SkyEurope Airlines said Bank of Scotland will provide pre-delivery payments and long-term loan financing on the four new 737-700s scheduled for delivery in the second half of 2007. The airline last year placed an order for 16 firm aircraft and 16 options ( ATWOnline, May 11, 2005) and already has taken delivery of four. Twelve dash 700s, including those four, are to be financed under operating leases from GECAS. The aircraft financed with Bank of Scotland will be SkyEurope's first owned airplanes.
Ferrovial Group continues to push BAA shareholders to accept its hostile takeover bid and reportedly made a push Friday for a minority stake in the airports operator ahead of today's final bid deadline. Citing sources in Spain, Reuters reported that Ferrovial adviser Citigroup was purchasing BAA shares and hoped to acquire a 15% stake. Today is the deadline for the Spanish firm to make a final offer. Goldman Sachs reportedly is considering a rival bid.
Air Finland, in its third year of operation, said it earned a €1.1 million ($1.4 million) profit and carried 404,000 passengers in 2005, numbers that "exceeded all its targets." Revenues were "slightly over" €51 million. It said it expects to carry more than 500,000 passengers in 2006 and its financial result "is expected to be better than the year before."
Australian airport operators led by Melbourne and Brisbane attacked the government, claiming it is protecting Qantas at the expense of the country's tourist industry. Speaking to The Australian, Melbourne Airport CEO Chris Barlow claimed the government "has been putting money into promoting the 'Where the bloody hell are you?' global TV campaign, which is really successful," while knocking back airlines such as Emirates, which wants to double its services to Australia.
Air Pacific posted a 40% decline in net profit to $14.9 million for the financial year ended March 31 as fuel prices soared. That cost increase was reflected in a 5.7% rise in expenditure to $428.9 million while revenue was up only 2% to $449.4 million. Fuel climbed from 27% to 34% of total expenditure.
Air France this month will start deploying 777-300ERs on its routes from Paris Orly to the French Overseas Departments except French Guiana. Seven dash 300ERs in three-class configuration will gradually replace 747s, and by 2007 Fort-de-France, Pointe-a-Pitre and Saint Denis will have a dedicated fleet of 777s equipped with in-seat digital IFE. In the high season, AF operates up to 14 weekly flights between France and the French Caribbean and nine to Reunion. Some 1.4 million passengers travel on this network annually.
Alitalia said it posted a "good performance" in April that reflected a recovery after last January's strikes, particularly in the leisure segment. Traffic increased 6% on the year-ago month to 3.25 billion RPKs on a 3.3% capacity reduction to 4.3 billion ASKs. Load factor gained 6.6 points to 75.6%. Passenger boardings were up 5.1% to 2.08 million.
US Airways Group yesterday announced that Eastshore Aviation will sell 3.05 million shares of the group's common stock in an underwritten secondary offering. None of the proceeds of the offering, underwritten by Goldman, Sachs & Co., will go to US. Separately, the carrier launched a daily Philadelphia-Portland, Ore., service yesterday aboard an America West Airlines A320 and a daily Phoenix-Kalispell, Mont., flight aboard a Mesa Airlines CRJ200. From July 1 until Aug. 19 the route will be operated by a US A319.
IATA reported a 9.9% rise in international RPKs in April compared to the year-ago month. Capacity increased 5.5% and load factor was 76.5%. Strongest traffic growth was in the Middle East, which showed a 22.1% rise in RPKs against a 16.2% climb in ASKs.
Although airlines serving European airports have worked with common-use passenger handling systems for decades, US carriers have resisted the technology and US airports have been reluctant to impose it on them. Gradually this is changing. Raleigh-Durham International will build the system into its new Terminal C, making it the first airport in North Carolina to adopt it.
