American Eagle passengers nixed the airline's effort to sell sodas and fruit juice onboard for $1. The idea of buying a beverage apparently didn't fly with customers during a trial period conducted recently in California. The jury is still out, however, on Eagle's sales of cashews and pillow and blanket sets, which are being evaluated based on "positive feedback from customers," according to the airline. Eagle will continue sales of onboard snack boxes for $3 each. The boxes contain raisins, crackers, shortbread cookies and a cheese spread.
At Wednesday's unveiling of the Air Transport Assn.'s Smart Skies initiative, which calls for, among other things, a more equitable funding of the Airport and Airways Trust Fund through fees tied to operation frequencies and flight times ( ATWOnline, March 9), CEO James May predicted the proposal would meet with spirited dissent and debate. He did not have to wait more than a few hours, as the National Business Aviation Assn., the General Aviation Manufacturers Assn. and the National Air Transportation Assn. delivered their rebuttal later Wednesday.
US House of Representatives voted 265-158 Wednesday to instruct House negotiators to accept provisions in the Senate pension bill aimed at protecting airline pensions. The measure, offered by Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), would give airlines that freeze their plans up to 20 years to fully fund them. The bill also would stop benefit cuts to pilots forced to retire at age 60 whose pensions are funded by the government.
Frontier Airlines named Roger Morenc senior director-revenue and market management. He comes from ATA Airlines. Star Alliance appointed Philip Saunders VP-sales, marketing and loyalty effective March 20. He joins Star from SN Brussels Airlines, where he was executive VP-commercial. He also held senior positions at British Airways and DBA.
Qantas confirmed yesterday the closure of its 747 heavy MRO operations in Sydney after 55 years in service, resulting in the loss of approximately 480 jobs although up to 140 employees may be transferred elsewhere in the company, CEO Geoff Dixon said. The airline, which has been considering the move since October as part of the restructuring of its maintenance and engineering operations, said it would make an effort to keep the work in Australia but is looking at securing a cost base that will ensure profitability with oil costing more than $60 per barrel.
Barco in cooperation with NCS Group was selected by the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore to "optimize the arrival management at Changi Airport." According to the companies, the contract encompasses integration of Barco's Osyris arrival manager solution with the Singapore ATC system.
Amadeus said it signed a "global Preferred Supplier Agreement" with ITP-International Travel Partnership, a UK-based consortium of 400 associate travel agencies worldwide. Amadeus will provide its Vista browser-based point-of-sale platform and a corporate self-booking portal. Separately, Amadeus said it is close to completing a project to upgrade travel agencies to browser-based technology. It said 99% of travel agencies connect to its reservation system via the Internet.
DBA signed a three-year contract with SR Technics for support of the Honeywell APUs installed on its Boeing fleet. Service will be provided at SR Technics' Dublin facility.
Ethiopian Airlines began issuing e-tickets on the Addis Ababa-Nairobi sector last month. Further e-ticketing will be launched on routes from Addis Ababa to Johannesburg, Frankfurt and Washington.
WestJet Executive VP-Finance and CFO Alexander Campbell will be leaving the company June 15. In a statement, he said that "now is the best time to make a change." He will assist during the transition period. He becomes the second senior executive to depart in recent months. Last fall, Executive VP-Operations Tim Morgan, a WestJet co-founder, announced his departure for personal reasons ( ATWOnline, Oct. 24, 2005).
American Airlines yesterday said it believes that a content-sharing agreement between Sabre and Amadeus may violate its contracts with the global distribution systems. On Tuesday, the GDSs said they entered into an agreement that enables "Amadeus customers to complete bookings on an airline [through Sabre] in the unlikely event of that airline withdrawing from participation in Amadeus," and vice versa ( ATWOnline, March 8).
Gol's February traffic increased 58.2% over the year-ago month to 940.5 million RPKs. Capacity rose 60.4% to 1.34 billion ASKs, dropping load factor 1 point to 70.1%. Domestic traffic climbed 55.6% to 860.8 million RPKs against a 56.1% lift in capacity to 1.22 billion ASKs. Load factor dipped 0.3 point to 70.5%. International traffic increased 93.9% to 79.7 million RPKs, ASKs rose 122.9% to 120.8 million and load factor fell 9.8 points to 66%.
