Hawaiian Airlines will start charging $10 for the first checked bag on inter-island flights beginning Sept. 14. "Our costs continue to rise and fares have simply not kept pace. We've held the line on this fee as long as possible, but have to remain competitive," Senior VP-Marketing and Sales Glenn Taniguchi said. Premium loyalty program members, business class passengers and those traveling on international tickets including points in Hawaii are exempt.
Finavia, Finland's state-owned air navigation services provider and airports operator, said its board approved discounts on airport, air navigation and security charges for commercial air traffic. The discounts, effective Sept. 1 for the remainder of 2009, will be "approximately 10%." Discounts for 2010 and 2011 will be decided upon later. According to a statement, "the purpose of the discount policy is to improve the operating preconditions of air traffic, especially domestic traffic, which is currently facing challenging times."
Southwest Airlines received a reprieve from US FAA yesterday and now has until Dec. 24 to replace the unapproved parts on approximately 39 remaining 737-300s/-500s as both the regulator and Boeing said the exhaust gate assembly hinge fittings "would not prevent safe operation of the airplanes."
Sensis announced that Newark International and Boston Logan International now are operating with its Airport Surface Detection Equipment Model X. The runway incursion detection and alerting system is operational at 19 US airports. FAA plans to deploy ASDE-X at 35 airports by 2011.
IATA said 54 airlines that have reported second-quarter financial results have lost a combined $2.02 billion, a figure signifying a "further deterioration" the organization said is troubling considering that carriers "usually make 50% of their profits in this seasonally strong quarter."
Avianova, a new Russian LCC, launched operations from Moscow Vnukovo with two A320s serving Sochi, Krasnodar, Rostov-on-Don and Samara. RIA Novosti said the airline's fares start at RUB250 ($7.88) excluding taxes and fees. Avianova Director Vladimir Gorbunov said the carrier hopes to add two aircraft in time for the winter schedule, The Moscow Times reported. The current aircraft are on lease from ILFC for five years each. Avianova's main shareholders are Alfa Group and Indigo Partners.
Etihad Airways introduced its new first class suite on an A340-600 operating between Abu Dhabi and London Heathrow. Suite includes an 80.5-in. lie-flat leather seat, a 23-in. LCD screen, a wooden table and a changing room with full-length mirror, sink and a fold-down seat. A second -600 equipped with the suite will enter the fleet next month. Five A330-300s will be delivered with the suites over the next two years, starting in December. Nine A340s will be retrofitted by December 2010.
American Airlines will furlough 228 flight attendants on Oct. 1 and place an additional 693 on leave. The Assn. of Professional Flight Attendants said the carrier originally had planned to cut 1,200 positions in response to previously announced capacity reductions but that the union and management worked to minimize the final number. As a result, 244 employees will go on leave in October and November and an additional 449 will be asked to take voluntary leave. Of the furloughs, 105 will come at New York LaGuardia and 65 at Chicago O'Hare, with the remainder at Boston, St.
Etihad Airways has said it will open a new premium lounge at London Heathrow airport as part of the airline's flights moving from Terminal Three to Terminal Four on 30 September 2009.
The union said that neither airlines nor regulators in the US and Canada have "kept pace" in terms of pilot qualification requirements and training oversight. "Today's archaic regulations allow airlines to hire low-experience pilots into the right seat of high-speed, complex, swept-wing jet aircraft in what amounts to on-the-job training with paying passengers on board," ALPA said. "Investigations of recent accidents reveal that safety margins have been eroded at some carriers as a result. A complete overhaul of pilot selection and training methods is needed."
US travelers are more environmentally aware than they were just two years ago but few are willing to pay extra for eco-friendly travel, according to the July "travelhorizons," a quarterly consumer survey co-authored by the US Travel Assn. and Ypartnership, an advertising and public relations agency.
Considering the precipitous drop in revenue and yields and the fact that general anxiety about the weak economy was exacerbated by the swine flu scare, US passenger airlines' second-quarter financial results could have been far worse than they were. Even with key indicators decidedly not in their favor, six of the nine largest airlines earned a net profit during the three-month period and seven of nine were profitable on an operating basis.
A UK government-commissioned report questions the green credentials of high-speed rail by claiming that the proposed new 300-kph (185 mph) London-Manchester train could be less environmentally friendly than the same air route. According to the Daily Telegraph, the study by consultants Booz Allen Hamilton argues that building and operating the rail network will generate more CO2 than taking the same route by air over a 60-year period.
Rentech announced that it has signed a multiyear agreement to supply eight airlines with up to 1.5 million gal. per year of renewable biodiesel--RenDiesel--for ground service equipment operations at Los Angeles International beginning in late 2012 when the plant that will produce the fuel is scheduled to go into service.
American Airlines emitted 29.1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents in 2008, down 5% compared to the previous year. Fleet downsizing and schedule reductions played a large role, but the carrier also is encouraging workers to find ways to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. Its Fuel Smart fuel conservation program saved 111 million gal. of fuel and 2.3 billion lb. of carbon dioxide last year. Since 2002 AA has reduced its CO2 footprint by 20% and has set an objective of a further 30% reduction by 2025 from 2002.
Biofuels have gotten a major boost from the US Navy's announcement that it will test them in high-performance fighter aircraft. It has asked for 40,000 gal. of JP-5 jet fuel derived from bio-based feedstocks as long as they are not derived from crops used for human consumption.
"Despite the progress made on modelling aviation's impacts on tropospheric chemistry, there remains a significant spread in model results, and while much progress has been made in the last ten years on characterizing emissions, major uncertainties remain over the nature of particles." This is the key finding of a new report, "Transport impacts on atmosphere and climate: Aviation," published in Atmospheric Environment.
American Airlines' decision to work with HP to build a new passenger services system dubbed a "bold move" by Monte Ford, the carrier's chief information officer took many observers by surprise.
Confusion reigned as the Aug. 31 deadline for aircraft operators to submit their tonne-km. plans for the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme came and went amid growing concerns that operators could lose their free allowance allocations.
For the last few years, airlines and other travel companies have tried to figure out what to do about social media. Since the advent of TripAdvisor in 2000, suppliers at one industry conference after another were warned that they should not ignore the phenomenon. "It's out there," speakers would say. "You can't ignore it." But suggestions about the appropriate response were uniformly vague.
FOR AIRCRAFT SPOTTERS, WHO REVEL IN variety, Kuala Lumpur International is becoming positively boring, with 44% of the flights being AirAsia A320s as the airline becomes the largest user of the airport. That statistic is more extraordinary given that just 7.5 years ago it had two aircraft and six routes and founder and CEO Tony Fernandes rarely if ever received an audience with regulators and politicians, let alone a cup of coffee from a banker. Now the red carpet is unrolled wherever he goes as airports build new terminals to accommodate AirAsia's expansion.
SkyEurope Airlines suspended operations yesterday, hours after airport operators in Prague and Bratislava said they would stop handling the LCC's flights beginning today because it is behind on payments. Vienna halted the LCC's flights in mid-August and SkyEurope had been shuttling VIE passengers to/from Bratislava ( ATWOnline, Aug. 24).
