January 2011 Archives

Last August when Alaska Air Group announced its subsidiary Horizon Air would be moving to a full-fledged capacity purchase model the company's execs said they were taking a "fresh look at the cost versus benefits of maintaining the Horizon brand from an external perspective".

Well the the outcome of the fresh-eyed look was unveiled today. Alaska officially declared that Horizon is "retiring" its public brand. But not all vestiges of Horizon will be left to history. The Horizon name will keep a small space on the carrier's Bombardier Q400 turboprops while Alaska's trademark Eskimo livery will now feature prominently on the Q400's tail. 

Here's a snapshot of the new paint job on the Horizon Q400.

Lufthansa's UK carrier British Midland International (yes, that's how it likes to be known again these days) has begun rolling out a business class revamp on its short-haul fleet, which features new leather seats. I was among a group of journalists to experience the newly refurbished cabin on its first outing, a flight from Heathrow to Berlin this week, which alongside the new lighter seats also features new carpets, curtains, bulkheads and lighting. I took a couple of snaps (while getting in the way of people who were trying to get off when we landed) which gives you a rough idea of the new look - which I thought looks pretty class (the interior, not my photos that is).

All 16 of bmi's short-haul Airbus narrowbodies - ten A319s and  six A320s - will be revamped between now and May. Likewise its medium-haul Airbus narrowbodies will also be refurbished by May.

It marks a return to investment in the carrier's product after a difficult couple of years in which the carrier is aiming to turn round recent losses - it posted a loss of nearly $200 million in 2009/10. Bmi chief Wolfgang Prock-Schauer says the airline is on track to secure its first £100 million improvement - through a mixture of network revamp, increased productivity and synergies with parent group Lufthansa. "Such a turnaround takes time. In the medium term profitability is achievable and we have a credible plan [to do so]," he says.

You can read more about Prock-Schauer's efforts to turn round bmi from our recent Airline Business feature here.

Last year was the busiest year in activity among the global alliances since their inception more than a decade ago. In addition to continued activity among the ever-busily recruiting Star Alliance - both attracting new members and developing joint ventures among some of its partners - SkyTeam stepped up its recruitment drive after establishing a central management structure, while the smallest of the global alliances, oneworld, was equally busy securing new members and setting up joint ventures pacts.

FOR AN UPDATE ON 2010 ALLIANCE PICTURE READ THE AIRLINE BUSINESS ALLIANCES SPECIAL REPORT FEATURE HERE

And there's no sign of a let-up this year. Little over halfway through January and SkyTeam has already confirmed two new members - today following the recruitment of Saudi Arabian Airlines with the announcement that Middle East Airlines will also be joining next year.

The most notable thing about this development is it marks the spread of the global alliances into the Middle East - which until now has been relatively untouched by the global alliances  aside from long-term oneworld partner Royal Jordanian and the Africa/Middle East stradding EgyptAir which is part of Star Alliance. Elsewhere in the region Gulf Air under Samer Majali's leadership remains keen on alliance membership.

When Lebanese carrier MEA joins SkyTeam in 2012, it will sign a deal at the end of February to formally begin the joining process, it will complete one of the longer gestation periods from courtship to membership. MEA first applied to join SkyTeam as an associate member back in January 2006, but progress stalled until late last year when talks on it joining as a full member - SkyTeam having swapped its two-tier for single full membership structure - helped overcome one of the stumbling blocks by enabling it to retain its frequent flyer programme.

MEA is one of seven carriers in the process of joining SkyTeam which will see membership jump from 13 member airlines today to 20 in 2012. Future members include:

• China Eastern
• Shanghai Airlines
• Air China
• Garuda Indonesia
• Aerolineas Argentinas
• Saudi Arabian Airlines
• Middle East Airlines 

Find out more more about the joint venture pacts being developed by alliance partners here

(Photo credit: Rex Features)

Is the airline industry at risk of a network disconnect, as the relationship between short- and long-haul operations evolves and airlines look to maximise their profits?

Low-cost carriers have aggressively taken short-haul market share, putting intense pressure on legacy airline yields and pushing their focus on to long-haul routes.

