Ukraine International Airlines completed the first D check on a 737, the first overhaul of a Western aircraft in a CIS country. UIA was the first CIS carrier to receive JAR 145 approval to perform full maintenance on Western aircraft.
FedEx revealed Friday that it received a grand jury subpoena in June relating to a wide-ranging multigovernment probe into possible anticompetitive practices by air cargo carriers. "We have no reason to believe that we are a target of the investigation, and we are cooperating with the [US Dept. of Justice]," FedEx said in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
ExelTech Aerospace was selected by Caribbean Star Airlines and Caribbean Sun Airlines to provide heavy MRO for the carriers' Dash 8 fleets. Under the deal's initial terms, ExelTech will perform airframe structural inspections and interior and exterior upgrades on eight aircraft in Quebec City. The work is valued at C$1.5-C$3 million ($1.3-$2.7 million).
Iberia said it was back to its full flight schedule Friday "with very few exceptions" following conclusion of a three-day pilots strike ( ATWOnline, July 13). "Iberia is glad the strike has ended, and thanks its customers for their confidence and their understanding in these difficult circumstances.
Jet Airways began operating its first A330-200 between Delhi and London Heathrow. The aircraft seats 226 and is powered by Trent 772Bs. Jet also operates A340-300Es on the daily service. It shifted a dash 300E to its LHR-Mumbai route on which it began offering a second daily frequency effective July 10. Separately, Jet linked its frequent-flier program with those of Austrian Airlines and Thai Airways. Jet Privilege members can earn and use miles on flights operated by Austrian and Thai, whose loyalty program members can do the same on Jet flights.
Meggitt and AeroMechanical Services reached agreement involving joint marketing of Meggitt's condition monitoring system with AMS's Automated Flight Information Reporting System that will permit real-time transmission of aircraft flight and engine data to "airline and helicopter companies' financial, operational and maintenance decision-makers and aircraft and engine owners with inclusive lease contracts."
SAS Cargo signed a cargo capacity agreement with Spanair effective Sept. 1. SAS said the agreement will be useful particularly to Scandinavians sending or receiving freight from Africa and South America, since Spain is a major gateway from those continents. Cargo Counts, a unit of Lufthansa Cargo, no longer will be in charge of selling capacity on Spanair's 51 aircraft. SAS said it will sell capacity through GSAs and its own staff.
Vistair launched SafetyNet, a Web-based air safety and incident reporting system for airline personnel. It was developed initially for Ryanair and since has been adopted by FlyBE.
OnAir selected mobile network provider Monaco Telecom as its ground infrastructure partner. Starting in 2007, OnAir will be launching GSM and GPRS mobile services on selected European flights, allowing passengers to make and receive phone calls and exchange text messages and e-mails using their own mobile phones and PEDs. Air France, bmi and TAP Portugal have signed up for commercial trials of the OnAir service.
US Bankruptcy Court judge reversed an earlier ruling and authorized Mesaba Airlines to terminate labor contracts with its 1,300 union employees. The Regional's pilot, mechanic and flight attendant unions all have warned they will strike if the company voids their deals. Mesaba, which said it will continue negotiating with the unions, must give 10 days notice before terminating the contracts. The carrier, which operates as a Northwest Airlink partner, wants a 19.4% reduction in labor costs over the next six years to ensure financial viability.
US Department of Homeland Security is moving forward again with its proposal to require that it be given Advance Passenger Information for US-bound international flights before aircraft take off, a switch from the current policy that requires the information to be relayed within 15 min. after departure. DHS last year tried to impose a requirement that API data be transmitted 60 min. prior to departure, a step that would have required carriers to close flights 75 min. before departure, but retreated in the face of overwhelming airline resistance.
Northwest Airlines signed a five-year, full-content agreement with Galileo International, which said the deal made it the first GDS to sign full-content deals with every network carrier in the US. Separately, NWA announced the retirement of Barry Simon, executive VP and general counsel, on June 30. It named Perry Cantarutti VP-reservations.
