Frontier Airlines will begin charging $25 for a second checked bag on June 10. It also will raise the fee for children traveling alone to $50 per segment from $40 and no longer will allow pets to travel in the passenger cabin. The carrier, which filed for bankruptcy last month, agreed to cuts in employee pay and benefits last week ( ATWOnline, May 23).
Anatolia Jet, Turkish Airlines' wholly owned low-cost subsidiary, launched successfully last month. "We already have an 80% load factor, and the carrier is getting better, as we expected," THY CEO Temel Kotil told ATWOnline. He said Anatolia, which operates five 737-400s from its Ankara hub, could increase its fleet to a possible 10 aircraft this year. "Public response to this product is very good," he said ( ATWOnline, March 31).
Swiss International Air Lines last week unveiled new business class seats to be installed on its long-haul aircraft beginning next year, part of the airline's concerted effort to distinguish itself from parent Lufthansa.
Gategroup member companies eGate Solutions and Pourshins reached long-term agreements with Delta Air Lines to implement next-generation business applications solutions and logistics management for inflight catering. EGate Solutions will provide its InFlight Exchange 4 suite featuring 24-hr. support while Pourshins assumes responsibility for most of DL's inflight food, beverage and equipment sourcing and logistics.
Jetstar Pacific, Vietnam's first low-cost airline, launched commercial operations as part of Qantas Group Friday. It has become the first Vietnamese carrier to offer online booking to domestic customers. Qantas holds 18% of the LCC and will increase its investment to 30% in 2010 ( ATWOnline, April 15). Jetstar Pacific has four 737s and will add a fifth next month, but it eventually will fly up to 30 A320s.
British Air Line Pilots' Assn., which represents about 3,000 of British Airways' 3,200 pilots, withdrew its court action last week, lifting the last hurdle for the launch of OpenSkies. BA pilots had voted to strike because the airline planned to use BA aircraft and not BA pilots for its new subsidiary. BA had threatened to seek a court injunction prohibiting the strike, arguing that Art. 43 of the Treaty of Rome gives companies based in one EU state the right to set up subsidiaries in another. BALPA consequently asked the court to determine whether Art. 43 was relevant to its dispute.
Singapore Airlines will add a second A380 service to London Heathrow beginning July 16. It will operate Flight SQ318 from Singapore to LHR and SQ321 on the return leg four-times-weekly, boosting service to 11 weekly flights. Executive VP-Marketing and Regions Huang Cheng Eng said, "Our A380 products have been very well received by our customers and loads on the Singapore-London route have been exceptionally encouraging."
IATA reported a 3.9% year-over-year decline in March premium traffic following a 5.1% increase in February. In the first quarter, premium traffic was up 0.2% over the first three months of 2007. "Given the importance of premium passengers for airline profitability the absolute decline in numbers is bad news, particularly since the price of jet fuel rose 170% over the year to March reaching $130 a barrel," IATA said of the March numbers.
ExpressJet Airlines will cut capacity by approximately 30% beginning Aug. 23 and lasting at least through Nov. 15, President and CEO Jim Ream announced yesterday, "due to the current economic environment, including skyrocketing fuel costs and excess capacity in the domestic market." Ream did say that the carrier is "encouraged by the recent booking pace for summer travel in our branded flying and trends we are seeing in our short-haul markets."
Air France KLM will launch a new cabin class in winter 2009-10 catering to SMEs, the elderly and leisure travelers seeking more comfort. The still-unnamed class will be introduced on long-haul aircraft of both AF and KLM, Executive VP-Marketing, Revenue Management & Network Bruno Matheu told ATWOnline, stressing it will not "really be a premium economy. In comfort it's closer to business class with a 38-in. seat pitch and eight seats abreast instead of 10 [in economy] on our 777s. But regarding service levels it will be closer to economy.
British Airways' transatlantic subsidiary OpenSkies will operate its first daily Paris Orly-New York JFK flight on June 19 with one-way fares starting at $1,746 in business class, $720 in its Prem+ premium economy and $554 in economy, it announced yesterday as tickets went on sale. Each 757 frequency will have no more than 82 passengers onboard. Its Biz business class will feature lie-flat beds while Prem+ offers reclining seats at 52-in. pitch. There will be 30 seats in economy.
Qantas yesterday said it has increased its fuel hedging to cover 59% of expected crude oil requirements for the 2008-09 fiscal year at $111.81 per barrel of West Texas Intermediate inclusive of option premium and that it will raise international fares by approximately 4% and domestic by around 3% effective June 4 on top of increases announced earlier this month. CEO Goeff Dixon said QF still will be unable to cover an additional A$2 billion ($1.92 billion) in fuel costs this year.