For a long-haul carrier to be successful you need feed, but for the low-cost model to work you need simplicity. With carriers like British Airways having scaled back their short-haul presence, partly in response to low-cost competition, there's an obvious disconnect there.

How will these two contradictory objectives tie together as we move forward?

I am working on this feature idea for Airline Business and would really appreciate your input. Please do get in touch with me to share your comments, thoughts or observations...

You can get involved via this thread or by e-mailing me at victoria.moores@flightglobal.com

NB: Remember to specify if you are happy to be quoted in the magazine!!!

A trip through Berlin's Schonefeld Airport last week showed me how much the baggage charging culture has changed the way people think about their packing.

Firstly, while many undoubtedly think about the number of bags to be checked in, as this equals dollars, pounds or euros, the issue of weight has still to be tackled if what I saw was any guide.

Basically, bag repacking is now a common sight in the terminal. This group of girls were busy swapping kit around to share out their weight. I overheard one thanking the others for telling her about the weight issue and for helping her save some cash.

Loads of people in groups at Berlin's easyJet terminal were redistributing their belongings between themselves to not fall foul of extra weight fees and I am sure this is now commonplace not ony across Europe but in the USA too.

It's not a very savoury sight, unless of course you get a thrill from observing people's smalls going from one case to another, but needs must.

Secondly, how do you know you are going to be stung until you plop your offending brick on the scales? There are those funny portable weight scales or you can struggle onto your home scales with your bag and calculate the weight minus your body weight.

Berlin has the answer: a weighing machine of course. Cost for one weigh - €1. Cost for two - €2. The world has gone a bit mad hasn't it.

My advice is don't pay this, find an unattended check-in desk and weigh your bag for free on the digital scales.

See my earlier blog for an update on Berlin's new airport, scheduled to open in June 2012.

And on the packing and baggage theme, I found this amusing Top 10 packing and baggage disasters list on Independent Traveller's website.

A recent visit to Berlin gave me the chance for a briefing from the airport's PR team on the status of Berlin's airport system.

It's a big couple of years for the company that runs Berlin Tegel and Schonefeld airports as it gears up for a new unified airport in mid-2012 and prepares to host the World Routes network planning event in early October.

As this shot shows you can see the airport is well advanced.

You might be surprised to learn that traffic at Berlin's two airports is expected to stagnant this year after several years of some of the fastest annual rises in Germany, says Berlin Airports.

The reason is simple - the country's air travel tax introduced on 1 January.

This tax, the latest brought in by European states seeking to raise revenue for their national coffers, will cost it 800,000 lost passengers this year across both airports.

Ryanair has already cancelled three domestic German routes because of the tax, which means losing some 500,000 passengers. The airport is fearful too that passengers using Schonefeld, which has boomed as a low-cost carrier mecca in recent years, might choose airports across the border in nearby Poland, which has no such tax.

Polish travellers already make up about 10% of the traffic at Schonefeld with some 400 buses arriving at the airport from across the border every week.

The company hopes the tax issue will not dampen its longer term growth ambitions, which will receive a major boost in 2012 with the opening of the delayed Berlin Brandenburg International. Seen below.

This airport, which is scheduled to leap into action on 3 June, will take over from the existing two airports, which will close.

The 3 June date is set in stone (it was originally scheduled for October this year), says the airport, with a massive move planned for the night of 2 June of equipment from Tegel located across the city to the new airport, which is on the site of the existing Schonefeld airfield.

The inner city ring road will be closed that night to allow the uninterrupted passage of hundreds of airport vehicles.

When it has one airport, with plenty of room for expansion, BBI says it has a big chance to create an international hub in Berlin.

Its target is to break into Europe's top 10.

Last year Berlin Airports handled just over 22 million passengers, a 6.4% rise over 2009. Initially the new airport will be able to handle 27 million passengers a year, but it has the ability to add satellite terminals and boost capacity to 45 million.

No other airport in Europe has the room to double its traffic like this, says the airport.

Major areas of growth are expected to be in transfer traffic, which is currently only a couple of per cent of the entire traffic base, and traffic coming via the oneworld alliance.

Air Berlin, the largest player in Berlin with some 30% of all traffic, announced it was going to join oneworld last year.

