US Dept. of Transportation said an investigation it conducted into "chronically delayed flights" and threats of stiff fines against airlines led carriers to "fix" the problems. Actions taken included "changing flight routes, adding flight crews and making additional aircraft available," DOT said.
Panasonic Avionics will supply its eX2 IFE and communications system to Air Austral for installation on three existing 777-200s and two 777-300s currently on order.
Nationwide Airlines remained grounded yesterday ( ATWOnline, Dec. 3) as it denied press reports that it leased a 767 from KLM in order to continue its Johannesburg-London Gatwick service. KLM has performed MRO on Nationwide's own 767, but the South African carrier vehemently denied any other arrangement.
Click suffered a two-day strike by cabin staff that affected approximately 220 flights. The strike ended Monday when the Mexicana-owned LCC offered a 4.74% salary increase and other benefits, Reuters reported.
Atlasjet MD-83 accident investigation was joined this week by Boeing and Pratt & Whitney officials who traveled to Turkey and inspected the crash site. There has been no initial discovery of technical problems on the MD-83, which was on wet-lease from World Focus Airlines, and no explanation yielded from tower recordings that reveal the pilots believed they were headed for a routine landing at Isparta Airport, according to Turkish officials ( ATWOnline, Dec. 3).
An Atlasjet Airlines MD-83 outbound from Istanbul crashed early Friday morning during its approach to Isparta Airport in southern Turkey, killing all 57 passengers and crew onboard. The crash site was located in mountainous terrain approximately 7 mi. from Isparta. The aircraft, which was wet-leased from World Focus Airlines, departed IST at 12:50 a.m., 90 min. late owing to its late arrival inbound from Pristina, according to Atlasjet. The crash occurred about 45 min. after takeoff. Published reports described weather as clear and moonlit.
Ryanair said Friday it filed its fifth lawsuit in recent weeks in the European Court of First Instance against the European Commission, this time alleging it failed to investigate illegal state aid to Alitalia. According to the LCC, AZ's subsidies included a split-up of the company's assets and operations and an uneven allocation of debt, resulting in a €1.7 billion ($2.51 billion) debt write-off. Ryanair said it called on the EC to investigate this "blatant abuse" of EU competition rules more than two years ago but the EC has failed to do so.
Condor Airlines will establish a maintenance facility for its 757s and 767s in Frankfurt, creating 170 jobs. The new facility will perform work up to A checks.
Precision Conversions will provide Babcock & Brown Aircraft Management with a 15-pallet-position 757-200PCF. Following modification next year at the Flightstar facility in Jacksonville, CargoJet will operate the Rolls-Royce-powered aircraft under a lease from BBAM.
Aeroports de Paris plans to increase main airport fees at Charles de Gaulle and Orly by 3.8% in 2008, down from the 4.25% hike it applied this year. The proposal represents a preliminary estimate of the average increase in passenger fees, landing fees, aircraft parking fees and fees for the use of fueling facilities, ADP noted. It added that the 3.8% figure takes into account "buoyant" passenger traffic growth in 2007 as required by a "ceiling adjustment mechanism" included in its contract with the French government as part of its privatization.
Silverjet reported £11.8 million ($24.4 million) in passenger revenue in the six months ended Sept. 30, its first full fiscal semester since launching operations in January. The all-business-class carrier launched a second daily London Luton-Newark service during the period. It also announced a proposed placing of £12 million and a proposed convertible loan of £10 million from TFB Ltd.
Delta Air Lines named former Pinnacle Airlines Chairman and Greyhound Lines CEO Stephen Gorman executive VP-operations, succeeding the retiring Joseph Kolshak. Gorman previously was executive VP-flight operations and technical operations at Northwest Airlines and became Pinnacle chairman in 2003.
Nationwide Airlines of South Africa announced Friday that the South African Civil Aviation Authority suspended the carrier's Aviation Maintenance Organization license, resulting in the grounding of all flights. "We have approached the CAA for further details and guidance in respect of any actions they would like us to implement that would enable them to reinstate the AMO's license at which point normal operations will resume," Nationwide CEO Vernon Bricknell said in a message to customers posted on the airline's website.
Attempting to leave no trace is a noble, often unsung pursuit. You don't have to tiptoe across rice paper to sense the courage of that ideal. For aviation manufacturers and suppliers, a greener footprint calls for vision, commitment and stewardship. Practices that foster energy efficiency, pollution prevention, longer lifecycles, recycling and responsible disposal no longer bow to the bottom line. "There's more consistency around the world about the need to be environmentally accountable," says Goodrich Environmental, Health and Safety Director Dennis Hussey.
Amadeus this week will unveil the first components of a new next-generation distribution technology platform for the hotel industry. As a first step, Amadeus has completed the migration of the 75,000 hotel properties that participate in its GDS from a system based on TPF (transaction processing facility) to a Linux platform, Jérôme Destors, deputy managing director of Amadeus' Hospitality Business Group, said. All hotel GDS operations are now running on the open-systems platform.
'IT'S NOT TOO FAR, IT JUST SEEMS LIKE IT IS' I first experienced the above quote from the legendary baseball player Yogi Berra in an airline purchasing executive's office. The subject was a proposed modification on a cabin pressurization switch, and there was general agreement from the vendor and those from maintenance and materials. "Everyone loves this mod," I remember someone said. "But these systems are problematic to line maintenance and pilots. Replacing manual cabin pressurization with electronic results in higher reliability, more comfort for passengers."
BASED IN COPENHAGEN but with warehouses scattered around the globe, Satair is one of the leading distributors of aircraft production parts and spares. In the year to June 30, 2007, it boasted revenues of almost $360 million, up 37% from the previous year. Of this growth, 18% was organic with the remainder attributable to acquisitions that made a sizeable contribution. For the current FY it is forecasting revenue in the range of $400-$410 million, up 13%, reflecting a period of consolidation following considerable acquisition activity in the last couple of years.
IT WAS 1 P.M. ON A TYPICAL SUMMER afternoon at Los Angeles International. WestJet Flight 900, a 737NG from Calgary that had just landed, held between parallel Runways 24R and 24L as directed by the LAX tower. "Without authorization, the WestJet crew changed radio frequencies and contacted ground control," according to the US National Transportation Safety Board. The ground controller "assumed" that the 737NG had been "cleared to cross Runway 24L and provided instructions for the flight to taxi to its gate," NTSB said.
THE STRENGTH AND longevity of the current aircraft buying cycle continues to surprise, but is it a legitimate reflection of the underlying vitality of the global economy or a dot.com-like bubble that is soon to burst? Among aircraft financiers and asset managers with whom ATW spoke, the consensus is that it's the former.
The speed at which revenue is processed and understood together with the level of accuracy that results from certain accounting methods has been a growing concern in the airline industry for some time now. Greater processing complexity tends to drive cost up, and these days cost is a factor that most airlines can't afford to be complacent about.
DURING ITS DRAMATIC 19-MONTH stint in Chapter 11, the third-largest US carrier focused adeptly on costs, especially the folks in purchasing. "To put a bit of scale to it," says Shawn Anderson, Delta Air Lines VP-supply chain management, "we renegotiated over 2,000 contracts600 separate sourcing initiatives."
US airlines enjoyed another strong financial quarter in the three months ended Sept. 30, with the 10 largest carriers all in the black for the second straight reporting period and posting a cumulative net profit of $1.67 billion compared to a $738 million loss in the year-ago quarter. But executives worry that the next down cycle may not be too far away. Fuel costs are ascending rapidly and the US airline industry doesn't exactly have a history of long-term financial stability.
