US Dept. of Transportation said the 19 reporting carriers cancelled 1.6% of their scheduled domestic flights in August, improved from 1.9% in the year-ago month and 1.7% in July. Comair (4.6%), ExpressJet Airlines (3.3%) and JetBlue Airways (3.2%) had the highest cancellation rates while Frontier Airlines (0.3%), Northwest Airlines (0.5%) and Southwest Airlines (0.6%) reported the lowest. Airlines posted an ontime arrival rate of 78.4%, up from 71.7% in the year-ago month and 75.7% in July.
Dalavia Far East Airways, based at Khabarovsk, had its traffic rights suspended by the Russian government due to rising debts, Itar-Tass reported. Aeroflot and Vladivostok Air have been transporting Dalavia passengers. The news service reported that Dalavia's debt to Khabarovsk Novy Airport exceeded RUB240 million ($9.2 million) last month and bank accounts were frozen in order to allow the airport to collect its money.
US Dept. of Transportation's Office of Inspector General said in a report released last week that FAA needs to upgrade its safety oversight to account for the growing amount of aircraft maintenance work outsourced to foreign countries by US airlines. According to the report, the nine largest US passenger carriers sent 71% of their heavy airframe checks to outside repair stations last year, up from only 34% in 2003.
JetBlue Airways flew 1.75 billion RPMs in September, down 4.8% year-over-year. Capacity fell 11.5% to 2.28 billion ASMs, lifting load factor 5.3 points to 76.7%. EasyJet transported 4.2 million passengers in September, up 22.1% year-over-year. Load factor rose 1.8 points to 86.9%.
Frontier Airlines reached an agreement with the Transport Workers Union, which represents its dispatchers, for wage and benefit concessions through September 2012. Deal is subject to TWU membership and bankruptcy court approval. Frontier is negotiating similar agreements with the Frontier Airline Pilots Assn. and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
Caja Madrid, Iberia's largest shareholder, said yesterday that British Airways shareholders likely will receive approximately 60% of a merged company while IB shareholders take the remainder, Reuters reported. CM Chairman Miguel Blesa told reporters that he expected the new board to have a similar composition.
Facing a projected $250 million drop in revenue this year, Mesa Air Group is finding it impossible to "support the same level of overhead" and is reducing staff across the board, Chairman Jonathan Ornstein told ATWOnline yesterday. "The company will be smaller this year and we needed to right-size the workforce to the new level of reductions," Ornstein said. "Reductions were made throughout the company at all levels. It was a very difficult process for everyone, me in particular." He did not disclose further details.
Chinese carriers should get some relief in the fourth quarter as the Chinese government decided to cut the price of fuel by CNY570 ($82.37) per ton owing to the recent drop in international oil prices. The reduction took effect Oct. 1. It marks the fifth time that Beijing has adjusted the domestic fuel price. It introduced a CNY210 per ton increase in the first quarter, a CNY80 drop in the second quarter, a CNY1,500 hike on June 20 and a CNY720 addition on July 8.
Thai Airways said last week that its third-quarter loss would narrow from the THB9.25 billion ($269.7 million) deficit reported in the second quarter, executive VP Pandit Chanapai said, according to Reuters. He cited declining costs as the reason for the improvement. Load factor is expected to be around 70%. For the full year, Pandit said revenue will fall from the THB174 billion reported in 2007.
Emirates SkyCargo announced development of its White Cover application for shipment of temperature-sensitive freight. Design includes heat shielding, air and water resistance and internal escape prevention features. Patent is pending.
KD avia 737-300 en route from Barcelona landed on its belly at Kaliningrad on Oct. 1, although none of the 138 passengers and six crew were hurt, according to press reports and Flight Safety Foundation's Aviation Safety Network. KD Executive Director Leonid Itskov told Interfax that the fuselage was not destroyed and that passengers evacuated with slides. According to ASN, the crew declared an emergency following an unsafe gear indication and confirmed gear did not deploy following a low pass. The crew landed the aircraft gear up on its second approach.
