US FAA, which has been in mediated contract talks with the National Air Traffic Controllers Assn. for the past two weeks following eight months of contentious negotiations, said the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service agreed to its request to extend mediated negotiations. FMCS will oversee talks into next week.
Lufthansa will resume service to Bahrain with a thrice-weekly Frankfurt-Manama flight beginning June 2 aboard an A330-300. The flight will continue to Abu Dhabi. Qatar Airways will launch a daily service to Hong Kong from March 26 aboard a two-class A330.
Delta Air Lines expanded its maintenance support agreement with Royal Air Maroc. Delta TechOps will provide MRO work and inventory exchange services covering an additional RAM 767-300ER, the PW2000 engines on a 757 and GTCP331-200 and 131-9B APUs on aircraft operated by RAM subsidiaries. Delta TechOps already services RAM's dash 300ERs, PW2000s and 767-300, 757 and 737-800 APUs.
South African Airways unveiled an A340-600 repainted in Star Alliance livery yesterday. SAA is scheduled to join the alliance on April 10. All members are required to paint 3% of their fleet in the group's livery. The carrier also will paint a 737-800.
Air France unveiled its new €120 million ($143.7 million), 33,310-sq.-m. Flight Crew Center at Paris Charles de Gaulle yesterday. Approximately 18,000 members of AF's flightdeck and cabin crew will be based at the facility. Construction began in December 2003.
Swissport said its new 17,600-sq.-m. Air Freight Terminal at Singapore Changi officially opened for business March 15 with an initial capacity of 250,000 tons per year and future potential expansion to 400,000 tons.
Delta Air Lines will launch daily Boston-Charleston, S.C., service from June 8 and daily Boston-Quebec City service from June 15. Comair will operate both flights.
Thomas Cook Airlines of Belgium reported a pre-tax profit of €3.2 million ($3.8 million) on revenues of €132.36 million in the financial year ended Oct. 31, 2005. The carrier will add a sixth A320 in the coming months to accommodate its forecast growth. Launched in 2002, it transported 997,100 passengers aboard 3,339 flights to 45 leisure destinations during the fiscal year.
SriLankan Airlines is preparing for possible changes to its ownership structure, with CEO Peter Hill telling ATWOnline, "In three to six months' time, the government, which holds 51% in SriLankan, will decide how it will go on with the carrier."
Northwest Airlines yesterday began a test of differential pricing for economy seats in its domestic fleet, charging $15 extra per flight segment for certain aisle and exit row seats. The Coach Choice product, which currently covers 5% of domestic seats, is intended to "provide added choice and comfort, particularly to late-booking business travelers, by saving some preferred coach seat assignments until check-in," according to the airline. A passenger purchasing Coach Choice seats for all four segments of a roundtrip connecting flight would pay a total of $60.
Iberia signed deals with Santa Barbara Airlines of Venezuela and Star Peru allowing the South American carriers to use its Resiber reservations management system.
Tiger Airways of Singapore chalked up a major milestone yesterday, carrying its millionth passenger. CEO Tony Davis told media he was "absolutely delighted to hit the one millionth passenger mark so early in the second year of operations." He predicted that "the rapid expansion with our A320 aircraft and new routes this year will allow us to shorten the time it takes to hit our second millionth passenger." The LCC will take delivery of two A320s in April and an additional three by year end.
Southwest Airlines has "increased the near-entirety of its fare structure," according to JP Morgan analyst Jamie Baker, giving the green light to US carriers to raise their own domestic fares. Facing rising fuel costs and the erosion of its hedges, Southwest boosted one-way fares $2-$10 across two-thirds of its network over the weekend, Baker said. Its $299 fare cap, in place since 2002, has been raised $10 in "the largest single fare increase they have ever taken." A "significant" number of its one-way long-haul fares have increased by $10 as well.
