US National Transportation Safety Board said it is investigating a near midair collision Saturday involving a United Airlines 777-200 departing San Francisco and a private aircraft that came within 300 ft. of each other. According to NTSB, the incident occurred at about 11:15 a.m. local time. UA Flight 889 carrying 268 passengers and crew was cleared to take off from Runway 28L and climb to an initial altitude of 3,000 ft. The first officer, who was flying the aircraft, reported that as the jet was at about 1,100 ft. the tower controller reported traffic at his 1 o'clock position.
IATA reported that February international passenger traffic (RPKs) for member airlines surged 9.5% compared to February 2009 on just a 1.9% rise in ASKs, pushing load factor up 5.6 points year-over-year to 75.5%.
News from Travel Technology Update: An Airlines Reporting Corp. executive challenged the Computerized Airlines Sales & Marketing Association to take the lead on "fulfilling the promise" of ancillary revenues and merchandising. The chief executive of a technology company wondered why travel agents aren't "kicking down the doors" of their GDS providers to demand that they enable them to sell airlines' differentiated products. An airline executive bemoaned the legacy technologies that "don't necessarily keep up with our marketing brilliance."
An Airlines Reporting Corp. executive challenged the Computerized Airlines Sales & Marketing Association to take the lead on "fulfilling the promise" of ancillary revenues and merchandising. The chief executive of a technology company wondered why travel agents aren't "kicking down the doors" of their GDS providers to demand that they enable them to sell airlines' differentiated products. An airline executive bemoaned the legacy technologies that "don't necessarily keep up with our marketing brilliance."
Sabre acquires revenue integrity firm Travelocity goes public with opaque hotel listings CASMA wrap: Speakers had a lot to say about ancillary revenues WestJet upgrades Travelport agreement, joins ARC and BSP Canada InnLink develops solution for hotel properties in transition In Focus: TripWare aims to take the complexity out of trip planning. World news briefing
Serbian government is looking at ways to make money-losing flag carrier Jat Airways more attractive to investors, such as assuming debt or funding redundancies, Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic said. The government intends to launch a tender next month in an attempt to revive the airline, Reuters reported. It is hoping to sell a 51% stake. Jat lost €23.5 million ($31.5 million) last year ( ATWOnline, March 23).
Wataniya Airways took delivery of its fifth 122-seat A320 Sunday and will use it launch thrice-weekly Kuwait City-Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen service on May 2. Istanbul will be Wataniya's ninth destination overall and first in Europe. The sixth A320 is scheduled to arrive in June.
US Army Maj. Gen. Robert Harding (ret.) withdrew his candidacy to lead the US Transportation Security Administration Friday, just three weeks after his nomination by President Barack Obama. He follows Los Angeles World Airports security chief Erroll Southers, who took himself out of the running in January. Both faced congressional opposition.
Continental Airlines will lay off a combined 150 ground workers at seven US airports where it operates only regional services, a spokesperson told the Associated Press. Those jobs will be outsourced. Affected airports are Providence, Greensboro, Richmond, Norfolk, Pensacola, St. Louis and Kansas City.
US Airways announced the launch of Aircell's Gogo inflight Internet on five A321s and plans to offer the service onboard all 51 A321s by June 1. A Wi-Fi symbol on the outside of the aircraft will alert passengers that Gogo is available, US said, and beginning in late June passengers will be able to check service availability when booking travel on the carrier's website. The airline will offer passengers who create a user profile one free inflight session March 29-June 1 and will offer the service free June 1-8.
OnAir yesterday announced its intent to terminate its inflight phone service contract with Ryanair following 13 months of a "proving period of service operation" on 50 737s. "The two companies did not reach a mutual agreement on the process and timing leading to the full deployment" onboard Ryanair's fleet of more than 230 aircraft, OnAir said, calling the inability to reach an agreement "disappointing." It did not provide a timeline for termination of the service.
British Airways said yesterday that the second flight attendants' strike, scheduled to run through Tuesday, cost the carrier £11 million ($16.4 million) over the weekend but will have no impact on its full-year earnings. BA estimated that the Unite union's March 20-22 walkout had a £21 million impact on its bottom line ( ATWOnline, March 23).
Assn. of Asia Pacific Airlines' 17 member carriers transported 14.2 million international passengers in February, a 16.9% increase year-over-year. Traffic measured in RPKs rose 14% to 46.8 billion against a 2.4% increase in capacity to 65.87 billion ASKs, lifting load factor 8.1 points to 79.2%. Cargo demand in FTKs grew 29.8% to 4.35 billion while capacity was up 10.2% to 6.35 billion, resulting in a 10.3-point jump in load factor to 68.5%.
ANA blasted Japan Air Lines over plans to use public funds to update its fleet and raised concerns over unfair competition. ANA President Shinichiro Ito told
US Congress on Friday passed a 30-day extension of FAA funding to April 30 and moved toward a Senate-House of Representatives conference that will attempt to reconcile disparate reauthorization bills passed by the two chambers. The Senate passed its version last week
Aer Lingus cabin crew represented by Impact week voted 92% in favor of the airline's cost-savings proposal following discussions at Ireland's Labor Relations Commissions. Impact said it received "deeper clarification into a number of areas," adding that "cabin crew branch committee has said that they are very pleased with the outcome of the ballot." Aer Lingus three weeks ago said its €97 million ($129.2 million) cost-cutting initiative was being held up by its flight attendants, prompting it to announce 230 redundancies
Austrian Airlines received word from the Russian Ministry of Transport Friday that its traffic rights will be extended until July 1. "We are confident that we can finish negotiations with Russian authorities in a positive way and that the summer schedule will be confirmed to its complete period through Oct. 30," an OS spokesperson told
British Airways said it planned to serve more than 75% of those customers booked on flights from Saturday through Tuesday, when flight attendants represented by Unite were scheduled to engage in the second of two strikes protesting imposed crew reductions.
European airlines expressed disappointment that the provisional agreement on a second-stage EU-US open skies accord reached last week did not increase their access to ownership stakes in US airlines in the near term. The agreement stated that upon legislative change in the US of current foreign ownership restrictions in US airlines (no more than 25% of voting rights), the EU in turn will allow majority ownership of EU airlines by US nationals ( ATWOnline, March 26).
Copa Airlines parent Copa Holdings said the secondary offering of 1.8 million Class A nonvoting shares held by Corporacion de Inversiones Aereas resulted in $99.9 million in proceeds, net of underwriting discounts and commissions. Copa did not receive the proceeds.
EU and Turkey initialled a "horizontal" aviation agreement that will remove nationality restrictions in the bilateral air services agreements between EU member states and Turkey. Deal will allow any EU airline to operate flights between Turkey and any EU nation where a bilateral agreement with Turkey exists and traffic rights are available. Turkey is the third-largest external aviation market for EU passenger numbers after the US and Switzerland.
IATA DG and CEO Giovanni Bisignani praised the Latin American airline industry for earning an $800 million profit in 2009 and likely repeating that result this year, but warned that the region's success is too geographically limited and threatened by excessive taxation. Speaking this week at the Wings of Change conference in Santiago, Chile, he said profitability "is a remarkable achievement. . .But the success of the Latin American industry is based on the leadership of a few countries.
Japan Airlines announced yesterday that it will ground its freighter fleet after more than half a century of operations and continue its cargo business "solely" through utilizing belly space on its passenger flights.
