Americas: March 2010 Archives

Hot Tub Time Machine isn't the only outlet celebrating the, ahem, charm of the 1980s. US Regionals are heralding some old school tactics as well.

For months talk has centered on a transition from current fee for departure contracts that are the mainstay between US regionals and their mainline partners to more pro-rate deals that were prevalent in the 1980s and 1990s.

Under pro-rate deals regionals take on more risk such as fuel expense, pricing and some revenue management.

SkyWest Airlines during the last year has reached some pro-rate deals with long-time partner United Airlines and AirTran Airways.  The deal with AirTran entails the operation of five SkyWest-branded CRJ200s from Milwaukee, which has suprisingly been ian nteresting market to watch during the last few months after Republic's buy of Midwest.

To further confuse you, some of the CRJ200s SkyWest is flying for United under pro-rate deals were previously operated under a capacity purchase with Midwest Airlines. But that deal was quickly dissolved around the time Republic became intertwined with Midwest.

Speaking at the Aero Club of Washington yesterday SkyWest President Chip Childs predicted a continuing trend away from contract flying to pro-rate deals.

But Childs isn't concerned about regionals taking on additional risks in some cases. In some instances SkyWest works better with some smaller communities than its mainline counterparts, he says.

In fact SkyWest has a dedicated staff that evaluates service to communities, and can work with those localities to make the codeshare model work with legacy airlines, either through subsidies or other support.

Let's hope leg warmers don't experience a similar revival.....

Canada's Windsor International Airport is celebrating the return of low-cost carrier WestJet after a six-year gap. The airline will begin seasonal daily Boeing 737-700 service between its Calgary base and the southern Ontario city in May.

The airport has signed a three-year deal with WestJet, said Federica Nazzani, president of Your Quick Gateway, the management company that took over the running of Windsor in July 2007 on behalf of the city.

Since that time YGQ has been working to revamp the airport's profile and marketing efforts and sell Windsor in its own right and not simply being perceived as a suburb of Detroit which is close by across the US border.

From WestJet's point of view the addition of Windsor, Canada's 16th largest city, is important as it builds up its network in the country, said Peter Tong, director network and schedule planning at the carrier. "We want to make sure we serve southern Ontario well," he said.

Federica Nazzani, above right, with WestJet's Peter Tong.

WestJet will begin the service at the end of May and run the route until October.

Apart from Windsor the airline has announced the addition of two other destinations so far this year: it will fly a daily service between Toronto and Bermuda and a weekly route between Toronto and Samana in the Dominican Republic.

For Windsor the next target is to tempt a US carrier to begin service to a major hub, such as Chicago or Atlanta. 

Michael Nicolaas, which will be a familiar name to many in the Latin American aviation market, is at Network 2010 in Ft Lauderdale for the first time in his new role as the director of corporate business development at Aerodom, the Dominican Republic airport operator.

The former KLM executive (seen to the left with a map of the Dominican Republic) had been part of Aerodom for 10 years following the privatisation process of the airports there several years ago. He has also run the Puerto Plata airport, been chief commercial officer at Peru's Lima airport and looked after air service development at Colombia's Bogota airport.

Now at Aerodom, where he takes over the role vacated by Ken Hassard, who has moved across to Hermes Airports in Cyprus, Nicolaas said his priority is to ensure Aerodom retains the service it has worked so hard to bring to the country and to develop airport destinations on the north coast of the Dominican Republic.

This means attracting new service to Puerto Plata, mainly from the US and Europe, and developing the Samana airport.

This little known area of the country, served today by European and Canadian leisure operators, is promoted as an eco-tourism destination.

Nice Airport is once again at Network USA keeping the southern French destination on the map in the North American market. It remains the only city in France outside Paris with a direct link to the USA with its Delta Air Lines service to New York JFK, said Filip Soete, marketing director at Nice.

The Nice team of Soete (left) and network development manager Michel Tohane (right) is here to consolidate its New York service and the pair also hold an outside chance of another service to a US destination this year. "We still believe we could in the summer have a flight to a major US hub," he said.

With 57 airlines operating to 103 destinations, Nice remains a strong European airport. Traffic dipped 5% in 2009 to 9.8 million passengers but Soete hopes it will go back over 10 million again this year.

