It's now more of a hassle to visit FAA and other government aviation agencies in Washington. As of Dec. 1, it is not enough for non-government visitors to report to a visitor's desk. They now have to pass through a magnetometer as well, and hand-carried articles are screened by a fluoroscope.
Carnival Air Lines' October traffic fell 22.9% to 110.3 million revenue passenger miles from 143.1 million. Available seat miles decreased 23.7% to 182.9 million from 239.6 million as the load factor rose less than one percentage point to 60.3%. For the first 10 months of the year, RPMs were up 13.3% to 1.816 billion and ASMs 12.8% to 2.805 billion. The load factor inched up to 64.8%.
Texas regional Conquest Airlines says it will pass savings on to passengers at the end of the year when the federal excise tax expires. The carrier operates to nine cities in Texas. "With the Texas legislature reconvening in January 1997, we expect traffic to increase from around the state to Austin," the capital.
Italy's antitrust authority fined Alitalia 415 million lire (US$274,000) for anticompetitive practices against Air One and Meridiana. The private carriers complained that Alitalia, which is in charge of slot allocation at Italian airports, used this privilege systematically to schedule its flights shortly before their own, drawing passengers away from them. The abuse was found to be particularly evident at Milan Linate Airport, where Aliadriatica, now renamed Air One, had to abandon services to Brindisi and Lamezia.
KLM began to fine-tune its global route network last week as part of its Focus 2000 restructuring program, launching service and increasing frequencies for several destinations and dropping other service. On April 1, the carrier will begin service from Amsterdam to Abidjan, Ivory Coast, and introduce twice-weekly flights to Nagoya via Sapporo. The Japan service is contingent on Russian government approval to overfly Siberia.
TWA, the only applicant that did not win new service in DOT's recent tentative U.S.-Toronto route decision, strongly criticized the department's analysis and ridiculed elements of proposals from competing carriers. "This case raises important questions about how carriers should approach route cases," TWA said in response to DOT's show-cause order awarding service to Midway, Delta, Northwest and Continental in the third and final year of limited U.S. carrier operations at Toronto prior to open skies.
Air Canada and the Canadian Auto Workers reached a tentative agreement yesterday. The CAW Local 2213 bargaining committee will recommend ratification to the CAW board tomorrow, after the union said it achieved its goal of no wage concessions. Results from a union-wide poll will be issued Dec. 19.
Air Jamaica intends to operate flights to the Eastern Caribbean, beginning in February 1997, using a new MD-83. The new service, currently awaiting U.S. government approval, will include daily flights from New York to Barbados, extending to St. Lucia four days a week and Antigua three times. A second service - from Atlanta - is planned to start in spring 1997, as are art flights to Los Angeles, with the first service scheduled March 23 and a second May 3. Air Jamaica successfully re-entered the U.K.
Air France will increase A340 Paris-Bangkok-Hanoi service from two times weekly to three as of Dec. 15. The carrier also offers three weekly flights to Ho Chi Minh City.
IATA, as expected, is seeking judicial review of new, stricter noise departure limits imposed at Heathrow Airport by the U. K. ministry of aviation and shipping, effective Jan. 1 (DAILY, Nov. 6). Calling its action a "rare and reluctant step," IATA said it "sees no present alternative" to challenging the rules in the U.K. High Court. It said it has always sought "consultation, rather than confrontation, on all civil aviation matters," but continued efforts to reopen "meaningful dialogue with the U.K. Department of Transport" had failed.
Fokker's talks with Samsung of South Korea failed last week, and Dutch authorities will consider participating in the Airbus program in an attempt to maintain aircraft manufacturing activity in The Netherlands. Dutch Liberal Member of Parliament Jan Van Walsem said he will introduce proposals to manufacture Airbus components at the next meeting of the Parliament's economic affairs committee.
Royal Nepal Airlines will restart service to France with weekly Paris Orly- Kathmandu, Nepal, flights using 757s. Globe Air Cargo of Paris recently signed a cargo contract with the carrier.
Canadian Airlines has secured support for its restructuring plan from four of its unions and received additional backing from the national, British Columbian and Albertan governments in the last two weeks. But the remaining holdout, the Canadian Auto Workers union (CAW), is resolute in its resistance to wage concessions, buoyed by recent victories at Air Canada, Chrysler, Ford and General Motors. Canadian's talks with CAW are far less pressured, however, than those of competitor Air Canada, which reached agreement with CAW yesterday before a Dec. 5 strike deadline.
Federal Express, in a barter deal similar to one it announced earlier this year with United, said yesterday it will acquire 14 DC-10-10s from American in exchange for Stage 3 hushkits for 30 American 727s. FedEx in September traded 59 727 hushkits for 36 of United's DC-10-10s (DAILY, Sept. 17). It was no secret at the time that FedEx was talking about a similar deal with American. FedEx plans to convert many of the aircraft into an "MD-10" configuration with new components and digital cockpits for two-person crews.
Egyptair has taken delivery of the first of three A340s. The A340-200 is the first delivered in Egyptair's new colors. The new aircraft will be used on routes to Japan, Singapore and Australia, replacing a leased A340.
Taking issue with a DOT/FAA legal opinion, the City of Los Angeles asked FAA yesterday to rescind its request that $31.1 million be returned to the Department of Airports and asked that any further FAA review be limited to the correctness of the amount transferred. The City Council voted in closed session last week to escrow the funds, which were transferred to the city's account in September, while new audits are conducted for the city to determine whether the amount of the transfer is appropriate (DAILY, Nov. 27).
International Civil Aviation Organization Council President Assad Kotaite will be a conciliator to a Cuban application that its aircraft be allowed to overfly U.S. territory on flights to and from Canada. The ICAO Council has requested a preliminary report in March on the progress of the request.
As U.S. officials depart for bilateral talks in London tomorrow through Friday, Heathrow access continues to be a major negotiating point. Based on information they have seen to date, analysts at DOT believe U.S. airlines will need enough new slots there to open more than 30 new daily roundtrips, a senior DOT official said yesterday. These new services would be needed to compete with the proposed American Airlines-British Airways alliance, the official said, and the analysts assume that a full open-skies agreement with the U.K.
Nashville-based Corporate Express Airlines has become a participant in the Airlines Reporting Corp. Corporate Express is expected to begin scheduled service Dec. 16 from Nashville to Knoxville and Tri-Cities, Tenn.
Indonesia's Sempati Air, a soon-to-be-public regional run by President Suharto's son, received a dressing-down yesterday by Suharto's state ratings agency. The unusual public admonishment in such a reserved society is a signal to potential investors to "stay away for now," said one financial expert.
Alex. Brown&Sons initiated coverage of World Airways with a "buy" recommendation. Analyst Will Wrightson cited "evidence of an earnings turnaround" following the airline's most recent quarterly results.
SAS has chosen Honeywell's TCAS 2000 traffic alert and collision avoidance system for its fleet of new-generation 737s-600s. The order comprises 41 firm shipsets and 35 options. Deliveries will begin in 1998 as SAS begins to take delivery of the aircraft.
Iberia signed a franchise agreement with private regional airline Air Nostrum by which it and its regional subsidiary, Aviaco, will coordinate schedules with Air Nostrum and merge their marketing units. Stating that it and Aviaco are "supplementing their networks with Air Nostrum's regional services," Iberia emphasized that the deal is the first airline franchise agreement signed in Spain. "Without doubt there will be many more in the future," said Iberia Chairman Xavier de Irala.
