McDonnell Douglas said yesterday it filed a shelf registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission for $1 billion in debt securities. The new registration, plus the unissued portion of an earlier shelf registration, will enable the company it to issue up to $1.2 billion in debt securities. It said it intends to use the net proceeds from the future sale of debt securities for general purposes, including the repayment of existing debt.
Continental, pushing forward with international alliances, signed yesterday an agreement with U.K. regional Business Air on code sharing through Manchester, England (DAILY, Aug. 7). Business Air, part of the Airlines of Britain Group that includes British Midland, will feed Continental's daily Newark-Manchester service and place Continental's code on Manchester service to Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow. Continental will enlarge capacity on the Manchester route, replacing 757s with DC-10-30s on Sept. 4. The code share with Business Air begins Sept.
One of the first projects Air France and the former Air Inter will undertake once they are merged is a domestic shuttle operation linking Paris with Nice, Toulouse, Bordeaux and Marseilles. A shuttle decision could come within two weeks, even before the ink is dry on merger documents.
Business aviation groups charged yesterday that President Clinton's proposal to assess a $225 per-flight fee on corporate and business turbine aircraft not only is unfair to that segment of the industry but also will hurt businesses and raise less money than the $541 million projected over six years (DAILY, Aug. 28). The business jet tax is one of eleven proposals to raise $8.456 billion over six years, offsetting the proposed $2.75 billion national literacy program and other recent Clinton initiatives to achieve a balanced budget.
FAA Administrator David Hinson has approved a Global Positioning System transition plan that will phase out most current ground-based navigation systems by 2010 and some - such as Omega and Loran-C - even sooner. "If everything goes as outlined in the plan, an augmented GPS will replace today's ground-based systems that use technologies dating back to the 1950s," the agency said. The advent of satellite-based navigation will have a "profound effect on aviation," it said.
Emery Worldwide has requested an exemption to operate scheduled all-cargo service between Dayton and Guadalajara, Mexico, and to combine that authority with its Dayton-Mexico City rights. Beginning Sept. 11, Emery wants to extend its Dayton-Mexico City service to Guadalajara two days each week, returning nonstop to Dayton. It would use DC-8-62s. (Docket OST-96- 1669)
Stork Group subsidiary Fokker Elmo signed a contract with Aviation Industries of China subsidiaries China Precision Engineering Institute and China National Airborne Equipment Corp. to manufacture wire harnesses for aircraft for the "benefit of both the Chinese and western aviation industries." The Lang Fang Fokker Corp. joint venture, with a 60% Fokker Elmo shareholding, "will be the basis for developing and manufacturing electrical systems for future Chinese aircraft programs such as the 100- seat regioliner.
American's Allied Pilots Association has advised its board members to prepare their bases for a 30-day cooling-off period in contract talks, but said the negotiating committee and American President Donald Carty will remain in Washington until they reach a "mutually agreeable conclusion." APA says American has offered an adjustment to the variable compensation plan that will enable pilots to recoup some profit sharing lost through the spinoff of The Sabre Group.
United and Saudi Arabian Airlines are seeking exemption authority to offer blocked-space services on some of each other's flights. Under their agreement, United will block space on Saudia flights over the route sectors New York-Jeddah/Riyadh/Dhahran, and Saudia plans to block space on some United flights between New York Kennedy and Los Angeles, which will connect with Saudia's international services. Saudia will offer New York-Los Angeles service in its own name only to traffic that arrives at or leaves New York on Saudia's Saudi Arabia flights.
Delta will list live fare information on the Internet for the first time when it publishes tariffs for its new low-cost initiative, Delta Express. Because of their simplified structure, Delta Express fares will serve as a test before Delta publishes all fares on its SkyLinks World Wide Web site. Customers will be able to use the Internet for bookings later this year. The fare information is found at www.delta-air.com/express. Delta Express will start operating Oct. 1 with a dedicated fleet of 25 737-200s.
Canadian Airlines International will begin using Heathrow Terminal 4 and start offering daily nonstop code-share flights with British Airways from Vancouver and Calgary to London, and 14 flights per week from Toronto to London, all on Oct. 27. The airport's newest terminal "is a spectacular facility with a shopping mall, spacious, modern luggage handling and convenient access to British Airways' unmatched network destinations," said Don Casey, Canadian's VP of capacity planning.
The Association of Flight Attendants, filing again at DOT in its campaign to keep ValuJet on the ground, charged that the airline changed the title of a top executive whose competence AFA was challenging and, in the process, seemingly left itself without a maintenance overseer. The union is arguing that David Gentry, ValuJet VP-maintenance, had no management responsibilities for two years prior to being named to the position.
