Oneworld's seven member carriers enjoyed a 10% increase in revenues from alliance fares and sales activities to $675 million last year, two-thirds of which was classified as money the airlines earned thanks to their membership, the alliance said. Revenue from corporate sales climbed nearly 66% while approximately 8 million passengers--one in every 30--transferred between member carrier flights. Revenue generated from those transfers rose 5% to around $2 billion, or 3.5% of members' total passenger turnover. Savings generated by joint procurement totaled nearly $300 million.
EasyJet said it expects unit revenue to decline 5%-10% in the second fiscal semester ending Sept. 30 as it continues "to offer low fares throughout the summer to ensure great deals for our customers and high load factors." It is forecasting a 5% decline in nonfuel CASK, allowing it to maintain its forecast of a 40%-50% year-over-year increase in pre-tax profit. It transported 3.3 million passengers in May, up 13.8% from the year-ago month, as load factor dipped 0.3 point to 83.6%.
SITA was selected by TAM to provide a comprehensive IP-based telephony architecture and LAN environment across 92 global sites under a five-year, $6.6 million contract.
TAP Portugal's acquisition of PGA Portugalia Airlines ( ATWOnline, Nov. 8, 2006) has been cleared by the country's competition authority, AdC, which last month imposed seven conditions on the merger, including a limitation of frequencies between Lisbon and Porto in order to open the route to competing carriers. TAP paid approximately €140 million for PGA following several years of on-again-off-again negotiations and said it aims to integrate the two airlines fully by the end of September.
Aeroflot CEO Valery Okulov stressed again this week that SU wants to win the Italian government's auction to buy Alitalia and that he has no plans to drop out of the bidding. "Of course we want to have AZ. But this is a very tough process," he said ( ATWOnline, June 4). He said Aeroflot has the experience necessary to rebuild Alitalia as a result of its own restructuring. He also said it is becoming more important for the Russian airline to invest in Europe.
Inclusion of aviation into the EU emissions trading scheme as outlined in the European Commission's December proposal would reduce collective airline profits by €9.5-€40.5 billion ($12.83-$54.71 billion) during the 2011-22 period, according to a study by Ernst & Young and York Aviation conducted on behalf of a group of aviation organizations including the Assn. of European Airlines.
Delta Air Lines flew 10.08 billion system RPMs in May, up 5.9% from the year-ago month, as domestic traffic rose 2.9% and international climbed 12.8%. Capacity was up 0.6% to 12.48 billion ASMs on a 4.8% domestic decline and a 13.1% international increase. Load factor grew 4.1 points to 80.8%, climbing 6.1 points to 81.9% domestically and dipping 0.2 point to 78.5% internationally.
British Airways flew 9.3 billion RPKs in May, a 2.1% decline from the year-ago month. Capacity dipped 0.1% to 12.7 billion ASKs and load factor fell 1.5 points to 73.3%. Southwest Airlines flew 6.27 billion RPMs in May, up 5.2% on the year-ago month. Capacity climbed 9.2% to 8.47 billion ASMs, dropping load factor 2.8 points to 74%.
Northwest Airlines announced the following executive changes: Executive VP-International, Alliances & Information Technology and Chairman-NWA Cargo Phil Haan resigned effective July 31; Executive VP and CFO Neal Cohen was named executive VP-strategy and international and CEO-regional airlines; Senior VP-Finance and Controller Dave Davis will succeed Cohen; CIO Theresa Wise was promoted to senior VP and CIO. TAP Portugal CEO Fernando Pinto was named chairman of the IATA board of governors yesterday at the AGM.
Tiger Airways received final approval from Indian authorities to operate commercial flights from Singapore to Chennai, Cochin, Goa, Trivandrum, Kolkata and Kozhikode, the LCC announced. It said it will announce a schedule "fairly soon" and expects to link its Indian services to its new operation in Australia.
B/E Aerospace said yesterday that it has been selected to provide main cabin retrofit and new-buy seating programs for some 250 aircraft by US Airways, Frontier Airlines and AirAsia in contracts collectively valued at more than $70 million. The US deal includes retrofitting A320s and equipping new-buy single-aisle aircraft with economy and first class seating. The contract with Frontier covers retrofitting A318s and A319s as well as equipping A320s with economy seating. The AirAsia award is a follow-on order for economy seating for new-buy A320s.
Royal Brunei Airlines named Ray Sayer its new CEO, effective Sept. 1. Los Angeles World Airports named Gina Marie Lindsey executive director, replacing Lydia Kennard, who resigned in January. Formerly executive director of Seattle-Tacoma International, Lindsey will oversee Los Angeles International, Ontario, Van Nuys and Palmdale airports.
News from Travel Technology Update: Galileo said it can "state unequivocally" that it has no intention of forcing any customers to migrate to a new system in the U.S. The statement was the clearest indication yet that if Travelport, Galileo's parent, succeeds in acquiring Worldspan, it does not intend to integrate the two systems. That means Travelport will operate three GDS platforms; Galileo, which was developed in Europe, was never integrated with the U.S. born-and-bred Apollo system.
IBM signed an agreement with Avianca to operate and manage the airline's information technology in a deal valued at $12 million. The Colombian carrier said outsourcing its IT will lower costs and enable it to focus on "core business operations."
Virgin Atlantic Airways revealed yesterday that it intends to launch a business class-only carrier within the next 12-18 months. In a first stage, the new airline will fly transatlantic routes to the US from London and other European cities including Paris, Frankfurt, Milan and Zurich. Direct flights from points throughout the EU to the US will be possible under the new open skies regime that will take effect March 30, 2008. Virgin did not say which aircraft it would use to operate the flights.
IATA raised its profit outlook for 2007 on stronger-than-anticipated economic growth in Europe and Asia that has caused airline revenue growth to come in higher than previously believed.
IATA member airlines yesterday approved a five-month "one-off" extension to May 31, 2008, to the deadline for transitioning to 100% e-ticketing for tickets processed through the IATA Bank Settlement Plan.
European Commission yesterday approved the proposed merger of First Choice Holidays and the tourism division of TUI Group, excluding certain hotel assets.
Swiss International Air Lines will launch daily Zurich-Delhi service on Nov. 25 aboard A330-200s and a daily ZRH-Shanghai Pudong flight in summer 2008. It is adding two A330-200s and one A340-300 this summer and will take two additional A340-300s by next April.
SAS Scandinavian Airlines announced the completion of installation of its new Business Sleeper seats on A330-300s and A340-300s operating between Newark, Chicago O'Hare, Seattle and Washington Dulles and its Copenhagen and Stockholm Arlanda hubs. The business cabin has a 2-2-2 configuration, with 46 seats on the A340 and 34 on the A330. New seats feature 61 in. of legroom and a video screen nearly 25% larger than on SAS's previous seats. Transatlantic services also feature Economy Extra seating (35 seats on the A330 and 28 on the A340) with 38-in. pitch, IFE screens and power outlets.
Australia's Regional Express Holdings, which operates as Rex, said last week that it earned a A$17.3 million ($14.3 million) profit in the first nine months of its fiscal year, a figure 51.8% higher than in the year-ago period. It is projecting full-year profit growth of 40%. Nine-month passenger numbers rose 19.8% to 1.05 million.
BCI Aircraft Leasing acquired the first of three 737-300QCs that it had been leasing. The aircraft are on long-term operating lease to Europe Airpost. The other two will be purchased in the coming months.
Saudi Arabian Airlines will start issuing electronic boarding passes to passengers traveling through Saudi airports in August, the Arab Air Carriers Organization said.
