AirAsia X will exercise its 10 A330-300 options in a deal worth $2.1 billion, CEO Azran Osman Rani told media in Kuala Lumpur. It already has 15 of the type on firm order. A signing ceremony is expected to take place this week. Separately, Aero Ventures, a holding company that holds 48% of AirAsia X, announced that ACE Aviation Holdings Chairman, President and CEO Robert Milton has invested in the group. "My involvement with AirAsia X has provided me with the exciting opportunity to participate in the newest and most promising airline business model today," Milton said.
Sherwin Williams Aerospace Coating won SAE AMS 3095 certification for its Jet Glo Express exterior painting systems. Certification approves Sherwin-Williams Aerospace Coatings CMO483928 with High Solids Chromated Epoxy Primer and CMO481968 High Solids Chrome Free Epoxy Primer/Surfacer.
Oman Aviation Services, parent of Oman Air, will invest $4.2 million over four years to upgrade IT at Muscat International. SITA will install and maintain AirportConnect Open, its common use passenger processing system that supports CUTE, dedicated and Web applications on the same common use workstations, in addition to SITA BagManager and PassengerHandler. Last year Oman Air carried more than 1.5 million passengers to and from Muscat, a 22% increase over 2006.
JDA Aviation Technology Solutions of Washington, DC, was hired by Southwest Airlines "to evaluate its maintenance programs and to make recommendations on how the airline can improve its maintenance process," JDA announced. The move follows SWA's failure to comply with a US FAA airworthiness directive that resulted in the temporary grounding of 34 737s and a proposed $10.2 million fine ( ATWOnline, March 19).
Boeing's Airplane Health Monitoring software was ordered by Qantas for its fleet of 30 747-400s to better evaluate inflight data and manage unscheduled maintenance events. QF also will use AHM for its 65 787s. More than 44% of the world's 777 and 747-400 fleets are covered by AHM technology.
KLM Engineering & Maintenance reached agreement with the Japan Civil Aviation Bureau to perform base maintenance on 747-400s. JCAB also granted KLM E&M a two-year line maintenance extension. Work will take place in Amsterdam.
Kronos said Air Canada Flight Operations selected its Altitude Manpower Planning solution featuring resource allocation intelligence, enhanced planning capabilities and various cost efficiency strategies.
Iberia flew 4.1 billion RPKs in February, up 2.6% on the year-ago month. Capacity climbed 4.1% to 5.19 billion ASKs and load factor slipped 1.2 points to 79.1% Rossiya carried 366,681 passengers in January and February combined, up 13.1% over the year-ago period. Domestic passenger numbers climbed 2.7% to 188,809 and international rose 26.9% to 177,782. The airline carried 3.2 million passengers in 2007.
AirTran Airways will become the 19th airline member of the US Air Transport Assn. on April 1, the parties announced yesterday. AirTran President and CEO Bob Fornaro will represent the carrier on the ATA board.
LAN Airlines flew 2.27 billion RPKs in February, up 15.8% from the year-ago month, against a 15.1% increase in capacity to 2.8 billion ASKs that lifted load factor 0.5 point to 81%. TAM flew 1.88 billion domestic RPKs in February, up 21.8% from the year-ago month, against a 17.2% rise in ASKs to 2.67 billion. Load factor lifted 2.7 points to 70.5%. International traffic was up 65.2% to 1.22 billion RPKs, capacity grew 55.1% to 1.65 billion ASKs and load factor increased 4.5 points to 73.9%.
International Air Carrier Assn., which claims its members account for nearly 40% of flights to Egypt, reached agreement with Egyptian aviation authorities to improve airport infrastructure in the country. Upgrades will include improved and increased fueling facilities, more cooperation in security screening and the addition of more female screening personnel and professional slot coordination conforming to international standards.
Ryanair said last week that the European Court of First Instance dismissed an Aer Lingus request for an injunction against the LCC that would force it to sell its minority shareholding in EI ( ATWOnline, Nov. 20, 2007).
Malaysia Airlines said it will gain annual incremental revenue of MYR70-MYR100 million ($22-$31.4 million) thanks to an "enhanced" hub-and-spoke network that now includes 25 airline partners and affords customers the opportunity "to connect to most destinations worldwide." MD and CEO Idris Jala said, "We are now driving this harder, ensuring that we can extract the maximum value from our network." MAS last week announced a codeshare agreement with China Southern Airlines ( ATWOnline, March 24) and revealed that s
United Airlines briefly grounded seven 747s last week when it was discovered that equipment used to test aircraft systems at a Korean Air-operated facility in Busan had not been checked as scheduled. UA said it voluntarily decided to ground the aircraft for several hours for inspections that led to "minimal disruption" of its schedule. No irregularities were found.
Iberia Handling will provide First Choice with handling services for its 4,000 flights to Spain during the summer and winter seasons. Contract covers all Spanish airports.
SITA reached agreement with Yemen Airways to provide its online booking SITA E-Commerce Platform. Technology will launch in August and is expected to cut fees by bypassing global distribution systems.
CAAC said it has adopted measures to curb flight delays in advance of this summer's Olympic Games. According to the regulator, Chinese airlines based in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and other Olympic-related cities are being ordered to have one or two backup aircraft on hand to guarantee ontime performance. Carriers canceling flights during the period must transfer passengers to other airlines and cover their fares in full.
Singapore Airlines will reduce the weight limit for each piece of luggage on its US services to 50 lb. from 70 lb. effective April 1. Each passenger will be entitled to check two bags.
Oneworld airlines serving Shanghai Pudong will begin collocating in Terminal 2 starting this week when British Airways and Qantas transfer to the new facility Wednesday. Finnair, Cathay Pacific Airways and Dragonair will follow on April 29 and American Airlines will move at an unspecified date. It currently operates out of T1, where Japan Airlines will remain.
Frontier Airlines flew 744.8 million RPMs in February, up 18.1% from the year-ago month, against a 7.5% rise in capacity to 957.6 million ASMs. Load factor rose 7 points to 77.8%. Passenger yield was down 3.9% to 9.95 cents while unit revenue rose 5.6% to 7.74 cents. Mesa Air Group flew 447.9 million RPMs in February, an 11.6% decrease from the year-ago month. Capacity fell 8.1% to 627.8 million ASMs, dropping load factor 2.8 points to 71.4%.
Kale Consultants was contracted by Finnair Cargo to provide airmail cargo revenue accounting services including scans, document processing and invoice production. Work will take place at Kale's MPS center in Mumbai.
SAS Group airlines flew 2.34 billion RPKs in February, a 14.4% increase over the year-ago month. Capacity climbed 13.5% to 3.5 billion ASKs and load factor lifted 0.5 point to 66.8%. SAS Scandinavian Airlines flew 2.03 billion RPKs, up 13.6%, against a 12.2% increase in ASKs to 2.95 billion that boosted load factor 0.9 point to 68.9%. WestJet flew 1.06 billion RPMs in February, up 19% on the year-ago month, against an 18.2% increase in capacity to 1.28 billion ASMs. Load factor rose 0.5 point to 82.8%.
Emirates said that the "first authorized mobile phone call made from a commercial flight" occurred yesterday aboard one of its A340-300s flying at 30,000 ft. en route from Dubai to Casablanca, marking the launch of its $27 million program to equip its fleet with the AeroMobile system that will allow passengers to use their own cell phones in flight.
US Dept. of Transportation and European Commission announced a "joint research project" to determine the impact of airline alliances on competition and the potential impact of transatlantic open skies. The bodies will interview airlines, travel agents, analysts and consumer groups in addition to performing data analysis. A report will be published in mid-2009.