Summary of U.S. Major Carriers Domestic Traffic January 1996 Revenue Average Revenue Passengers Length of Passenger Enplaned % Travel Miles Carriers (000) Change (Miles) (000) Alaska 711 13.98 807 574,081 America West 1,274 10.13 797 1,015,079 American 4,870 (8.98) 1,129 5,496,424
With open skies efforts already well advanced in Europe, the Clinton administration is pushing attempts to gain such agreements with Asian nations. "We have begun exploratory discussions with our market-oriented aviation partners in Asia, economies with whom we already have relatively liberal agreements, on the possibility of undertaking full Open Skies agreements," DOT Deputy Assistant Secretary for Aviation and International Affairs Mark Gerchick said in a presentation prepared for delivery today at The Financial Times Conference in London.
National Park Service is lobbying visitors to the Grand Canyon National Park to support proposed rules that would significantly reduce air tours over the park, according to the U.S. Air Tour Association (USATA). "This action is a clear violation of congressional intent regarding this issue, is unethical, immoral and may be illegal," it said.
Regulations - including procedures to be used by U.K. competition authorities in assessing the compatibility of the proposed American-British Airways alliance with European Commission competition rules - were laid out yesterday before the U.K. Parliament. "The United Kingdom competition authorities have a duty to consider the proposed alliance between British Airways and American Airlines under Article 88 of the EC Treaty," said John Taylor, U.K. corporate and consumer affairs minister. "These regulations clarify how the U.K.
The board of directors of the American Society of Travel Agents decided to hold a computer reservations system "summit" within a month, elected new officers and approved other plans at its third quarterly meeting, just ended, in St. Petersburg, Russia. "Rising costs and new, alternative methods for making reservations are two key areas we'll discuss" at the CRS summit, ASTA President and Chief Executive Jeanne Epping said. Epping named a four-member task force, chaired by National Director Eric Ardolino, to plan the summit.
World Airways, which recently began phasing out its scheduled passenger service to focus on its most lucrative business, military charters, received a one-year renewal of its contract with the U.S. Air Force to carry military personnel to bases in the Far East, Europe and the Middle East. World said the contract is worth at least $55 million, and it expects another $15 million-$20 million in ad hoc awards during the life of the contract, which lasts until Sept. 30, 1997. The Air Force has used World every year since 1956.
The Association of Flight Attendants relied "inappropriately on a recent newspaper article" in its latest attacks on the managerial competence and compliance disposition of ValuJet Chairman Robert Priddy and President Lewis Jordan, the airline said. Repeating its call for a hearing on the carrier's safety and compliance disposition, AFA cited a report in last Friday's Cleveland Plain Dealer that said that while grounded, ValuJet gave false information to FAA on the condition of its aircraft (DAILY, Aug. 26).
En route air traffic control centers in New York, Chicago and Fort Worth had the worst equipment failure records in the nation over the past 16 months, according to the American Automobile Association. AAA, citing FAA data, said the centers reported 30 major computer and power failures during the period, of which 21 occurred at New York, Chicago and Fort Worth. In a national survey by AAA, seven in 10 respondents said they were concerned about the increase in flight delays and the level of air safety related to problems with the ATC system.
DOT has completed its show cause order tentatively designating Northwest and United to operate third-country code-share service between the U.S. and Warsaw with partners KLM and Lufthansa, respectively. The carriers received seven weekly frequencies and plan daily service between the U.S. and Warsaw, Northwest via Amsterdam and United via Frankfurt and Munich. Losing out in the proceeding was Delta, which asked for designation to operate daily service with Austrian Airlines between its U.S. gateways - Atlanta and New York - and Warsaw via Vienna (DAILY, July 29).
Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association protest of the prospective Meigs Field closing during the Democratic National Convention yesterday did not come off quite as intended because the aircraft trailing a "Keep Meigs Field Open" banner was not allowed to circle Meigs as planned. At the request of the White House, FAA closed airspace within a seven-mile radius of the endangered airport.
American and its Allied Pilots Association continue to trade and reject proposals in mediated contract talks in Washington, but management has made a new offer on regional flying and the union has made its wage demands more flexible. Although the union rejected management's offer, made Monday, it said the bid made progress on two fronts - American would not continue its marketing relationships with Reno Air and Midway Airlines beyond 2005 unless agreed to by the APA, and it would limit the number of regional jets flown by American Eagle carriers.
The U.S. Air Force is testing sensors aboard a modified C-135 aircraft in an attempt to develop an autonomous landing system. The effort is aimed at merging separate images from a millimeter wave radar and a forward-looking infrared sensor to produce a real-time image of a runway in bad weather. A millimeter wave radar developed by Lear Astronics Corp., Santa Monica, Calif., has been flying on the test aircraft for several months, and an infrared sensor from FLIR Systems Inc., Portland, Ore, was scheduled to fly this week.
Quick International Courier said it defended itself successfully against a "major" lawsuit filed against it by the U.S. Postal Service, which accused the company of illegal international "remailing" practices. Quick said it proved that no federal laws were broken and that there was no basis for damages to be levied against it. The Postal Service charged that between October 1991 and March 1994, Quick orchestrated an "A-B-A" mailing scheme in which bulk mail originating in the U.S. (A) was sent to Barbados (B) for remailing back to the U.S.
