Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and JetBlue Airways signed an educational collaboration agreement that "encourages cooperation between the two organizations," including training programs for JetBlue crewmembers.
Air Berlin plans to take on the future Swiss subsidiary of larger rival Lufthansa at its home base in Zurich. "Switzerland with Zurich, where we already have a plane, will become a further area of growth for us," Reuters quoted Air Berlin head Joachim Hunold as saying.
CAE was awarded a contract to provide Air Canada with two full-flight simulators for Embraer 170s and 190s, along with a suite of CAE Simfinity training devices. Based on list prices excluding BFE, the contract is valued at approximately C$27 million ($27.8 million).
Northwest Airlines reorganized its marketing and sales function in order to "better reflect the airline's commitment to developing travel products that best serve the needs of its business and leisure customers." Under the restructuring, VP-Market Planning and Airlink Thomas Bach has been named to the new position of VP-network planning and revenue management. He will be responsible for worldwide route planning and scheduling for Northwest and Northwest Airlink.
Virgin Atlantic and its Australian sister airline Virgin Blue signed a codeshare agreement under which Virgin Atlantic, which currently flies daily from London Heathrow to Sydney via Hong Kong, will add its code to Virgin Blue flights from Sydney to Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Cairns, Gold Coast and Coolangatta. The agreement will go into effect July 17.
Air France selected Thales' TopSeries i5000 inflight entertainment systems for its future fleet of A380s. The French carrier has a firm order for 10 A380s and an option for a further four. "We will be equipping the A380s on our Montreal and New York routes first, followed by Beijing and Tokyo, with 538 passengers onboard," said AF Chairman and CEO Jean Cyril Spinetta during the signing of the contract.
ExpressJet Holdings announced that George Bravante has been elected nonexecutive chairman. An independent member of the board, he will replace Thomas Schick, who will resign on July 1. Bravante, who has served as a director since July 2004, is the founder and general partner of Bravante-Curci Investors, a merchant bank focusing on real estate investments. Separately, ExpressJet flew 739.3 million RPMs in May, up 19.3% over the year-ago period. Capacity climbed 16.2% to 1 billion ASMs and load factor gained 1.9 points to 73.7%.
US Transportation Security Administration completed its explosives detection trace portal program pilot phase for passenger screening. TSA tested the systems in 14 cities and said the tests were successful. Beginning next month, the agency will start the first round of deployment by adding 44 additional machines and 10 airports to the program. Airports in Baltimore, Boston, Gulfport, Jacksonville, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York JFK, Phoenix, Providence, Rochester, San Francisco, San Diego and Tampa were included in the pilot program and are already using the new technology.
Austrian Airlines Group CEO Vagn Soerensen told ATWOnline that Austrian is evaluating adding a third destination to its long-haul network next year. Possibilities include Nagoya, Hong Kong, or even a city like Chengdu, Soerensen said. Currently, the carrier serves Beijing and Shanghai. He also said Austrian is talking with United Airlines about a possible codeshare on the Chicago-Vienna route. Separately, the airline flew 1.83 billion RPKs in May, up 8.6% over the year-ago period. Capacity climbed 7.9% to 2.62 billion ASKs and load factor grew 0.4 point to 69.8%.
Lufthansa Technik signed two MOUs with Qatar Airways valued at more than $100 million. Under the first, LHT will take over maintenance and overhaul of the V2500 engines powering Qatar's fleet of 17 A320s over the next 10 years under a Total Engine Support contract. The second agreement calls for LHT to install Rockwell Collins' Tailwind 560 for onboard live satellite television on the carrier's 15 A330s. LHT said its engineers and technicians will equip the aircraft with antennas and corresponding systems and integrate the TV function into the existing IFE system.
AirTran Airways flew 971.2 million RPMs in May, up 38.8% over the year-ago period. Capacity climbed 34.4% to 1.3 billion ASMs and load factor rose 2.3 points to 74.6%. For the five months ended May 31, RPMs increased 29% to 4.33 billion, ASMs jumped 27.4% to 6.02 billion and load factor gained 0.8 point to 71.8%.
Alaska Airlines yesterday placed an order with Boeing for 35 737-800s, with an option to acquire an additional 15 and purchase rights for a further 50. According to the carrier, the value of the order at list prices is roughly $2.3 billion. "While we still have work to do on our operational performance, we are beginning to have visibility into a cost structure that will allow us to be profitable in this changed environment," Alaska CEO Bill Ayer said. "This order positions us for growth opportunities ahead."
