Bombardier is offering a 70-seat aircraft to the market, with the expectation of launching the program by the end of the year, a spokesman said yesterday. Bombardier will approach customers at the Farnborough Air Show next week about stretching its 50-seat Canadair RJ.
Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association said it will protest today during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago a plan by Mayor Richard Daley to close the city's lakefront airport, Meigs Field. Phil Boyer, AOPA president, said that "if Meigs is not important to Chicago, you have to ask why the Mayor's Department of Aviation ordered the airport to remain open 24 hours a day during the convention." The protest will include a 100-foot aerial banner towed up and down the lakefront, "Decision 96? Keep Meigs Airport Open."
The organizational culture at FAA has led to resistance to changes in the agency's acquisition process, which in turn brought on substantial cost overruns, lengthy schedule delays and shortfalls in performance over the last 15 years, according to a report by the General Accounting Office. GAO cited the tripling in cost, to $7.6 billion from $2.5 billion, of the Advanced Automation System and performance shortfalls in the Mode Select radar, for which FAA let a contract in 1984 but which it did not field until 1995.
The private sector may have to pay for a large share of travel research previously conducted by the now-closed U.S. Travel and Tourism Administration, which has been replaced with the Commerce Department's Tourism Industries (TI) office in the International Trade Administration. The research data, including the U.S. International Air Travel Statistics Report, were saved from oblivion by the opening of the new office, which lost not only USTTA's budget, but also funding and staffing support from DOT.
A stronger Swedish krona and a temporary shortage of pilots led SAS to report flat first-half earnings for the period ending June 30. The carrier posted a pre-tax income of 1.05 billion Swedish krona (US$158 million), slightly better than an SEK1.04 billion (US$156 million) in the first-half of 1995. SAS was forced to cancel approximately 100 flights in late May and early June after its pilots union rejected mandatory overtime. "We had counted on the pilots accepting these changes," said SAS spokesman Anders Bjorck, "and it cost us millions" of krona.
A jury trial began yesterday in San Antonio in an antitrust suit brought by Chromalloy Gas Turbine Corp. against United Technologies and its Pratt&Whitney jet engine unit. Chromalloy, a subsidiary of Sequa Corp., alleges that United Technologies is engaged in a continuous, ongoing scheme to damage and destroy Chromalloy's jet engine repair business by deliberately misusing its monopoly power in replacement parts for Pratt&Whitney commercial engines, including new spare parts and repair parts.
Raytheon announced the Civil Aviation Administration of China has accepted its air traffic control system for Beijing Airport, and the company has received a contract for a secondary surveillance radar by the Cyprus Telecommunications Authority.
American Society of Travel Agents will hold its second annual travelers- with-disabilities symposium Sept. 11 at the Washington Hyatt Regency Hotel on Capitol Hill. ASTA said there will be a special emphasis on how travel agents can better serve the visually impaired.
TravelScan, a Bethesda, Md.-based aviation consulting firm, has revamped Virgin Atlantic's Apollo reservations data so the carrier's North American team can monitor sales more effectively. Using the marketing information data tapes, TravelScan made it easier for the carrier to access the information through user-friendly, graphic-oriented features.
USAir will increase service to Orlando on Nov. 6, adding three daily roundtrip flights from Philadelphia for a total of 11, and two from Boston for a total of five. USAir said more service is planned for February.
UAL Services has secured engine repair and overhaul contracts for three Chinese airlines worth more than $3 million, United said. The contracts, from China Southwest Airlines, Air China and Shanghai Airlines, cover the repair and overhaul of CFM International and Pratt&Whitney engines, including the PW2000, PW4000 and CFM56.
Boeing introduced during the weekend a complete, one-piece fuselage for the next-generation 737-700. In previous aircraft manufacturing programs, forward and aft fuselage sections were shipped by rail to the Renton, Wash., division. Boeing says the new process simplifies assembly and reduces manufacturing time.
The size of airspace governed by temporary flight restrictions (TFRs) along the south shore of Long Island, N.Y., has been reduced following the intervention of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, AOPA officials said. The FBI had declared a "large amount of airspace off-limits following the TWA 800 crash," said Melissa Bailey, AOPA director-airspace and system standards. "The reduced size of the TFR reopens an important VFR low-altitude flyway for cross-country traffic," she said.
Bombardier Aerospace yesterday rolled out its new ultra-long-range large corporate jet, the Global Express, at its de Havilland facility in Toronto. The twinjet, powered by new BR710 engines from BMW Rolls-Royce, is design to fly nonstop between New York and Tokyo.
Marriott's Fairfield Inns will donate the cost of a 2x4 building stud to Habitat for Humanity for each travel award issued to any of its frequent travel club members. The travel awards include a free night's stay or 1,000 frequent flyer miles, issued after a member has stayed 12 nights. The company said its goal is to generate at least 15,000 2x4s that would frame approximately 25 houses.
Lower-than-expected domestic traffic, an April fire at Dusseldorf Airport and capacity that grew more quickly than revenue passenger kilometers combined to erode first-half profits for German carrier Lufthansa. Pre-tax profits totaled 119 million Deutschmarks (US$80 million), DM70 million (US$47 million) less than the prior-year period, the airline reported yesterday. First-half revenues increased 6.6% to DM9.8 billion (US$6.6 billion). Lufthansa Cargo was the only major subsidiary to report a decline in sales.
The U.S. and Colombia announced an agreement Friday that will allow American to operate New York-Bogota service and freeze the current level of service between the countries for two years. American will be able to operate three weekly roundtrips between New York and Bogota and transfer up to four weekly services to that route from its Miami-Colombia service (DAILY, Aug. 23). After two years, the U.S. may designate one new all- cargo carrier for the market.
Express Airlines I carried a record number of passengers in July, 171,427, even as its capacity decreased 0.1%. Revenue passenger miles rose 25.8% to 42.3 million while available seat miles fell to 72.5 million. The load factor was up 9.1 percentage points to 52.8%. July was the seventh consecutive month the Northwest Airlink carrier posted double-digit increases in both traffic and passengers carried.
In yet another study measuring use of the World Wide Web by travelers, the American Society of Travel Agents said most respondents to a recent survey conducted on its Web site said they had never used the Internet to book travel. Of 2,398 travelers polled, ASTA found 86.8% who never booked travel online, 10.7% who did so one or twice a year, 0.1% who regularly made bookings, and 0.42% who book frequently. Most of the respondents, 66%, were leisure travelers, and slightly less than half were members of a frequent flyer program.
United's $900 million order for 24 Airbus A319s and an unspecified number of options makes it the second largest customer for the A320 family of aircraft, along with its major foreign partner, Lufthansa (DAILY, Aug. 23). The Airbus order was made along with definitive numbers of three types of Boeing aircraft worth $3.5 billion, but United declined to specify how many of the orders were converted options (DAILY, Aug. 15). United and Lufthansa each will be operating 74 aircraft from the A320 family, which includes the larger A321.
