Air Luxor of Portugal was sold by its parent Mirpuri Group to Longstock Financial Group. Value of the sale was not announced. Air Luxor and its associated companies had revenues of €150 million ($192 million) in 2005. It operates two A320s from Lisbon to Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau and Sao Tome and Principe.
Continental Airlines said it received $156 million from its recent sale of 7.5 million shares of Class A common stock of Copa Holdings, parent of Copa Airlines ( ATWOnline, June 30). Continental will contribute $75 million to its pension plans, bringing its 2006 contribution to $172 million. It still holds 4.4 million shares in Copa.
Swiss International Air Lines and the Aeropers pilots union have been unable to conclude a new labor agreement after 17 months of negotiations. Aeropers declared on Friday, the day the existing deal expired, that talks have failed and that a strike is possible if the carrier changes portions of the current contract. Swiss expects its Airbus pilots to work an average maximum of 19 days per month, take six rather than 7.5 weeks of vacation per year and make reasonable concessions on overall remuneration.
Irish High Court on Monday overturned a 2005 decision by the Commission for Aviation Regulation that imposed strict slot allocation rules on Dublin Airport. CAR had designated Dublin a "full coordination" airport, meaning its slots could be administered tightly to control congestion. Airlines, particularly Ryanair, objected to the designation since it gave them little say in the allocation of takeoff and landing slots. The High Court ruled that CAR had overstepped its bounds and failed to meet the standards of EU regulations governing airport designations.
SAS Cargo will secure 100 tons of space per week on thrice-weekly 747-200F flights from Copenhagen to Beijing and Shanghai operated by Air China. The deal also allows Air China to purchase capacity on SAS flights to China.
SAS Cargo established an independent legal entity called Spirit Air Cargo Handling Group to operate cargo handling at 12 airport terminals in Scandinavia. "The independence will make it easier for the terminals to create their own profile in the Scandinavian market for cargo handling [and] improve the terminals' opportunities to maintain and increase the amount of customers," SAS Cargo President and CEO Kenneth Marx said. The new company commenced operations on July 1.
A US Bankruptcy Court last week gave Northwest Airlines permission to terminate its labor contract with 9,300 flight attendants and replace it with a tentative concessions agreement reached between the airline and union leaders in March.
Sabre Airline Solutions said Austrian Airlines chose its Rocade Crew Management System to plan and track crew scheduling across its operation. Sabre also will provide professional services and ongoing support during the implementation and for a period of at least five years.
Alteon Training will place 787 "training suites" in Australia, India and Singapore, adding to previously announced locations in Seattle, Tokyo, London Gatwick and China, the Boeing subsidiary said last week. The suites include full flight and flat-panel simulators, desktop simulation systems and door trainers. Thales will supply the suites, which will be in place by summer 2008.
Japan Airlines said Friday it plans to sell 700 million new shares in an effort to raise as much as $1.94 billion for aircraft purchases and debt reduction. It said the sale will take place next month and it is leaving open the option of selling another 50 million shares. "We're going to use the funds for expansion," CFO Yuichiro Kito said at a Tokyo news conference. "Rather than waiting for a turnaround in business, we decided to take action." JAL will determine an offer price for the share sale by July 21.
Gol entered into an agreement for $50 million in long-term financing from International Finance Corp., the private sector arm of World Bank Group. The IFC financing is intended to support the LCC's investment in spare parts inventory and working capital requirements.
Embraer 195 received certification from the National Civil Aviation Agency of Brazil, paving the way for delivery of the first aircraft to launch customer FlyBE later this summer. Certification by the European Aviation Safety Agency is expected to follow shortly. The aircraft, which can be configured for 108-118 seats, is the largest member of Embraer's 170/190 family. In addition to FlyBE's order for 14, Royal Jordanian and Swiss International Air Lines have placed firm orders.
AirTran Airways will add 2,500 jobs in Georgia over the next five years. It currently employs more than 5,200 in the state out of its total workforce of 7,700. It plans to add more than 80 737s to its fleet during the period along with new routes out of Atlanta. It currently operates 230 daily flights from Georgia, where it also serves Savannah.