Delta Air Lines raised passenger surcharges on tickets purchased for travel on its transatlantic flights on or after June 15, primarily because of soaring fuel prices. The surcharge increase is $10 each way except for travel originating in the UK, which is £4.50 ($8.19) each way. The increase applies to all transatlantic travel except that to and from Canada and Mexico, and travel from France and Italy.
Etihad Airways selected Connexion by Boeing to provide high-speed inflight Internet and live global TV service. The agreement calls for both in-line and retrofit installation on the airline's fleet of 25 777-300ERs, A330s, A340s and A380s. The carrier expects initially to offer the service on routes between the Gulf region and Europe and North America. Financial terms of the deal were not released.
Despite its extensive lobbying efforts, Singapore Airlines yesterday was denied entry to the US-Australia corridor by the Australian government, the Associated Press reported. "The issue of transpacific access has been considered at the highest levels by the Australian government, which has decided the time is not right for Singapore Airlines to be granted access to the route," AP quoted a government spokesperson as saying.
Lufthansa is looking to China to generate a fifth of its Asia/Pacific revenue within five years, Executive VP-Marketing Thierry Antinori told Reuters. According to the report, Lufthansa booked €2.1 billion ($2.54 billion) in passenger revenue from the Asia/Pacific last year, accounting for about 20% of its total revenue. The airline operates 41 weekly flights from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hong Kong to Frankfurt and Munich and currently China contributes roughly one-sixth of its Asia/Pacific revenue.
Republic Airways Holdings flew 382.1 million RPMs in May, up 49.9% over the year-ago period. Capacity climbed 41.2% to 528.7 million ASMs and load factor gained 4.2 points to 72.3%. For the five months ended May 31, RPMs increased 47% to 743.8 million, ASMs jumped 38.8% to 1.03 billion and load factor rose 4 points to 72.2%.
United Airlines yesterday introduced an ontime arrival guarantee for business travelers on all flights between Chicago O'Hare and seven US airports: Boston, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Newark, New York LaGuardia, Philadelphia and Reagan Washington National. Under the guarantee, any eligible business passenger on the flights who does not arrive at the destination within 30 min. of the scheduled arrival time for any reason, including weather and air traffic control delays, will receive a bonus of 500 frequent-flier miles.
Pinnacle Airlines flew 362.5 million RPMs in May, up 53.3% over the year-ago period. Capacity climbed 51.6% to 500.5 million ASMs and load factor rose 0.8 point to 72.4%. For the five months ended May 31, RPMs increased 56% to 1.51 billion, ASMs jumped 55% to 2.27 billion and load factor gained 0.4 point to 66.7%.
Air New Zealand MD and CEO Ralph Norris yesterday announced that he has decided to resign from the carrier to become MD and CEO of Commonwealth Bank of Australia. Norris was appointed to take over ANZ in February 2002. At the time, the carrier was on the verge of collapse after the demise of its Ansett subsidiary in 2001. However, the government stepped in to save the airline with an NZ$885 million ($626.8 million) recapitalization.
Mesaba Aviation flew 176.2 million RPMs in May, up 14.6% over the year-ago period. Capacity climbed 11.9% to 263.6 million ASMs and load factor rose 1.6 points to 66.8%. For the five months ended May 31, RPMs increased 21% to 812.9 million, ASMs rose 14.3% to 1.27 billion and load factor gained 3.5 points to 63.8%.
As a result of "high demand for the carrier's acclaimed first class service," Continental Airlines announced that it will double the number of first-class seats offered on its 757-300s. "We are seeing a significant increase in demand for our first class product, a result of our competitive fares as well as our complimentary upgrade program for OnePass members," Chairman and CEO Larry Kellner said. "We are expanding our 757-300 fleet from nine to 17 aircraft, and we're going to offer a larger first class cabin to accommodate this demand."
Mesa Air Group flew 570.8 million RPMs in May, up 22.6% over the year-ago period. Capacity climbed 25.1% to 814.7 million ASMs and load factor dropped 1.4 points to 70.1%. For the five months ended May 31, RPMs increased 28.1% to 2.51 billion, ASMs grew 24% to 3.55 billion and load factor gained 2.3 points to 70.7%.
Alaska Airlines named Kris Kutchera MD-applications development. In this role, she will lead the overall vision for the use of technology to support e-commerce, maintenance and engineering, ground and flight operations and the airline's mileage plan.
