China Eastern Airlines and Shanghai Airlines have agreed on several major issues regarding their pending merger and expect to reveal further details within three weeks, CEA Chairman Liu Shaoyong said. Discussions began last Thursday when the airlines agreed to maintain the SAL brand and that no employees would be cut. Liu noted at a shareholders conference over the weekend that "the specific merger plan will have to be approved by the boards of CEA and SAL and the relevant government organs first before it can be made public."
Boeing said the second of six 787s to be used in the flight test program has moved to the flight line to begin fuel testing. ZA002, which already is painted in ANA livery, will focus on systems performance ( ATWOnline, May 18).
Pratt & Whitney and Korean Air signed a contract worth approximately $300 million for PW4170 Advantage 70 engines for six new A330s, plus two spares. Pratt also announced a 10-year Engine Management Program agreement with Japan Airlines covering 75 PW4000 and V2500 engines and a three-year parts repair agreement valued at more than $75 million covering JT9Ds and PW4000s. It also announced EcoPower engine wash agreements with JetBlue Airways, Hawaiian Airlines and ArkeFly.
Air India, which lost an estimated $800 million in the fiscal year ended March 31, will delay around $70 million in salary payments to its 31,500 employees for two weeks until July 15, several officials confirmed in news reports from India. Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel said the government is considering a bailout "very actively" and that the carrier's health is the state's "responsibility," according to the Press Trust of India.
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Aer Lingus said it has offered pilots and cabin crew unpaid leave, will cut long-haul winter seat capacity by about 25% for 2009-10 compared to the 2008-09 winter and also will trim short-haul capacity at Belfast and Dublin while adding frequencies and routes at Shannon and London Gatwick.
Delta Air Lines President Ed Bastian said last week that the company is "using the downturn to accelerate" the integration of DL and Northwest Airlines. With the carrier cutting capacity ( ATWOnline, June 12), it is able to eliminate overlapping services more quickly, he explained. "Our expectation is that by spring 2010, we will be a single company," he told the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Transportation Conference in New York, available via webcast.
South African Airways CEO Chris Smyth told ATWOnline at last week's IATA annual general meeting in Kuala Lumpur that he expects the airline to post an operating profit for its fiscal year started April 1 and that the carrier's two-year restructuring is largely complete.
GE Aviation and NASA plan to begin wind tunnel testing this summer to "evaluate counterrotating fan-blade systems" for open rotor jet designs, GE said ( ATWOnline, May 26). Testing will be conducted throughout 2009 and early 2010 at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. For the NASA tests, GE will run two rows of counterrotating fan blades with 12 blades in the front row and 10 in the back row.
GE Capital Aviation Services announced the promotion of Norman Liu, 51, to president and CEO. Liu will take over executive management of the business from Henry Hubschman, 61, who will take on the new role of chairman of GECAS. Changes are effective July 1. Liu is a 22-year veteran of GE Capital including 14 years at GECAS, where he most recently served as executive VP-commercial operations. Hubschman joined GECAS in 1997 and oversaw the growth of assets from $10 billion to more than $46 billion during his tenure.
European Commission's SESAR Joint Undertaking Friday signed contracts totaling €1.9 billion ($2.7 billion) related to the development of a future "Single Sky" air traffic management system in the EU. The Joint Undertaking is a public-private research and development venture overseen by Eurocontrol ( ATWOnline, Dec. 10, 2008).
Travelport GDS said it introduced "a travel industry merchandising first and technology leap forward for Air Canada" with the full market launch of Travelport Agencia, a travel booking solution that delivers access to the complete portfolio of Air Canada's ala carte product "in a seamless manner" to users of Travelport's Apollo GDS.
Sensis Corp.'s runway status lights were installed last week at Los Angeles International, which became the third US airport to add the safety technology. RWSL is a system of red lights embedded in runways that are triggered automatically by ASDE-X, warning pilots that it is unsafe to cross or enter a runway. Los Angeles World Airports paid $7 million for the system, which US FAA installed and will maintain.
Continental Airlines Chairman and CEO Larry Kellner said the carrier will enter Star Alliance "hours or days" after it exits SkyTeam on Oct. 24. "The difference for us between SkyTeam and Star is that we and Delta have a lot of overlap. . .whereas within Star there's a lot of open area," he said at last week's Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Transportation Conference.
Jetstar A330-200 en route from Osaka Kansai to Gold Coast was forced to divert to Guam last Thursday after smoke was detected, followed by flames flaring from the rearmost cockpit window on the aircraft's right side in the area where the window heater is located. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau launched an investigation. The A330, carrying 203 passengers and crew, left Osaka just before 11 p.m. local time Wednesday. The fire occurred about 3 hr. 50 min. into the flight.
Hainan Airlines last week re-launched its Grand China Express Airlines subsidiary as Tianjin Airlines, part of its plan to focus on domestic regional market expansion this year and in 2010, according to Chairman Chen Feng. Tianjin-based GCEA has been loss-making since its June 2007 launch. The re-launched Tianjin Airlines has a registered capital of CNY1.3 billion ($190 million). Hainan will remain the controlling stakeholder and expanded its holding to more than 83% with an additional investment of CNY500 million.
Virgin America reported a first-quarter net loss of $40.3 million, narrowed from a net deficit of $52 million in the year-ago period, and the nearly two-year-old carrier said it is poised to continue growing steadily.
Boeing yesterday said that commercial aviation is "cyclic and has a long history of declines and upturns" as it revised downward its 20-year forecast only slightly to a market demand of 29,000 new passenger and freighter aircraft worth $3.2 trillion.
Air France KLM flew 16.41 billion RPKs in May, down 8.1% from the year-ago month. Capacity fell 5.7% to 21.24 billion ASKs, lowering load factor 2 points to 77.3%. Finnair flew 1.34 billion RPKs in May, down 11% year-over-year, against a 16.3% decline in capacity to 1.94 billion ASKs. Load factor rose 4.2 points to 69.1%. Copa Airlines flew 445.6 million RPMs in May, a 2.3% drop year-over-year. Capacity rose 18.4% to 686.9 million ASMs and load factor plunged 13.8 points to 64.9%.
United Airlines reassured investors that the RFP it submitted to Boeing and Airbus is for "fleet renewal" and not growth and expressed confidence it will be able to finance any order it places. The carrier's credit facility rating was downgraded earlier this week by Fitch Ratings, which cautioned that UA faces "a deepening liquidity crisis" and questioned its ability to finance a large long-haul aircraft order ( ATWOnline, June 11)
Air Nostrum intends to lay off up to 507 employees, representing some 23% of its workforce, according to a statement cited by Reuters. "The measure we are implementing is part of a viability plan required to guarantee the company's future, which also includes cost savings and cost cuts," the Spanish carrier said.
Cathay Pacific Airways Chairman Christopher Pratt said this week that "demand and yields seem to have stopped falling" but that rising oil prices are contributing to what "continues to be a very nasty situation" for the airline, which lost HK$8.56 billion ($1.1 billion) in 2008 ( ATWOnline, March 12) and suffered a 22.4% drop in first-quarter revenue.
Air China is cutting its international capacity owing to the market downturn but will not go so far as to defer any aircraft deliveries this year, MD Lou Yongfeng told ATWOnline at this week's IATA annual general meeting in Kuala Lumpur.
