Gulf Air entered into a three-year fleet management program with SIA Engineering Co. covering the airline's Airbus fleet including A and C checks, fleet technical management, material management and engineering services, which will be performed at Gulf Air's base in Bahrain as well as in Singapore. According to the airline, the contract has a provision "for SIAEC to work with Gulf Air to insource the MRO services provided by SIAEC," which also will provide training to Gulf Air engineering staff.
US President Barack Obama's administration has not formed a position on the inclusion of US airlines in the EU's emissions trading scheme, State Dept. Deputy Assistant Secretary for Transportation Affairs John Byerly said yesterday at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Aviation Symposium.
Australian government will conduct an inquiry into security at the nation's airports amid allegations that it is well below recommended standards. Federal Home Affairs Minister Bob Debus said the inquiry will be independent of the Australian Federal Police, who are responsible for airport security, and initially will focus on the events surrounding the brutal killing of a man at Sydney Airport on March 22 in what appears to have been part of a feud between two biker gangs.
Airlines experienced their toughest month of the financial crisis yet in February, according to IATA, with passenger traffic dropping 10.1% year-over-year (a sharp fall from the 5.6% decline in January) and cargo demand down 22.1%, the third consecutive month that freight traffic plunged at least 22%.
Virgin Blue grounded five 180-seat 737s and cancelled 28 daily flights from its schedule of 300. The moves affect 400 workers, who will be offered leave without pay, job sharing and shorter hour options. The Australian airline emphasized that it has not withdrawn from any destinations but only consolidated flights. CEO Brett Godfrey said in a statement that the reductions are a prudent interim capacity management plan necessitated by the continued and forecast deterioration in domestic demand.
CAAC said it will disallow competition on 51 new domestic routes that Chinese airlines will add between March 29 and Oct. 24. The regulator said that each one of the new routes will be operated by only one Chinese carrier for three years. Industry analysts noted that the 51 routes are not particularly sought after and airlines would be reluctant to operate flights on them absent the protection against competition.
Lufthansa Systems said it will provide a package of aeronautical IT solutions to Meridiana under a five-year contract that also covers Eurofly. Solutions include Lido RouteManual navigation charts, the Lido FMS navigational database and the Lido OC flight planning solution.
ILFC said in a US Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it needs to find secured financing to continue meeting its obligations through the spring. The lessor is hampered by its parent company, American International Group, which was bailed out by the US government last year and had its credit rating downgraded. ILFC's access to credit has been curtailed and it now needs more money from AIG via the US government or funds from an outside lender.
Mesa Air Group, which ended its codeshare agreement with Mokulele Airlines earlier this week, forged a new agreement with another Hawaiian carrier, Island Air. Mesa subsidiary go! yesterday began marketing services by Island Air, which operates a fleet of 37-seat Dash 8s between Honolulu and Molokai, Lanai, Maui (Kapalua and Kahului), Kauai (Lihue) and the "Big Island" of Hawaii (Kona and Hilo).
CAAC put an A320 full flight simulator into service at its Hua-Ou Aviation Training Center, the facility's third FFS. The Thales simulator will increase Hua-Ou's training capacity by more than 25%, it said.
B/E Aerospace received an FAA STC for installation of its Overhead Flight Crew Rest on British Airways' 777-200ERs, replacing the B/E Aerospace Overhead Attendants Rest. The OFCR order is valued at $15 million.
US National Transportation Safety Board said yesterday that preliminary findings of its investigation into the Feb. 12 Colgan Air Q400 crash outside Buffalo reveal no pre-impact system failures or anomalies. The flight data recorder shows that the stall warning and protection system activated at an airspeed and angle of attack consistent with that expected for normal operations when the deice protection system is activated, the board said.
US Airways Chairman and CEO Doug Parker, responding yesterday to reports that his counterpart at Continental Airlines, Larry Kellner, did not oppose re-regulation of commercial airlines ( ATWOnline, March 24), said, "In general, [re-regulation] is exactly the wrong direction." Parker said one of the industry's major problems is that it has not been truly deregulated. "We've spent 31 years trying to get deregulated."
US Regional airlines enjoyed robust growth and financial returns over the past several years when mainline partners reduced capacity and outsourced flying, but those days may be coming to an end, Delta Connection Senior VP Don Bornhorst told ATWOnline. "In the old days, capacity pulldowns meant more flying for the regionals," he said, but prospects for regional airline growth are limited this year as capacity cutbacks by mainline carriers likely will be "mirrored" by their regional partners.
UK Secretary for Transport Geoff Hoon said the government would be "completely at ease" if the merged British Airways and Iberia chose to locate their headquarters in Spain, The Times reported ( ATWOnline, Feb. 3).
Eurocontrol said the number of flights in Europe this year will decrease 8.1%-1.4% from 2008, with a "most likely case" of 4.9%, and demand is not expected to recover this year. It said drops will occur across all sectors of the industry, including low-cost airlines, which operated 5% fewer flights last month than in February 2008.
IATA yesterday revised downward its 2009 forecast, projecting a global airline industry loss of $4.7 billion for the year, a near-doubling of the $2.5 billion loss it forecast in December. Collective revenue is expected to decrease 12% year-over-year to $467 billion. "The state of the airline industry today is grim," DG and CEO Giovanni Bisignani said. "Demand has deteriorated much more rapidly with the economic slowdown than could have been anticipated even a few months ago."
Alaska Airlines flew 1.27 billion RPMs in February, down 10.2% year-over-year. Capacity dropped 10.5% to 1.73 billion ASMs, lifting load factor 0.2 point to 73.5%. Allegiant Air flew 351.2 million RPMs in February, a 6.3% increase over the year-ago month. Capacity rose 1.9% to 401.6 million ASMs and load factor climbed 3.5 points to 87.4%. Copa Airlines flew 485.6 million RPMs in February, up 9.9% from the year-ago month. Capacity rose 15.7% to 627.2 million ASMs and load factor fell 4.1 points to 77.4%.
SR Technics and Air India announced that their existing maintenance contract covering Air India Express's CFM56-7B engines will expand to include CFM56-5Bs on AI's fleet of 27 A320 family aircraft (planned to increase to 43 by 2010). Extended contract will expire in May 2010 and contains an extension clause for an additional two years. Services will be performed at SR Technics' engine services center in Zurich.
Greek government signed an agreement to sell Olympic Airlines' flight, maintenance and ground handling divisions to Marfin Investment Group, which should take over the carrier in October if the deal is approved by the country's parliament ( ATWOnline, March 11). It is worth a reported €177.2 million ($241.5 million). The new OA will employ some 4,000 workers, about half the current total.
Bombardier Aerospace announced the addition of Alenia Aeronautica, Fokker Elmo and Goodrich Actuation Systems to its team of CSeries suppliers. Alenia will provide horizontal and vertical stabilizers, Fokker will be responsible for the design and production of the wiring and interconnection system and Goodrich will handle design and production of the flap and slat actuation systems.
