Cargolux is raising its fuel surcharge on all cargo shipments to €0.45 ($0.55) per kilo or the equivalent in local currency from July 8. Last week, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic also announced fuel surcharge increases. Separately, Cargolux said it will launch a new weekly service to Doha on July 4 offering main deck capacity primarily to the oil and gas industry. From Doha the flight will continue to Hong Kong before returning via Baku to Luxembourg.
Outtask established a direct connection to JetBlue Airways inventory through its Cliqbook corporate booking tool. By delivering JetBlue inventory through a direct connect, the company said Cliqbook customers are given added services at a reduced cost.
News from Travel Technology Update:
The mini-explosion of new travel meta search players has occurred largely in the leisure market. But a young company called Enable Solutions is setting its sights on the business traveler. Its product, dubbed mySmartTrip, is designed to accommodate business travelers' needs as no other travel meta search engine does, according to Stephen Joseph, chief executive officer. But it has another salient feature that might make suppliers sit up and take notice: It costs them absolutely nothing.
Malev launched an online booking service for its business customers that will offer discounts on published fares, specified routes and booking dates as a percentage or fixed amount, benefiting small to medium-sized businesses. Separately, Amadeus announced the successful implementation of Amadeus Electronic Ticket Server at Malev.
Airlines won another round in their continuing legal battle to keep deep venous thrombosis from being classified as an "accident" for which they may be found liable under international aviation law. Last Thursday, the High Court of Australia upheld an earlier ruling by the Supreme Court of Victoria that dismissed a lawsuit brought by a passenger who claimed he developed a case of DVT that led to a stroke on a roundtrip journey between Australia and the UK in 2000.
Air New Zealand launched a broad reform of its long-haul fare structure that offers significantly lower prices while eliminating many restrictions such as minimum and maximum stays and weekend stay requirements. At the same time, the fares are priced to encourage customers to purchase in advance, said Gus Gilmore, ANZ VP-The Americas. Under the new Advance Deal policy, "Our lowest fares will be available further out," he told ATWOnline.
UK Civil Aviation Authority report on the impact of granting fifth freedom passenger services to foreign airlines at regional airports (not London) concluded that the balance of benefits to the UK from greater liberalization of fifth freedoms to and from those airports is "likely to be positive." CAA's assessment, which is based on seven representative case studies, admitted that the different stakeholder groups are affected in different ways, with consumers and airports benefiting while UK airlines will be affected negatively.
America West Airlines and US Airways moved one step closer to a merger after the US Dept. of Justice cleared the proposed venture last week. "The Antitrust Division has concluded that the proposed merger of America West and US Airways would not reduce competition, and therefore has decided to close its investigation without issuing requests for additional information," DOJ said in a statement.
Lufthansa Systems CEO Wolfgang Gohde announced Friday the global launch of a comprehensive solution called Future Airline Core Environment as LHS positions itself as a full-service IT provider of future-oriented applications in a rapidly evolving business environment. The new product, which Gohde claimed will deliver "significant cost savings" for airlines, supersedes the widely used Lufthansa Systems MultiHost passenger system.
National Mediation Board ordered a recess in UPS's labor negotiations with its pilots, represented by the Independent Pilots Assn., the airline announced. There can be no strike or work stoppage while the parties are in recess.
KLM reached a collective labor agreement with the unions representing its ground and cabin staff for the period spanning Jan. 1, 2005, to April 1, 2007. The accord includes a phased and structural wage boost of 2.75%, with a one-off increase of 4% for July 2005. The parties also agreed to an adjustment of the rules regarding other social provisions such as pensions and health insurance. Additionally, they agreed to fill in further specifications on the different rosterings before Jan. 1, 2006.
SITA INC won a five-year, $7 million contract for IT support to baggage management at London Gatwick following a competitive tender. BagManager allows the three ground handlers--Aviance UK, Groundstar Gatwick and Servisair/Globeground---and any of the 80-plus airlines using LGW to run an automated reconciliation system of baggage through the North and South Terminals using some 250 wireless handheld scanners. The system is expected to handle 10 million bags in 2005 and will be scaled up to match expected growth over the next five years.
Adria Airways and Air France Industries announced that Adria will perform maintenance work on A319, A320 and A321 aircraft for AFI. This year, Adria's technical maintenance center will service 10 aircraft for AFI.
Air Transport Assn. member airlines flew 58.82 billion RPMs in May, up 7.2% over the year-ago period. Capacity climbed 3.3% to 74.65 billion ASMs and load factor rose 2.9 points to 78.8%. For the five months ended May 31, RPMs increased 6.5% to 274.26 billion, ASMs grew 2.7% to 357.79 billion and load factor gained 2.7 points to 76.7%.
Declining growth rates will take a mounting toll on European low-cost carriers, according to an analysis by McKinsey & Co. presented Thursday in Frankfurt. Lucio Pompeo, author of the study, stated that the booming industry is at a crossroads; "Few will survive," he warned. The study cited three reasons for falling LCC profitability: Increasingly saturated markets, aircraft orders exceeding likely demand and the growing competition among scheduled airlines, charter companies and LCCs.
CSA Czech Airlines confirmed an audited net profit of CZK324.2 million ($22.9 million) for 2004 ( ATWOnline May 12). During the first five months of 2005, CSA recorded a 16% passenger increase to 1.8 million. In May it transported 444,000 passengers, up more than 20% compared to 2004.
Niki Lauda told ATWOnline that his low-cost carrier Niki, a partner of Air Berlin, is expecting a passenger increase from 940,000 in 2004 to more than 1 million this year. "Now we have to evaluate whether to add a sixth A320 in 2006, one year earlier than scheduled," he said. In addition, Niki, which operates from bases at Vienna and Salzburg, is looking for a third hub, which could be located outside Austria, possibly in nearby Bratislava. It flies four A320s and one A321, and after the summer season the A321 will be replaced by a new A320 from an order for 10.
SITA SC yesterday announced an alliance with INS, a California-based global provider of vendor-independent business and technology consulting services and software solutions, to provide the travel and transportation industry with "a broad range of technology-based professional services, managed services and software."
American Airlines said it made a $75 million contribution to its defined benefit pension plans, bringing its total contribution to the plans in 2005 to more than $200 million. AA employees, led by Chairman and CEO Gerard Arpey and leaders of the pilot, flight attendant and mechanic unions, lobbied in Washington yesterday in favor of pension reform legislation. AA noted that with its defined benefit pension plans funded at about 80%, "it has the best-funded defined benefit plans in the industry."
Evans & Sutherland Computer Corp. announced that Lufthansa Flight Training-Berlin purchased an EP-1000CT visual system for use on a new A320 simulator ordered from CAE.
FLYi Inc. shareholders approved a request by the board of directors to effect a reverse stock split in an effort to avoid delisting by NASDAQ. The parent of Independence Air has until Nov. 23 for its shares to trade above the $1 threshold for at least 10 consecutive days. The reverse split could range from 1:2 to 1:10.
CAE shareholders agreed to the transfer of the company's head office from Toronto to Montreal, where CAE was founded in 1947. The firm employs more than 2,800 in the Montreal area and generates some $70 million into the economies of Montreal and Quebec.
Although US passenger airlines are enjoying record traffic, the number of people they employ continues to decline, according to the US DOT's Bureau of Transportation Statistics. BTS reported that the airlines employed a total of 451,915 workers in April 2005, 2.8% fewer than in April 2004. The seven network carriers--American, United, Delta, Northwest, Continental, US Airways and Alaska--employed 304,761 full- and part-time workers, down 6.1% from April 2004.
