General Electric said it signed a definitive agreement to purchase Teleflex Inc.'s 51% share of Airfoil Technologies International-Singapore for $300 million in cash. GE and Teleflex are partners in the Singapore-based compressor airfoil overhaul facility. According to GE, ATI-Singapore started operations in 1998 servicing CF6 and CFM56 components "but has expanded to service all GE commercial aviation, marine and industrial engines, as well as Pratt & Whitney and Honeywell components." Its 535 employees repair more than 2 million compressor airfoils annually.
Thomson Airways, the new name of the merged Thomsonfly and First Choice Airways ( ATWOnline, June 17, 2008), and the British Airline Pilots Assn. reached an agreement in advance of the May combination that will see 11 aircraft removed from the fleet. None of the 96 surplus pilots will be laid off. All Thomson pilots will take pay cuts of up to 5%, receive extra days off and be eligible for voluntary redundancy.
SITA and Swissport announced deployment of the world's first common-use bag-drop solution at Zurich, allowing passengers from multiple airlines to use the same queue. Eleven Star Alliance carriers will use 10 common-use counters at the airport, where the departure control system will employ SITA's PassengerBagdrop software. Star Manager-Product and Services Anita Elste said the common-use bag drops have helped reduce processing time to under 30 sec. per passenger.
DAE Capital, the aircraft leasing arm of Dubai Aerospace Enterprise, signed an operating lease agreement with Garuda Indonesia for eight 737-800s. The deal is a sale-and-leaseback transaction covering aircraft scheduled to begin delivery in June. The eight -800s covered in the contract are the first of 50 737NGs (25 firm plus 25 options) that Garuda ordered at last year's Singapore Air Show ( ATWOnline, Feb. 20, 2008).
BOC Aviation finalized a sale-and-leaseback deal with Virgin Blue for one 737-800 delivered late last year and -800s scheduled for delivery in the 2009 fourth quarter. Aircraft will be leased for an average of 10 years each. BOCA has a portfolio of 104 aircraft and has 70 more on firm order for delivery through 2013.
Turkish Airlines confirmed Friday that the nine people killed in last week's 737-800 accident in Amsterdam comprised three pilots (including one trainee), one flight attendant and five passengers ( ATWOnline, Feb. 27). THY said it will pay €50,000 ($63,720) to the families of each of the deceased and €5,000-€10,000 to those being treated in hospitals.
Lufthansa announced the submission of its public takeover offer to all shareholders of Austrian Airlines Group for €4.49 ($5.72) per share. Acceptance period runs from today through May 11. LH said the offered share price is approximately 30% higher than the Feb. 26 closing price. LH already has agreed to acquire Austrian state holding company OIAG's 41.56% share in AAG for €366,000 plus an earn-out option that could reach €164 million depending on Austrian's future performance.
Ryanair is considering charging passengers £1 ($1.43) to use onboard lavatories, CEO Michael O'Leary told the BBC. "One thing we have looked at in the past and are looking at again is the possibility of maybe putting a coin slot on the toilet door so that people might actually have to spend a pound to spend a penny in future," O'Leary said. A UK CAA spokesperson told The Times that "there is no legal requirement for an aircraft to have a toilet onboard, so if an airline does have a toilet they can charge to use it. Ryanair is legally able to do this."
Aeroflot transported 635,900 passengers in January, up 0.3% from the year-ago month. Traffic climbed 2.6% to 1.97 billion RPKs and load factor slipped 1.4 points to 62.5%.
Virgin America's poor financial showing has led to speculation that the San Francisco-based startup may be in jeopardy of losing the support of its US-based investors. Founded by impresario Richard Branson and designed to capitalize on the success of the Virgin brand, the airline is majority owned and operated by US investment groups Black Canyon Capital of Los Angeles and Cyrus Capital Partners of New York. Branson maintains a 25% share ( ATW, August 2008).
HUNCHED OVER DRAWING BOARDS OR toiling with frames, foam and fabric on workroom floors, designers and manufacturers of cabin seating have a steady stream of work from airlines engaged in that never-ending quest to gain a competitive edge and win the loyalty of coveted premium passengers. Their designs must be innovative as well as functional, while materials must be lightweight, durable and meet stringent certification requirements. Even when times are tough, as they are today, the business remains stable.
