Air Canada yesterday began nonstop service between Toronto and Raleigh/Durham, becoming the first foreign airline to fly to the North Carolina city on a scheduled basis. The carrier is offering two daily roundtrips using 50-seat Canadair CL-65 regional jets. Air Canada now offers more than 1,000 flights per week between Canada and 34 US cities.
U.S.-Chilean bilateral discussions are moving forward at the embassy level this week in Santiago in the face of a Dec. 1 deadline, when the current agreement governing frequencies and carrier allocations expires. While the Chileans are not in favor of an open skies agreement, the expected outcome is more frequencies and operating authority for more than the current two U.S. carriers, American and United. That would suit Continental, which continues its campaign to expand gateway service from Newark.
Summary of U.S. National Carriers Systemwide Traffic May 1996 Revenue Average Revenue Passengers Length of Passenger Enplaned % Travel Miles Carriers (000) Change (Miles) (000) American Trans Air 362 9.02 1,439 521,327 Carnival 149 20.49 1,151 172,055 Hawaiian 428 5.70 746 319,479
An Emery Worldwide-USAir-Northwest consortium received for the second consecutive year a contract from the U.S. Air Mobility Command to transport equipment and supplies from the U.S. on a daily basis for the U.S. Army in Germany, Italy and Japan. About 1.6 million pounds a month will be shipped.
Carnival Air Lines will relocate its New York Kennedy Airport passenger service facilities to the East Wing of the International Arrivals Building Nov. 27. It has used ticket counters and departure/arrival gates in TWA's domestic terminal for the past four years. Carnival, which intends to provide shuttle service between TWA's terminal and the International Arrivals Building, said the new space will facilitate connections with foreign interline partners.
Khabarovsk Aviation Group applied to DOT for a foreign air carrier permit and exemption authority to fly scheduled combination service once a week using Il-62 aircraft from points in the Russian Federation to Anchorage, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles, starting in February. The airline also intends to fly all-cargo charter service. The state-owned flag carrier operated previously as the Khabarovsk Department of Aeroflot and has been moving in recent years to establish independent operations.
American applied to DOT for an exemption to provide combination service between the U.S. and Paramaribo, Surinam, via Curacao, with code-sharing by American and ALM Antillean Airlines N.V.
Air Transport Association will preview its new Internet link to SPEC 2000 tomorrow and Thursday at a user forum at the Fontainebleau Hilton Hotel, Miami. SPEC 2000, to be available Jan. 1, is an international system for airlines, suppliers and repair stations to exchange business information electronically.
Continental has reduced fares to its new Latin American and existing South American destinations by as much as 63% from regular excursion fares. The fares apply to flights from Newark and Houston and must be purchased by Jan. 15 for travel Dec. 12-Feb. 28. The four new markets are Newark to Panama City and Guayaquil and Houston to Lima and Guayaquil, the latter subject to government approval. The three existing routes on sale are Newark to Bogota, Lima and Quito.
Northwest notified DOT that it plans to start using frequencies allocated to it for U.S.-Russia combination service. The flights, to be operated as code shares with partner KLM, will account for five weekly frequencies from points in the U.S. to Moscow via Amsterdam and 3.5 weekly frequencies to St. Petersburg via Amsterdam.
American Society of Travel Agents will hold a CRS Summit Dec. 10 and an Internet Summit Dec. 11 in San Francisco following its quarterly board meeting. Both events are open to anyone in the industry. More information is available at 703-739-2782 or on the Internet at http://www.astanet.com/www/astanet/calendar/calendar.htmlx.
Travel Technology Association will conduct a conference on new travel technologies Feb. 10-11 at the Miami Hyatt Regency Hotel, planning sessions to appeal to travel, tourism and hospitality suppliers, travel agents, corporate travel managers and travel technology providers and integrators. Cost is $429 for non-TTA members. For more information, call 412-781-3255.
