Japan Airlines is not commenting on reports in the Japanese media that it will seek ¥250 billion ($2.78 billion) in debt forgiveness from its creditors and increase its planned job cuts to 9,000.
ITA Software said yesterday that Air Canada will deploy its "pricing, shopping and Web front end modules across multiple online channels, including the airline's consumer website and travel agency website," with implementation scheduled for next summer.
The US airline industry generally welcomed the results of last week's ICAO High Level Meeting on Climate Change but appeared to be taking a guarded approach to the organization's call for a 2% annual improvement in fuel efficiency through 2020, in line with previous comments from IATA and the Civil Air Navigation Services Organization.
Datalex reached agreement with Midwest Airlines to provide its Travel Distribution Platform, which will allow customers to shop and reserve both Frontier Airlines and Midwest flights in support of codeshare agreements. Frontier and Midwest were acquired by Republic Airways Holdings this year.
AirBaltic named Vigo Legzdins its new chairman. Legzdins is also chairman of Latvian Roadworks and was previously state secretary of the Ministry of Transportation and head of its Investment and Transit Policy Dept. Nordic Aviation Capital, the turboprop lessor, named Jim Murphy chief commercial officer.
IATA DG and CEO Giovanni Bisignani met yesterday with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon at UN headquarters in New York, briefing him on aviation industry emissions goals that were presented at last week's ICAO High Level Meeting on Climate Change ( ATWOnline, Oct. 12). "I assured the Secretary General that the aviation industry is serious about its climate change responsibility," Bissignani said in a statement.
Assn. of European Airlines blasted Polish air navigation service provider PANSA's decision to raise its fees next year by 32% for flights across Polish airspace and by 62% for operations into and out of Polish airports. PANSA said it needs to increase fees to compensate for the loss in traffic due to the economic downturn. Polish airspace covers an area of more than 300 sq. km. and occupies a key position, straddling both north-south and east-west traffic flows.
Abu Dhabi Aircraft Technologies, a Mubadala Development Co. subsidiary, signed an agreement with Airbus to become a member of the manufacturer's worldwide MRO network.
The Civil Air Navigation Services Organization yesterday welcomed the achievements of last week's ICAO High Level Meeting on International Aviation and Climate Change but expressed disappointment that it "did not recommend any actions for [member states] to undertake themselves to assist the aviation industry in meeting its environmental goals."
ExpressJet Holdings reported that September traffic in its Continental Express scheduled service operation rose 19% to 617 million RPMs on an 11% lift in capacity to 808 million ASMs. Load factor was up 5.5 points to 76.3%.
Lufthansa announced yesterday that it will re-launch onboard Internet service next year in conjunction with Panasonic Avionics following a nearly four-year hiatus sparked by Connexion by Boeing's 2006 failure.
Transaero Airlines took delivery of its third Tu-214. The aircraft is part of a contract between Transaero and Financial Leasing Co. for 10 of the type signed in 2005. While it has delayed the delivery schedule for the aircraft, the carrier remains "strongly committed to this contract," CEO Olga Pleshakova said. "We never had any complaints about the reliability of these aircraft."
Approval of the first alternative fuel specification for aviation jet fuel in 20 years has set the stage for approval of sustainable aviation biofuel blends by the end of 2010, according to FAA Aviation Fuels Specialist Mark Rumizen.
United Airlines Chairman and CEO Glenn Tilton, in his role as chairman of the US Air Transport Assn., called for large-scale US government loans, loan guarantees and grants to jumpstart development and mass production of alternative fuels, including biofuels for the airline industry. Speaking to the Commercial Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiative in Washington on Sept. 30, Tilton said the US government "has a critical role to play" in making biofuels commercially viable. "We need sustained funding and commitment from government and private investment sources. .
Emirates Airlines President Tim Clark slammed governments for using aviation as a cash cow under the guise of an environmental tax. Speaking with Eco-Aviation Today, he claimed that the EU has followed the UK's lead by directing that ETS revenue should go to the general treasury, "which destroys the credibility of the environmental movement at a government level. Why aren't the funds going to engine makers to help fund better engines? Why isn't it going to renewable power sources?"
UK Transport Secretary Andrew Adonis defended his decision to allow a third runway to be built at London Heathrow against a challenge from the Committee on Climate Change (see item below) in a speech to the UK Aviation Club last month.
US Senate's proposed cap-and-trade climate change legislation, introduced at the end of September by Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and John Kerry (D.-Mass.), contains more aggressive emissions reduction targets but covers aviation emissions in the same way as the House-passed version of the bill ( ATWOnline, June 30), according to Air Transport Assn. VP-Environmental Affairs Nancy Young.
Air New Zealand is achieving an approximate 1.6% better fuel burn from its blended winglet program on its 767-300ERs than guaranteed, according to GM-Operations and Chief Pilot Dave Morgan. In a briefing in Auckland, Morgan told Eco-Aviation Today that Aviation Partners Boeing had guaranteed a 3.8% improvement and that ANZ expected to get 4.5% but is actually achieving 5.3%. "The 3.4-m.-high kinked tips will save us 1.3 million liters of fuel on each 767 and 16,000 tonnes of CO2 annually," he said.
ICAO concluded its High Level Meeting on International Aviation and Climate Change Friday with a reaffirmation that the organization is the preferred channel to address aviation's impact on the environment ahead of the upcoming UN Copenhagen Climate Summit in December. But it stopped short of adopting all of the recommendations contained in a working paper submitted by IATA, Airports Council International, Civil Air Navigation Services Organization and the International Coordinating Council of Aerospace Industries Assns.
In one of the hardest-hitting speeches in recent times, Air New Zealand CEO Rob Fyfe lashed out at the "inconvenient truth" that the world's leaders, regulators and airlines are continuing to "invest enormous resources the world over in debating climate change regulatory frameworks and yet failing to take even the most basic steps to actually reduce emissions."
EC VP-Transport Antonio Tajani said Friday that the EU is seeking to end the ban on passengers carrying liquids and gels using a phased approach that will employ security technology. "There is a will to remove this discomfort," he told reporters. "We want to put out a clear signal [the ban]. . .should come to an end one day. I hope 2014 might be the end of the transition period." The EC is considering requiring major EU airports to install technology that could screen liquids to detect explosive material by April 2012
ICAO concluded its High Level Meeting on International Aviation and Climate Change Friday with a reaffirmation that the organization is the preferred channel to address aviation's impact on the environment ahead of the upcoming UN Copenhagen Climate Summit in December.
EU and Georgia held a first round of negotiations on a Common Aviation Area agreement in Tbilisi last week. The discussions are part of the EU's strategy to create a wider Common Aviation Area including non-EU nations. It has concluded such agreements with western Balkan countries and Morocco and currently is holding similar negotiations with the Ukraine, Jordan and Israel. An EU-Georgia accord would mutually open the respective markets and integrate Georgia into European aviation structures.
