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.
America West Airlines flew 2.16 billion RPMs in May, up 12.8% over the year-ago period. Capacity climbed 5.1% to 2.64 billion ASMs and load factor rose 5.5 points to 81.7%. For the five months ended May 31, RPMs increased 8.2% to 9.89 billion, ASMs grew 1.2% to 12.47 billion and load factor gained 5.1 points to 79.3%.
Bulgaria's Supreme Court will not allow the government to award Copenhagen Airports an airport concession deal until it rules on appeals made by competitors, Reuters reported. Earlier this week, the Bulgarian government awarded the company a 35-year, €526 million ($638 million) contract to run and modernize its two Black Sea airports in Varna and Bourgas. However, the court said the deal only could be signed a month after it rules on appeals by two other companies.
SkyWest Airlines flew 625.9 million RPMs in May, up 49.9% over the year-ago period. Capacity climbed 46.7% to 852.7 million ASMs and load factor grew 1.6 points to 73.4%. For the five months ended May 31, RPMs increased 44.4% to 2.86 billion, ASMs rose 38.6% to 3.9 billion and load factor gained 2.9 points to 73.3%.
Ryanair carried 2.9 million passengers in May, up 34% on the year-ago period. Load factor improved 1 point to 82%. For the rolling 12 months ended May 31, the number of earned seats totaled 28.8 million.
Japan Airlines said it received registration in the IATA Operational Safety Audit program, an internationally recognized and accepted evaluation system designed to assess the operational management and control systems of an airline.
UAL Corp., parent of United Airlines, made changes to the responsibilities of two senior executives. Senior VP-Strategic Sourcing and Chief Procurement Officer Richard Poulton will take on additional responsibilities for information technology and business development and now will hold the title of senior VP-business development. In addition, Executive VP-Strategy Doug Hacker will lead efforts to assess United's ancillary businesses as part of completing its Chapter 11 restructuring. The company said Hacker initially will focus on San Francisco-based MyPoints.com.
In order to improve its ontime performance and schedule reliability, Alaska Airlines late last week announced that it will eliminate or suspend several flights this summer. "This is a temporary measure to get our operation back on track after record load factors and increased summer flying, coupled with ongoing company transitions, caused delays and cancellations to rise," Alaska CEO Bill Ayer said.
US airlines' ontime performance improved in April compared to the previous month and April 2004. According to Dept. of Transportation statistics, the 19 reporting carriers posted an ontime arrival rate of 83.4%, slightly better than April 2004's 83% and well above March 2005's 76.9%. Hawaiian Airlines at 95.6% had the highest ontime arrival rate. Of mainline carriers, ATA Airlines posted the best mark at 89% with SkyWest Airlines at 87.6% ranking second. Alaska Airlines had the lowest rate at 77%.
Independence Air flew 311.7 million RPMs in May on capacity of 427.5 million ASMs, which produced a load factor of 72.9%. For the five months ended May 31, RPMs totaled 1.14 billion, ASMs were 1.78 billion and load factor reached 64.9%.
SkyEurope placed an order for 16 737-700 blended winglet shipsets with 16 options. The winglets will be purchased by GECAS and installed by Boeing in February 2006. Meanwhile, the carrier will launch a thrice-weekly Dublin-Krakow service Sept. 20.
Emirates said its first Islamic Sukuk issue received subscriptions of $824 million against an initial target of $550 million. However, the carrier closed the order book at $550 million. The proceeds of the Islamic Sukuk Bonds issue will be used to finance Emirates' $354 million engineering center, which is scheduled to be completed early next year, and the new $191 million Emirates Group headquarters, which is expected to be inaugurated by the end of 2006.
Volga-Dnepr Group reported revenue of more than $300 million for 2004, the second-highest result in its 15-year history. The company said its An-124 fleet contributed $225 million in revenue during the year and it controlled roughly 54% of the world's outsize and heavyweight air cargo transportation market. Transportation volume reached 431,973 ton-kilometers.
Air Pacific, Fiji's national airline, reported a profit after tax of $24.5 million for the fiscal year ended March 31, basically equal to the profit achieved in the prior financial year. Revenue increased 4.5% to $440.6 million while expenditure climbed 5.6% to $405.7 million. Profit before tax was $36 million, an increase of 3.7% over the previous year.
Alaska Airlines named Shannon Alberts MD-investor relations. In this position, she will oversee analyst and shareholder communications for Alaska Air Group, parent of Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air. Alberts started her career at the carrier in 1985 as an administrative assistant and has held several different positions in the company.
LAN Argentina, a LAN alliance member, began operations last week with its inaugural flight from Buenos Aires to Mendoza. The carrier will operate two daily flights on the route. "Today is an important day for our company, and we would like to thank the passengers who choose to fly with us," GM Paul Petrelli said. The LAN alliance also includes LAN Airlines, LAN Peru and LAN Ecuador.
Air France Industries and Lufthansa Technik signed a contract Friday to launch Spairliners GmbH, a 50/50 joint venture that not only will work on the 25 A380s ordered by Air France and Lufthansa but will offer "a full spectrum of support services for components to all A380 operators worldwide." "Most A380 carriers will operate relatively small fleets. To have spare parts and components for the maintenance makes it a very cost-intensive subject," Lufthansa Technik Executive Board Chairman August Wilhelm Henningsen said during a press conference.
Iberia teamed up with OnAir to provide e-mail and Web chat services for its business class passengers on long-haul routes following "very successful" inflight tests. Senior VP-Customer Relationships Felix Garcia Viejobueno said, "We know from our customer research that our business passengers are very keen to have the option of using their flight time more productively."
Kitty Hawk Inc. appointed Robert Barron as VP and COO for its airline subsidiary, Kitty Hawk Aircargo. Since joining Kitty Hawk in May 2004, Barron has served as the company's VP-maintenance and engineering. Earlier he was chief inspector for US Airways.
Engine Lease Finance Corp. and its parent BTM Capital Corp., which is itself owned by Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi Ltd., announced they completed the acquisition of the 49% interest in Aviation Lease Finance formerly owned by Volvo Aero North America Inc. and Volvo Aero Services LP. ALF is now a wholly owned subsidiary of ELF. It was founded in March 1998 as a joint venture among BTM, ELF and the Volvo companies.
Hawaiian Airlines announced the appointment of David Osborne to the newly created position of senior VP-CIO. Osborne joined Hawaiian last month after a long career in the banking and financial services industries.
The SkyTeam Alliance yesterday unveiled its new Associate Program and named the first carriers selected to begin the joining process: Air Europa, Copa Airlines, Kenya Airways and Tarom. According to KLM President and CEO Leo van Wijk, the Associate Program is "a new tool of SkyTeam's growth strategy and will broaden the alliance's presence to several strategic regions while providing more travelers with access to our expanding network."
Penauille Group announced the appointment of Jacques Guerin as CEO of Servisair/GlobeGround, replacing Jean de Courcel. Guerin began his career with Aeroports de Paris and spent 10 years with Air France Group within which he held a number of different positions.
Singapore Airlines stepped up its lobbying to gain fifth freedom rights between Australia and the US with the release of a report claiming that the lack of competition on the corridor has led to higher fares, limited capacity and deprived the tourism industry of a potential A$126 million ($96.7 million) windfall.
KLM announced that Cees van Woudenberg will resign as MD and chief human resources officer and move up to the Air France-KLM holding organization, where he will join Air France's executive committee from July 1.