Continental Airlines said September consolidated RASM rose an estimated 8%-9% year-over-year, with mainline RASM climbing 9%-10%. It flew 6.49 billion consolidated RPMs last month, down 10.9%, against an 8.1% fall in capacity to 8.49 billion ASMs. Load factor dropped 2.5 points to 76.5%. American Airlines flew 9.86 billion system RPMs in September, a 9.1% decline from the year-ago month. Capacity fell 7% to 12.87 billion ASMs, dropping load factor 1.8 points to 76.6%. American Eagle flew 587.4 million RPMs, down 17.2%, against a 9.9% fall in ASMs to 910.7 million.
Boeing last week said it is combining its Alteon training subsidiary with existing training groups within Boeing Commercial Airplanes "to form a new, unified training organization" that will retain the Alteon name and become a business unit within Boeing Commercial Aviation Services. The new organization will provide customers with "a single integrated business encompassing all development, deployment and delivery of aviation training and flight services," the company said.
Mesa Air Group announced that Paul Foley has been tapped to serve as COO. Foley formerly was president and CEO of Mesaba Holdings, parent of Mesaba Airlines and Big Sky Airlines. Under his leadership, Mesaba Airlines exited bankruptcy protection and became a wholly owned subsidiary of Northwest Airlines. Big Sky shut down in March after continued losses ( ATWOnline, Dec. 21, 2007).
Hawaiian Airlines last week took delivery of the first of four 717-200s on lease from Boeing Capital Corp. Remaining aircraft will arrive one per month in November, December and January, at which point HA will have 15 717s operating on its inter-island network. Aircraft will seat 118-123 passengers with eight seats in first class and will replace a 767-300 used on inter-island routes while restoring a spare aircraft to HA's 717 and 767 fleets.
Sun Country Airlines, which is seeking to gain financial independence from scandal-hit parent Petters Group Worldwide ( ATWOnline, Oct. 1), announced yesterday that President and CEO Stan Gadek was appointed chairman replacing Tom Petters, who resigned. DHL Express named George Kerschbaumer executive VP-commercial division. He formerly served as Deutsche Post World Net's executive VP-corporate development.
Etihad Crystal Cargo this week took over its sales and customer service activities in Thailand from local cargo general sales agent United Kargo Kare. UKK had handled Etihad's sales in Thailand since 2004, but the carrier said it determined that its own local team should take over given the market's "strategic importance." Thailand is Crystal Cargo's second-largest Far East market and the carrier projects its business there will grow 8% annually over the next five years.
KrasAir and Domodedovo Airlines, two of the five members of the defunct AiRUnion alliance, have been granted approval by Russian authorities to operate certain flights until Oct. 31. The other three carriers--Omskavia, Samara Airlines and Sibaviatrans--will shut down operations by Sunday.
European Low Fares Airline Assn. criticized the Polish Air Navigation Services Agency for its "abusing pricing policy" and called on it to reduce its cost base significantly and introduce a single charge zone for terminal navigation services in Poland. "PANSA's pricing policy is clearly to the detriment of passengers and regional airports, which risk losing many of the direct routes, opened by low fares airlines in recent years, as operating to Polish regions becomes prohibitively expensive compared to other European regions," ELFAA Secretary General John Hanlon warned.
Southwest Airlines flew 5.31 billion RPMs in September, down 5.9% from the year-ago month. Capacity climbed 0.8% to 8.38 billion ASMs, lowering load factor 4.5 points to 63.4%.
AiRUnion, the failed Russian airline alliance that comprised five carriers, ceased to exist Tuesday as the management company shut down. The Russian government intended to replace AiRUnion with a state-owned grouping of nine airlines ( ATWOnline, Sept. 11), but AiRUnion COO Gustav Baldauf told ATWOnline that "we are still working on a concept for a follow-up company" and that decisions on how the replacement alliance would function "will take some time."
IAE announced that the first V2500 SelectOne engine entered service with launch customer IndiGo yesterday on a new A320. Aircraft, which was delivered to the Indian startup Sept. 23, is leased from Australia's Allco Finance Group.
Lufthansa Technik announced that the former Swiss International Air Lines technical division based in Basel has been relaunched as Lufthansa Technik Switzerland, focusing on technical support for VIP and business aircraft including the BBJ and ACJ. It also will service regional aircraft and engines operated by Swiss, such as the Avro RJ100. It employs nearly 500. The company will be headed by CEO Rainer Lindau and CFO Jan-Hendrik Labe. Lindau previously headed aircraft maintenance at Lufthansa CityLine.
