SAS Cargo finalized its purchase of Sterling's cargo capacity, adding approximately 30,000 tons to SAS Cargo's annual European capacity ( ATWOnline, Sept. 29).
Air Berlin will hire 200 flight attendants from spring 2006. The new cabin crew will be based in Dusseldorf, Dortmund, Hamburg, Hannover and Leipzig. The carrier will add up to nine new A320s next year. In addition, it plans to strengthen its position at its Nuremberg hub, adding service to Paris, Catania, Lamezia Terme, Brindisi, Mykonos, Thira and Milan Bergamo and additional frequencies to London and Vienna.
Indian state-run oil companies reduced the price of aviation turbine fuel by 1.85% effective Nov. 1 due to the drop in international oil prices, Newindpress reported. For domestic airlines the price per kiloliter has been cut approximately 2% to INR35,761 ($792.31) in Delhi and INR36,715 in Mumbai. For international carriers the price has gone down 4% to $609 per kiloliter in Delhi and $601 in Mumbai.
Curtiss-Wright Controls announced the renewal of a long-term contract with Boeing Commercial Airplanes giving the North Carolina company exclusive rights to manufacture 737 and 767 trailing edge flap actuators, 747 leading edge slat actuators, 777 flap position gearboxes, 767 and 777 cargo door actuators, 747, 767 and 777 cargo hold smoke detectors and assorted flight control and pilot control position sensors.
AirTran Airways reported record traffic for October. RPMs grew 35.2% to 968.2 million against a capacity increase of 25.4%, producing a load factor of 73.1%, a rise of 5.3 points over October 2004.
United Airlines and Swiss International Air Lines announced a codeshare and frequent-flier agreement effective Nov. 9. United's code will appear on Swiss's service between Zurich and Los Angeles, Zurich and Chicago O'Hare, and connecting beyond Zurich to Dubai and Muscat. Swiss's code will appear on United's Washington Dulles-Zurich service as well as between Los Angeles and Honolulu, with more routes to be announced pending regulatory approval.
IATA yesterday unveiled the cargo component of its Simplifying the Business initiative--dubbed e-freight--which aims for global paperless cargo processing by 2010, saving $1.2 billion annually and reducing shipping times by 25%. E-freight is one of five Simplifying the Business projects launched with a target of cutting industry costs by $6.5 billion. The others are eliminating paper tickets by the end of 2007, common-use self-service check-in kiosks, barcoded boarding passes and radio frequency identification for baggage management.
Cathay Pacific Airways announced a passenger load factor of 76.4% for September, up 1.2 points over the same month in 2004. The carrier is adding a fifth daily flight between Hong Kong and Seoul beginning Jan. 27.
US Airways announced that $777 million in debt, of which $752 is guaranteed by the US government, has been sold at a light premium to par to 13 fixed-income investors.
WestJet expanded its Internet check-in service to include baggage drop counters at each of its 23 Canadian airports. The carrier said more than 30% of its passengers have used the self-serve check-in feature this year.
Viva International said it executed a letter of intent to purchase Smyrna, Tenn.-based RegionsAir, previously known as Corporate Airlines. RegionsAir provides service to 11 cities under the Essential Air Services program. Under terms of the LOI, Viva will acquire the entire operation, including the certificate, maintenance facilities and airport station agreements.
OAG signed a deal with lastminute.com to distribute real-time flight status information directly to UK-registered mobile devices. The lastminute.com Flight Alert Service includes more than 190 airlines and relays any significant changes in the time, terminal or gate of a registered flight directly to individuals via SMS Flight Status Alerts.
BWIA West Indies Airways appointed GM Nelson Tom Yew as CEO and a new five-person board chaired by Arthur Lok Jack. The management restructuring was part of a deal negotiated with the government of Trinidad and Tobago, which pumped $250 million into the airline last month, the Associated Press reported. UAL Corp., parent of United Airlines, announced the appointment of William R. Norman as senior VP-United Services, the company's maintenance and engineering division.
AITAL, the Latin American Airline Assn., rescheduled its annual Latin American Airline Leaders Forum to Dec. 13-15 at the Fairmont Turnberry Isle Resort in South Florida. The event originally was scheduled for last week and was postponed due to Hurricane Wilma.
Saint-Gobain Flight Structures is expanding its Ravenna, Ohio, plant in order to manufacture lightweight aerospace composites used in components such as cargo doors and wingtips. The Ravenna plant is a self-contained operation specializing in design, manufacture, repair and certification of composites and Saint Gobain's Norton radomes.
How would you define the current market situation in general? Overall demand is finally reaching and starting to exceed the levels of 2001. But even this modest upturn in the MRO industry, linked especially to the strong growth of many new low-cost providers, is being diminished to some extent by counter-trends, with market consolidation occurring only slowly. Worldwide, downward pressure on prices persists and market recovery per se does not mean yield is recovering. Size matters in MRO. High market penetration and a certain throughput level are key to success in this
Japanese politicians have been banned from using them, Italian politicians are having loudspeakers installed under their parliamentary seats to drown them out and many prestigious golf clubs ban them at the entry gate. They are the most annoying thing in our lives and 70% of air travelers say they do not want them on aircraft. They are mobile phones.
Sabre lost a bid to end the U.S. Transportation Department's authority to regulate independent GDS companies. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that in a 1952 law that gave the department the authority to regulate ticket agents, Congress' definition of "ticket agent" was "sufficiently broad" to include GDSs.
Two issues must be resolved before China can experience explosive growth in online travel, and neither is insurmountable, according to participants at TravelSky Technology Ltd.'s China Travel Distribution Future Forum 2005 in Beijing. The first is widespread implementation of electronic ticketing in what is expected to become the world's largest travel market. The second issue may prove more challenging: facilitating online payment for online purchases in a country in which credit cards are relatively scarce.
The good news for maintenance, repair and overhaul suppliers is that the market is in full recovery mode. Stronger-than-expected traffic demand in 2005 is causing airlines to fly their aircraft harder, many of the thousands of jets ordered between 1996 and 2000 are coming due for heavy checks, and relatively few airlines are investing in new repair facilities.
Paramount Airways, a new Indian Regional carrier, signed a nine-year, $12 million OnPoint Solutions service agreement with GE Engine Services for MRO of the CF34-8Es powering the airline's five Embraer 170s/175s.
News from Travel Technology Update: AirTran Airways will end its participation in Worldspan effective Nov. 10. The carrier said it could not come to terms with Worldspan on the cost of participation. AirTran did, however, reach an agreement with Cendant Travel Distribution Services to distribute its fares, schedules and inventory through Cendant's Galileo/Apollo systems. It reached an agreement to distribute through Sabre and Travelocity last month.
Rockwell Collins said that Indian low-cost startup IndiGo selected Collins avionics for its recently ordered fleet of A320s, deliveries of which begin in 2006. The avionics package includes the WXR-2100 MultiScan Weather Radar, ADF-900, DME-900, HFS 900 D HF system, CPL-920D HF communications, VHF-920 transceiver, VOR-900 and AOC-900 data link.
Let 410 cargo aircraft operated by Trade Air crashed Sunday night around 10:05 p.m. local time shortly after taking off from Bergamo-Orio Al Serio en route to Zagreb Pleso. Two crewmembers and one passenger onboard the turboprop were killed. Weather was described as poor with limited visibility of 200-300 m. owing to fog, according to the Aviation Safety Network.
Airbus North America named John O'Leary senior director and Bill James director of ANA Engineering Wichita and David Trent senior director of ANA Engineering Mobile.
