Northwest Airlines' 5,600 ramp service employees and stock clerks will see their hourly base wage rates reduced by 11.5% if they ratify a tentative five-year agreement reached between the airline and negotiators for the International Assn. of Machinists last week ( ATWOnline, May 22).
Aviation Refinancing Transaction awarded GA Telesis a five-year servicing contract to manage and remarket more than 50 Boeing aircraft and approximately 70 spare engines.
Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary will stand naked "in Warsaw's busiest street" if LOT Polish Airlines abolishes its fuel surcharge this month, the Irish carrier announced yesterday. A LOT spokesperson told Polish television last week that Ryanair would be willing to "walk naked down the street in front of TV cameras" in order to draw attention to the Polish airline's surcharges, Ryanair said. "We have no problem placing this wager with LOT because everyone knows that there is no chance whatsoever of LOT ever removing its fuel surcharges," Head of Communications Peter Sherrard said.
Indian Airlines signed an MOU with India's ICICI Bank for funding of the pre-delivery payments required for aircraft acquisition. Indian finalized a $2 billion deal for 43 A320 family aircraft in February ( ATWOnline, Feb. 22). Funding will come from a syndicated external commercial borrowing of $152 million spread from June 2006 to January 2010.
Air Transport Assn. warned of big crowds at US airports as the country observes Memorial Day Monday. ATA said US airlines will transport 21 million passengers from May 22 through May 31, or 2.1 million per day. It added that the passenger numbers are up 1.9% from the same week last year and advised travelers to arrive at airports 90 min. prior to departure for domestic flights and 120 min. prior to international departures and to be prepared for heavy traffic at security checkpoints.
Austrian Airlines will add a third daily Vienna-Moscow Sheremeteyvo service, operating Monday-Thursday, from June 5. It launched thrice-weekly flights to Ekaterinburg in April, bringing its weekly Russian service to 52 flights. Separately, Austrian said its Internet bookings for the January-April period rose 62% over the year-ago period thanks to a more user-friendly website featuring more languages.
US Dept. of Transportation said US airlines employed 5.4% fewer workers in March than in the year-ago month, the 15th consecutive year-over-year decline in the number of full-time equivalent employees. The carriers employed approximately 405,000 in March. Network airlines reported a 7.4% drop, low-cost carriers fell 3% and Regionals decreased 1.9%.
Significant capacity reductions at Northwest Airlines and Delta Air Lines, the disappearance of Independence Air and recent fuel-driven fare hikes gave US carriers their third consecutive month of double-digit year-over-year domestic yield growth in April.
Lufthansa Flight Training subsidiary Aviation Quality Services is inspecting Dragonair for conformity with the IATA Operational Safety Audit. It is the 50th safety audit conducted by AQS out of a total of 150 IOSA audits, according to AQS. Lufthansa Systems also announced it will operate the global wide area network of LSG Sky Chefs and provide all WAN services for the catering company, connecting more than 140 LSG Sky Chefs sites worldwide.
Chinese airlines posted a consolidated first-quarter loss of CNY1.34 billion ($166.9 million), according to a CAAC report cited yesterday by Xinhua. Revenues increased 21.5% over the year-ago quarter to CNY47.43 billion and expenses climbed 26.4% to CNY48.47 billion. China's airlines transported 35.13 million passengers, a rise of 20%, and 749,000 tons of cargo, an increase of 12.5%.
Air Malta last week introduced a voluntary redundancy system "following extensive consultation and negotiations with the four unions representing Air Malta's employees." The option will be available for four months and is open to workers with at least seven years at the airline. Details were released on its website. The deal is part of the 2004 Rescue Plan agreement that the carrier said "has paved the way for a restructuring exercise without the airline engaging itself in forced redundancies."
SkyWest Airlines flew 1.27 billion RPMs in April, a 112.8% increase over the year-ago month. Capacity rose 101.7% to 1.64 billion ASMs and load factor increased 4.1 points to 77.6%. Separately, SkyWest renewed its multiyear deal with ARINC for data link services, including GlobaLink/VHF service enhanced with high-capacity VDL Mode2 protocol.
