United is launching a corporate card with National Westminster Bank Plc (NatWest), providing access to the American Express global merchant network. The card will be issued in the first quarter of next year. United will offer the non-revolving charge card to large and medium-sized companies as a means of controlling travel and entertainment expenses. The carrier will provide overall account management to the companies.
Sanya Phoenix Airport in South China's Hainan Province will launch air routes to Korea, Japan, Germany, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Macau by the end of this year.
Continental has closed its earlier-announced $250 million offering of 9 1/2% senior notes due Dec. 15, 2001. The proceeds will be used for general corporate purposes, Continental said.
The new Pan Am will expand to eight aircraft and several new destinations in the first quarter of 1997, and is a year away from making a narrowbody fleet acquisition decision, President and Chief Executive Martin Shugrue said yesterday at an Institute for International Research conference in New York. Pan Am's future destination choices will be guided by a dozen international alliances in place. "They want to go places like Detroit, Chicago, Boston and Las Vegas," Shugrue said.
U.S. Major and National Carriers Interest Expenses Third Quarter 1996 % Of Total Operating Systemwide Expenses Alaska $ 7,103,000 2.14 America West 10,932,729 2.28 American 76,246,000 2.21 Continental 29,890,000 2.13
Greenwich Air Services signed a contract to support 41 CF6 engines for FedEx's DC-10 fleet. Greenwich said this brings to 144 the number of FedEx CF6 engines under contract. Greenwich last September contracted to support the JT8D engines on FedEx's fleet of 163 727s.
In a tentative ruling in the Brazil all-cargo charter allocation, DOT awarded 75 charters to Southern Air Transport and 25 to Tower Air, and placed the remaining 200 into the charter pool for use on a first-come- first-served basis. The department also decided to change charter pool rules to permit new entrants to apply for up to eight flights a month.
Korea's construction and transportation ministry plans to build a large cargo terminal at Cheju Airport by the first half of 1999. The 17,000- square-meter facility will be constructed on the site of the current 4,050- square-meter cargo terminal, increasing capacity to 579,000 tons per year from 157,000 tons. The current terminal will be dismantled. Construction of the new terminal is scheduled to begin in the first half of 1977.
ValuJet Chairman Lewis Jordan delivered a sobering message to major airlines yesterday at Aviation Week Group's safety and security conference, recommending that the industry band together, share information and work to prevent accidents in an active, collaborative way rather than reactively.
Delta expanded services available on its World Wide Web site, joining other airlines in providing online reservations and ticketing in addition to instant access to its frequent flyer program. The airline's new Reservations Desk displays full flight schedules and permits reservations and ticket purchase for domestic flights on Delta, the Delta Shuttle, new low-cost unit Delta Express and regional Delta Connection. Booking for international flights is scheduled next year. The company said a secure link protects online credit-card transactions.
AlliedSignal directors voted to increase the company's common share repurchase authority by 50 million shares. Since 1985, the board has authorized repurchase of 150 million shares, and about 148 million shares had been repurchased as of Nov. 30. The board also voted to ask shareholder approval at the next annual meeting, scheduled April 28, to increase the number of authorized common shares to one billion from 500 million. If approved, the additional shares could be used for stock splits, acquisitions and other purposes.
U.S. Major and National Carriers Rental Expenses Third Quarter 1996 % Of Total Operating Systemwide Expenses Alaska 42,887,000 12.93 America West 71,827,333 15.00 American 268,434,000 8.94 Continental 160,516,000 11.43
Aviation trust fund's uncommitted balance will reach zero by early July if the aviation taxes are not reinstated or alternate funding sources adopted, the General Accounting Office said, citing FAA estimates.The surplus would last a couple of weeks longer if Congress authorized the transfer to the trust fund of taxes imposed in late 1996 but not deposited into the U.S. treasury until 1997.
