TWA's stand-alone flight attendant union, the Independent Federation of Flight Attendants, is affiliating with the Association of Flight Attendants, which represents 40,000 workers at 26 airlines. IFFA has 5,400 members, and its largest presence is at TWA bases in New York and St. Louis. IFFA gains voting rights on the AFA executive board and board of directors, and is scheduled to merge fully into AFA within four years. The agreement is subject to ratification by the IFFA membership and AFA's board of directors, both expected this month.
Transcontinental yields skyrocketed in the second quarter, according to DOT O&D data compiled by Avitas (see chart on Page 376 of the hard copy of this issue). While it's too early to gauge the effect of the new Pan Am, the June quarter's average yields from New York to Los Angeles and San Francisco rose 25% and 27% year-over-year, respectively. Yields in most other top city-pairs greater than 750 miles dropped.
American, which said Tuesday it would "study" turning off its eight 40-foot gate information signs at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport (DAILY, Dec. 4), decided later in the day the signs will go dark at noon Friday. They will remain out of action while the airline appeals the state district court decision that assessed it most of a $24.6 million penalty in an auto accident blamed on the signs.
FAA is proposing to allow passenger-carrying operations in single-engine aircraft in instrument flight rule (IFR) conditions. Single-engine passenger operations currently are allowed in visual weather conditions, but in practice, this rules out many scheduled flights operations. The National Air Transportation Association hailed the proposal, saying it will allow piston and turbine-powered single-engine aircraft operated under Part 135 to "take advantage of the safer IFR system while carrying passengers.
Hardware for the Display System Replacement (DSR) was delivered 10 months ahead of schedule to the Seattle air route traffic control center, the first DSR site, by prime contractor Lockheed Martin Air Traffic Management. DSR, a key program in FAA's air traffic control modernization, will replace 30-year-old equipment at 20 ARTCCs with new controller workstations, display computer hardware and software, and network infrastructure.
Lufthansa is selling six 737-200s to Ryanair, the low-cost Irish airline, with delivery of the first aircraft this week and the others in 1997. The acquisition will increase Ryanair's fleet to 17 737s. Ryanair intends to use the aircraft for low-fare services from London Stansted to European destinations.
Japan Air System accepted yesterday the first of seven Pratt-powered 777- 200s on order. JAS is the fourth carrier to receive a Pratt-powered 777 since the first delivery to United in May 1995. "At that time, the 84,000- pounds-thrust engine was the first, and [it] remains the only commercial aircraft engine given 180-minute extended twin operations certification at entry into service," Pratt said.
Online booking of airline tickets may have to be regulated in the same way as computer reservations systems, according to a filing this week by CRS provider Amadeus, but probably only if a site offers tickets for multiple airlines. The comments amplify those made last month by Amadeus concerning fair competition and display bias in the CRS industry.
Continental and American need not be considered for new U.S.-India third- country code-share service since they do not currently have the authority to fly such routes, Northwest and United told DOT. Northwest, United and Delta do hold authority, and since three authorized airlines are applying for four available code shares, the department can simply award the service without conducting a proceeding, Northwest said. American wants to code share with prospective alliance partner British Airways from London Heathrow to India.
Ansett Australia will merge its first- and business-class service into "Premium Class" on all domestic flights, starting next year, the airline said Tuesday. The move came after a three-month survey of corporate and government customers showed a declining desire for first-class travel. Domestic demand fell in each of the last four years as more businesses opted for business class. Ansett expects the aircraft interior changes to occur by March.
Standard&Poor's yesterday altered its rating of Delta to "developing" from "positive," following reports that the carrier held preliminary merger discussions with Continental. If Delta acquired Continental, S&P said, "it would represent a change of direction from its recent focus on cost cutting, internal growth and a publicly stated goal of regaining an investment-grade rating" from S&P. The rating affects about $5.4 billion of Delta's debt.
The chairman of Air India and Indian Airlines, Russi Mody, resigned abruptly yesterday, protesting that the government left him few options in the ongoing restructuring of the two carriers. No replacement was named, and there were conflicting reports over whether the government even accepted his resignation. Mody had been jostling with the government over fleet rationalization and other issues. Air India operates 30 widebodies, including 15 747s, and Indian Air has 55 narrowbodies, including 30 A320s and 15 737-200s.
Lufthansa said this week its bleak financial picture will not improve for the rest of 1996. "We expect in the best case that profits for this year will be 10% below those of last year," said Klaus Schlede, chief financial officer. The German carrier posted a pre-tax profit of 756 million Deutschmarks (US$484 million) in 1995. Last week, Lufthansa announced a 14% drop in pre-tax profits for the first nine months of 1996 to DM434 million, while revenue rose 4.7% to DM10.016 million.