IATA reported 7% growth in worldwide airline passenger traffic in May compared to the year-ago month. May cargo traffic increased 5.1%. IATA DG and CEO Giovanni Bisignani said "strong economies" are driving demand and "helping the global airline industry to offset some of the sharp increases in jet fuel prices." ICAO is forecasting worldwide airline scheduled passenger traffic growth of 6.1% for 2006, 5.8% for 2007 and 5.6% for 2008.
Aeromedic Innovations signed a three-year agreement with British Airways for the provision and servicing of onboard first aid kits as well as medical supplies for BA's Occupational Health Units. The deal complements an existing BA contract held by Aeromedic covering supply and maintenance of BA's onboard medical kits.
Number of passengers willing to pay premium fares has dropped by half over the past five years, giving business aviation a major boost, according to a study by The Velocity Group. The number of higher-yield trips fell from 18% of overall travel pre-9/11 to 9% in 2005. "The decline in higher-yield airline travel since our last survey has been dramatic," said Gerald Bernstein, a partner with Velocity. "Despite a rise in total airline passenger trips, the number of higher-yield trips declined from almost 81 million to 41 million since 2000.
That cliche about the three most important things in real estate being location, location, location is equally true for the airline industry these days.
In the U.S., the same people who navigate the nation's air transport system without a second thought are sometimes clueless when it comes to rail travel, particularly if they live outside the Northeast, California's Capitol Corridor or other areas where rail commutes are commonplace. So in designing the latest incarnation of its Web site, Amtrak put a lot of thought into answering questions raised by the uninitiated. It offers a primer for first-timers.
Copa Airlines said yesterday that it has priced Continental Airlines' offering of 6.56 million Class A nonvoting Copa shares at $21.75 per share. It added that underwriters will have a 30-day option to purchase an additional 984,375 Copa shares from Continental to cover overallotments, if any. CO will continue to hold a 12.3% interest in Copa once the share sale is completed, or a 10% interest if the overallotment option is exercised in full.
Next Generation Air Transportation System, as the program to modernize the US air traffic control system is now known, will revolutionize the airways in the same way that construction of the US interstate highway system changed how people and goods move on the ground, outgoing Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta said Wednesday at a forum on NGATS in Washington.
India and Kuwait agreed to increase airline seats per week from Kuwait by 1,300. Kuwait Airways will maintain its current 5,200 weekly seats while Jazeera Airways will operate the added 1,300. The expansion is part of a broader agreement expected to be finalized during bilateral talks scheduled for next month.
Assn. of European Airlines members collectively posted a provisional operating profit of $755 million in 2005, up 82.8% from $413 million the previous year, according to data released yesterday in AEA's Yearbook 06. Operating margin of the 30 carriers edged up to 0.9% from 0.4% in 2004, which AEA said "must be regarded as unsatisfactory still for a year in which most of the fundamentals were favorable--strong demand, economic growth, low interest."
Berlin Airports, which manages the city's three airports, finalized a €350 million ($439.7 million) bridge loan with an international consortium of banks headed by Commerzbank in another step toward transforming Berlin Schoenefeld into the larger and more modern Berlin Brandenburg International Airport. The consortium also includes Helaba, KfW/IPEX and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. as co-arrangers. Other members are the investment banks in the states of Berlin and Brandenburg.
Hawaiian Airlines filed a motion seeking a court order to stop Mesa Air Group from issuing inter-island tickets for its new startup carrier go!, which began service June 9. According to the Associated Press, Hawaiian claims to have proof that Mesa's CFO used "highly confidential documents and trade secrets obtained from Hawaiian in April 2004." At that time, Mesa was among a group of potential bidders for the bankrupt island carrier. In February, Hawaiian filed suit against the Regional and Mesa responded a month later with a countersuit charging Hawaiian with violating antitrust laws.
Air Arabia announced that Information Systems Associates, its joint venture with John Keells Holdings, developed a new reservation system dubbed AccelAero for low-cost airlines. According to the Arabian Air Carrier Assn., the system provides selling channels through the Internet, travel agencies and call centers. Air Arabia is the launch customer.
