Nacelle-maker Rohr Inc. and Pratt&Whitney are expected to announce today the resumption of a dormant program to re-engine Boeing 727-200 Advanced aircraft, enabling the trijets to fly, in most cases, with more range and greater efficiency for another 10-15 years, meeting Stage 3 noise rules. The new project, the Super 27 program, should receive its first order this week, Robert Korn, Rohr's Super 27 program business development manager, told The DAILY.
Kansas City-based Vanguard Airlines posted July revenues of $7.6 million, more than double the $3.5 million of July 1995, but passenger yield, in cents per revenue passenger mile, declined 19% to 10.3. Even so, the July yield was 6% higher than June's, and the July load factor reached 65.8%, up 13 percentage points from the prior-year period. July was Vanguard's "best month ever," said Randy Smith, director of marketing. "We've made some progress since June" on yield improvements, he said.
Canadian Airlines International and Philippine Airlines yesterday signed a code-share agreement to fly seven weekly frequencies between Vancouver and Manila. The service will begin Sept. 19 with four nonstop flights operated by PAL, using MD-11 aircraft wet-leased from World Airways. Canadian will operate 747-400s beginning Oct. 28 with one-stop service via Hong Kong.
Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs plans to expand the paid-in capital of the newly formed China Aerospace Corp. by NT$5 billion-NT$6 billion (US$181.8 million-US$218.2 million) by increasing private-sector ownership to at least 25%. CAC, awarded a contract to build a fighter aircraft for the Taiwan Air Force, has concluded agreements with Lockheed Martin, McDonnell Douglas, Sikorsky, Allison, AlliedSignal, International Turbine Engine Co. and Dassault for joint-venture production of turbine engines and commercial aircraft components.
Moody's Investor Service raised the senior unsecured debt rating of Southwest yesterday, citing "future fundamental shifts in the airline industry that could benefit Southwest." Those shifts include a major carrier focus on strengthening hub-and-spoke operations, a capacity squeeze at U.S. majors and a more stringent FAA oversight policy that may limit new-entrant Southwest-type imitators. The debt rating was raised to A3 from Baa1, and to A1 from A2 on the carrier's pass-through certificates.
America West will begin offering service Oct. 27 to San Jose, Calif., from Las Vegas, using 737-300 aircraft configured for eight seats in first class and 124 in coach.
The government of Trinidad and Tobago is considering legislation to open the skies between the two islands. Currently, only Air Caribbean and Liat fly internally. The government hopes a freer aviation environment will attract more air service and tourism.
FAA has decided to make final with some changes the streamlined procedures it adopted nationwide this year for handling civil penalty enforcement action in certain cases of weapons detected at airports. The final rule delegates assessment of civil penalties in these cases to the regional civil aviation security division manager and deputy manager. It also allows FAA to skip the investigation phase of the enforcement and move directly to a notice of violation (NOV).
Rejecting opposition from United Parcel Service and Evergreen International Airlines, DOT made final its tentative award of new fifth-freedom, all- cargo rights beyond Hong Kong to Air Micronesia (AMI) and Federal Express. AMI garnered three frequencies for Hong Kong-Manila (with one frequency converted to two for a total of four), and FedEx five for Hong Kong-Subic Bay. Opposing the tentative award to Air Micronesia, Evergreen maintained it would offer "significantly greater capacity" than AMI and greater public benefits from these frequencies.
Boeing said yesterday it will increase 777 aircraft production to seven from five units per month in July 1997. The company also will add 5,000 workers to its 1996 employment forecast. The employees are needed for both the 777 rate increase and product development. Boeing now projects a work force of 118,350 by Dec. 31.
Aviation economics continues to chip away at politics in Asia. Air Koryo of North Korea will add a stop in Macau to its Pyongyang-Bangkok route on Sept. 16, mainly to offer business travelers single-stop service from Taiwan to North Korea. Currently, the trip from Taiwan requires stops in Hong Kong and Beijing. North Korea sees Taiwan trade and investment as a source of hard currency.
Hughes has completed function verification tests on the Wide Area Augmentation System a week ahead of the incentive deadline in its contract, FAA said yesterday. The contract is under protest by Wilcox, which received the award originally. FAA said that once a contract is signed with Comsat for satellite facilities, it can start testing a "mini-WAAS," comprising five ground stations at its Technical Center; Bangor, Maine; Wilmington, N.C.; Oklahoma City, Okla., and Dayton, Ohio.
