Timothy Griffin and Philip C. Haan have been appointed executive vice presidents of Northwest Airlines. They will succeed Michael E. Levine, who has resigned as executive vice president-marketing and international.
Pam Gardner has been named director of customer service of Frontier Airlines. She was director of inflight services. Appointed city managers were: Helena Luke, Baltimore, succeeding Pamela Olsen, who is now at Dallas/Fort Worth; Kelly Smith, Atlanta; and Robert Knotts, Las Vegas.
The Cour des Comptes French oversight agency, similar to the U.S. General Accounting Office, is sharply criticizing the terms of an order for Canadair CL-415 twin-turboprop amphibians concluded in the early 1990s by the civil security's firefighting unit. According to the oversight agency, negotiations that led to an order for 12 CL-415 ``water bombers,'' which was signed on Sept. 11, 1991, were badly managed and significantly increased the aircraft's cost. The agency also criticized the CL-415s' late deliveries and initial poor performance.
Alaska Air Group (AAG) reported record fourth-quarter profits and full-year profits for 1998, including a pretax margin of 12.2%. Passenger traffic increased 8.6% on a capacity gain of 8.9%, and load factor was 67.1%. Regional airline Horizon Air, which is part of the AAG, experienced more than a 28% increase in traffic last year while capacity rose 25.5%. Horizon Air has upgraded its fleet of twin-engine Fokker F-28s and is scheduling more nonstop flights. Employee profit sharing payments by Alaska Air Group exceeded $23 million last year.
Air Wisconsin has ordered five Canadair Regional Jet Series 200LR aircraft, valued at $108 million, from Bombardier Aerospace. When delivered, the aircraft will increase the United Express carrier's CRJ fleet to nine.
Northrop Grumman Corp. last week reported a huge drop in 1998 net income, to $214 million, or $3.07 a share, compared with $407 million, or $5.98 a share, in the previous year. Chairman, President and CEO Kent Kresa cited pretax, program-related charges of $125 million in the fourth quarter and pretax charges of $186 million in the first and second quarters stemming from the company's terminated merger with Lockheed Martin. Sales for 1998 declined 3%, to $8.9 billion. Operating profits for the year also were weaker.
Major U.S. airlines managed to boost fares last week for the first time since late 1997 when Northwest Airlines matched business and leisure class ticket price hikes initiated by Delta Air Lines. Delta started the increase on Jan. 28, when it raised business fares by about 2% and advance-purchase fares typically used by leisure travelers by about 4%. Northwest followed suit, as did American, Continental, America West, US Airways, TWA and United in the days that followed.
British aircraft maker Britten-Norman will invest $60 million to upgrade facilities at Romaero S.A. as part of its acquisition of the Romanian manufacturing and maintenance company. The Romanian government approved the sale of 73% of Romaero to Britten-Norman last week for $21 million. The acquisition will ensure production continuity of the BN-2 Islander light, twin-engine aircraft and its military derivatives.
The Clinton Administration and NASA have come up with $2 billion to cover the ballooning costs of the International Space Station project during the next 5 years but at the expense of the agency's aeronautics program, which would take a big hit.
House Science Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr., (R-Wis.) is not pleased with a State Dept. response to his queries about Russia's role in the International Space Station. Sensenbrenner says he was told that implementing any plan to remove Russia from the critical path of the project ``would not be in the overall interests of U.S. foreign policy.'' Russia has repeatedly failed to keep high-level promises to fund work on crucial station hardware, and NASA has begun procuring long-lead items to wean the project off dependence on Moscow.
Mesa Air Group Inc. of Phoenix has offered $53 million to acquire the East Coast regional carrier CCAir, a move calculated to rebuild a strong growth base and broaden Mesa's capability to feed partners America West and US Airways. CCAir, a US Airways feeder as an independent carrier, will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Mesa Group, joining two other air carriers--Mesa Airlines and Air Midwest Inc. The merger, expected to be completed in mid-May, could place Mesa firmly in the position as the No. 2 U.S. regional carrier in terms of passengers carried.
Rolls-Royce's Trent 8104 engine, which employs a new ``swept'' blade fan design, has exceeded 110,000 lb. of thrust during initial ground tests. The scimitar-shaped fan blades provide increased airflow and greater fuel efficiencies. The 104,000-lb. thrust-rated 8104--intended for Boeing's proposed 777-200X/-300X transports--also features improved intermediate- and high-pressure compressors.
Carlos A. Herrera has been appointed director of program management of International Aero Inc., Burlington, Wash. He was JT8D engineering manager for Northwest Airlines.
The sample return portion of the Deep Space-4 comet-lander mission will not be flown due to the higher level of cost required to ensure a strong probability of mission success, according to project officials at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
The European Commission's research council has approved the 1999-2002 fifth ``framework program,'' set to sustain the aerospace industry's research and development effort. EC funding for the 4-year period will increase to 700 million euros ($805 million), up from 240 million euros previously. The EC will release requests for research proposals to industry in the next few days. AECMA, the European aerospace industries association, said small-size industry members will be encouraged to participate in the new framework.
India has agreed in principle to build ATR transports under license, according to French Transport Minister Jean-Claude Gayssot. A finance package for selling and manufacturing is being worked out.
National Transportation Safety Board officials are scrambling to complete a report on their 4.5-year search for the cause of a puzzling USAir 737 crash by a late-March deadline, according to numerous safety board officials. NTSB Chairman Jim Hall has promised the families of USAir Flight 427's victims the final report would be presented on Mar. 23, administrative and investigation staff members said, and is sticking to that date. All 132 on board were killed when Flight 427 rolled over and dove into the ground near Pittsburgh on Sept. 8, 1994.
Chinese airlines are still on a steep learning curve when it comes to yield management. Liu Jianfeng, director of the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), said overzealous discounting and poor internal management are the chief reasons airline profits were squeezed in 1998. He has threatened to remove senior officials if net results do not improve and has promised that most deep discounts will end.
International observers close to the investigation report that suicide by the captain is now regarded as the only possible cause of the loss of SilkAir's Boeing 737 on Dec. 19, 1997, which killed all 104 on board. That conclusion was reached from a review of separate test flights in simulators in Indonesia, Singapore and the U.S. at Boeing. Each of those reenactments of the original SilkAir Flight 185 from Jakarta to Singapore takes into account Indonesian radar plots from the aircraft's transponder.
Officials of the Allied Pilots Assn. (APA) and American Airlines are meeting in an attempt to resolve disputes over pilot seniority and pay at Reno Air and American's plans to begin code- sharing with the carrier this month. American Airlines parent acquired Reno Air in December for $124 million. The APA, however, is strongly opposed to that plan and is considering asking pilots to refuse overtime flying, which could adversely affect American's flight schedules.
Northrop Grumman Corp. has received a $23.6-million contract from the U.S. Navy for 90 additional BQM-74E multirole aerial targets and air launch kits. The company's aerial targets business backlog is now 229 vehicles.
Spain's CASA has begun flight-testing a production prototype of its C-295 transport, which rolled off the assembly line at the end of last year. S-1, shown with registration number EC-296, made its first flight on Dec. 22. It is now being employed in military and civil certification trials, which are expected to be completed by November. CASA's C-295 technology demonstrator, also being employed in the program, has logged more than 350 flight hours. A second production prototype, S-2, is under assembly.
