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Aviation History
1991
1991 - 2622.PDF
MR TRANSPORT Foshing cleared for international BY JOHN BAILEY IN SINGAPORE Foshing Airlines, cleared to become Taiwan's fourth in ternational carrier, will start overseas charter services early next year. The Taipei-based domestic carrier is due to start its transi tion to jet aircraft in mid-1992, when it receives its first Airbus A320, but will begin its overseas charters with ATR72s. Foshing has a fleet of four ATR42s and four ATR72s, with orders for two A320s and four A300- 600Rs, plus four options. When Foshing's first A320 ar rives in July next year it will enter service both on high- capacity domestic routes and charter services to destinations such as Bangkok, Singapore and Jakarta, although final decisions have not yet been made. ATR72 charters will serve cities such as Hong Kong, Manila and Oki nawa, from February next year. The airline hopes to be cleared to start scheduled serv ices within a year. EVA Air was the first private carrier granted permission to compete with China Airlines (CAL) outside Taiwan, followed by Mandarin Airlines, a subsidiary of CAL, which will serve Sydney from 16 October. Foshing is also considering a service to Vietnam, for which Taiwan is allowed to designate multiple carriers. CAL sus pended its own operations to Ho Chi Minh City after a single flight in August, apparently be cause Vietnam was unwilling to offend the People's Republic of China (PRO, during talks on "normalising" relations. Victor Lee, Foshing's director of sales and marketing says: "There is certainly a market for Vietnam, both tourists and busi nessmen." Foshing is also preparing for the eventual resumption of di rect air links with the PRC, one of the reasons it has ordered the high-capacity A300-600Rs. Lee says: "Once direct links between Taiwan and the mainland be come possible, we may need more aircraft". • Deutsche BA launch attempt is delayed by union impasse British Airways' attempt to set up a new German internal airline, Deutsche BA (DBA) is being seriously delayed because of three stumbling blocks in reaching agreement with the German public servant and transport union, UTV. BA had originally intended to have DBA, built upon its Inter nal German Service (IGS), come into service in the middle of 1991, but negotiating difficulties with UTV have repeatedly de layed this. BA says: "It's taking a long time and we haven't reached the necessary agreement with the union". Until there is agreement be tween the two parties, BA cannot submit its full proposal to Ger many's Federal Ministry of Transport for approval. It seems that three areas are unresolved: the number of leave days, the number of leave days in relation to public holidays and how many consecutive night stops cabin crew can make. The delay in setting up DBA is costing jobs within the IGS. In keeping with German transport policy following reunification, BA is cutting its Berlin-based IGS operation. From 27 October, BA will end its British Aerospace ATP flights to Munster, Nurem berg, Hannover and Bremen. It is thought that the aircraft are being returned to the UK, and that the route closures will re sult in 100 redundancies. If the situation is not resolved, the IGS will have to make a further 10% service cut by next summer, with the associated job losses. The two parties are believed to have reached a compromise position on the issue of produc tivity, but BA says "We haven't reached agreement on last and final positions." The Federal Ministry of Transport had been hopeful that a final BA submis sion would have been ready for consideration by the third quar ter of this year. However, even this now seems overly optimis tic, with neither BA nor the ministry prepared to suggest when a final submission could not be considered. UTV has not commented on the delay. • OLYMPIC'S NEW IMAGE Seen cruising over the Cascade Mountains in Washington State, the first new Boeing 737-400 for Greek flag-carrier Olympic Airways shows off the airline's new livery, part of the operator's plan for the revitalisation of its total marketing image. Scandinavia plans to join Eurocontrol Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland have indicated to Eurocontrol that they are interested in taking full mem bership status of the central air-traffic organisation. All four countries are mem bers of the European Civil Avia tion Conference and have observer status on Eurocontrol programmes. Eurocontrol says: "Denmark has expressed interest, but it has not yet formally applied. We expect an application soon." It adds: "Sweden, Norway and Finland have also all indicated a firm interest...there is no doubt, in principal, that they will all become member states." The countries' interest in join ing Eurocontrol is in line with a European Community council of ministers recommendation that all EC member states join Eurocontrol. On a note of cau tion, however, one senior EC aviation representative says: "Denmark is not sure any advan tages exist." • NEWS IN BRIEF SOLOMONS CRASH A de Havilland Canada Twin Otter of Solomon Airlines, the Solomon Islands internal car rier, crashed with the loss of 15 lives on the southern tip of Guadalcanal island late last month. The aircraft, on a routine flight from San Cris tobal to Guadalcanal, crashed into a jungle-covered moun tain in bad weather and was found only after a three-day search. 16 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 9 - 15 October, 1991
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