National Mediation Board yesterday declared an impasse in the contract dispute between Northwest Airlines and the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Assn. The two sides now have entered a 30-day cooling-off period that expires Aug. 20. At that point, NWA may impose a new wage and benefit contract and AMFA is free to strike ( ATWOnline, July 20).
Embraer was awarded type certification for the 170 and 175 from Transport Canada Civil Aviation, which will enable deliveries to begin of 15 175s ordered by Air Canada. The aircraft will be configured for 73 passengers in two classes. As of June 30, Embraer had delivered 66 170s and logged 412 firm orders for the 170/190 family, which range from 70 to 118 seats. Certification of the 190 is expected in the third quarter and of the 195 in the 2006 second quarter.
Bmi will deploy Lufthansa Systems' new passenger system FACE. The UK airline, in which Lufthansa holds a stake, has been using Lufthansa Systems' previous passenger solution MultiHost for its reservations, ticketing and check-in operations since 2001. Check-in will be migrated to FACE at all bmi stations as early as 2005. In 2007, bmi will migrate all core modules of its passenger system to the FACE platform, including reservations, inventory management, ticketing and boarding and other passenger-related service processes.
Republic Airways Holdings announced a follow-on public offering of 7.75 million shares of common stock--all of which are being offered by the company--at a price of $12.60 per share. Merrill Lynch served as the sole bookrunner and Raymond James & Associates acted as co-manager. The company also granted the underwriters an option to purchase up to an additional 1,162,500 shares to cover overallotments.
Northwest Airlines President and CEO Douglas Steenland yesterday urged the US Dept. of Transportation to approve the carrier's application for antitrust immunity to link the networks of NWA and KLM and the existing SkyTeam antitrust-immunized carriers Air France, Delta Air Lines, Alitalia and CSA Czech Airlines.
DBA will start triple-daily service from Nurnberg to Berlin and two daily flights to Hamburg on Sept. 12 using F100s. Separately, DBA said it transported 1.1 million passengers from April to June, up 70% compared to the same period a year ago. Capacity rose 60% following the takeover of Germania Express aircraft and routes. The company said it expects to carry 4.3-5 million passengers this year.
Asiana was forced to cancel nearly half its domestic schedule Monday after union pilots staged a walkout over working conditions and retirement terms. According to the Associated Press, the airline cancelled 81 of its 168 scheduled domestic flights and four of its seven cargo flights. It operated all 115 international flights, AP reported.
Korean Air was awarded a five-year contract from United Airlines to perform heavy maintenance on UA's fleet of 27 747-400s. Under the deal, Korean Air will perform C and D checks in addition to parts overhaul services. The first aircraft scheduled to receive a D check arrived at Korean's Gimhae plant in Busan on July 18. According to Korean, the deal is valued at $12 million each year. Pratt & Whitney was awarded a seven-year contract from Martinair to service the PW4462 and PW4060 engines powering its MD-11s and 767-300s.
LAN Airlines appointed Luis Eduardo Riquelme VP-North/Central America and Asia for the passenger division. In this role, he will be responsible for LAN's passenger operations in the US, Canada, Central America and Asia including overseeing sales and marketing, accounting and cost control, operations, reservations and ticket offices, government affairs, human resources and the carrier's general sales agents throughout these countries.
US National Transportation Safety Board member Richard Healing announced his retirement effective Aug. 1. Before joining NTSB in 2003, Healing spent a year as director-transportation safety and security for Battelle Memorial Institute. Prior to that, he served for 17 years as director-safety and survivability for the Dept. of the Navy and also spent 29 years in the Coast Guard and Coast Guard Reserve.
Swiss International Air Lines and Air Canada plan to codeshare on flights between Zurich and Toronto. AC also is studying launching a new Toronto-Delhi route via Zurich to take advantage of Swiss's membership in the Star Alliance and the introduction of Zurich into the Lufthansa hub network after LH completes its acquisition of Swiss.
SAS said Monday that it lost a legal appeal seeking a reduction of a €39 million ($47.1 million) fine imposed by the European Commission in 2001 after SAS and Maersk were found guilty of price-fixing.
Assn. of European Airlines unveiled its Emissions Containment Policy, which details "how greenhouse-gas emissions of the industry have been, and can be, controlled while allowing for sustainable market development." The policy was drawn up in partnership with five other industry organizations: AeroSpace and Defence Industries Assn. of Europe, European Business Aircraft Assn., European Express Assn., European Regions Airline Assn. and International Air Carrier Assn. "The aviation sector has been able to decouple emissions growth from traffic growth.
IBS Software Services said Air New Zealand Cargo, Gulf Air and South African Airways Cargo joined the Core Group of Influence Forum to participate in the development of IBS's next-generation air cargo and logistics management system iCargo.
Kitty Hawk appointed James Kupferschmid VP and CFO. He comes to Kitty Hawk with a 20-plus-year financial career including cargo, airline and M&A assignments with Northwest Airlines and Continental Airlines.
SITA SC signed a deal with Finnair to migrate the airline's existing network infrastructure over to a SITA IP-based wide area network solution. The solution is being implemented in more than 80 locations across three continents.
The National Mediation Board Thursday offered binding arbitration to Northwest Airlines and the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Assn. The step came after both the airline and the union, which represents Northwest's mechanics, asked to be released from mediation. In a statement, Northwest said it "wants to work with AMFA to reach a consensual agreement that provides wage and benefit levels that are fair to employees and that will allow Northwest to stem its unsustainable operating losses."
Aerosim said AeroMexico will take a 737-700/777-200ER Virtual Procedure Trainer as part of a complete training solution being provided by Alteon Training.
Austrian Airlines Group, which holds 62% of tiny Slovak Airlines, is interested in acquiring the remaining shares if the state permits it, a spokesperson told this website. Meanwhile, AAG, which comprises Austrian, Austrian arrows, Lauda Air and Slovak, flew 2.1 billion RPKs in June, up 8.8% over the year-ago period. ASKs rose 8.7% to 2.8 billion and load factor grew a fraction to 73.1%. The group transported 994,000 passengers, up 12.1%. For the first half, AAG flew 10 billion RPKs, up 1.8%, on a 4.2% gain in ASKs to 14.2 billion. Load factor dropped 1.7 points to 70.2%.
ATA Airlines, which has been operating under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection since October 2004, Friday announced plans to expand the outsourcing of its heavy maintenance program and to begin outsourcing its customer reservations call center in moves that will result in the loss of 450 jobs. Since filing for Chapter 11, ATA has continued to shrink. Over the last two years its total workforce has dropped from 7,800 to 4,687, and since last year its fleet has been reduced from 67 to 45 aircraft.
Qantas, following in the footsteps of Air New Zealand, Friday announced a "new streamlined fare structure" for transpacific travel starting Aug. 1. The new structure consists of three fare families and permits passengers to combine different fare categories for outbound and return legs. However, the carrier has not adopted true one-way pricing as some fares may be purchased only on a roundtrip basis and there are some restrictions and surcharges for one-way fares.
American Airlines and Philippine Airlines launched interline e-ticketing, bringing the number of domestic and international carriers providing IET in cooperation with American to 28.
Volga-Dnepr Group announced that Commercial Manager Dennis Gliznoutsa was promoted to group commercial director succeeding Tony Bauckham, who took over as MD of Volga-Dnepr UK earlier in the year. Gliznoutsa will be based at London Stansted and is responsible for all sales and marketing of Volga-Dnepr's An-124-100s and IL-76s.