US deregulation of the global distribution systems market in 2004 had all the immediate impact of a whisper in the woods. At the time, most of the US Major airlines already were locked into three-year, "full-content" direct connect agreements with GDS providers that guaranteed the status quo would linger regardless of the Dept. of Transportation's decision to let the CRS rules expire (ATW, 4/04, p. 33).
The international terminal at Istanbul Ataturk International Airport is a pleasant surprise: Luxurious without being overwhelming or tacky, with modern architecture, glass curtain walls, stainless steel and ceramic panel finishes, granite flooring, plenty of space and very, very cleaneven the toilets.
One thing that can be said about Mesa Air Group Chairman and CEO Jonathan Ornstein is that he loves a challenge. Whether on the basketball court or in the boardroom, his natural instinct is to play hard and play to win. His acumen as a corporate leader is demonstrated by the Phoenix-based carrier's track record of growth and profitability during a period of financial hardship for most of the commercial aviation industryincluding some of Mesa's Regional counterparts.
Maintenance, repair and overhaul organizations are investing millions of dollars in IT systems to manage their operations. Those facilities equipped with the latest software are far more likely to get the work than those without IT.
JetBlue Airways is "looking seriously" at GDS participation, according to David Neeleman, chairman and chief executive officer. At the Merrill Lynch Global Transportation Conference, Neeleman said the airline was missing out on business by not being in corporate travel departments' booking systems.
If US passenger airlines succeed in posting a cumulative operating profit for 2006after five years of negative EBITtwo dates will loom large in the story of their turnaround: Sept. 14, 2005, when Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines entered Chapter 11 and began dropping capacity like a cat sheds fur, and Jan. 5, 2006, when Independence Air closed down, bringing some semblance of sanity to East Coast pricing. Give some credit as well to a couple of furies named Katrina and Rita for driving oil prices so high that even the most logic-challenged carrier had to raise its fares.
For some, the Electronic Flight Bag is a rather neat way of displaying airport and approach plates and is supplied by a teaming of Astronautics, Jeppesen and Boeing. Certainly the EFB is a cool technology, but it also is available from 15 other system providers using software from 28 vendors and marrying it to hardware from seven other suppliersand the list of capabilities appears to be growing daily. Now pilots have at their fingertips moving maps, graphical weather forecasts, terrain mapping and a host of additional features that they never knew they needed.
Here's a switch: A Major carrier opting to insource a formerly outsourced operation, and willing to shell out millions of dollars to do it. The carrier is US Airways and the operation is reservations. "We're beginning to insource at least part of reservations," says Executive VP-Sales and Marketing Scott Kirby. The reason? "Customer service and quality are not meeting our standards."
As the world's governments increasingly adopt Advance Passenger Information as a requirement for air travelers, airlines once again find themselves on the brink of a complex proliferation of standards. And once again they are calling for development of a global solution before the situation gets out of hand.
Norwegian is about to make a daring move. Next month, the Oslo-based low-cost carrier will open a base at Warsaw's Frederic Chopin Airport and commence flights to Alicante, Barcelona Girona and Malaga in Spain and Nice in the south of France. It intends to place a second 737-300 in Poland in August and launch service to 3-4 additional destinations.
ALAFCO Aviation Lease and Finance of Kuwait said it purchased five new 737-800s valued at $250 million that it plans to lease to Turkish Airlines for 12 years.
Air France Industries and Thales signed an MOU for maintenance, logistics, supply chain, repair and overhaul of the Top Series IFE systems for Air France A380s. The companies said they will "jointly explore innovative modes of cooperation to ensure cost-effective IFE maintenance and high level of IFE system reliability and availability." This cooperation will lead to a common support offer on a Paris CDG platform for other potential Thales TopSeries IFE customers.
Boeing began final assembly yesterday on the first 737-900ER, which will undergo a five-month flight test program later this year and eventually be delivered to Indonesia's Lion Air.
Delta Air Lines pilots yesterday ratified a new labor agreement that includes $280 million in annual concessions the airline says are "crucial" to its effort to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
