Boeing said last week that it will close its Melbourne, Ark., facility during the second quarter. "This decision reflects the unfortunate business realities facing the Melbourne operations," said Joy Romero, director of the Boeing Commercial Airplanes Salt Lake City facility, which will absorb Melbourne's remaining work. The facility served as an MRO station for MD and dash 700 series doors and flight controls.
Assn. of European Airlines members' punctuality fell in 2005 for the second consecutive year as 80.7% of short- and medium-haul flights departed within 15 min. of schedule compared with 82.7% in 2004 and 70.8% of long-haul flights took off within 15 min. of schedule, down from 72.6% in 2004. The 27 AEA member carriers that provided punctuality data operated some 3.64 million short- and medium-haul flights at a 98.5% completion rate. Regularity of long-haul flights stood at 99.4%, with a total of 274,003 flights operated by 21 AEA members.
Iberia introduced online check-in for passengers flying from London Heathrow. It said it is the first of 29 carriers at LHR's Terminal 2 to offer the service.
American Airlines and the Transport Workers Union representing its mechanics reached agreement on a goal "to obtain $150 million in value creation" at its Kansas City Maintenance & Engineering Base and to make the base a profit center by the end of 2007 through developing third-party business and implementing Continuous Improvement. The base, acquired in AA's purchase of TWA in 2000, employs 900 people. The goal was set by a joint team of base management and labor leaders who met recently under the carrier's Working Together initiative.
Iberia ratified the labor deal reached last week with unions representing some 18,500 ground staff ( ATWOnline, Feb. 3). The contract runs through Dec. 31. Air New Zealand said it will decide Feb. 13 whether to outsource its aircraft cleaning in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. The proposal would save "at least" NZ$1.5 million ($1 million) annually and affect 122 jobs.
Thales signed a deal with LAN Airlines for retrofit and line-fit installations of its TopSeries i-4000 video and audio on-demand system for 18 767s and four A340s, with options for three additional 767s. Delivery will begin next month.
MAIR Holdings, parent of Mesaba and Big Sky Airlines, reported a net loss of $4.5 million for the third quarter ended Dec. 31 compared to net earnings of $1.5 million for the same period a year earlier. Mesaba, which operates as a Northwest Airlink partner, declared bankruptcy in October. Total operating revenues for the third quarter were $21.2 million and operating expenses were $28.3 million.
IATA helped resolve an escalating aeropolitical row at London Heathrow over allocation of scarce fuel supplies following the Dec. 11 fire at the Buncefield fuel depot.
United Airlines is adding ramp and customer service employees at its Chicago O'Hare hub as well as better IT tools to improve operational performance at the airport, according to Senior VP-Airport Operations Larry DeShon, who spoke to employees in a weekly taped message. United has allocated close to $1 million for radios, scanners, new computers for the Station Operations Control center and other tools. It also is expanding training on the ramp so more guidance people are available to receive and dispatch aircraft.
US Transportation Security Administration Assistant Secretary Kip Hawley told a Senate committee yesterday that the Secure Flight program, the successor to the ill-fated CAPS II initiative, "continues to be a source of frustration" and will be delayed as IT systems "go through a comprehensive recertification process." Hawley added: "We will move forward with the Secure Flight program as expeditiously as possible, but in view of our need to establish trust with all our stakeholders on the security and privacy of our systems and data, my priority is to ensure that we do it right. .
Jet Airways is expected to issue a secondary stock offering in both the Indian and international markets to fund its $500 million acquisition of Sahara Airlines ( ATWOnline, Jan. 20) and aircraft purchases. Jet advised Indian authorities it will hold an extraordinary general meeting Feb. 28 to address the issue.
Luxair SA said its scheduled airline is in a "fragile situation" and is expected to lose approximately €12 million ($14.4 million) in 2005. The company began reducing the carrier's schedule in October and has pared the number of annual flights by 1.7%. During the year the number of scheduled passengers dropped 1.6% to 808,863 and load factor climbed 0.7 point to 51.5%. Its Luxair Tour Operating and Cargo Handling subsidiaries are expected to turn a profit for 2005.
