Middle East Airlines of Beirut has taken delivery of the first of two A320s leased from International Lease Finance Corp. The second A320, plus two A321s also being leased from ILFC, are to be delivered in May. The A320s will replace MEA's 707 service in the Middle East and to Europe.
USAir will begin operating new daily, nonstop flights to Bermuda from New York LaGuardia April 6 and from Charlotte May 6, using 737s. USAir already serves Bermuda nonstop from Baltimore and Philadelphia.
Precision Standard said it is in discussions with the Denver Department of Aviation about establishing an aircraft modification facility at Denver Airport. The new operation initially would be dedicated to modifying aircraft to meet federal noise regulations, according to Greg Milzcik, group VP-manufacturing and overhaul. The initiative is based on a request for proposal last November by Denver Mayor Wellington Webb. The city has set up a $15 million funding level for the project.
Braathens has ordered six 737-700 aircraft valued at $255 million, with deliveries to begin in 1998 and continue through 2000. The carrier also placed options on 10 of the 134-passenger aircraft. Braathens currently operates a fleet of 737-400/500 aircraft.
Triumph Group, which repairs and overhauls aircraft components, reported that net sales for the third fiscal quarter, which ended Dec. 31 rose 39% to $64.7 million. Income increased 211% to $3.7 million.
Qatar Airways will introduce new aircraft into its fleet and new branding into its products as part of a restructuring plan intended to take it "forward into the next century." The carrier's new chief executive, Akbar Al Baker, has brought in a number of executives from outside the company, including Michael Hewitt, formerly with The Swire Group, who has held senior positions with Cathay Pacific, to be senior general manager, sales and airline services; Hugh Parry, a former director of Air Europe and co- founder of British Mediterranean Airways, to be general manager o
The Machinists union at TWA warned management yesterday that it will sue the board of directors if, as the union expects, TWA shrinks the airline to a single hub by closing New York Kennedy and Los Angeles operations and maintenance bases, laying off thousands of employees.
Citing increased trade between the U.S., Chile and Bolivia, LanChile applied for an exemption to add La Paz and Santa Cruz, Bolivia, as intermediate points in its scheduled all-cargo service between Santiago and co-terminal points Miami and New York. The carrier also wants blind-sector authority so it can commingle traffic among Santiago, La Paz and Santa Cruz with other traffic in its route system. (Docket OST-97-2103)
Antigua/Barbuda operator LIAT agreed to a civil penalty for conducting unauthorized flights. Its foreign air carrier permit expired in July 1996, and its application the following August to reinstate authority was granted. But July 25-31, LIAT conducted numerous scheduled and charter operations from Barbuda to San Juan and Miami, and operated long-term wet- leases for Aerolineas Dominicana to the U.S., DOT said. LIAT said the flights were "inadvertent." DOT assessed a $20,000 penalty, half of which is forgiven if no more violations occur.
Air Transport Association and FAA are teaming up to produce in three years a turnkey Local Area Augmentation System (LAAS) station that could be replicated for about $500,000 each to provide precision landing capabilities at about 150 key airports. FAA is to budget $1 million or more a year while the airlines provide at least $1 million in in-kind services, such as aircraft, aircrews and engineering support for the project. "We have got the funding, the commitments and the contractors waiting in line," said Mike Rioux, ATA senior VP-operations and safety.
Port of Seattle weighed in on U.S.-Japan aviation disputes, backing Northwest's call for sanctions by turning down Japan Airlines' request to switch gateway designations so it can maintain service levels at Atlanta and increase them to Kona, Hawaii. "Wholesale sanctions against Japanese carriers would be self-defeating and would have an excessively negative impact on the trade and economies of the United States and Japan," Port of Seattle said.
Air Line Pilots Association joined numerous airlines opposing routine approval of the proposed American-British Airways alliance, saying in a DOT filing that the partnership must await the negotiation of an open skies pact with the U.K.
FAA lacks an overall blueprint for developing and maintaining the "many interrelated systems" that comprise its air traffic control system infrastructure, the General Accounting Office said yesterday in a report to Congress, the Transportation Department and the Office of Management and Budget. FAA has developed one of two principal components of a complete systems architecture, but the second essential component is not being developed, GAO said.
Boeing's 777 has had a much faster start than the 747. With 318 orders at the end of December, the 777 program already was more than one-fourth as large as the 747's 1,258 orders. The 777 total was 43% higher than the 223 orders the 747 had amassed after the same sales effort, seven years.
Transportation Law Section of the Federal Bar Association will host a reception Feb. 6 for the DOT general counsel and chief counsels, and the general counsels of NASA, the National Transportation Safety Board and others. Reservations are required. For further information, call 202-638- 0252.
The European Commission will unveil "in a few weeks" a proposal aimed at making sure aircraft operated by carriers from countries outside the European Union "are subject to checks regardless of their point of origin" when they serve EU airports, according to EU Transport Commissioner Neil Kinnock. Dutch Transport Minister Anne-Marie Jorritsma said national aviation authorities will carry out the safety checks and exchange their findings.
The Communications Workers of America was scheduled to file objections late yesterday with the National Mediation Board against USAir management for what it says were company actions that hurt the union's organizing efforts. The CWA, which lost an election last week to represent USAir's passenger service workers (DAILY, Jan. 31), says it came up short "narrowly." It needed 4,637 votes to win but received only 3,973.
Senate Commerce Committee is scheduled to vote tomorrow on the nomination of Rodney Slater to be DOT secretary. An executive session will begin at 10 a.m., Room 253, Russell Building.
House Ways and Means Committee will hold a hearing tomorrow to review the solvency of the aviation trust fund in light of the statutory problem discovered last week with transferring fourth-quarter taxes into the fund (DAILY, Feb. 3). The hearing is tentatively set for 2 p.m. in Room 1100, Longworth Building.
Citing increased foreign trade and its ability to compete and end American's "stranglehold" on Latin American service, Delta submitted a detailed outline of its proposed U.S.-Brazil combination service. DOT will designate two new U.S. flag carriers, bringing the total to four, and award 21 weekly frequencies in the Brazil proceeding. Delta wants to fly from Atlanta (with connections from Cincinnati) and New York to Sao Paulo/Rio de Janeiro, initially with 767-300ERs and MD-11s if conditions warrant.
United said yesterday it will launch a second daily Chicago-London Heathrow nonstop following U.K. and U.S. government approval for additional service on the route. The flight will be operated with a 206-seat, three-class 767-300, beginning April 1 and ending Oct. 25. When United began operating service on the route in 1995, it agreed to limit capacity to a single nonstop with 767-sized aircraft capacity until Jan. 15, 1997. Two weeks ago, the carrier was allowed to add capacity, which it did by switching to a 292-seat 777-200.
North American Airlines wants to amend its authority for long-term wet- lease for El Al, permitting NAA to operate on the New York-San Francisco segment of a series of special weekly El Al roundtrips between Tel Aviv and San Francisco. The flights are scheduled June 24 through Aug. 26, using 757s.
Operating profits for Air France should exceed 1 billion French francs (US$185 million), and the airline finally should break even in net earnings when 1996 results are reported, said Christian Blanc, chairman. If the carrier is able to turn a net profit this year, it will be far ahead of Blanc's earlier prediction of positive net earnings in 1998.
