TriStar Airlines passengers can save $25 on a weekly car rental from Budget. TriStar's ticket jackets contain certificates for lower rates redeemable at Los Angeles and Las Vegas McCarran airports.
Export-Import Bank Chairman Martin Kamarck, defending the bank against charges of "corporate welfare," and "interference in the market place," said yesterday at Ex-Im Bank's annual conference in Washington that U.S. companies "time after time, deal after deal...face not just bruising competition on market factors, or price, quality, service, but also official, foreign government-sponsored financing support. Almost always that support is backed by proportionately greater resources than the U.S. has given to Ex-Im Bank and its sister agencies.
Hewlett-Packard Co., SkyTel Corp. and Etak Corp. are offering visitors to Atlanta faster, more accessible travel information June 1-Sept. 30 with the Personal Travel Guide, a hand-held PC and two-way pager with a digital street map of Atlanta and the surrounding area. The guide is being tested by the Federal Highway Administration, the results of which will help the three companies determine commercial applications.
American Trans Air launched a summer sale with fares as low as $71 one way to children and senior citizens. The carrier also is offering a special seven-day rate for an Avis car rental in Florida.
Canadian Airlines International reported marginally better first quarter results yesterday and lined up British Airways as its new European alliance partner. Canadian reduced its first quarter net loss by nearly 20% to C$110.9 million. The carrier's operating loss for the quarter was C$90 million. The results include a C$10 million gain on the sale and leaseback of five 737-200s, which helped the carrier increase its cash on hand at the end of the quarter to C$109.6 million.
The Pew Charitable Trusts have struck a $12 million public/private partnership with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to market the Philadelphia region as a tourist destination. The campaign is aimed at attracting extended-stay vacation travelers to the city and neighboring counties.
Rosenbluth International has been awarded the 1996 Triumph Award by the Fargo-Cass County Economic Development Corporation. Rosenbluth has 270 associates in its Fargo, N.D., IntelliCenter. It set up shop originally with the intent of providing jobs to 40 residents of drought-stricken Linton, N.D., and later decided to put a permanent office in North Dakota. The Triumph Award recognizes achievement and commitment to community by manufacturing and national service businesses.
Fort Worth, Texas-based Lone Star Airlines extended its Spring Super Sale, launched in March, until May 17. The carrier serves 18 cities in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee and Mexico.
The House Commerce subcommittee on commerce, trade and hazardous materials this week approved legislation (H.R.2579) to establish a National Tourism Board to develop a national travel and tourism strategy and a non- profit National Tourism Organization to implement that strategy. The National Tourism Organization would be successor to the U.S. Travel and Tourism Administration, which has been abolished. The bill, sponsored by Rep.
American has expanded its NetSAAver Fares program offering discounted fares to e-mail subscribers who sign up via the airline's Internet homepage. Subscribers receive an e-mail message every Wednesday announcing travel discounts for the coming weekend. The program, tested in Dallas/Fort Worth and Chicago, will be offered in additional markets beginning this week. American will post up to 20 special travel values per week with roundtrip prices as low as $59. NetSAAver fares are available directly through American's homepage at http://www2.amrcorp.com/cgi- bin/aans.
United applied yesterday for allocation of seven of the 14 weekly third- country code-share frequencies available to U.S. airlines under the recent U.S.-Poland agreement. United proposes daily code-share service between U.S. points and Warsaw, via Germany, beginning Nov. 1, the date the service becomes available. The flights between Germany and Warsaw will be flown by United code-share partner Lufthansa with no local fifth-freedom traffic carried under the United designator code.
Orlando's booming tourist business has prompted Loews Hotels and MCA Inc. to develop two luxury hotels at Universal City Resort, which will open in 1999 as an expansion of Universal City Florida. The resort will include a 750-room luxury hotel, The Portofino Bay Resort at Universal City Florida, which will be designed to look like a Mediterranean fishing village in a harbor setting. Construction will begin in 1997, and the hotel will open two years later.
ACCESS-U.S.-Japan's membership is approaching 2,000, including representation from all 50 states and from 31 state agencies. Eleven members have left the coalition in the past few weeks, however, including the American Society of Travel Agents. In advance of U.S.-Japan talks June 3 and 4 in Tokyo, ACCESS-U.S.-Japan Chairman Gerald Baliles plans to address three events. Then the group will pause to study the outcome of those talks before determining its next steps.
Reno Air's traffic grew 61% last month, compared with April 1995, on a capacity increase of 54%. The carrier flew 244.3 million revenue passenger miles during the month on capacity of 378.6 million available seat miles, resulting in a load factor gain of 2.7 percentage points to 64.5%. Reno boarded 424,000 passengers, up 42%. In the first four months, traffic was up 52% on capacity growth of 32%.
Japan Airlines is trying to improve its first-class product with larger, better bathrooms on its long-haul flights. At a cost of $95,000 apiece, the carrier will offer the new bathrooms on flights to New York and London, starting in mid-July. To be installed on four of the carrier's 747s, the bathrooms will be about one and a half times more spacious than the current ones, each with its own window, and will be outfitted with softer lighting, background music and better water faucets. They were designed by JAL and JAMCO, a Japanese cabin equipment manufacturer.
American Association of Airport Executives, highlighting the need to renew the aviation excise taxes, has added to its AirportNet home page (http://www.airportnet.org) an ongoing estimate of the uncommitted balance in the aviation trust fund.Due to the lapse in taxes, the balance is being drawn down at about $190 per second to finance FAA, AAAE says. For the record, the estimated uncommitted balance yesterday at 4:15 p.m. EDT was $3,634,260,606.75.
American's traffic climbed 1.3% last month, compared with April 1995, on a 0.5% falloff in capacity. The load factor increased 1.2 points to 67.9%, the highest level since deregulation in 1979. The number of passengers boarded remained flat. For the first four months, traffic was up 2.8% on additional capacity of 0.2%. The load factor grew to 66.1%, an increase of 1.7 points, while passenger boardings declined 2.2%. April 96 April 95 4 Mths 96 4 Mths 95
International Air Transport Association is offering Chinese versions of two of its main publications, the IATA Dangerous Goods Regulations and the IATA Ticketing Handbook.
USAir has opened formal contract negotiations with its pilots union, but the talks are expected to move slowly because a no-furlough clause protects pilot jobs into summer 1997.Talks with the machinists already are under way, and the flight attendants contract becomes amendable at the end of this year.
Air Malta has signed up Budget Rent a Car through May 1998 as the exclusive service provider for its fly-drive program, which offers travelers rental car discounts when they book a car in conjunction with an Air Malta flight.
U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, reversing a lower court ruling, has ordered a full evidentiary hearing on Hawaii's quarantine laws as they pertain to guide dogs for the visually impaired. American Society of Travel Agents, in its friend-of-the-court brief, urged the district court to consider the plaintiffs' proposed vaccination and testing alternative.
LTU is offering a $628 roundtrip fare between Germany and San Francisco this spring. During the peak season, from June until mid-September, the face is $798 between San Francisco and Germany and $689 between New York and Germany.
Frontier flew 59.1 million revenue passenger miles during April, a 154% increase over the same month last year. Capacity for the month grew 88% to 110.2 million RPMs. Load factor was 59.0%, an increase of 15.2 percentage points. For the first four months of the year, the carrier's traffic was up 164.8% on a capacity gain of 90.2%. Load factor for the period was 60.9%.
Aloha Airlines and Island Air are Dollar Rent A Car's latest air travel partners. Customers can earn AlohaPass credits when renting with Dollar. America West and United are other partners in the Dollar program.
