Lufthansa CFO Karl-Ludwig Kley is leaving the company for a position at Merck, the German pharmaceutical giant. He informed Supervisory Board Chairman Juergen Weber by telephone on Sunday, Lufthansa said. The board will discuss Kley's successor at its March 22 meeting.
NAV Canada announced a tentative agreement with the Canadian Auto Workers/Air Traffic Specialists. The four-year deal covers 850 flight service specialists. No details of the agreement were released pending ratification.
Precision Conversions said it entered into a "long-term cargo conversion program" with Cargo Aircraft Management, a subsidiary of Orlando-based Cargo Holdings International. Agreement covers completion of two 757-200 passenger-to-freighter conversions in 2006 "with plans to support multiple aircraft conversions over the next five years."
Japan Airlines and Korean Air are expanding their codeshare operations between the countries beginning March 26 when the number of routes and services will jump from seven routes and 104 flights per week to nine routes and 266 weekly flights. On a one-way basis, the two airlines will codeshare on an additional 84 weekly flights on the Tokyo Narita-Seoul route, 56 on the Kansai-Seoul route and 28 on the Nagoya Chubu-Seoul route. Separately, JAL will increase its 10-times-weekly Narita-Chicago O'Hare service to twice-daily from March 26. Flights are aboard 747-400s.
LAN Airlines reported a 5.8% year-over-year rise in system traffic in February compared to a 7.1% increase in capacity, which dropped load factor 1 point to 75.5%.
Lufthansa plans to expand its lower-fare strategy for European flights, Executive VP-Marketing and Sales Thierry Antinori said during the ITB tourism fair in Berlin last week. The carrier recently introduced short-haul return flights starting at €99 ($118) at Hamburg and Dusseldorf with slightly better than expected results. Additionally, it has taken share away from Air Berlin, according to Antinori. "We will definitely roll out this concept. I assume that we will also move into other catchments in the coming months," he said.
Following a fourth quarter in which it lost €2.9 million ($3.5 million) owing to surging costs ( ATWOnline, Feb. 17), Finnair's new president and CEO, Jukka Hienonen, told this website in Helsinki that the carrier will keep working toward securing a cost base that will ensure profitability even as it continues to demonstrate operational improvements.
Oneworld and BAA signed an MOU ensuring consolidation of the alliance members' operations at London Heathrow's new Terminal 5, to be occupied by British Airways, and an upgraded Terminal 3. Currently, oneworld carriers are split across all four Heathrow terminals. They account for more than 50% of LHR's traffic, with 35 million passengers per year onboard around 700 departures and arrivals each day.
Norwegian started a thrice-weekly Oslo-St. Petersburg service on March 3. Sterling launched thrice-weekly Copenhagen-Edinburgh service yesterday. Frequency will increase to six-times-weekly from March 27. It also will launch twice-weekly Edinburgh-Helsinki service beginning March 27 aboard 737s.
European Commission launched a public consultation on RFID "as their power to report their location, identity and history raises serious concerns about personal privacy and security, as well as technical interoperability and international compatibility." It added that addressing some of the concerns "may well require legislative responses." The Commission said it also is stepping up exchanges with the US and Asia on RFID technologies in order to define globally accepted interoperability standards and practices with regard to data privacy and ethical principles when applying the technolo
TAM raised nearly BRL1.5 billion ($689.8 million) Friday through stock issues on both the Bovespa exchange in Brazil and the New York Stock Exchange, according to press reports.
A380 program reached the 1,000-flight-hr. milestone last week. Four A380s have been tested with Trent 900s. A fifth will join the program this year with Engine Alliance GP7200s.
Air Europa signed a seven-year, CHF20 million ($15.3 million) deal with SR Technics for component support for its new A330 fleet, which will number 6-8 aircraft. The Spanish carrier takes delivery of its first A330 this month. The pair also concluded an MRO agreement for the APUs on Air Europa's fleet of 737NGs, which it expects to enlarge from 28 aircraft at present to 40-50.
Air Berlin announced last week that it is "ready for the stock market" and intends to go public. The timing of the flotation on the Prime Standard of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange was not announced, and the airline said it was "impossible" to forecast the proceeds from the move. German media reported earlier this year that the IPO is designed to raise €700 million ($834.8 million) ( ATWOnline, Jan. 13). Commerzbank and Morgan Stanley were appointed as joint global coordinator and joint bookrunner.
Gol's year of explosive expansion ended with record annual and quarterly profits as the Brazilian LCC posted net earnings of BRL513.2 million ($236 million) for 2005, an increase of 33.4% over the previous year's BRL384.7 million.
European Council last week formally closed the first reading on the new EU-OPS Regulation, which seeks to integrate technical requirements and administrative procedures in the field of civil aviation. EU-OPS includes harmonizing flight time limitations across Europe, setting a minimum FTL level directly applicable to all EU countries.
JetBlue Airways announced a new leadership structure in its human resources department, naming Vinny Stabile senior VP-people, Santo Barravecchio VP-people services and compliance and Dean Melonas VP-recruitment.
Tarom Romanian Airlines selected Rockwell Collins to provide a comprehensive avionics package, inflight entertainment and moving map systems for four new A318s scheduled for delivery beginning in November.
AirTran Holdings said last week that it was forced to adjust its fourth-quarter loss to approximately $1.4 million from the $0.4 million it announced in January ( ATWOnline, Jan. 25) "due to changes in estimates as a result of information which became available to management subsequent to the date of the press release." Its 2005 profit falls from $2.7 million to approximately $1.7 million due to the change.
Malaysian government ended the wrangling over domestic routes between Malaysia Airlines and AirAsia last week, announcing that MAS will operate flights to more popular destinations like Penang, Kuching, Kota Kinabalu and others tied to its international network while AirAsia will fly the remaining routes, according to local press reports. Further details will be announced in the future. MAS has been losing money on its domestic operations on behalf of parent company PMB.
Air Canada will launch daily Toronto-Salt Lake City service from June 2 aboard Air Canada Jazz CRJ705s and daily mainline flights from Toronto to San Diego beginning July 1 aboard A319s. SAS Scandinavian Airlines will codeshare with Swiss International Air Lines on its Bangkok-Singapore service Aloha Airlines will launch six-times-weekly Sacramento-Orange County service from May 2. Indonesia AirAsia began daily Medan-Penang service Friday.
Finnair announced the beginning of its transition to the "Airbus era" with the signing of an MOU with Virgin Atlantic Airways for acquisition of an A340-300. The aircraft will enter Finnair service in July. It ordered nine A350-900s and three A340-300Es late last year ( ATWOnline, Dec. 8, 2005).
Emirates President Tim Clark said the carrier is considering delaying next year's scheduled delivery of a dozen A340-600s and is close to choosing between the 787 and A350-900 for a 50-aircraft order.
Cargolux emerged as the unidentified customer that placed an order for two new 747-400Fs this month. The Luxembourg-based all-cargo airline simultaneously confirmed it canceled the introduction of a used dash 400F scheduled to join its fleet this year, as that aircraft has been sold in the meantime. The new aircraft, valued at $450 million at list prices, will be delivered in summer 2007 and summer 2008 and will fill the gap until delivery of the carrier's 747-8F fleet starting in September 2009.
