Air Canada announced tentative agreements on its 21-month pension funding moratorium with some 3,200 pilots represented by the Air Canada Pilots Assn. and approximately 6,700 flight attendants represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees, giving the airline the consent of all five Canadian unions and allowing it to move forward with its effort to seek new funding ( ATWOnline, June 10).
Iberia flew 4.02 billion RPKs in May, an 11.4% drop from the year-ago month. Capacity fell 9.6% to 5.15 billion ASKs, lowering load factor 1.6 points to 78%. SkyWest Airlines and Atlantic Southeast Airlines flew 1.47 billion RPMs in May, down 1.2% year-over-year. Capacity fell 2.8% to 1.83 billion ASMs and load factor rose 1.2 points to 80.1%. Hawaiian Airlines flew 682.6 million RPMs in May, down 2% year-over-year. Capacity rose 0.9% to 819.5 million ASMs and load factor dropped 2.4 points to 83.3%.
US Airways is offering voluntary furloughs to 400 flight attendants. VP-Inflight Services Hector Adler said in a message to employees last week that the airline has "waited as long as we could to address our overstaffing situation hoping that attrition and other voluntary leave options would offset the need for today's action," according to the Associated Press. US is asking 300 cabin staff based in Phoenix or Las Vegas to take voluntary leave from Aug. 5 to Nov. 30, 2009, or Nov. 30, 2010, according to Assn.
American Airlines promoted MD-Airline Profitability and Financial Analysis Kenji Hashimoto to VP-strategic alliances and MD-International Planning Don Casey to VP-revenue management. Republic Airways Holdings promoted Finance Director Joe Allman to VP and controller.
Gulfstream International Airlines yesterday released its response to US FAA's proposed $1.3 million civil penalty for improper scheduling and the installation of an unapproved component on its 1900Ds, admitting several schedule and recordkeeping errors but challenging the fine and citing "differences in interpretation" and its 20-plus years of accident-free operations in its defense.
Alaska Air Group board last week authorized a stock repurchase program worth up to $50 million. The company repurchased "nearly" $112 million of its common stock in 2007 and 2008.
Jet Airways said it will expand its Jet Airways Konnect all-economy service from today owing to "strong customer demand." It increased the domestic program by 30 daily flights over the weekend and will operate more than 100 as of today. The Konnect fleet comprises seven 737-800s and 10 ATR 72-500s ( ATWOnline, May 8).
China Eastern Airlines and Shanghai Airlines have agreed on several major issues regarding their pending merger and expect to reveal further details within three weeks, CEA Chairman Liu Shaoyong said. Discussions began last Thursday when the airlines agreed to maintain the SAL brand and that no employees would be cut. Liu noted at a shareholders conference over the weekend that "the specific merger plan will have to be approved by the boards of CEA and SAL and the relevant government organs first before it can be made public."
Air India, which lost an estimated $800 million in the fiscal year ended March 31, will delay around $70 million in salary payments to its 31,500 employees for two weeks until July 15, several officials confirmed in news reports from India. Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel said the government is considering a bailout "very actively" and that the carrier's health is the state's "responsibility," according to the Press Trust of India.
European Commission's SESAR Joint Undertaking Friday signed contracts totaling €1.9 billion ($2.7 billion) related to the development of a future "Single Sky" air traffic management system in the EU. The Joint Undertaking is a public-private research and development venture overseen by Eurocontrol ( ATWOnline, Dec. 10, 2008).
Travelport GDS said it introduced "a travel industry merchandising first and technology leap forward for Air Canada" with the full market launch of Travelport Agencia, a travel booking solution that delivers access to the complete portfolio of Air Canada's ala carte product "in a seamless manner" to users of Travelport's Apollo GDS.
Sensis Corp.'s runway status lights were installed last week at Los Angeles International, which became the third US airport to add the safety technology. RWSL is a system of red lights embedded in runways that are triggered automatically by ASDE-X, warning pilots that it is unsafe to cross or enter a runway. Los Angeles World Airports paid $7 million for the system, which US FAA installed and will maintain.
Continental Airlines Chairman and CEO Larry Kellner said the carrier will enter Star Alliance "hours or days" after it exits SkyTeam on Oct. 24. "The difference for us between SkyTeam and Star is that we and Delta have a lot of overlap. . .whereas within Star there's a lot of open area," he said at last week's Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Transportation Conference.
Virgin America reported a first-quarter net loss of $40.3 million, narrowed from a net deficit of $52 million in the year-ago period, and the nearly two-year-old carrier said it is poised to continue growing steadily.
South African Airways CEO Chris Smyth told ATWOnline at last week's IATA annual general meeting in Kuala Lumpur that he expects the airline to post an operating profit for its fiscal year started April 1 and that the carrier's two-year restructuring is largely complete.
GE Capital Aviation Services announced the promotion of Norman Liu, 51, to president and CEO. Liu will take over executive management of the business from Henry Hubschman, 61, who will take on the new role of chairman of GECAS. Changes are effective July 1. Liu is a 22-year veteran of GE Capital including 14 years at GECAS, where he most recently served as executive VP-commercial operations. Hubschman joined GECAS in 1997 and oversaw the growth of assets from $10 billion to more than $46 billion during his tenure.
Boeing yesterday said that commercial aviation is "cyclic and has a long history of declines and upturns" as it revised downward its 20-year forecast only slightly to a market demand of 29,000 new passenger and freighter aircraft worth $3.2 trillion.
Air France KLM flew 16.41 billion RPKs in May, down 8.1% from the year-ago month. Capacity fell 5.7% to 21.24 billion ASKs, lowering load factor 2 points to 77.3%. Finnair flew 1.34 billion RPKs in May, down 11% year-over-year, against a 16.3% decline in capacity to 1.94 billion ASKs. Load factor rose 4.2 points to 69.1%. Copa Airlines flew 445.6 million RPMs in May, a 2.3% drop year-over-year. Capacity rose 18.4% to 686.9 million ASMs and load factor plunged 13.8 points to 64.9%.
United Airlines reassured investors that the RFP it submitted to Boeing and Airbus is for "fleet renewal" and not growth and expressed confidence it will be able to finance any order it places. The carrier's credit facility rating was downgraded earlier this week by Fitch Ratings, which cautioned that UA faces "a deepening liquidity crisis" and questioned its ability to finance a large long-haul aircraft order ( ATWOnline, June 11)
Air Nostrum intends to lay off up to 507 employees, representing some 23% of its workforce, according to a statement cited by Reuters. "The measure we are implementing is part of a viability plan required to guarantee the company's future, which also includes cost savings and cost cuts," the Spanish carrier said.
Cathay Pacific Airways Chairman Christopher Pratt said this week that "demand and yields seem to have stopped falling" but that rising oil prices are contributing to what "continues to be a very nasty situation" for the airline, which lost HK$8.56 billion ($1.1 billion) in 2008 ( ATWOnline, March 12) and suffered a 22.4% drop in first-quarter revenue.