Lantal Textiles said it created a new Pneumatic Systems Division to "assert its firm belief in the market potential of this technology." The first product, "an adaptive cushion for a business class seat, was successfully commercialized last year," the company stated.
In anticipation of a long, possibly contentious debate over the September 2007 reauthorization of the US Airport and Airways Trust Fund and the state of air traffic control and management systems, the Air Transport Assn. and its president and CEO, James May, fired the first salvo at a news conference in Washington yesterday, announcing "historic" unanimous support of ATA's 19 member carriers for a comprehensive revamp of the nation's ATC system and the use of operation frequencies and flight times as the sole acceptable metrics for determining trust fund contributions.
SAS said it finalized a full-content agreement with Worldspan under which the airline will provide the GDS "with all fares, schedules and availability including published low fare classes and Web fares that are available through SAS's own reservations and ticket agents as well as SAS Group websites."
Boeing signed Goodrich Aerostructures Service Center Asia to perform nacelle component MRO services on 737NGs and 777s. GASCA is the fourth member of the airframer's Repair Network Service Center program.
United Airlines will upgrade its inflight audio entertainment with the inclusion of up to 19 music channels provided by XM Satellite Radio during a "promotional period," the carrier announced.
SITA announced the launch of AgentSelect, "an end-to-end solution for multinational travel agencies, tour operators and travel management companies." Pricing is subscription-based with a fixed monthly fee and is offered on a lease contract basis.
Carmen Systems of Sweden, which is being acquired by Boeing, announced that Virgin Atlantic Airways has fully implemented its Carmen crew rostering and bidding system.
In the first such deal among the four major global distribution systems, Amadeus and Sabre Holdings announced they entered into an agreement that enables "Amadeus customers to complete bookings on an airline [through Sabre] in the unlikely event of that airline withdrawing from participation in Amadeus," and vice versa. The agreement only applies to airlines participating in both GDSs, so it would not affect a carrier such as Southwest Airlines, which currently participates in Sabre but not Amadeus.
Latin American Airline Assn. issued a statement Monday protesting "massive air transport fee increases" by the Jamaican government and warning that some members already are rethinking current and future operations. AITAL said Jamaica raised overflight fees by 180%, boosted communication fees and instituted a jet fuel storage and handling fee of 3.7 cents per gal. "We are outraged that a country so dependent on air travel and tourism would choose to raise costs so significantly with no justification," AITAL Executive Director Alex de Gunten said.
Air France-KLM said it posted a "further good performance both in terms of traffic and unit revenue" in February. Traffic increased 8.5% over the year-ago month to 13.93 billion RPKs on a 6.9% rise in capacity to 17.93 billion ASKs. Load factor improved 1.1 points to 77.7%. The group carried nearly 5 million passengers, up 5.1%. SAS Group carried 2.7 million passengers in February, up 11.4% compared to the same month last year. RPKs increased 8.5% and ASKs declined 2.3%, resulting in a load factor of 66.1%, up 6.6 points.
Phuket Air shareholders scrapped the airline and applied for a fresh license for a new carrier called Suvarnabhumi Airlines, according The Nation newspaper. The new airline will fly from Bangkok to Ranong, Buri Ram, Chiang Mai and Phuket with two 737s. Shareholders also filed to launch a second carrier called Holiday Airlines, which will operate to Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo using three 747s. Phuket Air had a troubled past, with technical problems grounding aircraft around the world.
Northwest Airlines' 7,677 customer service and reservations staff, represented by the International Assn. of Machinists, voted yesterday to ratify a concessionary contract with the airline, while 5,632 equipment service employees, also represented by IAM, rejected a similar agreement.
ARINC will provide comprehensive technical and maintenance support for check-in systems, flight information displays and additional IT systems at Dallas/Ft. Worth's new International Terminal D, which opened in July 2005.
