Aer Lingus Group appointed Colm Barrington chairman. Airbus promoted Andy Shankland to head-worldwide marketing, Stefan Schaffrath to head-media relations, Maggie Bergsma to deputy head-media relations, Chris Jones to VP-sales-Airbus Americas and Mary Prettyman to VP-marketing-Airbus Americas. Air France KLM elevated Francoise Dessy to communication mgr.-Europe & North Africa. Air Pacific promoted Jona Sevura to mgr.-government & industry affairs.
IT'S EASY TO UNDERSTAND WHY procurement at one of Latin America's premier carriers is so dispersed. Grupo TACA is an airborne amalgam of six airlines: Guatemala's Aviateca, Costa Rica's Lacsa, Nicaragua's NICA, El Salvador's TACA International, Honduras's TACA de Honduras and newcomer TACA Peru.
IN THE US SOME 50 YEARS AGO WHEN MANUFACTURING STILL prospered widely, more than a third of the workforce belonged to a union. Today, barely a tenth of workers in private companies are unionized. Public support for organized labor also has slipped. Outsourcing, technology and economic restructuring have contributed to this decline. How products are made nowadays also bears some weight.
IN THE CURRENT ENVIRONMENT OF mass globalization, multinational conglomerates and globe-spanning airline alliances, it is heartening to find in the midst of it all a family-owned niche carrier that is effectively managing to compete against legacy airlines and LCC newcomers alike.
IF TUI TRAVEL CONSOLIDATED ITS SEVERAL AIRLINES, IT would rank just behind British Airways as Europe's sixth-largest carrier in terms of passengers and 18th on ATW's list of the world's Top 25. The group's airlines enplaned 33 million passengers in 2007, RPKs topped 88 billion and they flew 99 billion ASKs for a TUI-wide load factor of 88%.
LET'S TAKE A TRIP BACK to the future for a glimpse at the MRO market in 2018. The purchasing professional in 2018 will be part of a much different environment. Certainly the fleet is bigger and more is spent on MRO than in 2008. The fleet is 28,000 aircraft, an increase of 9,000 since 2008, and the A320 family and 737NGs make up nearly half of it. Airlines are spending $61 billion on MRO, up from $45 billion in 2008. Engine MRO alone exceeds $22 billion.
In an average year, approximately 98,000 Americans die from infections they acquire in hospitals, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many and perhaps most of these deaths could be avoided if well-understood sanitary methods, such as proper sterilization of equipment and hand-washing, were followed. In addition to the toll from infections, medical mistakes kill 44,000-98,000 each year, states a report from the Institute of Medicine.
THE GREAT ANTI-MANPADS DEBATE is in abeyance just now. Perhaps it is the US's success in helping destroy some 26,000 of the shoulder-fired devices since 2003. Maybe it is the US State Dept.'s efforts to keep those that remain out of the hands of bad guys. Then, just maybe, there's pure, undiluted luck. In any event, no passengers on a regularly scheduled flight have died from a Man-Portable Air Defense System attack since Oct. 10, 1998, when Tutsi rebels downed a Lignes Aerinnes Congolaises 727-100, killing 41. Since the mid-1970s, State Dept.
Amadeus plans to introduce Crazy Shopping, an application that will free searches from the tyranny of origin, destination and time frame, in the second quarter of next year. The new search functionality enable users to query airlines in new ways: "I live between Frankfurt and Munich and can fly from either airport. I would like to go to either Thailand or Indonesia. Show me my options." Or, "I have €600. Where can I go?"
Parts management, as opposed to merely transactional parts sales, began with engine OEMs several decades ago. Component manufacturers and third-party firms became active in this market. Now, airframe OEMs have entered it aggressively.
ALTHOUGH IT MAY SEEM counterintuitive in today's troubled economic environment, demand for aircraft maintenance technicians is expected to more than double over the next two decades. The numbers are daunting. Alteon, for example, estimates that on average 24,000 mechanics need to be hired annually through 2027 to support fleet growth and replace retiring technicians, or 480,000 in total. By comparison, the Boeing subsidiary estimates that over the same period 360,000 new pilots will be required, or 18,000 per year.