Austrian Airlines Group said its ontime performance has suffered as a result of poor ATC at its Vienna hub and it expects several million euros of extra costs. Labor issues and union squabbles at Austro Control have reduced slots at the airport from 40-45 per hr. to just 25. Austrian expected 83% ontime performance, but in the past several days it has dropped to 60%. Separately, the carrier will implement several organizational changes on Sept. 1 that it said should boost quality and productivity.
China and Japan reached an air services agreement yesterday that provides for a 20% increase in the number of passenger flights between the countries and a doubling of cargo services, Reuters reported. Thirteen carriers from each country will have access, up from the current six. The number of permitted flights will rise to 547 per week, with Chinese carriers operating 300.
Frontier Airlines flew 813.1 million RPMs in June, a 21.8% rise over the year-ago month. Capacity grew 17.7% to 954.9 million ASMs and load factor climbed 2.9 points to a record 85.2%. Passenger RASM rose 8.1% to 9.89 cents and yield increased 4.4% to 11.51 cents. Gol flew 1.24 billion RPKs in June, a 60.3% increase over the year-ago month. Capacity climbed 47.4% to 1.6 billion ASKs, lifting load factor 6.2 points to 77.3%.
Siemens Energy & Automation's Airport Logistics Division was awarded a $28 million contract to design and build the baggage handling and inline screening system at JetBlue's new Terminal 5 at JFK. The terminal is scheduled to be completed in early 2009.
Singapore Aircraft Leasing Enterprise will lease two new 737-800s to Shandong Airlines for 10 years each. Aircraft will be delivered from Boeing in the first half of 2007. It is Shandong's first contract with SALE, which has 30 dash 800s on firm order. Separately, SALE named former GECAS Singapore VP and Regional Manager-Structured Finance-Asia David Farrell as head of risk management.
Air France-KLM flew 16.92 billion RPKs in June, a 7.1% increase over the year-ago month. ASKs increased 5.8% to 20.53 billion and load factor rose 1 point to 76.2%. Cathay Pacific Airways flew 6 billion RPKs in June, a 14.1% increase over the year-ago month. Capacity rose 10.4% to 7.24 billion ASKs, lifting load factor 2.7 points to 82.8%. Midwest Airlines flew 352.9 million RPMs in June, a 25.6% increase over the year-ago month. ASMs were up 17% to 416.8 million and load factor climbed 5.9 points to 84.7%.
Germany's leading carriers, in an effort to strengthen their lobbying position with political and economic institutions, have transformed the old Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutscher Luftfahrtunternehmen into the Bundesverband der Deutschen Fluggesellschaften. The new association includes Air Berlin, Condor Airlines, dba, Eurowings/Germanwings, Germania, Hamburg International, Hapagfly, LTU German Airlines and Lufthansa. The carriers operate more than 500 aircraft, employ approximately 100,000 and serve nearly 100 million passengers annually.
Finnair will fly nonstop from Helsinki to Madrid by September and to Manchester from Oct. 29, eliminating the Stockholm stopover on each flight. It will start four-times-weekly Helsinki-Ljubljana flights in April 2007 aboard Embraer 170s.
South African Airways and Lufthansa were fined yesterday by South Africa's Competition Tribunal for anticompetitive behavior. SAA agreed to the fines in May ( ATWOnline, May 26) for allegedly colluding with LH to fix ticket prices on flights between Cape Town, Johannesburg and Frankfurt. SAA will pay ZAR40 million ($5.6 million) while Lufthansa agreed to pay ZAR8.5 million.
Embraer announced it will expand its regional product support network with the establishment of a spare parts logistics center and placement of a full flight simulator at an undisclosed Asia/Pacific site. The facilities will be operational by the middle of next year.
Kenya Airways added a seventh 767-300 to its fleet last week to meet rapidly growing demand on its network from West, East and Central Africa to Dubai, Guangzhou, Thailand and Mumbai. The new aircraft is on lease. KQ is looking to expand its Nairobi hub this year and aims to operate daily flights to most of its African destinations. Recently it started daily service to Douala and increased frequencies to Entebbe and Dar es Salaam. It also will start flights to Brazzaville and Cotonou by September.
