Iberia is investing €30 million ($37.12 million) to remodel passenger cabins on all of its A319s, A320s and A321s. It plans to complete the refurbishment of nearly 90 aircraft by the end of 2007.
Lufthansa joined the host of airlines raising their fuel surcharges, announcing yesterday that surcharges on long-haul flights will increase to €62 ($76.70) from €52 effective May 5. Surcharge on German and intra-European routes will remain at €12 per segment.
Air Canada Technical Services will provide component MRO and support for JetBlue's A320 fleet under a 10-year, $200 million contract. It is "the largest component maintenance contract for ACTS," according to the company, and represents two-thirds of the total component maintenance demand for the aircraft. Work will be performed at the ACTS Montreal components facility. Separately, JetBlue signed an agreement to implement the latest Septimo version of TRAX.
Amadeus said Danish LCC Sterling is pioneering the Amadeus Ticketless Access product, "a technology solution [providing LCCs with] comprehensive access for the first time to sales through travel agents and corporate customers." According to the GDS provider, Amadeus Ticketless Access "enables up-to-the-minute fare and flight information from ticketless carriers to be displayed alongside those of full-service airlines" through GDSs.
SkyTeam is offering a new service, SkyTeam Global Meetings, designed to streamline the process of arranging travel for large-scale international meetings and events. Organizers will be able to coordinate all travel needs across all 10 member carriers through one point of contact. The program has its own website and will feature discounts and special incentives for participants.
Northern Air Cargo will become the first North American carrier to implement TopAir, a flight operations system marketed to small and mid-sized airlines by Avient Solutions.
Precision Conversions signed with Babcock & Brown Aircraft Management for two 757-200 cargo conversions. The work is scheduled to be completed by year end and will be done at Flightstar Aircraft Services in Jacksonville. Operating customers for the aircraft were not disclosed.
Air France Industries, the MRO arm of Air France, and Engine Alliance, the GE-P&W joint venture producing the GP7000 for the A380, signed an Industrial Cooperation Agreement under which AFI will open an MRO center in Paris for the engine. The AFI facility "will work as a part of the Engine Alliance MRO network," according to a statement from GE. AF, which chose the GP7000 to power its A380s, will start with partial GP7000 service capability next year when the engine enters service and ramp up to overhaul capability as the fleet grows.
Aeroports de Paris' planned IPO could raise up to €600 million ($740.25 million) through the issuance of new shares, the Parisian airports operator said in a filing with stock market regulator AMF. The French government, which currently owns ADP, intends to remain a majority shareholder with a 51% holding. The IPO would include the issue of new shares and the government selling part of its stake; 10% of the shares would be reserved for ADP employees.
GE Commercial Aviation Services will acquire five CRJ700s for lease to GoJet Airlines of Missouri for its United Express service. Four are conversions of existing conditional orders and one is a new order. List price of the five aircraft is approximately $154 million. Deliveries will increase GoJet's CRJ700 fleet to 15. No schedule was announced.
Open skies agreement between the UK and Canada signed last week ( ATWOnline, April 24) offers virtually unlimited passenger and cargo flights to and from third countries to UK carriers via Canada and to Canadian airlines via the UK. Under the new bilateral, Canadian and British carriers will face no restrictions on how they set prices when carrying traffic through their own country's cities to the third country. More than 2 million passengers fly annually between Canada and the UK.
Following three days of deliberation, the Master Executive Council of the Delta Air Lines pilots union ratified the tentative labor agreement reached April 14 and sent it to members for a May vote. The accord then will be subject to approval by the US Bankruptcy Court and is scheduled to go into effect June 1 and become amendable on Dec. 31, 2009. The MEC voted late Friday and approved the deal by a 12-1 count.
SITA said it had revenue of $1.56 billion last year as it moves toward consolidation of its business units that were separated several years ago. SITA INC revenues rose 13% to $726 million while SITA SC revenues totaled $828 million.