Air Berlin has already begun flying to Miami, a major hub for oneworld founder member American Airlines, and from May it will begin daily operations to another American hub at New York JF Kennedy airport.

The airport will also be attractive to carriers from the Gulf and Asia-Pacific because of its location to the east of Europe. This puts it an hour's flying time closer than competing hubs like Amsterdam, Paris and London giving it an operational advantage, it says.

At present, only Qatar Airways - which recently celebrated five years of operation in Berlin - serves the city, but other Gulf carriers want to follow suit.

In particular Emirates has been waging a high-profile charm offensive in Germany to enable it to add Berlin and Stuttgart to its network. Lufthansa has been waging a similar offensive trying to keep Emirates out.

Berlin Airports says that BBI will still cater strongly for low-cost carriers when it opens. This is an important market for Berlin, with easyJet, germanwings, Ryanair and others building up service at Schonefeld in particular.

This shot shows what Schonefeld looks like on a rather gray day in mid-January.

BBI will have a low-cost pier (the north one) with a café-style pricing structure where carriers will only pay for what they use at this terminal, which will be designed to be low-cost.

It's often the case that one man's pushing the boundaries on ancillary revenues is another man's ripping off the passenger. And nobody lives on the edge quite as much as no-frills giant Ryanair.

The airline is in the news again, this time after a Barcelona court ruled the airline could not charge a €40 fee to passengers who forget to bring their boarding card to the airport. The Irish carrier though sees it differently and plans to appeal the decision. Here's a good piece in UK daily The Guardian about the story.

For much more on airlines and ancillary revenues, check out these two stories we put together on the subject:

ANCILLARIES: THE LAST DROP

IS TECHNOLOGY LIMITING FURTHER ANCILLARY REVENUE GROWTH?

You can also read our recent story looking at what the future is for check-in.

IS CHECK-IN DEAD?

The above picture by the way is from Billypix was taken late last year in support of our feature about the arrival of Ryanair in Barcelona after it opened a base at the city's El Prat airport. You can read that feature here.

WHEN RYANAIR COMES TO TOWN

Not wishing to take the shine off Air New Zealand's promotion of its resplendent 'All Black' Airbus A320, but perhaps the editing of the build-and-paint time-lapse video could have been a touch tighter.

One Airbus looks pretty much like another when they're being put together. But not quite.

Cheekily cutting to a shot of the tail-fin being dropped into place at 1:40 won't fool the sharp-eyed among you, who'll notice that the A320 just before, at 1:23, appears to be a cameo by Air Arabia's airframe 2764 while the one just after, at 1:46, looks more like Iberia's 2807.

Air New Zealand's aircraft, 4553, actually puts in its turn at 2:10 - fashionably late, as you can when you're the star.

Spirit has broken new ground it the ultra low cost realm -- by shaving three letters off its url. To book your ULCC (ultra low cost carrier) experience now just type in spirit.com, instead of the tiresome spiritair.com.

And Spirit's reasoning? Well, here you go --

Following numerous studies, Spirit concluded that it can increase the efficiency of its employees and also save customers time by shaving three letters off of its URL.  The results are clear.  Employees and customers are saving more time by typing less.  In fact, the move is saving over 20 million keystrokes each month.  This translates to a savings of more than 2,100 hours each month to relax on the beach, hit the links or explore one of the 40 cities that Spirit serves throughout the America's.

Here's to Spirit's contribution from preventing these events --

Just when it appears Caribbean Airlines settles one controversy, the carrier has now had to handle another small storm.

Days after the government of Trinidad and Tobago gave the okay for Caribbean to move forward with its order for nine ATR 72-600s, Caribbean is once again on the defense to dispell rumors it's going to abandon its acquisition of Air Jamaica.

This article  from the Jamaica Gleaner outlines Caribbean's moves to quell any notion that the deal negotiated las year is off.  To back up its statement of comitting to completing the purchase Caribbean, whose major shareholder is the government of Trinidad and Tobago, plans to launch a campaign on 14 January dubbed "One Caribbean airline -- two brands".  Here's to "soaring to new heights" in the "warmth of the islands".