SWE FLY selected SAS Components' Free2Fly for its single 767-200. The aircraft is stationed at Stockholm Skavsta and used to serve Lahore and Bangkok. The carrier plans to expand its operations and is looking to add another two 767s to its fleet this year that will be used on flights to destinations in Asia.
News from Travel Technology Update:
Amadeus is developing a common, open-architecture distribution platform for hotels, similar in approach to its Altéa airline platform. The goal is to address the issue of fragmented hotel technology disparate property management, central reservations, revenue management and customer relationship management systems and to create a platform that distributes hotel inventory through all channels and integrates with all systems.
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.
Discover the World Marketing officially opened the new office in Moscow that it will use to handle sales and marketing representation in Russia for client Air New Zealand.
Aviation Partners Boeing was awarded an STC for 757-200 blended winglets by FAA. Continental Airlines is the launch customer for the product and already has 11 winglet shipsets on order for its 757-200s for delivery this year. Icelandair also has some on order.
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.
The Australian government again deferred a decision on whether to allow Singapore Airlines' entry to the corridor to the US and embarked on a comprehensive review of the local aviation industry, according to newspaper reports. Prime Minister John Howard advised his counterpart in Singapore, Lee Sien Loong, that the issue of fifth freedom access for SIA to the South Pacific had been put on hold indefinitely because of the proposed ministerial committee inquiry, The Australian newspaper reported.
Japan Airlines expanded its e-ticketing service to include British Airways-operated JAL codeshare flights via London Heathrow and BA connecting flights.
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%.
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.
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."
Northwest Airlines will have to continue to negotiate with its mechanics and related workers after the National Mediation Board rejected the carrier's request to declare the talks at an impasse. The two sides have been negotiating since October and a mediator became involved in February. Northwest sent a request to NMB in late May asking the board to declare the talks at an impasse. The Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Assn. responded with its own letter asking NMB to let the talks continue.
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.
US FAA needs to improve its processes for monitoring and overseeing safety oversight of US airlines--and third-party maintenance providers--during a period of rapid transition as the airlines undergo financial stresses and increasingly outsource maintenance. That is the conclusion of a report from the DOT Office of the Inspector General released this week.
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.
OAG launched OAG MAX Online, an Internet-based market intelligence tool that enables users to query the OAG air transport databases and manipulate volumes of data to produce reports and graphs.
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.
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.
