New entrants in Australia and New Zealand, including Tiger Airways' foray into the market, are triggering a wave of deep discounting, according to the Sydney-based Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation. Qantas subsidiary Jetstar Airways, which celebrated its third anniversary yesterday, had 130,000 seats for sale with companion fares as low as A$2.50 ($2.06) on many domestic, transtasman and international routes.
AiRUnion, the alliance of Russian carriers KrasAir, Domodedovo Airlines, Sibaviatrans, Samara Airlines and Omskavia, received final approval from the government and President Vladimir Putin Wednesday to complete the merger, which should take place within six months and would be the biggest of its kind in Russia ( ATWOnline, Feb. 26). Interfax reported that the government intends to hold at least 45% of the new company.
Air France KLM will be changing its top management structure in line with increasing integration between the two airlines and marking the conclusion of the three-year phase-in period following their merger in May 2004.
Alitalia cabin crew concluded a 24-hr. strike yesterday, forcing the embattled carrier to cancel 356 of approximately 800 flights. Flight attendants are in contract renewal negotiations. The airline said the strike went forward "in spite of the efforts and the willingness shown towards the unions involved."
Southwest Airlines flew 5.92 billion RPMs in April, up 3.3% from the year-ago month. Capacity rose 9.6% to 8.19 billion ASMs, dropping load factor 4.4 points to 72.3%.
PAR Capital Management, which played a key role in US Airways' emergence from bankruptcy and had been its largest shareholder when it sold 6.5 million shares to Goldman, Sachs & Co. in February, ( ATWOnline, Feb. 16), sold off nearly all its remaining shares Tuesday to UBS Securities. The 6.75-million-share transaction leaves PAR with just a 0.29% stake in US, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Sabre Travel Network signed an agreement with Interguide Air Ltd. of Nigeria under which the Sabre GDS will be marketed to more than 800 travel agencies across the country. Interguide expects 25% of Nigerian bookings to be on Sabre by year end.
Compass Airlines, Northwest Airlines' new regional subsidiary, launched its maiden flight yesterday out of Washington Dulles. For now, Compass will be operating a single CRJ200 on two daily roundtrips between IAD and Minneapolis/St. Paul. It expects to put the first of 36 E-175s into service by the third quarter.
Volga-Dnepr Group reported sales of $725 million in 2006, up 55% from 2005, and is projecting $1 billion in revenue this year. It said rising turnover resulted from development in its An-124-100 (revenue up 26%) and IL-76 (up 114%) charter freight businesses and expansion at AirBridge Cargo (up 96%), which operates four 747Fs. V-D transported more than 155,000 tonnes of freight last year, 98% of which was flown internationally. AirBridge reported revenues of $227.4 million and transported 78,400 tonnes of cargo, up 79% on the prior year.
Indian government yesterday made seat assignments compulsory for all domestic airlines. The Office of the Director General of Civil Aviation said it was imposing the regulation "in order to ensure correct loading of aircraft and keeping the center of gravity of the aircraft within limits at all times during flight."
Alitalia Group's net debt as of March 31 was €1.07 billion ($1.46 billion), down 2.7% from Feb. 28. During March the company repaid €14 million of medium/long-term financing.
OVER THE PAST YEAR, COMMERCIAL aviation suddenly has become serious about alternative fuels. Once pie-in-the-sky popular science, the subject now is manifestly mainstream. From January 2004 through July 2006, jet fuel prices skyrocketed $1.16 per gal., according to the Air Transport Assn., and fuel has leapfrogged labor at most airlines as the largest operating expense. But "this is not just about price," says ATA Chief Economist John Heimlich, "it's about supply integrity. We want to make sure we have fuel around at any price, [not just] a good price."
WITH A HISTORY OF 86 YEARS of operation and bragging rights as the fourth-oldest airline in the world, Compania Mexicana de Aviacion is about as "legacy" as a carrier can get. It played a crucial role in building Mexico's airport and airways system, was at one time owned by Pan American World Airways and even can boast that a certain Charles Lindbergh piloted one of its flights. It is a heritage that no one at Mexicana cares to forget, leastwise CEO Emilio Romano, who has led the airline since March 2004.
