Korean Air reported a 112% year-on-year lift in passenger demand from China to 428.9 million RPKs, while load factor climbed 4.2 points to 70%. The airline also experienced robust growth in Japan and Europe/Middle East traffic with 15.2% and 17.4% hikes in RPKs respectively for the first two months of 2005. Those spectacular gains were offset by a 21.9% drop in domestic RPKs owing to route restructuring. China also became the growth engine of Korean Air's cargo business as volume to and from the country more than doubled to 44.9 million FTKs year-on-year.
Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings named Michael Barna senior VP and CFO effective April 11. Barna also will serve as senior VP and CFO of AAWW subsidiaries Atlas Air and Polar Air Cargo.
Navtech signed a long-term contract with Delta Air Lines to provide crew management solutions. The agreement includes the use of Navtech's preferential bidding system, Class, by Delta's pilots.
Lufthansa Systems announced that Etihad Airways opted to implement its NetLine/Plan and NetLine/Sched, allowing for an "integrated approach to optimizing the elements of resource planning and control."
Alpine Air Express posted a net loss of $168,843 for the three months ended Jan. 31, a significant improvement from a net loss of $413,081 in the prior-year period. Revenues rose 97.8% to $5.2 million owing to a sharp increase in cargo volumes, which more than doubled year-over-year as a result of a new USPS contract in Hawaii.
Alsalam Aircraft Co. won a contract from Saudi Arabian Airlines to perform D checks on two 747-100s and one 747-300, including interior refurbishments. The first 747-100 has been delivered to Alsalam's facility in Riyadh and is scheduled for completion in April.
Honeywell named Peg Billson VP and GM of its Airframe Systems business and Greg Albert VP and GM of its Aircraft Landing Systems business, effective April 1.
Delta Air Lines yesterday announced that it will make several changes to its Technical Operations division in moves it said will result in savings of roughly $240 million over five years. However, the changes also will result in 1,600-2,000 TechOp job cuts, which are part of the 6,000-7,000 positions the company said it would eliminate in its previously announced Transformation Plan.
Lufthansa and Aegean Airlines will begin a strategic cooperation on Oct. 30. As a first step, both carriers will codeshare on all flights between Germany and Greece as well on some Greek domestic routes and selected Lufthansa international flights. Further cooperation such as reciprocal airport lounge access will follow. Aegean posted growth rates of about 20% over the last five years and currently operates a fleet of 19 RJ100s and 737s. Most of the 18 destinations it serves are in Greece.
TUI confirmed a report in the Sunday Times that it plans to reduce its workforce in the UK from 13,500 to 11,500 within the next 18 months in response to tough competition in the air travel and package holiday sectors. "We will have 2,000 fewer people, and we are hoping to do it without making redundancies," Peter Rothwell, head of Northern Europe for TUI, told the newspaper. "We are doing this because of increasingly tough competition from the likes of Ryanair and easyJet and the fact that so much more holiday business in the UK is going online.
Emirates launched a seventh weekly flight from Dubai to Casablanca using an A330-200 in a three-class configuration. Separately, Emirates took delivery of a new 777-300ER as part of its $30 billion fleet expansion. The carrier has 30 777-300ERs on firm order and will receive 10 of them by year end. It also has 45 A380s, 20 A340-600HGWs, two A340-500s and three A310-300 freighters on order.
US scheduled passenger airlines employed 456,841 workers in January, 0.8% fewer than in January 2004, according to US Dept. of Transportation statistics. The seven network carriers employed 310,791 workers in January 2005, 4.1% fewer than in the year-ago period. American Airlines with 76,047 employees was tops among the network airlines, with United Airlines and Delta Air Lines rounding out the top three. Low-cost carriers reported 75,110 total employees, 0.7% more than a year earlier, with Southwest Airlines with 31,011 ranking first.
Hamilton Aerospace Technologies, a wholly owned subsidiary of Global Aircraft Solutions, negotiated maintenance contracts with two new customers, debis AirFinance and Air Malawi. GACF will perform fleet integration maintenance and modification on an MD-82 that will be operated by an undisclosed customer of debis AirFinance, which acts as manager of the aircraft. The company also will perform heavy maintenance and fleet integration services on a 737-500 that Air Malawi is adding to its fleet. Combined, GACF said the two contracts represent roughly $1 million in new maintenance work.
BMED, an independent franchise partner of British Airways, has contracted with SD Shepherd Systems for use of its Market Information Data Transfer product, Clarity.
OAG Worldwide launched Inforwarding, an Internet-based service that provides "operational information and rates distribution services to the airline cargo and freight forwarder community."
Midwest Airlines redesigned its inflight dining program, which it now calls Best Care cuisine, and will operate its own dining services center and manage all components of its inflight food and beverage service. The dining services and food preparation kitchen will be located in a remodeled space on the Milwaukee airport grounds and Midwest expects to open a similar operation in Kansas City later this year.
Ameco Beijing Engineering Services started construction on a four-bay hangar and new docking system at Beijing Capital International Airport and has begun to rebuild the existing docking system. The upgraded systems will allow the company to perform heavy checks on widebody aircraft. Total investment in the facilities is more than 10 million yuan ($1.2 million) and construction will be completed in June. Separately, Ameco Beijing said it added capability for PW4000 fan case anti-wear strip repair.
L-3 Communications Security & Detection Systems named VP and CFO William Frain to the position of senior VP following Allen Barber's promotion to president. James Cataldo joined L-3 as CFO. Steven Williams was appointed MD for Europe, Middle East and Africa based in L-3's UK office. Jay Payne was hired as VP-cargo; he previously was with Science Applications International Corp. Robert Fleck was appointed VP-customer service.
Air France and KLM will merge their respective frequent-flier programs into one new program, Flying Blue, in June. Frequence Plus and Flying Dutchman cardholders automatically will become members of the new program and will retain all the miles they have accrued without any drop in value. The new FFP contains four membership levels--Ivory, Silver, Gold and Platinum--and has some 10 million members in a first stage. Together with more than 30 partner airlines, Flying Blue will enable customers to earn miles and use them on 18,000 daily flights to 900 destinations.
The European Commission dropped an antitrust probe against the leading providers of airline insurance in Europe after the firms agreed to reform their practices to ensure more competition and transparency.
FAA finalized its previously announced proposal to extend the voluntary schedule caps at Chicago O'Hare through Oct. 29 and also proposed to extend the rule, which limits arrivals at ORD to 88 per hour between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m. local time, through April 2008, "when additional airport capacity should be realized." Under the proposed rule, FAA will review the restrictions every six months.