U.S. Majors Top 10 Domestic Airports By Enplanements The Year 1995 Carrier/ Enplaned Aircraft Rank Passengers Departures Miles Alaska 1 Seattle/Tacoma 2,948,594 35,627 30,922,813 2 Portland 1,151,422 15,917 10,602,780 3 Anchorage 827,800 13,572 11,344,130 4 Los Angeles 538,559 6,871 6,300,382
The future of the U.S.-U.K. open skies negotiations and the proposed American-British Airways alliance was in question yesterday after the U.S. abruptly canceled talks scheduled to begin today. No new dates were set for negotiations. The two countries were set to engage in government-to- government talks today in Washington on dispute resolution issues; however, after reviewing last weekend a U.K. proposal scheduled to be delivered on Aug. 19 but submitted last Friday instead, U.S.
The head of state-owned Air France Europe, Jean-Pierre Courcol, resigned yesterday after saying his work in bringing his airline and Air France to the brink of consolidation is completed. As the carriers merge, about 950 jobs at the smaller airline will be eliminated over the next two years, an Air France spokesman confirmed. "A successor [to Courcol] probably will not be named because the two airlines will be merged," said spokesman Bruce Haxthausen.
President Clinton proposed yesterday to raise $541 million over six years by charging corporate and business turbine aircraft a $225 per-flight fee phased in over three years. The fee would be one of the offsets for a $2.75 billion national literacy program outlined by Clinton at a stop in Michigan on his train trip to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The proposal is the second this year in which Clinton has suggested funding an education initiative by raising fees on aviation users.
John Alden will be nominated as vice chairman at the next UPS board meeting in November, the firm said yesterday. Alden is currently senior VP- business development. The announcement follows the designation in May of James Kelly as the successor to Chairman and Chief Executive Kent Nelson, who will retire at yearend.
International Aviation Women's Association will hold its eighth annual conference Oct. 24-26 at the Maison Dupuy in New Orleans. Keynote speakers are Carolyn Corvi, VP of the Boeing Commercial Airplane Group; Susan Coughlin, former National Transportation Safety Board member, and Dr. Elizabeth Rodenz, who will lecture on the topic "Power Knows No Gender." Subjects to be covered include airlines in the new millennium, privatization of the aviation infrastructure, aviation insurance/risk management and general aviation and product liability.
National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Jim Hall is asking TWA, Boeing and Pratt&Whitney - so far without success - to contribute a total of $8 million to help pay the cost of investigating the July 17 crash of TWA Flight 800 off the southern coast of Long Island, N.Y.
American's managing director of international market development, Daniel Westbrook, has been named president of American's Fly AAway Vacations division, effective immediately.
A DOT proposal to increase origin&destination reporting requirements has drawn a mixed response from the industry. Repeating arguments against an earlier DOT directive addressing similar issues, the carriers argued against making public data related to their foreign code-share partners, citing the expense and effort involved in implementing the rules. DOT has proposed that large certificated U.S.
United States Air Tour Association (USATA), representing 31 air tour operators and associated companies, weighed in against FAA's proposed flight restrictions on air tour overflights at Rocky Mountain National Park. USATA said FAA's justification for the notice of proposed rulemaking - that air tours threaten adverse environmental effects - are "wild statements...without any evidence to support its claims." It said there are no air tour operations at the park, and since no problem exists, no regulation should be implemented.
Delta says it may need to hire even more pilots soon to replace the high number of pilots who are retiring. The carrier, which has already sent recall notices to all of its furloughed pilots, offered early retirement to as many as 505 pilots, in part because of efficiencies to be gained by the new Delta Express operation. The carrier said 929 pilots applied for early retirement.
World is seeking authority to perform expanded wet-lease services for Philippine Airlines between Sept. 15, 1996 and March 15, 1998. Noting that the permission requested is in addition to authority received Aug. 14 for similar wet-lease services, World said it and PAL "have subsequently agreed on an expansion of their arrangement requiring the wet-lease of two additional World MD-11 aircraft, for a total of four." Under the current request, World will operate long-term wet-lease flights for PAL to Newark and Chicago.
Delta is seeking an exemption and a new or amended certificate to operate scheduled combination service between Las Vegas and Mexico City. It also wants permission to integrate the requested rights with its existing certificate and exemption authority. Beginning Dec. 1, the carrier said it plans to operate two weekly nonstop roundtrip flights on the route, using Boeing 757 aircraft configured for 180 seats in two classes. Delta added it reserves the right to alter its schedules and frequencies and use other aircraft if market conditions require.
