Avexus announced that Kitty Hawk Aircargo will implement its Asset Management & Operations and Maintenance, Repair & Overhaul hosted solutions for fleet MRO management and planning.
Lufthansa Technik signed a contract with Mexmil giving the Santa Ana-based firm a license to market and produce LHT's AcousticPlus "enhanced cabin acoustic insulation system." Bombardier Aerospace appointed Taikoo Aircraft Engineering of Jinan as its first authorized heavy maintenance facility in the Asia/Pacific region. Taikoo is authorized to perform C checks and other heavy MRO on all CRJs.
BAA once again rejected a takeover bid by Grupo Ferrovial. The Spanish construction and services conglomerate, along with a consortium including Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec and GIC Special Investments, offered on Friday the same 810 pence per share that BAA rejected last month ( ATWOnline, March 20). The "hostile" offer valued BAA at £8.75 billion ($15.3 billion).
Interest in airlines in Indonesia appears to be building. Last month, Qantas flagged interest in Adam Air and yesterday Bisnis was quoting Garuda Indonesia President Director Emirsyah Satar as stating that Emirates is interested in forging an alliance. "Emirates Airlines is one party interested in us, but there are still no concrete plans," he told the Indonesian newspaper. Previously, Lufthansa was inked to the financing of a rescue of Garuda.
BAE Systems on Friday informed the London Stock Exchange that it has "entered into discussions with European Aeronautic Defense & Space Co. regarding the sale of its 20% shareholding in Airbus." In the brief statement, the company also said that "discussions are at an early stage." According to the Associated Press, EADS has valued BAE's stake at €3.5 billion ($4.3 billion). BAE Systems' primary contribution to Airbus is design and production of wings.
American Airlines' traffic increased just 0.2% in March as it flew 12.1 billion RPMs. Capacity dropped 0.9% year-over-year to 14.9 billion ASMs, nudging up load factor 0.9 point to 81.1%. Domestic RPMs fell 0.8% to 8.05 billion, capacity decreased 3.2% to 9.65 billion and load factor rose 2 points to 83.3%. Internationally, traffic grew 2.5% to 4.05 billion RPMs, ASMs increased 3.6% to 5.25 billion and load factor dipped 0.9 point to 77.1%.
Air Berlin carried 2.75 million passengers in the first quarter, up 8.5% over the year-ago period. Highest growth was recorded at Nuremberg (up 24.4%), Paderborn (24.5%) and Hannover (12.7%). Top airports outside Germany were London Stansted (up 60 %) and Milan Bergamo (42 %).
ICAO and IATA signed a memorandum of cooperation "to share safety-related information from their respective audit programs to better identify potential safety risks and prevent aircraft accidents." They also will share accident and incident monitoring, and "experts from each organization will be allowed to participate as observers in audit missions of the other, upon request."
Precision Conversions will provide a 757PCF conversion to Ethiopian Cargo. The aircraft currently is being operated in passenger configuration by Ethiopian. Modification will take place at Goodrich ATS in Everett, Wash.
Willow CSN was selected by proposed low-cost startup Virgin America to manage all of its customer service calls including reservations and flight information through a "virtual call center" staffed by home-based CyberAgents.
Rockwell Collins named Jeff Moore senior VP-operations. He replaces Kent Statler, now VP and GM of Rockwell Collins Services. Goodrich named Bill Ashworth to the post of division president, Aviation Technical Services. He has 10 years of experience at ATS, most recently serving as VP-operations. He replaces Eric Schulz, who has been appointed division president, Actuation Systems.
Ethiopian Airlines will lease two 747-400s from Malaysia Airlines for five years to meet capacity demands ahead of the delivery of its 787s. The 747s will be delivered in July.
SkyEurope Airlines will launch twice-weekly summer services to Krakow from Split and Dubrovnik aboard 737-700s. Flights operate June 17-Sept. 16. It also will begin twice-weekly Bratislava-Naples flights operating June 18-Sept. 17. Separately, SkyEurope flew 178,163 earned seats in March, a 62.3% rise over the year-ago month. Load factor improved 1.2 points to 74.4%.
Emirates SkyCargo launched new scheduled freighter services to Zurich, Rome and Vienna last week using A310-300Fs. Services to Zurich will run twice a week on Thursdays and Sundays, flights to Rome will operate on Wednesdays and Fridays and services to Vienna will operate on Saturdays.
SITA said Romania's Carpatair is acquiring a large package of solutions from SITA's Horizon portfolio under a seven-year contract worth $10 million to automate its passenger services and back office functions and phase in e-ticketing and Internet sales. SITA said the goal is to boost Carpatair's revenues by 15% and achieve annual savings of $2 million on sales and distribution costs.
Southwest Airlines' announcement that it plans to serve Washington Dulles International ( ATWOnline, April 5), an airport it rejected last fall as being too expensive, signals that "all major domestic airports are fair game," wrote Merrill Lynch analyst Michael Linenberg in a research note Friday. Earlier this year, Southwest began service at Denver International Airport, historically viewed as being among the most expensive in the US.
Air France and KLM launched a combined Internet check-in facility allowing passengers to check in for AF flights on KLM's website. Effective next month, KLM will accept all e-tickets issued by SkyTeam members.
Norwegian has decided to invade an already-crowded Polish low-cost market and intends to hire Polish flight crew for the operation. The LCC announced yesterday that it will open a base in Warsaw and operate flights to three Spanish cities, France and its Oslo hub. It will base two aircraft at Warsaw, where it will compete with LOT Polish Airlines subsidiary Centralwings, SkyEurope Airlines and Wizz Air, among others.
AirTran Airways will commence twice-daily Boston-Rochester service from July 6 aboard 717s. On April 4 it resumed twice-daily Myrtle Beach-Atlanta service using 717s, increasing to four-times-daily on May 9, and launched service from White Plains to Atlanta (twice-daily, increasing to thrice from June 7), Orlando (daily) and West Palm Beach (daily).
Professional Flight Attendants Assn. is objecting to Northwest Airlines' new Coach Choice scheme, which allows passengers to pay $15 to reserve selected exit row or aisle seats ( ATWOnline, March 15). PFAA, which represents NWA's cabin staff, said the initiative is "ill-conceived" because "it takes away from the primary reason 'qualified' passengers occupy exit row seats," according to National Security & Regulatory Affairs Coordinator Jeanne Elliot. She also said it will add to cabin staff workloads as unqualified passengers must be shifted from exit row seats.
Continental Airlines and Alitalia launched a codeshare agreement, effective immediately, that will see Continental put its code on select Alitalia flights from Rome Fiumicino and Milan and Alitalia place its code on CO flights from Newark to 11 US cities.
Aeroflot's summer schedule will include frequency increases of 30% to CIS countries, 28% to Southeast Asia, 20% to the Americas and 15% to Africa and the Middle East, the airline announced. Flights in Russia and Europe will go up by 14% and 9% respectively. New services will be introduced to Karlovy, Vary and Bratislava. In total it will operate flights to 87 cities in 47 countries. Aeroflot said that it soon will sign a deal with Boeing for the delivery of six MD-11 freighters through 2008.
Ryanair offered Aer Lingus passengers who have not received a response to a complaint letter after six weeks or who had their luggage lost in the past year a free ticket on a Ryanair flight. The LCC set up an e-mail address for Aer Lingus passengers to register their complaints before midnight tonight.