VIRGIN ATLANTIC AIRWAYS STILL LIKES a bit of flash. Names like James Bond, the pinup girl motif adorning the nose of each aircraft and expressions like "red hot" are part of the makeup of the carrier, which turns 25 this June. But while Virgin has remained true to the fundamentals that marked its launch--foremost among them an exclusively long-haul point-to-point network--its 25th birthday could prove to be a turning point.
Air Transport Assn. President and CEO James May, commenting on the NationalJournal.com Expert Blog site, stated that "an emissions trading program simply does not make sense for US aviation. Such a program would siphon away the very funds that the airlines need to continue to invest in new aircraft and other advances that are central to our strong environmental record. Instead of working against our efforts through punitive economic regulation, Congress should work in support of them."
Travelport GDS will "temporarily" indemnify travel agents from new surcharges that Air France/KLM intends to impose for bookings made through the Galileo and Worldspan systems. The carrier has said that it will assess a €4.50 surcharge for bookings made through the systems by travel agents in France beginning June 1 and in the Netherlands beginning in mid-July.
Virgin Group Chairman Richard Branson urged all governments to put maximum effort and spare pennies into alternative energy and saving energy. The key from "a global warming point of view is that the demand for dirty fuel will exceed supply in four to five years time," he told Eco-Aviation Today. Speaking during the recent delivery of V Australia's first 777-300ER, he warned that the reality going forward is not good.
After wrangling with the U.S. Department of Transportation, the carrier last week reinstated a "Passenger Usage Fee" of $4.90 each way. Spirit began charging the fee last summer, along with a $2.50 "natural occurrence interruption fee" and an $8.50 "international service recovery fee." A natural occurrence is more commonly known as "weather." The recovery fee aimed to offset the costs of doing business with international destinations.
IATA DG and CEO Giovanni Bisignani, speaking at the Wings Club in New York last month, reminded governments that the air transport industry needs their leadership to help airlines reduce emissions. "Governments need to stimulate the economy with green investments like biofuel research or with tax breaks for new fuel-efficient aircraft purchases," he said. He also called for a "global approach to climate change."
UK-based Origo Industries is working with Liverpool's John Lennon Airport to trial a program in which its Ecobox system will be used to capture CO2 emissions from within the terminal building and recycle them through a "photo-bioreactor" to create an algae-based biofuel to power the airport's ground vehicles and potentially generate electricity.
The EU emissions trading scheme entered into force on Feb. 2, requiring all airlines landing or taking off in EU member states to pay for their carbon dioxide usage through CO2 allowances or carbon credits beginning in 2012. While member states have 12 months to draft the directive into national law, carriers need to lodge a plan that outlines the methodology of fuel burn versus payload data by the end of August.
American Airlines joined the Climate Leaders program of the US Environmental Protection Agency, becoming the first major passenger carrier to enter the program.
With all the rhetoric about transforming ATC, equipping aircraft with ADS-B technology and reaching long-term goals (FAA says "a large percentage" of NextGen's benefits will be available in 2018 and the system should be fully in place by 2025), what sometimes gets lost is the main purpose for moving to a more modern system: Reducing day-to-day flight delays and cancellations. Some observers are worried that the agency is so focused on long-term NextGen planning that it is paying too little attention to measures it could take in the near term to improve system efficiency.
Air France KLM, British Airways, Cathay Pacific Airways, Virgin Atlantic Airways and UK airports operator BAA last month announced the formation of the Aviation Global Deal Group, which expressed its support for inclusion of CO2 emissions in a "new global climate deal" scheduled to be discussed at December's UN climate summit in Copenhagen.
The good times didn't last long. Following the comeback of 2007--a year in which the US's 10 largest airlines all were in the black after years of bankruptcies and red ink--2008 proved to be among the most humbling ever for the world's largest air transport market. Carriers were hit hard by soaring fuel costs in the first half, and then hit hard again when oil prices plummeted in the second half of the year to well below airlines' hedging positions. Heavy noncash goodwill impairment charges also weighed down bottom lines.
US Dept. of Transportation said its proposed FY10 budget includes $800 million for the Next Generation Air Transportation System and a $55 million increase in subsidies for air service to small communities.
