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Aviation History
1990
1990 - 0070.PDF
OPERATIONS: AIR TRANSPORT US passenger numbers fall by 2 million in 1989 The number of passengers flying on US airlines last year dropped by 2 million compared with 1988. This is the first year- on-year drop since 1980-1, when the US national air traffic control strike took place, and the industry was struggling with recession. Total (domestic and inter national) passenger numbers dropped from 455 million to 453 million, with the slump purely in the domestic traffic. There had been a 10% increase in inter national traffic (from 35 million to 38.5 million). The domestic drop was about 5.5 million, or 1.2%, which compares with a domestic 1987-8 passenger in crease of 2 million. Despite the traffic drop, however, total 1989 revenue passenger distance flown increased by 2%. The domestic traffic results have been slow for two years now, the US Air Transport Association (ATA) says. It points out that they could not have been expected to continue at the mid- 1980s rates (in both 1985 and 1986 the total passenger traffic increases were about 10%). Although 1987-8 showed a 17% international passenger traf fic increase, a near-static home market pulled the total percent age rise down to 1.5%. ATA attributes the passenger drop to fares increases following market consolidation, and to "a '•• 'mi Busy runways but not so many passengers onboard slight softening of the economy". The airlines operated their yield- management policies more effec tively as well, so fewer people found discounts available. Fares increased by 1 cent to 12c/mile from 1987 to 1988, and ATA's preliminary 1989 estimate is 13c/mile. The industry is also facing rapidly rising fuel prices and a 1990 traffic increase at the low end of the original forecast— about 2%. Fuel prices rose from 47c/gal (12c/lit) at the beginning of 1988's fourth quarter, to 64c/gal (17c/lit) at the same time in 1989. During 1989's fourth quar ter, however, contract fuel prices had risen by another 15-30c/gal, and by up to $l/gal on the spot market. US airlines use 57 billion litres (15 billion US gal) of fuel a year. In an extremely unusual move last week some carriers (including TWA and USAir) were charging their customers a 2-4% fuel surcharge. ATA believes that prices will drop again soon—because avi ation fuel prices are always re lated to the market price of heating oil. They will not fall to 1988 levels, it says. In the past two weeks there have been signs of traditional winter fares battles, but not on the scale of early deregulation days. Many of the moves have been in the discount arena rather than in reducing primary fare levels. • Sabena World Airlines plans to double fleet by 1995 Sabena World Airlines (SWA), the recently formed joint ven ture of Belgium's national airline Sabena (60% shareholding), Brit ish Airways (20%) and KLM (20%), has announced that it will hire 3,000 people and double its fleet of aircraft in order to cope with a planned trebling of busi ness by 1995. SWA says that it will increase Sabena's existing destinations from 48 to 75 and will fly greater daily frequencies in Europe through a hub-and-spoke system, using Brussels Zaventem Airport as its base and using both Manchester and Amsterdam- Schiphol as stepping stones for intercontinental flights. SWA president Johan Dekker says that Sabena's fleet of 19 Boeing 737-200s and -300s will grow to "some 40 aircraft". At present, SWA flies Sabena air craft. Two 737-400s and 12 737- 500s are on order, which will bring the total of this aircraft family to 33 by 1992. Both -400s are due to be delivered in July 1991 and all the -500s between 1991 and 1992. The long-haul fleet will see replacement of the present five McDonnell Douglas DC-10- 3QCs by five Airbus A340s in 1992. Sabena is one often launch customers for the type; five more are on option. Sabena also operates two Airbus Industrie A310-200s and one A310-300. In June 1990 the airline expects to add a second Boeing 747-300 to its fleet. The -300s will replace the two Boeing 747-100s, which have already been sold to Japan and are operated under a leasing arrange ment. All aircraft are fully owned or leased by Sabena Group, SWA's parent company, which puts them at the disposal of Sabena World Airlines. Among the 27 new destina tions planned by SWA, three are scheduled for 1990—Hamburg, Budapest and Warsaw—showing the airline's increasing interest in Eastern Europe. • 1989 airliner Boeing has capped an outstanding decade of sales with a second successive record year: it sold 887 jet airliners last year—255 more than in 1988— and an awesome 3,533 of them during the 1980s. Its deliveries over the past ten years totalled 2,370 aircraft. Boeing's final 1989 deliveries were made on 22 December. Among them was the latest handover of history's most successful jetliner—the 1,799th 737 off the production line,(a -400 for USAir). Airbus Industrie nevertheless claims that 1989 was "the year of the Airbus", being by far its most successful since it came into commercial existence in 1973. Its firm sales totalled 421 and it has delivered 105 aircraft in the past 12 months. It was also the year of the thousandth Airbus sale (achieved in February), the vast majority having been sold during the 1980s. By the end of December, firm Airbus sales to talled 1,331. The Airbus euphoria, even in the shade of Boeing's towering achievement, is put in context in the consortium's 1989 report: "With no less than 421 sales and 105 deliveries [we have] bettered in one year the achievements of most European airliners of the Fifties and Sixties in their entire lives". It is also (using the Boeing benchmark) a higher year's sales total than Boeing had ever made before 1988. McDonnell Douglas' (MDC's) figures do not look so impres sive, but in a normal year they would have been good. MD-80- series sales have slowed a little as customers wait to see its IAE V2500-engined derivative replacement, the MD-90. The strategic achievement of the year is obtaining commitments to 50 of the new machines. With serious competition from the Airbus A340, MDC has sold 30 more of its MD-lls this year, bringing the type's order book total up to 126 firm and 189 commitments at various stages of negotiation. Now the MD-11 is airborne (see P 7), if testing goes well it has the marketing advantage of visibility. FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 17-23 January 1990
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