United Airlines announced a $165 million commitment to upgrade its international first and business class seats through a deal with B/E Aerospace. The arrangement is part of UA's revamp of its entire international widebody fleet expected to take "roughly two to three years." It will begin introducing the new seats in 2007. "This program supports United's strategic business emphasis on international and premium services," B/E Chairman and CEO Amin Khoury said.
US Airways Group, comprising US Airways, US Airways Express and America West, flew a combined 4.43 billion RPMs in February, a decline of 8.7% from the year-ago month. Capacity fell 14.5% to 5.86 billion ASMs and load factor rose 4.9 points to 75.7%. Domestic traffic was down 9% to 3.75 billion RPMs against a 16.7% decrease in ASMs to 4.84 billion. International traffic fell 6.8% to 686.1 million RPMs as capacity dropped 2.3% to 1.02 billion ASMs.
British Airways denied it is at an advanced stage of negotiations with Boeing to acquire up to 20 777-300ERs that would replace some early delivery 747s from 2008, as reported on this website last week ( ATWOnline, March 10).
South African Airways said it will terminate its loyalty program agreement with Qantas from April 9, at which time SAA Voyager members no longer will be eligible to earn or redeem points aboard Qantas flights.
Aer Lingus signed a contract yesterday for the purchase of one A330-200 and one A330-300, confirming an announcement made last month ( ATWOnline, Feb. 10). The aircraft will be delivered in mid-2007 and will be based at Dublin Airport. The dash 200 will seat 24 passengers in Premier and 245 in economy while the dash 300 will carry 24 in Premier and 303 in economy. Both will be powered by GE CF6-80E1s.
US FAA named Michael O'Malley chief of staff. He had served as Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta's deputy assistant secretary for transportation policy. Lufthansa Cargo announced that Executive Board Chairman Jean-Peter Jansen resigned effective March 31 for health reasons. Deutsche Lufthansa Chief Officer-Aviation Services and Human Resources Stefan Lauer was appointed interim chairman. Lauer will step down as chairman of the Lufthansa Cargo Supervisory Board and be replaced temporarily by Wolfgang Mayrhuber.
Cathay Pacific Airways is looking at a variety of options for its growing freighter fleet, according to COO Tony Tyler, who told ATWOnline that the airline likes the 747-400BCF and may convert six options to firm orders. "If and when we do, we are likely to convert some of our own 747-400s but not all, because we will still need the passenger lift," he said.
Sabre Airline Solutions said Jet Airways chose its AirFlite Schedule Manager and AirFlite Fleet Manager software. Sabre also was appointed technical adviser to Arabesk Group, a partnership of seven Middle East carriers (now including Tunisair) established earlier this month ( ATWOnline, March 7).
Royal Jordanian will transfer its Paris operations from Orly to Charles de Gaulle on March 26, allowing it to join its future oneworld partners in Terminal 1 when it becomes a full member of the alliance later this year. RJ operates five weekly flights to Paris aboard A320s.
OzJet, Australia's first premium-only airline, suspended scheduled operations after only three months, citing its failure to break the stranglehold of Qantas and Virgin Blue on the business travel market. It cancelled its Sydney-Melbourne service and will not proceed with plans to establish flights to Perth next month. About 70 employees lost their jobs. The airline is expected to continue a limited charter operation, scaling down its 737-200 fleet from four to two and keeping approximately 30% of its staff.
Alaska Airlines will transition to an all-737 fleet by the end of 2008 by accelerating the retirement of the 26 MD-80s it planned to phase out over the next 11 years, replacing them with 39 737-800s in 2006-08 from an order placed last summer ( ATWOnline, June 16, 2005).
Northwest Airlines confirmed that it "executed an agreement to purchase FLYi's operating certificate and related assets" subject to certain conditions. According to the Associated Press, which cited a FLYi bankruptcy filing, NWA paid $2 million for the certificate, which should enable it to expedite the startup of a new subsidiary that will operate 76-seat regional jets using furloughed mainline pilots ( ATWOnline, March 7). FLYi, which operated as Independence Air, shut down in January.
