ATW Daily News

Other News

Friday November 6, 2009

SkyWest Inc., parent of SkyWest Airlines and Atlantic Southeast Airlines, reported third-quarter net income of $28.6 million, a 9.2% increase from $26.2 million earned in the year-ago period. Quarterly revenue fell 31.7% to $637.7 million while expenses decreased 34.3% to $574.5 million, resulting in operating income of $63.3 million, up 5% from $60.3 million last year. It attributed the revenue drop to a $296.4 million decrease in fuel passthroughs as well as a transition to third-party customer service handling at several stations. It acquired three new CRJ700s and will take delivery of eight in the fourth quarter, with four to follow in the 2010 first quarter. At end of the third quarter its fleet consisted of 446 aircraft. Traffic increased 9% to 4.84 billion RPMs on a 5.6% rise in capacity to 5.95 billion ASMs, pushing load factor up 2.5 points to 81.3%. Yield declined 37.8% to 13 cents as RASM fell 35.5% to 10.7 cents and CASM decreased 37.1% to 10 cents. Block hr. were up 3.2%.

Regarding the marketing partnership with AirTran Airways announced this week, SkyWest Executive VP and CFO Brad Rich said, "We do feel that we have somewhat of a unique opportunity here to put the airplanes into a partnership with a very credible partner, credible code, in established markets." He continued, "In the event we're wrong, we do not have long-term agreements on these airplanes and we can make modifications as we need to."

Airbus yesterday operated the A330-200 freighter's first flight from Toulouse, flying for 4 hr. and reaching 41,000 ft. It expects first delivery to occur next summer to Etihad Crystal Cargo following a 180-hr. flight test program (ATWOnline, Oct. 30). It currently has 67 firm orders from nine customers. In addition, Turkish Airlines has signed an MOU for two of the mid-size cargo aircraft. "There are other ongoing campaigns in progress where airlines are showing serious interest in the aircraft," Airbus claimed in a statement. COO Customers John Leahy added, "We are at the eve of a market recovery and now is the time for airlines to prepare for future freight growth." Airbus forecasts demand for 1,600 midsize freighters over the next 20 years. The -200F is targeted to carry 64.5 tonnes over 4,000 nm. (7,400 km.) or 69.5 tonnes up to 3,200 nm. (5,930 km.). "Thanks to an optimized fuselage cross-section, it has the interior flexibility to carry a wide variety of pallet and container sizes for maximum interlining capability," the manufacturer said, noting that "compared with the. . .passenger A330-200, this. . .freighter version has an increased maximum-zero-fuel weight of eight tonnes to allow for high-density cargo configuration transportation."

United Airlines will launch its first flights to Africa next spring when it begins serving Accra and Lagos daily from Washington Dulles. It also announced extension of its daily IAD-Kuwait City 777 service to Bahrain and a new Chicago O'Hare-Brussels flight. The daily IAD-Accra-Lagos flight will commence May 2 and be operated by a 767. The KWI-BAH leg will begin April 2, while the ORD-BRU 767 service will launch on March 28. UA currently serves BRU from IAD.

Aeroflot reported a RUB5.98 billion ($204.5 million) profit in the first nine months of 2009, up 8% year-over-year according to Russian accounting standards, on a 9% drop in revenue. It carried 6.5 million passengers in the first nine months of 2009, down 8.9% year-over-year, while RPKs dropped 8% to 19.21 billion. Load factor was 69%. SU board approved the lease of six A321s, the airline said.

SkyTeam officials said Vietnam Airlines and Tarom will join the alliance as full members in June, according to a statement from the group's Incheon board meeting cited by Bloomberg News. The Romanian carrier signed an associate agreement with the alliance in May 2008 (ATWOnline, May 8, 2008), while VN was invited formally last April (ATWOnline, April 16). SkyTeam also is interested in Japan Airlines, currently a member of oneworld. "We would be keenly interested to see whether JAL would be interested to join SkyTeam as a potential partner," alliance Chairman Leo van Wijk said at a news conference, according to Business Week.

Gol is installing ACARS linked to the Iridium satellite network. VP-Technical Fernando Rockert de Magalhaes said, "It will become increasingly common for pilots and air traffic controllers to communicate through a mixture of voice and text messages, which will ensure greater safety and allow for more efficient cost management." ACARS, installation of which is scheduled to be completed in January, also will enable Gol aircraft to transmit data during flights, giving the carrier "real-time access to the main aircraft data." Aircraft weight will be reduced by replacing printed manuals currently carried on all flights with new data storage technology.

Hawaiian Airlines said it completed installation of Aviation Partners Boeing blended winglets on a 767-300. It expects to have winglets installed on eight 767s by next summer. HA estimated that winglets will produce savings of 700-800 gal. of fuel for every round trip between the US West Coast and Hawaii.

DVB's Aviation Asset Management unit said it will remarket three EgyptAir 777-200ERs that were manufactured in 1997.

Japan Airlines announced closure of the following international routes: Osaka Kansai-Hangzhou, Tokyo Narita-Hangzhou, NRT-Qingdao (both passenger and freighter service), NRT-Xiamen (all on Dec. 7), KIX-Busan, KIX-Hanoi (both Jan. 12), KIX-Singapore-Kuala Lumpur (Jan. 17) and NRT-Vancouver-Mexico City (Jan. 18). It will close its offices in Hangzhou, Qingdao, Xiamen and Mexico City. It will cut one of four daily NRT-Taipei and one of two daily NRT-London Heathrow frequencies from Dec. 7 while increasing NRT-YVR service to daily from five-times-weekly effective Jan. 18. On the domestic front, JAL will cease flights from Nagoya Chubu to Kumamoto (Feb. 1), Hanamaki and Kushiro (both May 6) and from Kobe to Sapporo, Okinawa Naha and Ishigaki (all on June 1). Tokyo Haneda-Kobe service will be discontinued on April 1 and Kitakyushu-OKA flights will end May 6.

French slot coordinator COHOR said it redistributed a pool of 6,672 slots at Paris Orly for the summer 2010 season, with half awarded to carriers with new entrant status and half to incumbents. New entrant slots were allocated to easyJet Switzerland for two daily flights to Venice, Vueling Airlines and Pegasus Airlines for one daily flight each and to Wizz for four weekly flights to Bratislava. Incumbent slots were allocated to TAP Portugal for three daily flights, Iberia for one daily flight, Midex Airlines for three weekly flights and Air Algerie for one weekly flight.

WestJet flew 1.09 billion RPMs in October, a 0.3% lift from the year-ago month. Capacity fell 1.8% to 1.41 billion ASMs, lifting load factor 1.5 points to 77.3%.

Republic Airways Holdings airlines flew 1.76 billion RPMs in August, up 121.8% year-over-year as the company added Frontier Airlines, Midwest Airlines and Mokulele Airlines. Capacity was up 104.4% to 2.23 billion ASMs and load factor climbed 6.3 points to 79.3%.

Allegiant Air flew 325.1 million system RPMs in October, up 31.1% year-over-year, against a 34.2% lift in capacity to 381.2 million ASMs. Load factor dropped 2 points to 85.3%.

Delta TechOps signed a five-year deal with Omni Air International covering component and inventory support of the Tulsa-based charter airline's 767s.