European commercial airframe and engine MRO market generated revenues of $10.6 billion in 2005 and the figure will rise nearly 50% to $15.2 billion by 2012, according to consultancy Frost & Sullivan. Growth is being driven by strong air traffic demand between Eastern and Western Europe as well as the continuing trend toward outsourcing MRO. According to the firm, many of the A320 and 737 aircraft delivered in 1997-2002 will experience their first airframe heavy checks and engine removals "and correspondingly create a short-term spike in demand" during the forecast period.
BAE Systems Aircraft Trading and Management Services sold two A319s on behalf of a consortium of European banks and investors and Magritte Aircraft Leasing Ltd.
US Air Transport Assn. on Friday criticized the Transportation Security Administration's plan to begin rolling out its Registered Traveler program this year, saying it "firmly believes that limited TSA resources should not be diverted from efficiently and effectively screening all passengers to a program that provides limited and questionable benefits for some customers.
Volito Aviation, through its wholly owned subsidiary Volito Aviation Leisure KB, placed an A320 with Donbassaero Airlines through April 2012. The aircraft is financed by PK AirFinance. Separately, Volito Aviation increased its facility with HSH Nordbank AG in Kiel to $250 million. The facility is secured by commercial jet aircraft on lease to various carriers worldwide.
Former Air Wisconsin Chairman and CEO Preston Wilbourne died April 20. He was 80. Wilbourne joined the airline as GM in 1965 shortly after it commenced operations. At the time, it operated a single de Havilland Dove. He rose through the ranks to become chairman and CEO, retiring in 1990. Etihad Airways announced a revamp of its commercial management team, which now will feature four regional GMs based in Abu Dhabi and five department managers.
Sabre Holdings announced agreements with United Airlines and Delta Air Lines. The latter signed a seven-year, full-content agreement with Sabre Travel Network to make all published fares and inventory available to Sabre subscribers, including published fares that the airline sells through any third-party distributor and through its reservation offices and website. In addition to the Sabre agreement, Delta also signed a new marketing agreement with Travelocity and a participation agreement with Travelocity's Site59 unit. Sabre signed a similar agreement with United good for five years.
Air New Zealand will raise fares on all domestic flights and outbound international flights by 10% on May 1. The carrier said rising fuel costs necessitated the change. "Fuel is now our number one cost," said CFO Rob McDonald. "We regret having to increase fares but the numbers are stark." The airline's annual fuel bill has more than doubled since 2004, jumping from NZ$480 million ($303.3 million) to NZ$1 billion. ANZ also announced a NZ$42 million upgrade to its domestic terminal facilities at Auckland International Airport.
Swiss International Air Lines boosted its fuel surcharge on long-haul flights to CHF106 ($83.29) in each direction from CHF93. European and domestic services will see a fuel surcharge of CHF32 each way. The revised surcharges will be levied on all tickets issued in Switzerland from April 25. Swiss last increased its fuel surcharges in September 2005.
Empire Aero Center of New York was awarded a contract to provide heavy maintenance on Transaero Airlines 747-200s. The first aircraft is slated to undergo C and D checks at the end of April. Contract value was not disclosed.
Dniproavia accused Lufthansa of influencing German aviation authorities to get the Ukrainian carrier's route authority to serve Frankfurt and Berlin cancelled in violation of a 2005 open skies agreement between the countries. According to an "open letter" from Dniproavia to the Dept. of Aviation of the Federal Republic of Germany and shareholders of Lufthansa Airlines, the German LBA, "on Lufthansa's advice," on March 8 prohibited the airline from flying to Germany and cancelled its flights to Berlin and Frankfurt. Dniproavia alleged LH's goal is to monopolize the markets.
Bmi leased a 767 to be operated on its service to Riyadh from April 22 and a new route to Jeddah scheduled to launch May 18. The aircraft will be configured with two classes and will feature Star Alliance livery.