Boeing said its 757-300 has reached its "firm design configuration," the point at which engineers can begin releasing design information to Boeing factories and suppliers. "This initiates fabrication of parts, tools and assemblies for the new derivative airplane," the company said. At 178 feet, seven inches, the 757-300 will be 23 feet, four inches longer than the 757-200, enabling it to carry 20% more passengers and nearly 50% more cargo.
American Eagle carrier Executive Airlines has begun offering nonstop service between San Juan and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Executive will operate the flights with ATR-42 aircraft equipped with Global Positioning System satellite-based navigation technology. The carrier said GPS enables it to serve the route in one hour and 58 minutes, rather than two hours and 20 minutes using existing ground-based navigation. It said it will launch GPS-supported service to Tobago Dec. 14.
Vanguard Airlines's traffic in October rose 88.6% to 46.9 billion revenue passenger miles from 24.8 million a year earlier. Available seat miles for the month totaled 88.5 million, up 76.1% from 50.3 million, and the load factor rose 3.5 percentage points to 52.9%. RPMs for the first 10 months of 1996 were up 142.5% to 570.8 million, ASMs 101.1% to 913.3 million and the load factor 10.2 points to 62.5%.
Polar Air has taken delivery of its first 747-200F, bringing its total fleet to 14 747s. The airline said it expects a "significant jump" in Asian operations if DOT makes final its tentative decision to award Polar a new U.S.-Japan all-cargo route. "The final award of the Japan route will mark the culmination of a three-year strategy by Polar to create an effective global network of operations," said Chief Executive Ned Wallace.
Frontier Airlines posted a net loss of $2.2 million for the quarter that ended Sept. 30, the second of its fiscal year. The deficit is more than double that of the year-earlier period, $986,301. Revenues rose to $30.1 million from $14.3 million. The loss wiped out nearly $2.2 million in profits the carrier gained in the two preceding quarters.
The Air Transport Association has created a new membership category - technical member - offering a reduced membership fee to foreign passenger and cargo airlines. The chief executives of technical members, unlike those of associate members, will be able to attend an annual meeting in December that addresses issues of concern to all members. ATA said technical members will be able to participate in the full range of ATA councils, committees and events.
TWA is making two operational changes regarding cargo fuel surcharges and reducing its "no-show" factor to improve revenues. On Dec. 1, it will implement a 2.5-cent-per-pound cargo surcharge on all domestic air freight and priority air express shipments to offset the rise in fuel costs. The surcharge will not apply to domestic next-flight-out shipments. International air freight and priority express shipments will be levied an extra six cents per kilogram, said President Jeffrey Erickson in an employee communication.
Summary of U.S. Major Carriers International Traffic May 1996 Revenue Average Revenue Passengers Length of Passenger Enplaned % Travel Miles Carriers (000) Change (Miles) (000) Alaska 62 25.58 1,036 64,116 Latin 62 25.58 1,036 64,116 American 1,161 2.98 2,220 2,576,789
Atlas Air said it has renewed its aircraft, crew, maintenance and insurance contracts with China Airlines and Varig and has entered a long-term contract with CAL for additional flying.
Clarification: Although the British Airways-American Airlines alliance is the only one thus far to have received a "statement of objections" from the European Commission (DAILY, Nov. 15), numerous alliances including BA- American already are undergoing competition investigations, as indicated by a notice in The Official Journal of the European Communities.
Bell Helicopter Textron and Boeing Co. yesterday introduced the Bell Boeing 609, a six- to nine-passenger civil tiltrotor design aimed at what the joint venture hopes will be a 1,000-aircraft market. "Everything finally came together," Bell Chairman Webb Joiner told The DAILY at a ceremony at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington.
Kiwi International Air Lines, which expects to receive approval Friday to return to scheduled service, will stay committed to the growing North American charter business it discovered after voluntarily halting scheduled operations last month. Kiwi took in $340,000 flying charters during the month it searched for new investors.