BOMBARDIER SURVEYED THE regional aircraft market and made a bold decision: Stretch its 86-seat CRJ900 to 100 seats, establishing the CRJ1000, which was launched in February with 38 firm orders valued at $1.2 billion from three customers. The move was not a blind stab at attracting orders from airlines that appear to have grown wearyat least for now and the foreseeable futureof new-build 50-seat regional jets. Rather, Bombardier said customers pushed it to build a newer, bigger CRJ.
THEY SAY THAT THE EYES ARE THE window to the soul and even to health. If the airline equivalent is its Internet site, then Malaysia Airlines is alive and well, its website brimming with bright, colorful fare promotions and special online deals. It's quite a departure from a few years ago when the carrier's future seemed much more uncertain and its website was not stacked with rotating Domestic SuperSavers.
Are you a leader or a follower when it comes to setting your company's supply chain agenda? In its annual trends report, consulting firm PRTM identifies the differences between the followers (companies focused on basic functions and internal integration) and the leaders (companies that are collaborating with strategic partners, often in real-time). [click here to continue]
The European Commission opened a "detailed investigation" under the EU Merger Regulation into Travelport's proposed acquisition of Worldspan, citing concerns over the competitiveness of the deal. The Commission has 90 working days from the investigation's launch to reach a final decision on whether the concentration would significantly impede effective competition within the European Economic Area, which comprises the European Union plus Norway and Iceland, or a significant part of it.
REGIONAL AIRLINES IN the US have been forced to find new resiliency as they respond to mainline carriers' increasing demands for lower costs. No longer partners in the traditional sense of the word, they have become interchangeable suppliers of commodity lift to the legacy airlines under the fee-for-departure arrangements that reshaped the industry in the 1990s. "These guys are vendors competing against other vendors," says Doug Abbey, an analyst with The Velocity Group, while one regional airline CEO describes the current climate as "hypercompetitive."
THE MAJOR US AIRLINES AND THE global distribution system companies believe that a sort of equilibrium has been achieved with the latest round of participating carrier agreements, but the era of good feeling may not last as long as the contracts. In general, both sides got what they wanted: The airlines got lower segment fees and the GDSs got guarantees of full content, a critical issue for their subscribers, for the life of the five- to seven-year agreements.
Need help in devising a plan to keep counterfeits out of your supply chain? The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Coalition Against Counterfeiting and Piracy recently introduced a resource designed to help. Called the No Trade in Fakes Supply Chain Tool Kit, this documentation outlines a variety of strategies for manufacturers to consider as they prepare to protect their supply chains from counterfeiters. [click here to continue]
"Alarming" is how Anthony C. Laplaca describes the rate at which counterfeit and knock-off replacement parts are entering the North American market. "Their product depth and level of sophistication are expanding as well," he says. Appearing before a U.S.
There is little agreement among airlines on either side of the Atlantic on whether the European Commission's CRS Code of Conduct should be amended or abolished altogether. The airlines, along with GDS companies and organizations representing travel agencies and consumers, weighed in on the issue following a call for public consultation by the EC, which was closed on April 27.
IT WAS AN ADVERTISEMENT THAT STRUCK A CHORD among millions of Indians. A poor carpenter in a village carves an aircraft model out of a block of wood for his school-going child. The child loves the model and plays with it all day, even placing it by his pillow while sleeping. Fast-forward 20 years to the now aged carpenter, who is surprised to receive an airline ticket by mail from his son who lives far away in the city. The whole village shares the carpenter's joy as he leaves for the airport to visit his son on what is obviously his first airplane trip.
MAXjet Airways named Extra Space Storage CEO Kenneth Woolley as chairman, replacing Richard Sharp. It also named former Spirit Airlines CFO John Severson as CFO, George Paul as COO and Ceciley Bachnik as VP-people services.
