EasyJet broke ranks with its European legacy counterparts and strongly condemned the move toward a temporary suspension of the EU's so-called "use it or lose it" slot rule, which dictates that carriers must use their slots at an 80% rate or return them to the pool.
Esterline CMC Electronics reached an agreement with Boeing for its PilotView Class 2 Electronic Flight Bag hardware to be made available for select aircraft types, starting with 737NGs.
A malfunctioning altimeter caused the autopilot system on the Turkish Airlines 737-800 that crashed last week on approach to Amsterdam to reduce power prematurely, and by the time the pilots reacted it was "too late to recover the flight," Dutch Safety Board Chairman Pieter van Vollenhoven said yesterday.
Etihad Airways CEO James Hogan said the carrier is targeting a 24% year-over-year increase in 2009 revenue to $3.1 billion as it takes delivery of 11 new aircraft, bringing its fleet to 53.
UK government appointed the Environment Agency to "police" the pending aviation emissions trading scheme in England and Wales, Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband announced yesterday. Each EU nation must appoint a body or institution to supervise the new scheme to cap aviation emissions that will come into force for flights arriving and departing EU airports on Jan. 1, 2012 ( ATWOnline, Oct. 27, 2008).
American Airlines flew 8.63 billion system RPMs in February, down 13.5% from the year-ago month. Capacity dropped 10.1% to 11.67 billion ASMs and load factor slipped 2.9 points to 73.9%. American Eagle flew 522 million RPMs, down 14.1%, against a 9.1% decline in capacity to 800.5 million ASMs. Load factor fell 3.8 points to 65.2%. United Airlines' February traffic plunged 15.2% year-over-year to 7.66 billion consolidated RPMs. Capacity was down 14% to 10.46 billion ASMs, lowering load factor 1 point to 73.2%.
Assn. of European Airlines asked the EU to ease or temporarily suspend the regulation requiring airlines to use their airport slots 80% of the time so they might suspend services during the global economic slowdown without losing them, Reuters reported. "One measure we would like them to look at is freezing the '80-20' rule," an AEA spokesperson said. "Airlines could then be encouraged to withdraw capacity without running the risk of losing specific slots." The slot rule suspension was part of a series of proposals contained in an AEA blueprint for navigating the current downturn.
Aeroflot will take delivery of its first Sukhoi Superjet 100 in December, 13 months behind the original schedule and one month later than the most recently promised date, Sukhoi Civil Aircraft's Viktor Subbotin told RIA Novosti ( ATWOnline, Nov. 26, 2008). SU reportedly said it will fill the gap with short-term leases on alternative aircraft.
Delta Air Lines indicated it is having second thoughts about committing fully to Northwest Airlines' 2005 order for 18 787-8s, eliminating the aircraft from its list of firm orders in the annual report released this week. "The Boeing Co. has informed us that Boeing will be unable to meet the contractual delivery schedule for these aircraft. We are in discussions with Boeing regarding this situation," DL said in the report filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. It has not canceled the order.
GE Aviation opened its new systems manufacturing facility in Suzhou about 50 mi. west of Shanghai. The 18,000-sq.-m. facility will produce autoclaved composite parts, mechanical fabrications, structure assembly and civil aircraft actuation systems and will employ 200 by year end.
US Bankruptcy Court judge invalidated the transfer of the Aloha Airlines brand to Mesa Air Group for use on its go! subsidiary because the sale by Aloha shareholder Yucaipa Co. was not public ( ATWOnline, Dec. 8, 2008). A second auction will be held.
Lufthansa Italia will launch service from Milan Malpensa to Rome Fiumicino (four-times-daily), Naples (twice-daily) and Bari (daily) on April 1. It began serving Brussels, Budapest, Bucharest and Madrid this week and will add London Heathrow and Lisbon flights at the end of the month ( ATWOnline, Jan. 29). "Advance bookings for the coming months have developed so favorably that we are already in a position to expand our services," Lufthansa Passenger Airlines Executive VP Karl Ulrich Garnadt said.
Afriqiyah Airways will launch long-haul operations from Tripoli with a twice-weekly service to Johannesburg beginning July 15. Twice-weekly flights to Manila via Dubai begin July 17 and thrice-weekly service to both Brazzaville and Kinshasa starts Sept. 7. Thrice-weekly flights to both Beijing and Guangzhou begin Oct. 3.
Gulf Air took delivery of the first of four 777-300ERs Tuesday. The second and third will arrive this month and the fourth in May. Aircraft are on lease from Jet Airways, seat 312 across three classes and will replace GF's A340-300s.
Iberia Group reorganized and renamed its handling unit as Iberia Airport Services, which it believes "better reflects the unit's activities" and will be "accompanied by a more extensive supply of airport services." IAS is active at 41 Spanish airports and handled nearly 80 million passengers and more than 418,000 aircraft operations for IB and 220 other carriers in 2008.
Aegean Airlines joined the bidding for Olympic Airlines, offering a combined €170 million ($214.2 million) for OA's flight operations, MRO division and its successor company Pantheon. "The objective of Aegean and its shareholders is the creation of a more powerful Greek air company" that can compete with larger European airlines, the carrier said. It added that it would be able to take over OA within 60 days of signing a deal and that it was willing to cede some domestic routes in order to facilitate competition.
Continental Airlines said that February consolidated RASM fell an estimated 11.5%-12.5% year-over-year. It flew 5.88 billion consolidated RPMs, down 13.2%, against an 8.9% fall in capacity to 8.11 billion ASMs.
ANA this month will purchase a 33.5% stake in Overseas Courier Service, a Tokyo-based international parcel delivery and forwarding company, the airline said. Financial terms were not disclosed. The companies have been working together since July 2007, and ANA said the new investment will help "underpin" its Asian parcel delivery service out of the Okinawa cargo hub scheduled to open in October ( ATWOnline, Dec. 19, 2007).
Alitalia CEO Rocco Sabelli said the restructured carrier expects to lose €200 million ($251.8 million) this year, Reuters reported. "We had a terrible first three to four weeks" following the January re-launch he said ( ATWOnline, Jan. 13). "After those terrible three weeks we began to do better even if we're not filling the aircraft as much as we would like."
IATA DG and CEO Giovanni Bisignani yesterday warned that air cargo demand "has fallen off a cliff" and projected that revenue generated by airlines from cargo in 2009 is likely to drop 9% year-over-year to $54 billion.
Delta Air Lines, which in January predicted a "solidly profitable" 2009 ( ATWOnline, Jan. 28), now expects a rough start to the year and a "significant loss" in the current quarter, "primarily due to fuel hedge losses coupled with the impact of the global recession," it said in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. It expects the "majority" of the losses relating to its 2008 fuel hedge contracts to be recognized in the first half of 2009.
Alaska Air Group board yesterday announced plans to give stockholders a nonbinding vote on compensation for the company's five highest-paid executives. It said the vote "will inform the board's future decisions on executive compensation." Stockholders proposed the measure last year.