IN FEBRUARY, A NEW umbrella brand was launched in the aviation services industry to integrate various competencies now encompassed by airline catering giant Gate Gourmet and other brands it has acquired since 2007. Representing 11 brands, gategroup is the result of a process begun in 2005 to first restructure and then expand Gate Gourmet to turn it into a one-stop provider with a full range of cabin-related services.
Greek government yesterday called for expressions of interest from potential purchasers of Olympic Airlines and holding company Pantheon. "The buyer of Pantheon will be selected through a multistage process. It is envisioned that a number of qualifying interested parties will be allowed to participate in the net stages of the process," the government said in a statement cited by Reuters.
EU and India signed a horizontal aviation agreement that brings the 26 bilateral agreements India has with individual EU members into conformity with Community law. With nearly 5.7 million passenger traveling between the EU and India last year, India ranked 11th in passenger traffic between EU and non-EU countries. Over the past three years, EU-India passenger traffic has increased 75%.
SAS Group yesterday signed an MOU with Gate Gourmet Switzerland for a five-year catering contract scheduled to be finalized in two weeks. Agreement, which includes a two-year extension option, applies to catering supplies for SAS departures from Copenhagen, Stockholm Arlanda, Gothenburg, Malmo, Oslo and Bergen.
Airbus COO-Customers John Leahy said the manufacturer has agreed to sell 280 additional aircraft to Chinese airlines. He was in Tianjin earlier this week to mark the opening of the newest A320 Family Final Assembly Line ( ATWOnline, Sept. 30). According to multiple news service reports, Leahy said as many as 160 of the new aircraft orders could be approved by Beijing and officially announced by year end. They will help Airbus tally about 850 total orders for 2008, he added.
US Government Accountability Office General Counsel Gary Kepplinger told Congress yesterday that he has concluded "that FAA may not auction [airport] slots under its property disposition authority, user fee authority, or any other authority, and thus also may not retain or use proceeds of any such auctions."
TACA last week unveiled a new logo, livery and uniforms that the Central American company claimed "implies a transformation of our products and our service culture." Logo includes a stylized red bird next to the company name. "We're undergoing a complete transformation to gain customer preference," Chairman and CEO Roberto Kriete said. TACA said it will "offer passengers a new experience that includes improvements to onboard services, fleet upgrades and an overhaul of the airline's customer service philosophy," without elaborating.
Mechtronix World Corp. announced that Richardson Capital, the private equity arm of Richardson Financial Group, has invested C$39 million ($37.8 million) in the Montreal-based simulator maker for a minority stake. The company said the funds will be used for "widening of turnkey services for new-generation training centers, expanded market development efforts" and expansion of manufacturing and R&D. "We're multiplying our manufacturing capacity by three," Mechtronix President Xavier Herve told ATWOnline.
Nigeria's Arik Air ordered three A340-500s, Airbus announced. The Trent 500-powered aircraft will be delivered by the end of November and will be used on new routes to London, New York and Houston, the manufacturer said. "This aircraft order will enable Arik Air to start international connections with new and modern aircraft that will support our objective to become one of Africa's key airlines that operate at international standards with new aircraft, top maintenance and where security and quality come first," Arik Chairman Joseph Arumemi-Johnson said.
Boeing Commercial Airplanes VP-Marketing Randy Tinseth told reporters in Tokyo that "frankly we do not know when the [machinists] strike will end" and that the manufacturer will have to "reassess our production, deliveries and program schedule for the 787 at that time." Launch customer ANA said last week that it had "reached an agreement with Boeing" on a new 787 delivery schedule that would see its first Dreamliner arrive next August ( ATWOnline, Sept. 26).
NIIT Technologies inked a three-year, multimillion-dollar deal with British Airways to support and test business-critical applications across various business areas.
Italian Civil Aviation Authority issued a provisional operating license to Alitalia valid until March 1, both ENAC and AZ confirmed ( ATWOnline, Sept. 30). The license is conditional on a monthly check of The carrier's economic and financial situation.
Jat Airways, which the Serbian government put up for sale over the summer ( ATWOnline, Sept. 22), has not found an investor willing to purchase the state's 51% stake and now must depend on the government for a rescue, CEO Sasa Vlaisavljevic told the daily Blic. He said the state will have to assume Jat's €250 million debt.
