Dubai-based international private jet company Ocean Sky, has said choosing the right local operator for an evacuation flight will be important if civil unrest spreads further across the Middle East.
United Continental Holdings said Friday that United Airlines’ technicians, represented by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, have reached a tentative labor contract.
The merger of LAN Airlines and TAM under LATAM Airlines Group, which had seemingly been headed for a smooth conclusion this year, hit a possible roadblock last week when Chilean antitrust tribunal TDLC announced it would investigate the proposed combination. A Chilean consumer group filed a petition against the merger with TDLC that the carriers had pushed the panel to reject.
IATA warned there will be "a major slowdown" in the Japanese air transport market in the near-term that could impact a number of key markets worldwide. "Japan is an important link in global air transport," IATA DG and CEO Giovanni Bisignani said in a statement Friday. "The $62.5 billion Japanese aviation market represents 6.5% of worldwide scheduled traffic and 10% of the industry's revenues."
IATA warned there will be "a major slowdown" in the Japanese air transport market in the near-term that could impact a number of key markets worldwide.
Thales won a contract from Belaeronavigatsia to supply three radar stations for Grodno, Mogilev and Minsk airports in Belarus. Two sets of co-mounted STAR 2000 primary radars and RSM 970 S secondary radars will be deployed at the GNA and MSQ, Thales said. One additional RSM 970 S secondary radar will be located at MVQ.
MTU Maintenance Hannover was selected by Russian carrier NordStar to maintain its CFM56-7B engines under a five-year contract. It is the German MRO provider's first CFM56 customer from Russia, it said. Turkish Technic has a five-year landing gear maintenance services agreement with SunExpress covering the carrier's Boeing 737-800s.
Southwest Airlines said it will seek assistance from the National Mediation Board as it negotiates with its 185 dispatchers, represented by Transport Workers Union 550.
The Assn. of Flight Attendants-CWA said it won a major arbitration ruling Thursday on behalf of former Midwest Airlines flight attendants who were laid off after Republic Airways purchased the airline and “staffed the same flights with non-Midwest flight attendants, who were often compensated up to 70% less” ( ATW Daily News, Oct. 6, 2009).
US Air Transport Assn. said that passenger revenue rose 13% in February compared to the year-ago period, marking the 14th consecutive month of year-over-year revenue gains. RPMs rose 2.1% while average price per flown mile (yield) climbed 10.8%. The information was based on data from most US majors excluding Southwest Airlines. ATA said that international markets "remained especially strong" as passenger revenue grew 17%, led by a 27% increase in Pacific revenue. Domestic revenue grew 11.5% largely driven by a 10.5% rise in yield.
Barco said Selex Sistemi Integrati selected its arrival and departure manager software for deployment at the new Doha International Airport, scheduled to open in 2012. JDA Software announced Continental Airlines has completed implementation of the JDA Cargo Revenue Optimizer and "related solutions."
Spanish airport operator AENA and unions reached a preliminary agreement to call off 22 days of strike action between April and August ( ATW Daily News, March 9), AENA said on Wednesday. “The agreement was reached after nearly 20 hours of talks,” it noted in a press release, adding that the accord still had to be voted on by workers.
The planned strike by the Indian Commercial Pilots Assn., the union representing 800 Air India pilots who were Indian Airlines pilots prior to the 2007 merger, has been deferred for four weeks as talks begin with the labor commissioner ( ATW Daily News, March 15).
The impact for European airlines and airports owing to the Japanese earthquake, tsunami and crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant should be limited to global GDP, FX rates, fuel prices and a possible shift of capacity away from Japan, according to a research report by Citi Investment Research & Analysis.
Lufthansa's supervisory board on Wednesday approved orders for 35 new aircraft comprising 25 Airbus A320neos, five A321neos and five Boeing 777 freighters.
Air New Zealand warned it will lose money in the second half of the financial year because of high fuel prices and the impact of earthquakes in New Zealand and Japan. It expects full-year earnings to fall below NZ$100 million ($75 million). Japan Airlines is calling on its JAL Mileage Bank members to donate miles to raise funds for relief work in Japan. The airline told members that for every 7,500 miles donated, ¥7,500 ($91.60) will be contributed to help victims of last Friday’s devastating earthquake and support recovery and restoration process.
Momentum in the air transport operational recovery in Tokyo following last week's devastating earthquake and tsunami could be difficult to maintain in the face of growing fears over radiation exposure from unstable nuclear reactors.
Jeppesen HAS introduced design enhancements to its industry-leading commercial airline overlay (CAO) chart library and has added 400 new airport/approach charts to the series for more than 70 global locations to benefit airlines operating worldwide.
EasyJet is the first airline Swiss International Air Lines said it performed its flight operations Munich became the first airport in Germany to receive
Eurocontrol’s Maastricht Upper Area Control Center implemented the first phase of its so-called Free Route Airspace Maastricht program, which aims to put into place a direct route network to reduce flight times, fuel burn, carbon and other emissions and costs in high-density European airspace. The first phase covers 142 new direct routes in the MUAC-controlled airspace, initially only during the least busy hours of the night to ensure maximum safety. From year end they also will be used on weekends.
Air New Zealand began daily ASPIRE (Asia and South Pacific Initiative to Reduce Emissions) flights between Auckland and San Francisco last month, moving the program beyond the demonstration stage. It launched ASPIRE—a JV between US FAA and its counterparts and airlines in Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Singapore to reduce fuel burn--with the first demonstration flight in the fall of 2008.
