House Transportation Committee approved unanimously yesterday legislation (H.R.4) to remove the transportation trust funds, including aviation, from the unified federal budget. The legislation, which has 132 co-sponsors, is essentially the same bill that passed the House 284 to 143 last April.
Finnair and Maersk Air of Denmark are preparing to compete with SAS on the Copenhagen-Stockholm route, which they serve jointly eight times per day beginning April 28. The collaboration, begun last October with service between Stockholm and Billund, adds another Scandinavian market in which SAS's dominance is under increased pressure. Last November, Braathens launched service between Oslo and Stockholm, one of SAS's most profitable routes, and the Norwegian carrier plans to expand further, having invested in Swedish domestic airline Transwede.
United, Delta, Continental and Emery Worldwide are fighting American's proposed code share with Colombian flag carrier Avianca, recommending everything from consolidation with the TACA case to outright denial. The passenger carriers say American is gaining unrestrained dominance in Latin America, and Emery urges rejection for lack of reciprocity - Colombia has denied its efforts to fly there.
International Aviation Services has ordered 12 new JT8D-200 engines from Pratt&Whitney to power VIP 727s and bring them to Stage 3 standards. The company specializes in custom completions for the VIP market. It was appointed by Rohr to be the launch facility for the "VIP Super 27," as well as the customer support facility for all former Valsan and future Rohr- modified 727s.
Sen. Max Cleland (D-Ga.) will address the American Society of Travel Agents' Eastern Regional Conference, scheduled April 3-6 at the Capitol Hill Hyatt Regency Hotel in Washington.
British Airways will transfer several more routes to London Gatwick from Heathrow as of March 30. St. Petersburg, Pisa and South West/London (operated by BA's Brymon Airways unit) join several other routes soon to be flown from Gatwick. BA had announced the transfer of its Latin America routes, effective March 17. The carrier also intends to launch new service or add frequencies from Gatwick to Glasgow, Barcelona, Lisbon, Bilbao, Stockholm, Zagreb and Riga, capital of Latvia. BA will stop Heathrow-Turin service due to lack of demand.
McDonnell Douglas DC-9 and MD-80 Systemwide Aircraft Utilization Per Day Third Quarter 1996 DC-9-30 Continental Northwest Number of Aircraft Operated 30 106 Total Fleet Operations Departures 165 520 Block Hours 260 839 Flight Hours 209 665 Miles 85,913 264,090
Hawaiian Airlines is planning to install Sabre Decision Technologies' yield management system, Airmax, to be ready for use by fall. Airmax evaluates the allocation of seats and pricing and creates passenger demand forecasts by fare class. Bruce Nobles, president and chief executive, said the system gives Hawaiian "an excellent opportunity to generate stronger utilization of its assets and, thus, improve profitability." SDT will build, test, install and maintain the system and train Hawaiian personnel.
Lufthansa said yesterday it will extract its passenger services functions from the rest of the airline and put them into a separate company, so it can focus on airline marketing and operations. No new managers will be hired, and in fact, the move is part of a company goal to reduce management and administrative positions by 10%.
Airlines Reporting Corp. has completed a successful 90-day test of Interactive Agent Reporting, its new electronic reporting system, using 30 volunteer travel agencies representing all four major computer reservations systems. ARC will add about 25 agency locations a week. The process for electronic refund and exchange still is being developed and will be added this year.
Vanguard is offering discounts to seniors and children and reducing advance purchase requirements to all customers for tickets purchased by Feb. 16. Persons 65 or older will receive a 25% discount and children 12 or under 50% off on travel that must be completed by July 11. If tickets are purchased after Feb. 16, seniors and children will receive a 10% discount. The advance purchase requirements have been reduced to three days.
KLM posted a fiscal third quarter operating loss of 19 million guilders (US$10 million) as fuel costs increases wiped out any hope of a profit. In the three months ended Dec. 31, fuel expenses rose NLG83 million (US$45 million) and operating income fell NLG75 million (US$41 million). The carrier had a net loss of NLG7 million (US$4 million), compared with a NLG102 million (US$55 million) profit during the same period in 1995.
