upgrade a 737-400 FFS.
Caribbean Star and Caribbean Sun Airlines signed an agreement with ExelTech Aerospace to provide heavy maintenance service for both carriers' fleets of Dash 8s at ExelTech's facility in Quebec City.
News from Travel Technology Update: JetBlue Airways is "looking seriously" at GDS participation, according to David Neeleman, chairman and chief executive officer. At the Merrill Lynch Global Transportation Conference, Neeleman said the airline was missing out on business by not being in corporate travel departments' booking systems. He acknowledged that when JetBlue participated in Sabre, the average fares booked through the GDS were higher than those booked directly with the airline.
DHL yesterday signed a long-term "strategic network alliance" with Malaysian cargo carrier Transmile. DHL recently spent $1.3 million upgrading its facility at Subang and now will offer 10 weekly flights from the airport to its main Asia/Pacific hub in Hong Kong aboard Transmile aircraft. It previously reserved block space for cargo on Transmile flights but said the expanded agreement will allow for more regular service and cut delivery time for Malaysian customers by a half-day for shipments to other countries in Asia, Europe and the US West Coast.
Boeing has sold 132 747-400s and 747-8s since the beginning of 2000--the timeframe in which the A380 has been offered in the marketplace--including last week's Cathay Pacific order for six 747-400ERFs ( ATWOnline, June 23). While the A380 had its industrial launch in 2001, Airbus was gathering MOUs and LOIs through 2000 from Emirates, ILFC and Air France before Singapore Airlines and Qantas committed to the aircraft in late 2000.
TAM flew 1.49 billion domestic RPKs in May, a 33% increase over the year-ago month. Capacity climbed 20.3% to 2.03 billion ASKs and load factor rose 7 points to 73.4%. International traffic grew 45.8% to 461 million RPKs against a 28.2% increase to 623 million ASKs. Load factor improved 8.9 points to 73.9%.
Jet Airways and Air Sahara continued to spar in a Lucknow court Friday over the fate of a INR5 billion ($108.5 million) escrow account tied to Jet's aborted acquisition of its rival ( ATWOnline, Jan. 23). After hearing arguments, a judge froze the account and postponed the hearing until June 30, according to Indian press reports. The airlines were debating the Lucknow court's jurisdiction over the case. Air Sahara's attorney told the court that as far as his client was concerned, the merger "is still subsisting.
EU signed a so-called "horizontal" aviation agreement with New Zealand allowing European airlines to fly between New Zealand and any EU member state. The agreement does not replace the bilateral agreements in place between member states and NZ but brings them in line with EU law by removing nationality restrictions. Similar agreements have been signed with Chile, Singapore, Ukraine, Georgia and several Balkan countries.
Iberia board last week approved the reorganization of the airline group's top management along with a new management structure. As indicated by Chairman and CEO Fernando Conte to this website during the IATA AGM earlier this month, the position of COO is being eliminated following the resignation of Angel Mullor ( ATWOnline, June 6).
Virgin Atlantic Airways reported rival British Airways to the UK Office of Fair Trading for inappropriate phone calls that a BA executive allegedly made to Virgin executives regarding fuel surcharges, a tip-off that triggered a joint UK-US probe into possible "cartel activity," British media said Friday. BBC and other London-based media reported that BA Head of Communications Iain Burns made a number of phone calls to Virgin executives in which he informed them of BA's plans to raise fuel surcharges on passenger tickets and sought their input on how Virgin would respond.
Lockheed Martin reached agreement with Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University to create a multimillion-dollar Airport of the Future testbed in Daytona, Fla. Judy Marks, president of Lockheed's Transportation and Security Solutions division, said Friday in Washington that the venture will involve other companies as well as FAA, which will provide half the funding. The 50/50 public-private project seeks to explore how technology can be deployed at airports to increase the efficiency of airline operations, she said. Funding is included in the FY07 FAA budget proposal.
Qantas will scale up its aggressive cost reduction program following Wednesday's warning that a combination of redundancy payouts and a A$1 billion ($737.8 million) additional impost from rising fuel prices will see its full-year earnings fall by 27% ( ATWOnline, June 22). In a statement to the Australian Stock Exchange, CEO Geoff Dixon indicated that further job cuts may be necessary despite the progress made with the carrier's five-year, A$3 billion cost and efficiency improvement agenda.
Air China yesterday offered HK$3.23 billion ($416 million) to increase its stake in Cathay Pacific Airways to 17.5% as part of a transaction that will privatize China National Aviation Co., which controls Air Macau and catering, maintenance and ground handling services. CNAC agreed to sell its stake in Dragonair last week as part of the deal in which Cathay is taking over its fellow Hong Kong airline.
With its share/management restructure with Dragonair bedded down, Cathay Pacific Airways moved quickly to expand its freighter fleet with an order for six 747-400ERFs that takes up all the remaining slots for the standard 747. The PW4062A-powered aircraft are scheduled to arrive between May 2008 and April 2009. They will be deployed on routes to North America.
British Airways is among the targets of a joint investigation by UK and US authorities into "alleged cartel activity," the airline said in a statement issued yesterday. The probe involves BA and "other airlines" and relates to the "pricing of passenger air transportation, including fuel surcharges," the carrier said. BA added that it has "given leave of absence" to Commercial Director Martin George and Head of Communications Iain Burns while the investigation is ongoing.
Five months after sealing a merger that would have created an airline with control of nearly half the Indian market, Jet Airways and Air Sahara have parted ways in acrimonious fashion and will head to court.
SITA Annual General Assembly voted to endorse the recommendations of the SITA Group board to consolidate SITA SC, a nonprofit provider of network communications, and SITA INC (Information Networking Computing), a commercial provider of IT solutions, into a single SITA organization under one management team ( ATWOnline, Jan. 20).
Flight Safety Foundation announced that former ICAO Director-Air Navigation William Voss will replace Stuart Matthews as president and CEO following Matthews' retirement on Oct. 1 after 13 years of leading the organization.
Alenia Aeronautica and Sukhoi Civil Aircraft Co., as expected, signed an agreement establishing a strategic partnership on the Russian Regional Jet program ( ATWOnline, June 1). Under the terms, the Finmeccanica subsidiary will acquire a 25% stake plus one share in SCAC subject to Russian government approval, plus a corresponding financial stake in the RRJ program.