Reno Air, in two service-expanding moves, announced yesterday a code share with Hawaiian Airlines and new service to Detroit and Palm Springs from Reno/Tahoe. The Hawaiian code-share will start Jan. 7 for connecting service at Los Angeles from Tucson, Albuquerque, Reno/Tahoe and San Jose to and from Hawaii. The Detroit service will link Reno/Tahoe to Detroit Metropolitan, starting Jan. 30, and seasonal service to Palm Springs will restart Jan. 28.
In its first U.S. expansion since 1961, Pakistan International Airlines will launch twice-weekly service to Chicago and Washington through Amsterdam, beginning Dec. 12. The service supplements daily service from New York JFK to Pakistan via Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Paris. The new service will operate initially through New York and will be upgraded to nonstop next summer. Adding Chicago and Washington is a "major expansion for PIA," said K. Salim Jahangir, PIA's North American general manager.
Kawasaki Heavy Industries has decided to join the Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engine team as a risk-sharing partner. KHI currently works on another Rolls program, the Trent 800, with Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries.
U.S.-London market share of an American-British Airways alliance should be reduced by regulation to 40% as a precondition of alliance approval, Cyril Murphy, VP-international affairs for United, said yesterday in London. A recent American study predicts that AA-BA market share on the route would shrink from 61% today to 41% of a "larger pie." With roughly 40% fixed at the outset by law, "BA and American can rely on their own optimistic projections to expand their services at Heathrow," Murphy said.
Tsai Tuei, deputy director general of Taiwan's Directorate General of Telecommunications, was appointed director general of Civil Aeronautics Administration, succeeding acting DG Chang Kuo-cheng. Tsai, 49, holds a National Taiwan University doctorate in electrical engineering and has represented Taiwan often in international telecommunications negotiations.
All international airlines operating to and from India have decided jointly to increase fares 5% in response to the fuel price increase, nearly 13%, imposed on them last month by the Indian government, aviation industry sources said Monday. The fare hike was proposed and accepted unanimously last Friday at a meeting of the Board of Airline Representatives, the association of foreign carriers operating in India.
U.S. carriers generally fared worse in DOT's monthly consumer report for October, with America West showing the poorest record on consumer complaints. The carrier registered 30 complaints while carrying 1.585 million passengers, or 1.89 complaints per 100,000 passengers, DOT said. The rate was more than double America West's complaint rate of October 1995. Southwest had the lowest complaint rate at 0.10 per 100,000 passengers. Industry-wide, the 615 complaints about service on major airlines represented a 9% increase from September and a 19% gain from October 1995.
The chairmen of Iberia and Aerolineas Argentinas, Xavier de Irala and Manuel Moran, met with Argentine Economy Minister Roque Fernandez last week to discuss potential cooperation with American and British Airways. In an interview published by the Argentinean daily Clarin, the Spanish Industry and Energy Minister Josep Pique Camps said Spain intends to "seek alliances to boost commercially" Aerolineas and Iberia. The Spanish flag carrier holds 85% of Aerolineas Argentinas.
Aspen, Colo.-based Peak International has acquired Lone Star Airlines, whose chief financial officer, Allen McGinness, will become the carrier's interim president (Nov. 22). McGinness, who replaces beleaguered President Phil Trenary, said the acquisition will not change anything for passengers. "It's business as usual," he said. Peak International, which owns 100% of Lone Star, is an airline services company formed in 1994 that has been involved with Lone Star on the Dallas-Aspen and Denver-Aspen routes for the last 18 months.
American continued in November to experience declines in systemwide capacity, off 2.8%, and domestic revenue passenger miles, down 3%. Domestic capacity fell 3.5% and international capacity 1.1%. Systemwide traffic was down 1.4%. For the first 11 months, capacity decreased 1.7% systemwide and 2.2% domestically. For November, Latin America was the only region to gain in traffic and capacity, up 5.8% and 2.7%, respectively. The systemwide load factor was up 0.9 percentage points to 65.8%.
ValuJet's November traffic rose in terms of revenue passenger miles but fell 75% compared with last year's levels. While year-over-year comparisons are skewed because the current airline is less than half the size it was a year ago - enplaned passengers declined 72% - month to month, ValuJet's capacity is swelling and load factors are plummeting. Capacity in November totaled 138.3 million available seat miles, up 41% from October's 97.7 million ASMs.
DOT and FAA may respond this week to the City of Los Angeles's Dec. 2 letter (DAILY, Dec. 3) regarding the $31.1 million transfer of funds from Los Angeles Airport, a DOT spokeswoman said yesterday. FAA told the city earlier that failure to return the funds to the airport by Dec. 2 would lead to enforcement action.