Southwest Airlines yesterday said it "has no plans" to change its policy of allowing passengers to check their first two pieces of luggage free of charge in response to reports that it was considering such a move in the wake of American Airlines' decision to charge $15 for the first bag ( ATWOnline, May 22).
Frontier Airlines, which declared bankruptcy last month ( ATWOnline, April 14), said members of the Frontier Airlines Pilots Assn. and the Transport Workers Union, which represents its dispatchers, have ratified tentative agreements reached last week on temporary wage and benefit concessions ( ATWOnline, May 19). "This is a key step in helping us continue to negotiate the Chapter 11 process.
US FAA said its Adaptive Compression software, which went into operation in March 2007 and scans airport arrival slots emptied by a cancellation, delay or rerouting for incoming traffic at constrained airports, saved airlines $27 million and 1.1 million delay minutes in its first year of operation.
Italian government decided to convert its €300 million ($471.2 million) bridge loan to Alitalia into an asset on the airline's books in an effort to win auditor approval of its 2007 finances, Reuters reported ( ATWOnline, May 6). "It is a temporary measure so that the internal auditors don't bring up questions," Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti said.
Transaero flew 3.83 billion RPKs in the first quarter, up 43% over the year-ago period, on a 44% increase in passenger numbers to 791,000. Freight rose 43% year-over-year to 367,000 tons. The Russian carrier also announced the completion of its IOSA certification. It operates 10 747s, 10 767s, 15 737s and one Tu-214. SAS Group airlines flew 2.96 billion RPKs in April, a 17.4% increase over the year-ago month. Capacity climbed 22.1% to 4.28 billion ASKs and load factor fell 2.8 points to 69.1%.
SR Technics reached a three-year deal with Quikjet Cargo for component management, maintenance and repair on the carrier's 737s. Contract includes access to a consignment stock in Bangalore and Chennai. Services extend from SRT's Integrated Component Solutions offering.
3M Aerospace and Aircraft Maintenance Dept. yesterday said it will construct a factory in Wroclaw to increase manufacturing capacity for structural bonding adhesives and surface protection products. Facility is scheduled to open in late 2009.
ARINC won a five-year renewal and upgrade on its contract with CUTE Club to provide its iMUSE common-use platform for passenger check-in and boarding as well as its BagLink baggage messaging system. Deployable on desktop workstations and handheld terminals, iMUSE supports IP and legacy host systems. BagLink technology features intelligent routing and messaging capabilities.
Investigation into the Jan. 17 crash landing of a British Airways 777 on final approach to London Heathrow has not revealed an anomaly that could have caused the flow of fuel to the engines to be reduced as the pilots called for more power, according to the UK Air Accident Investigations Branch, although restricted fuel flow was certainly the cause of the nonfatal accident ( ATWOnline, Feb. 20).
American Airlines yesterday said it will retire "at least" 75 aircraft, including 40-45 mainline jets, this year and begin charging $15 for the first piece of checked luggage on North American flights as it tries to cope with oil prices that reached more than $130 per barrel Wednesday. "We are facing an extraordinarily difficult environment," Chairman and CEO Gerard Arpey said in announcing the cutbacks. "The US airline industry was not built for $125 or $130 barrel oil. . .[and] will not and cannot continue in its current state."
Lufthansa's CityLine, Germanwings and Eurowings subsidiaries cancelled at least 62 flights yesterday owing to a morning wildcat pilot strike by members of Vereinigung Cockpit. An additional 36 flights were delayed, according to press reports. "Because employers haven't presented a negotiable offer in negotiations that have been going on for months, personnel representatives of all three airlines see no alternative but to declare talks a failure," VC said in a statement cited by the Associated Press.
Great Wall Airlines will be represented by Wallace Air Cargo Group for 747-400 services in North America under a GSA agreement. Routes include Chicago O'Hare and Seattle to Seoul and Shanghai.
JetBlue Airways flew 2.28 billion RPMs in April, a 0.8% increase over the year-ago month. Capacity rose 7.4% to 2.87 billion ASMs, dropping load factor 5.2 points to 79.5%. Gol and VRG flew 2.31 billion RPKs in April, up 17.8%, against a 25.1% increase in capacity to 3.65 billion ASKs. Load factor fell 3.9 points to 63.2%. Aer Lingus flew 1.38 billion RPKs in April, up 9.3% on the year-ago month. Capacity climbed 25.7% to 1.95 billion ASKs and load factor dropped 10.6 points to 70.5%.