One success story is Dubai's Emirates, which upped its frequency to its Middle East hub from Nice to daily in January. The Airbus A330 service has also been doing well on the cargo front helping the airport boost its overall cargo volume by 30% last year.

A new arrival this summer at Nice is TACV, the airline of the Cape Verde islands, which are located off the west coast of Africa in the mid-Atlantic Ocean. It will operate a weekend service using Boeing 757s in June.

Chris Curry, airport director at GaryChicago Airport, is aiming to secure a commitment from a scheduled carrier to begin operations at the Indiana airport at Network 2010.

He's feeling more hopeful now than ever before of putting the city's third airport on the map as negotiations are coming to a close about relocating some railways near to the airport that will enable a runway extension.

"It has been a 9-year communication and now we are in final stages of the draft agreement with the railroads to relocate. Then we can go ahead with the $100 million project to divert the railroads and extend the runway," said Curry.

"The timeline is: we are open for business right now and we only go up from here. In addition there is a very real possibility of a high-speed rail connection between Gary and the City of Chicago.

"Our message to airlines is get in now, get in at a very reasonable operational cost. There is no-one better than the first carrier. They have a chance to really corner a particular part of the market."

GaryChicago has FAA funding of $57.8 million already approved. The airport current supports a variety of cargo, business aviation and military flying.

"We are looking for a carrier at this conference that will come in and prove what we already know - that a third airport is needed and can be supported in the Chicago land region."

Read another story from Network 2010 about Colombia's AIRES read.

Colombian low-cost carrier AIRES is seeing such a strong response to its launch of services to South Florida that it is adding more service to the region in preference to opening a second destination in the US.

Speaking to Airline Business at the Network USA event, AIRES station manager Ft Lauderdale Fabio Andrade said: "With our extra flights even though we have got the rights to operate to New York we decided instead of adding our second [US] destination to concentrate on Ft Lauderdale because it has been such a success. The community has really supported  us."

Fabio Andrade (left) of AIRES and Ft Lauderdale's Steve Belleme.

AIRES, which operates Boeing 737-700s, began daily service between Ft Lauderdale and Colombian capital Bogota in late November. The carrier has been growing fast in the domestic market and is now branching out into international services.

This month it will add service to Cali and Baranquilla with a further route to Cartagena beginning in July, said Andrade.

"We have been talking to AIRES for a long while about coming in," said Steve Belleme, business development director at Ft Lauderdale International Airport. "There is a large Colombian population in this area and the CVB has been very dynamic in Colombia."

"The Ft Lauderdale market in South Florida is the station of choice of Colombia," said Andrade, who formerly head up JetBlue's operations in Florida. "Ft Lauderdale is non-congested, friendly, it has easy access and is low-cost - not only for us as a tenant but for passengers too."

So far AIRES has had a 94% on-time performance for its US flights and is seeing load factors of 82%. Average round trip fares on the route are $250 to $300 nearly half that charged by network carriers in the past, said Andrade. 

Further extra service at Ft Lauderdale in recent times is Virgin America, which began flying between the airport and San Francisco and Los Angeles in November. 

In May, German leisure carrier Condor will launch services between Frankfurt and Ft Lauderdale, marking another important new route for the airport, said Belleme.

The Network USA event, organised by Airline Business, is being co-hosted by Ft Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and the Great Ft Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau.

A LAN flight from Lima in Peru yesterday (Sunday) was the first commercial landing at Chile's Santiago Airport following the huge earthquake in the South American country on Saturday.

According to a release from LAN, operations at the airport have been severely disrupted and there has been major damage to the airport terminal.

It appears that several flights landed at Santiago Airport on Sunday but that outgoing flights have yet to resume.

This shot from Rex shows a woman trying to salvage something from her devastated home in Santiago. 

Here's a shot from one of the few travellers who have landed there in the past 24 hours http://www.fotoglif.com/f/7qcwgnua576c

If you have any photos or links showing the extent of the damage to the airport or any further infromation about flight operations at Santiago and in Chile please share it with us on the Airline Business blog or via Twitter http://twitter.com/theabed