Air Canada Technical Services signed a $2.8 million MRO agreement with S7 Airlines covering 10 newly leased A319s. ACTS will perform C1 and C4 airframe maintenance checks as well as "major" required and requested modifications prior to the aircrafts' entry into service. Work will be performed in Montreal and Winnipeg and will be completed by the end of August.
China Southern Airlines launched twice-weekly 737 service between Haikou and Singapore and weekly Urumqi-Baku flights aboard a 757. Separately, UATP added China Southern as its newest UATP Merchant. It will accept all UATP corporate cards.
Malaysia Airlines named CB Richard Ellis Group of Los Angeles and its Malaysian partner CH Williams to assist with the sale of its portfolio of noncore assets as outlined in the Business Turnaround Plan released earlier this year ( ATWOnline, March 6). MAS's portfolio consists of space in 26 mixed residential and office buildings throughout the Asia/Pacific region, the UK and the Netherlands.
Northwest Airlines and the International Assn. of Machinists, representing approximately 5,600 equipment service and stock clerks, announced a tentative labor agreement Friday. The ESSC employees were one of two IAM groups to reject a previous agreement ( ATWOnline, March 8) that was accepted by customer service and reservation staff. "We were able to get the company to change some of their demands. Even with this movement, the committee is still disappointed.
CAE won contracts for flight simulators last week from Cathay Pacific, ATR and Ryanair valued at a combined C$48 million ($43 million. Cathay signed a contract for a 777-300ER FFS, an accompanying integrated procedures trainer and seven virtual maintenance trainers. It is the fifth simulator the airline has purchased from CAE since 1992. Regional aircraft manufacturer ATR awarded CAE a contract for an ATR 72-500 FFS as well as two Tropos visual systems and an upgrade to the visual system of an existing simulator.
Air New Zealand contracted UK-based CTC Aviation to train 140 new cabin crew to be based at London Heathrow and support daily 747-400 Auckland-Hong Kong-LHR flights scheduled to launch Oct. 28. Separately, ANZ named Cam Wallace GM-New Zealand and Pacific Island sales replacing Roger Poulton, who will become GM-Americas based in Los Angeles.
World Air Holdings, parent of World Airways and North American Airlines, will be delisted from the Nasdaq market today for failing to file necessary financial reports on time. World, which has been delisted in the past, plans an immediate appeal. It has yet to file its full-year 2005 or first-quarter 2006 earnings, saying that it is resolving issues related to its April 2005 acquisition of NAA.
A US Bankruptcy Court judge sided with Mesaba Airlines pilots and flight attendants last week, denying management the right to cancel existing labor 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. In February it filed documents with the court seeking approval to cancel its labor contracts with pilots, flight attendants and mechanics and cut 1,600 jobs.
US Transportation Security Administration was the target of criticism from lawmakers who complained the agency's final air cargo security rule ( ATWOnline, May 19) does not go far enough. Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), a relentless critic of TSA and an advocate of screening all cargo carried by passenger aircraft, said the new regulations fail to close "a glaring aviation security loophole" by not mandating that all belly cargo be electronically or physically inspected.
Malev and German Regional OLT launched flights between Debrecen and Budapest this month using OLT's Saab 340s operating with Malev flight numbers. In addition, OLT announced it is creating a subsidiary called Civis Air to make it possible for its aircraft to operate with Hungarian crew and be maintained under a Hungarian registration number in Debrecen. Civis to expects carry more than 50,000 passengers to/from Debrecen by 2010. OLT's fleet consists of 16 Saab 2000s, Saab 340s, Metroliners, Cessna 404s and Cessna 208Bs.
Lufthansa Technik Shenzhen will overhaul CF6-80 thrust-reverser units under a three-year contract with Thai Airways. LTS already is overhauling CFM56-3 thrust reverser units for Thai. Separately, Lufthansa Technik's Mobile Access Router "flying office solution" was made available for A380 customers as a standard option. LHT also announced it signed an MRO contract with KrasAir covering the Russian carrier's 11 737-500s.