World Airways posted a 30% year-over-year gain in block hours flown for charter, contract and U.S. military operations in November. For the first 11 months, block hours increased 19% to 39,535 from 33,216 hours in the same period of 1995. Average daily aircraft utilization fell to 10.4 block hours from 11.6 hours because of an increase in the carrier's fleet.
Midwest Express will operate year-round, twice-daily nonstop DC-9 service between Milwaukee and Orlando, starting March 10. The new route is part of a plan to use seven DC-9s acquired over the past year, Midwest said. The carrier's current Florida service to Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers and Tampa is seasonal, December through April.
The U.S. airline industry will choose among three forms of consolidation during the next few years because carriers have healthily retrenched to their hubs, becoming more regional and less dominant, Smith Barney analyst Helane Becker and other analysts said yesterday at an Institute for International Research airline finance conference in New York.
Sources familiar with last week's U.S.-U.K. bilateral talks said U.S. parties were puzzled by the timing of statements indicating slot withdrawal and other conditions would have to be met if the American-British Airways alliance is to avoid Mergers and Monopolies Commission scrutiny (DAILY, Dec. 9).
U.S. Major and National Carriers Maintenance Expenses Third Quarter 1996 % Of Total Operating Systemwide Expenses Alaska $22,854,000 6.89 America West 45,705,022 9.55 American 356,073,000 10.30 Continental 143,886,000 10.25
Sabena's maintenance department, Sabena Technics, signed a six-year contract for sub-maintenance work on the Pratt&Whitney JT8D engines that power FedEx's 160 Boeing 727 aircraft. Sabena did not disclose the contract amount but said the deal is a "major" one, resulting from two years of negotiations with the U.S. company. Expanding Sabena Technics' activities is among the prime goals of Sabena President Paul Reutlinger's "Horizon 98" profitability plan, which calls for strengthening Sabena's share of the U.S. maintenance market.
C-S Aviation Services said it increased to 10 the number of Airbus A300B4 transports it will convert to freighters. The leasing company said the conversions will be done by British Aerospace Aviation Services. C-S previously contracted for conversion of three aircraft formerly operated by Air France. Converted freighters will be delivered between April 1997 and April 1998. The launch customer is Channel Express, which will receive the first A300B4 freighter early next year.
U.S. carriers are just about ready to begin sharing safety information based on a program developed by British Airways, Al Prest, VP-operations for the Air Transport Association, told an Aviation Week Group aviation safety and security conference yesterday in Washington. ATA will administer the program, Prest told the meeting, which attracted safety experts from around the world. Information-sharing programs are among the most promising ways to increase airline safety but are being delayed by legal uncertainties, conferees agreed.
U-Land Air Lines of Taiwan, completing its first year of operations, hopes to join the growing list of domestic airlines expanding into international charter service. Tseng Jon-chia, the carrier's vice general manager, said U-Land plans to apply for permission to operate charters to Southeast Asian destinations once it has met the requirement of carrying 900,000 passengers on domestic routes in a single year. He said U-Land will operate initially to destinations within a six-hour radius of Taiwan, including points in Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines.
Singapore's plan to add a third terminal at Changi Airport includes provisions to accommodate as many as eight 600-seat "superjumbo" aircraft when the facility opens in 2004. The state-of-the-art terminal, expected to cost S$1.5 billion in a five-year construction program that begins in 1999, is intended to increase Changi's capacity to 64 million passengers per year from the current 44 million. This year's passenger volume is forecast to be 25 million.
The U.K. Civil Aviation Authority selected EDS Ltd. its "preferred bidder" to provide air traffic control system equipment that will increase transatlantic flight capacity and replace the current Flight Data Procession System at Prestwick, Scotland. CAA expects to issue a firm contract early in 1997, and the facility - the Oceanic Area Control Center, Flight Data Processing System 2 - is to be operational by the end of 1999. CAA said the upgrade will enable the U.K.
Neil Kinnock and Karel Van Miert, European Union commissioners for transport and competition, respectively, have contradictory plans for proposed EU legislation on slot allocation, to be tabled in January 1997.