Japan Airlines and oneworld exchanged an MOU as a first step in the airline's effort to join the global alliance. The MOU was signed in Vancouver a little more than three months after JAL indicated its intention to join ( ATWOnline, Oct. 26, 2005) and "sets out a framework" for the remainder of the process. It is expected that JAL, sponsored by American Airlines, will be a full member within a year, expanding oneworld's network by 68 destinations or approximately 10%.
British Airways reported a 3.3% January system traffic increase to 9.12 billion RPKs, a 3% capacity increase to 12.57 billion ASKs and a 0.2-point rise in passenger load factor to 72.5%. Delta Air Lines reported a systemwide 4.5% decline in January traffic to 8.57 billion RPMs. Capacity decreased 6.8% to 11.68 billion ASMs and load factor rose 1.7 points to 73.4%. Domestic RPMs dropped 7.3% to 6.43 billion as capacity fell 10.8% to 8.76 billion ASMs and load factor rose 2.7 points to 73.3%.
Lufthansa Systems' joint venture with Garuda Indonesia successfully implemented e-ticketing for the Indonesian carrier. Next steps are introduction of LHS solutions for pricing and network planning. Navitaire, a unit of Accenture, said AirTran Airways signed a business process agreement for its Open Skies hosted reservation system, renewing services provided under an existing five-year deal.
Taiwanese government is facing increased pressure to agree to regular direct charter flights between China and Taiwan as the annual Spring Festival comes to a close. This year 27,000 passengers flew on 72 direct charter flights from Jan. 20 to Feb. 7 in conjunction with the Chinese New Year. Last year 10,000 passengers flew on 48 flights. According to China Daily, Pu Zhaozhou, General Administration of Civil Aviation of China director-Office of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao Affairs, called regular charter flights the first step toward open skies.
Air Travel Price Index increased 6.4% in the third quarter of 2005 compared to the year-ago quarter, according to the US Dept. of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics. It marks the largest year-over-year increase in four years and is the highest index level (109.2) since the second quarter of 2001.
Latin American Airline Assn. announced that the 2005 Federico Bloch Award was given to Constantino de Oliveira Junior, CEO of Gol. The award honors Federico Bloch, the visionary CEO of Grupo Taca who was murdered in an apparent holdup attempt in 2004. The first Rolim Amaro Award was given to SCL Terminal Aereo Santiago (Santiago International Airport). Named in memory of the late founder and chairman of TAM, the award is given to the Latin American airport with the best overall service to AITAL member airlines.
Aeroxchange announced that Malaysia Airlines signed a marketplace subscription for products including AeroAOG, AeroBuy, AeroRepair, AeroSell and AeroSourcing.
Connexion by Boeing and Air China reached a "preliminary agreement" to provide Connexion's high-speed connectivity solution to Air China passengers traveling to and from China. The agreement covers up to 15 firm and optional retrofit installations of the product on 747-400s and other long-haul models. Financial terms were not disclosed. Installations are planned to begin in October.
Air France-KLM reported systemwide traffic of 15.74 billion RPKs in January, a 9.5% increase over the year-ago month. Capacity grew 8.1% to 19.92 billion ASKs and load factor rose 1 point to 79%. EasyJet reported 2.3 million earned seats flown in January, up 11.2% from the same month a year earlier. Load factor dropped 2.3 points to 74.2%. "Our total revenue performance this month was in line with our expectations, and our guidance for the year to September 2006 remains unchanged," CEO Andrew Harrison said in a statement.
European Low Fares Airline Assn. called on the European Commission to take a hard line against what it calls "the latest abuse" of the Public Service Obligation system by Italian authorities. "PSOs are being imposed on commercially viable routes between Sardinia and mainland Italy and this makes a mockery of the whole PSO system. Some of these routes are currently served by ELFAA members and consumers therefore have easy access to affordable air travel," stated ELFAA Secretary General Jan Skeels.
KLM will become a Worldspan Interchange participating carrier to "help [it] achieve the industry goal of 100% e-ticketing in 2007." According to the GDS, Worldspan Interchange is "a breakthrough e-ticket message communications hub with an advanced Editfact message translation process."
The Assn. of European Airlines reported that its 30 member carriers will post an operating profit of $800 million for 2005 based on preliminary figures, double a 2004 total that was the group's first combined profit in six years, in spite of last year's record nominal fuel prices.
