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Aviation History
1985
1985 - 0548.PDF
AIR TRANSPORT Seahawk 727 This Alaska Airlines Boeing 727 has been painted to reflect the airline's sponsorship of the Seattle Seahawks football team, resident at the airline's home base. Air Inter counter attacks TGV PARIS Air Inter, the French domes tic airline, has launched a major counter attack against fierce competition from the TGV (Train a Grande Vitesse) which captured a significant slice of the Paris - Lyons market last year and is gaining in new markets as it extends its network across France, reports Gilbert Sedbon. "The TGV syndrome is dead as far as Air Inter is concerned, and I shall see that it remains so," says Air Inter chairman Pierre Eelsen. "We are now launching a counter- offensive with new ratios and schemes to halt growing rail competition and make sure it is no longer a threat to air travel." The airline is also looking forward to receiving the 150-seat Airbus A320 in 1988, which Eelsen describes as "our future combat aircraft". Air Inter carried 10-2 million passengers in 1984, a mediocre 2-2 per cent increase in traffic which was 300,000 passengers short of target, and with profits not exceeding one million French francs (£917,431), Eelsen says. For the first time in the airlines history, the turnover reached Fr5,060 million, allowing a cash-flow of Fr390 million (8 per cent of sales) for a special fund for fleet renewal and expansion over the next ten years. Altogether Air Inter plans to invest Fr2,000 million a year this decade, compared with Fr650 million in 1984. "We have embarked on an unprecedented aggressive sales drive aimed at not only capturing new markets on the whole network, but particu larly at recovering part of lost traffic on the Paris-Lyons route with a series of promotional schemes," Eelsen says. Competition from the TGV in 1984 meant a loss of 870,000 Air Inter passen gers—550,000 passengers on the Paris to Lyons, Grenoble and Saint Etienne stretch of the central-eastern France network, and 280,000 passen gers on the extended lines to Marseilles, Montpellier, and Nimes, in the south-western leg. Eelsen says that Air Inter is hoping to carry 700,000 passengers more in 1985, an increase of 7 per cent over 1984. "Should we succeed, we will strike a balance, but we expect to do better and make real profits," he says. 757 celebrates two years' service SEATTLE As the Boeing 757 enters its third year in commercial service operators have re ported their on-time reli ability figures for the type over the past two years. To date the 47 757s in service have made more than 83,663 revenue departures and amassed 140,388 flight hours, with dispatch reli ability averaging 97-9 per cent with a 15min criterion. West German charter airline LTS achieved the highest despatch reliability rate at 99 • 7 per cent, closely followed by Delta, (99-5 per cent). Boeing 757 operators have been flying the type an aver age of 7 • 4hr per day over the past two years. Air Europe's 757s were in the air the longest at 10-2hr a day. A Monarch 757 was the high- time aircraft, having logged 6,126hr, while an Eastern example made a record 3,561 landings. Fleetwide, 12 of thetwinjets have completed at least 3,000 landings. Eastern, British Airways, Monarch, Air Europe, LTS, SIA, and Delta are flying the 757. NEWS SCAN Delta Airlines will introduce nonstop services from Atlanta to Paris on April 1. Delta president R. W. Allen says that it will serve the route five times a week with TriStar 500s offering 241 seats. A British Airways Con corde on charter to Good wood Travel, UK, will make its first flight to Moscow on April 12. A trip to the USSR's capital on the supersonic aircraft plus hotel accommo dation, a city tour, and an evening at the Bolshoi ballet costs £995 per person. Contact Goodwood Travel; telephone Canterbury (0227) 65967. Highland Express has been given High Court approval to challenge the UK Civil Aviation Authority's rejection of its application for a licence to fly scheduled services from London Stansted, Birming ham, and Maastricht to Newark and Toronto via a Prestwick hub. The CAA turned down the application on the grounds that it was not satisfied with the airline's financial status. The court will hear the case next week. Swissair has won an $11 million contract from Kuwait Airways to overhaul the Middle East carrier's Pratt & Whitney JT9D-7R4 engines, which power its eight Airbuses. Kuwait is the third airline to make use of Swiss air's engineering facilities; already Saudia and Braathens JT9D-7R4s are overhauled by the carrier. The Greek ministry of foreign affairs has char tered a Boeing 707 from flag carrier Olympic Air ways to fly foodstuffs and clothing out to famine victims via Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The Government department plans a total of 12 relief flights, four of which have already been performed. Pan American will begin serving the southern French holiday resort Nice Cote d'Azur on a daily basis from New York from April 28. The service, to be operated by Boeing 747s, will extend from Nice to Rome, thus offering two daily departures from New York to the Italian capital. FLIGHT International, 23 February 1985
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