Delta Air Lines flight attendants will vote between April 23 and June 3 on whether to unionize, the US National Mediation Board told the carrier yesterday. Assn. of Flight Attendants-CWA, seeking to represent the group, recently gathered signatures from a majority of DL's 12,000 flight attendants, surpassing NMB's 35% threshold for calling a unionization vote. More than half the FAs will have to cast ballots in favor during the voting period for unionization to occur. Past efforts to organize DL cabin staff have been unsuccessful.
Aeroflot CEO Valery Okulow confirmed SU's interest in investing in either Jat Airways or CSA Czech Airlines as both Eastern European carriers approach privatization ( ATWOnline, March 4). He was speaking to La Tribune. Meanwhile, a source close to Austrian Airlines Group confirmed to ATWOnline that there recently have been talks between SU and AAG but they ended without the Russian carrier deciding to invest. Aeroflot derives 37% of its revenue from its European network.
UK Office of Communications yesterday approved the use of mobile phones on UK-registered aircraft once approved by EASA and UK CAA. "If such approval has been secured, it will be a matter for individual airlines to judge whether there is consumer demand for these services," it said, adding that an onboard communications system may be switched on by cabin crew once the aircraft reaches 3,000 m.
Star Alliance carriers Air Canada, Air China, ANA, Asiana Airlines, Austrian Airlines, LOT Polish Airlines, Lufthansa, SAS Scandinavian Airlines, Shanghai Airlines, Singapore Airlines, Thai Airways, Turkish Airlines and United Airlines each completed the transfer of their operations to Beijing International's Terminal 3 yesterday. The move was part of the collocation plan developed as a result of Air China and Shanghai Airlines joining the alliance last year. A similar collocation will be completed at Shanghai Pudong on April 29.
US Transportation Security Administration acknowledged that a US Airways pilot and member of the Federal Flight Deck Officer program "accidentally" discharged his handgun on a Saturday flight between Denver and Charlotte. It said the flight "was never in danger" but that it will "take this matter seriously and an investigation is underway." The A319 has been removed from service, US told the Associated Press, and the pilot is on leave.
A US federal appeals court ruled yesterday that New York State's airline passenger rights law violates federal law, rendering it invalid and dealing a blow to those considering similar laws in other states.
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.
