South African Airways unveiled an A340-600 repainted in Star Alliance livery yesterday. SAA is scheduled to join the alliance on April 10. All members are required to paint 3% of their fleet in the group's livery. The carrier also will paint a 737-800.
Air France unveiled its new €120 million ($143.7 million), 33,310-sq.-m. Flight Crew Center at Paris Charles de Gaulle yesterday. Approximately 18,000 members of AF's flightdeck and cabin crew will be based at the facility. Construction began in December 2003.
AeroRepublica, the Colombian subsidiary of Copa Holdings, announced a firm order for five GE CF34-powered Embraer 190s worth a combined $175 million at list prices. The order includes 20 options. Deliveries are scheduled to begin in November. The aircraft will seat 108 in a single-class configuration.
ANA said yesterday that it will dissolve Air Hokkaido, a wholly-owned Regional subsidiary of Air Nippon, in July following a cessation of operations scheduled for March 31. It operated two daily roundtrip flights between Hakodate and Okushiri on Hokkaido island with a 19-seat Twin Otter. Separately, ANA said it concluded a cargo codeshare agreement with Star Alliance partner Asiana to take effect April 1. It covers 18 weekly flights--10 operated by ANA, eight by Asiana--between Japan and Korea and is the first such accord between the two countries.
Thomas Cook Airlines of Belgium reported a pre-tax profit of €3.2 million ($3.8 million) on revenues of €132.36 million in the financial year ended Oct. 31, 2005. The carrier will add a sixth A320 in the coming months to accommodate its forecast growth. Launched in 2002, it transported 997,100 passengers aboard 3,339 flights to 45 leisure destinations during the fiscal year.
SriLankan Airlines is preparing for possible changes to its ownership structure, with CEO Peter Hill telling ATWOnline, "In three to six months' time, the government, which holds 51% in SriLankan, will decide how it will go on with the carrier."
Southwest Airlines has "increased the near-entirety of its fare structure," according to JP Morgan analyst Jamie Baker, giving the green light to US carriers to raise their own domestic fares. Facing rising fuel costs and the erosion of its hedges, Southwest boosted one-way fares $2-$10 across two-thirds of its network over the weekend, Baker said. Its $299 fare cap, in place since 2002, has been raised $10 in "the largest single fare increase they have ever taken." A "significant" number of its one-way long-haul fares have increased by $10 as well.
United Airlines announced a $165 million commitment to upgrade its international first and business class seats through a deal with B/E Aerospace. The arrangement is part of UA's revamp of its entire international widebody fleet expected to take "roughly two to three years." It will begin introducing the new seats in 2007. "This program supports United's strategic business emphasis on international and premium services," B/E Chairman and CEO Amin Khoury said.
US Airways Group, comprising US Airways, US Airways Express and America West, flew a combined 4.43 billion RPMs in February, a decline of 8.7% from the year-ago month. Capacity fell 14.5% to 5.86 billion ASMs and load factor rose 4.9 points to 75.7%. Domestic traffic was down 9% to 3.75 billion RPMs against a 16.7% decrease in ASMs to 4.84 billion. International traffic fell 6.8% to 686.1 million RPMs as capacity dropped 2.3% to 1.02 billion ASMs.
British Airways denied it is at an advanced stage of negotiations with Boeing to acquire up to 20 777-300ERs that would replace some early delivery 747s from 2008, as reported on this website last week ( ATWOnline, March 10).
South African Airways said it will terminate its loyalty program agreement with Qantas from April 9, at which time SAA Voyager members no longer will be eligible to earn or redeem points aboard Qantas flights.
Aer Lingus signed a contract yesterday for the purchase of one A330-200 and one A330-300, confirming an announcement made last month ( ATWOnline, Feb. 10). The aircraft will be delivered in mid-2007 and will be based at Dublin Airport. The dash 200 will seat 24 passengers in Premier and 245 in economy while the dash 300 will carry 24 in Premier and 303 in economy. Both will be powered by GE CF6-80E1s.
US FAA named Michael O'Malley chief of staff. He had served as Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta's deputy assistant secretary for transportation policy. Lufthansa Cargo announced that Executive Board Chairman Jean-Peter Jansen resigned effective March 31 for health reasons. Deutsche Lufthansa Chief Officer-Aviation Services and Human Resources Stefan Lauer was appointed interim chairman. Lauer will step down as chairman of the Lufthansa Cargo Supervisory Board and be replaced temporarily by Wolfgang Mayrhuber.
Lufthansa CFO Karl-Ludwig Kley is leaving the company for a position at Merck, the German pharmaceutical giant. He informed Supervisory Board Chairman Juergen Weber by telephone on Sunday, Lufthansa said. The board will discuss Kley's successor at its March 22 meeting.
NAV Canada announced a tentative agreement with the Canadian Auto Workers/Air Traffic Specialists. The four-year deal covers 850 flight service specialists. No details of the agreement were released pending ratification.
Precision Conversions said it entered into a "long-term cargo conversion program" with Cargo Aircraft Management, a subsidiary of Orlando-based Cargo Holdings International. Agreement covers completion of two 757-200 passenger-to-freighter conversions in 2006 "with plans to support multiple aircraft conversions over the next five years."
LAN Airlines reported a 5.8% year-over-year rise in system traffic in February compared to a 7.1% increase in capacity, which dropped load factor 1 point to 75.5%.
Lufthansa plans to expand its lower-fare strategy for European flights, Executive VP-Marketing and Sales Thierry Antinori said during the ITB tourism fair in Berlin last week. The carrier recently introduced short-haul return flights starting at €99 ($118) at Hamburg and Dusseldorf with slightly better than expected results. Additionally, it has taken share away from Air Berlin, according to Antinori. "We will definitely roll out this concept. I assume that we will also move into other catchments in the coming months," he said.
Following a fourth quarter in which it lost €2.9 million ($3.5 million) owing to surging costs ( ATWOnline, Feb. 17), Finnair's new president and CEO, Jukka Hienonen, told this website in Helsinki that the carrier will keep working toward securing a cost base that will ensure profitability even as it continues to demonstrate operational improvements.
Cathay Pacific Airways is looking at a variety of options for its growing freighter fleet, according to COO Tony Tyler, who told ATWOnline that the airline likes the 747-400BCF and may convert six options to firm orders. "If and when we do, we are likely to convert some of our own 747-400s but not all, because we will still need the passenger lift," he said.
OzJet, Australia's first premium-only airline, suspended scheduled operations after only three months, citing its failure to break the stranglehold of Qantas and Virgin Blue on the business travel market. It cancelled its Sydney-Melbourne service and will not proceed with plans to establish flights to Perth next month. About 70 employees lost their jobs. The airline is expected to continue a limited charter operation, scaling down its 737-200 fleet from four to two and keeping approximately 30% of its staff.
Alaska Airlines will transition to an all-737 fleet by the end of 2008 by accelerating the retirement of the 26 MD-80s it planned to phase out over the next 11 years, replacing them with 39 737-800s in 2006-08 from an order placed last summer ( ATWOnline, June 16, 2005).
Northwest Airlines confirmed that it "executed an agreement to purchase FLYi's operating certificate and related assets" subject to certain conditions. According to the Associated Press, which cited a FLYi bankruptcy filing, NWA paid $2 million for the certificate, which should enable it to expedite the startup of a new subsidiary that will operate 76-seat regional jets using furloughed mainline pilots ( ATWOnline, March 7). FLYi, which operated as Independence Air, shut down in January.