A Norwegian church is proposing to ban flight activity several times a week, during any local funeral, at Oslo's new international airport, Gardermoen, due to open in late 1998. Norway has yet to figure out how to respond to the request.
American Airlines' traffic increased 6% systemwide, boosted by a 13.2% gain in Latin America and a 6% rise in domestic operations. Capacity was up 2.3%, although Pacific and Atlantic traffic both declined. The load factor reached 66% in January, up 2.4 percentage points. Domestic loads were up 1.8 points to 64.8%, but the largest jump was in Latin America, up 6.3 points to 71.4%. January 1997 January 1996 RPMs 8,465,502,000 7,983,488,000 ASMs 12,829,769,000 12,544,380,000
Spirit Airlines will begin new daily direct service from Atlantic City to Cleveland, Ohio, and Myrtle Beach, S.C., April 10. Fares will be as low as $89 one way to Cleveland, and $79 to Myrtle Beach. Spirit, which serves Myrtle Beach from Detroit and Boston, said it plans to announce more service to the city in the future. Ned Homfeld, president of Spirit, said the airline also wants to add more service to Atlantic City in the future.
USAir posted 19.6% higher revenue passenger mile figures for January, as capacity increased 12.7% and load factor rose 3.6 percentage points to 62.5%. Domestic traffic, the majority of USAir's system, jumped 15.3%, while international RPMs rose 105.2%. International capacity, 7.6% of USAir's system, was up 81.8%. The average passenger journey on USAir in January lengthened 5.9% to 719.6 miles.
Reno Air has launched a Fly 4 Fly Free promotion in which four roundtrip or eight one-way flights between Detroit and Reno/Tahoe will earn a free coach roundtrip to one of 20 Reno Air destinations. Travelers may pool their credits, and anyone may take the free trip. The flights can be accrued until Dec. 1, and the free trip is available until July 1, 1998. Fares for the daily nonstop flights, which began this week, start at $99.
Airlines from Taiwan and Cambodia will operate six roundtrip flights per week between Taipei and Phnom Penh- three apiece - under an aviation agreement signed Dec. 18 but confirmed only recently by Tsai Tuei, director-general of Taiwan's Civil Aeronautics Administration. Tsai said the two sides agreed not to publicize the signing in order not to antagonize China. The agreement limits the number of passengers each side can carry to 500 per week. Taiwan has selected EVA Airways to serve the new route.
GE90 operators British Airways and China Southern last week removed from service a total of five engines powering Boeing 777 widebody twins after discovering early fatigue problems with bleed air manifolds in the high- pressure compressor. China Southern removed only one engine and resumed flying Tuesday. BA took out four engines and grounded several 777s for three days awaiting spares from GE. BA expects its fourth grounded aircraft to return to flight by the weekend.
TWA will increase service from its St. Louis hub to 19 cities in North America this spring, beginning with scheduled changes Feb. 15, as part of a normal buildup after the slow winter months. All of the cities receive service from TWA. The carrier also plans to restore daily nonstops to Tampa from New York Kennedy, which it suspended for the winter. As of Feb. 15, TWA will operate 346 daily departures from St. Louis and 38 from JFK.
Air Line Pilots Association said a one-day conference it hosted last week identified five major areas of concern for operations in South American airspace - flight crew training, data collection, aircrew and air traffic control procedures, industry and government interface and communications. Attending the meeting were representatives from the International Civil Aviation Organization, International Air Transport Association, FAA, International Federation of Air Line Pilots Association, International Federation of Air Traffic Controller Associations and several U.S.
Senate Commerce Committee recommended yesterday by voice vote that Rodney Slater be confirmed as DOT secretary, succeeding Federico Pena, who moves to head the Energy Department.
All Nippon Airways has resumed daily service to Honolulu from Nagoya, using 747s in a 411-seat, all-economy configuration. The carrier suspended service on the route in March 1994 as part of a restructuring that targeted inefficient service.
Air France Chairman Christian Blanc has set up more than 2,000 small-group meetings in the last three years to reorganize flight schedules, marketing, inflight service, revenue management and frequent flyer programs. The objective was to repair what he termed an "obsolete" sales organization and several other divisions. The airline averaged nearly two restructuring meetings per day during the period.
