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Aviation History
1992
1992 - 0580.PDF
AIR TRANSPORT CIS authorises new operator licences The Commonwealth of Inde pendent States' (CIS) new Inter Republic Aviation Com mittee, which also covers other states, has issued operating au thority licences to 68 companies in its first months. Some of the carriers have begun operations. The first category of airline receiving licences comprises the old divisions of Aeroflot. New titles, such as Air Ukraine, Uzbeki Airways, Krasnoyar- skavia and Azerbaijan Airlines are appearing alongside the Aer oflot titles — although Uzbeki has begun to introduce a new livery with no mention of Aero flot on some charter aircraft. The second category com prises the "daughter companies" being established by the divi sions: these will use fleet assets and personnel transferred from Aeroflot. Uzbeki Airways, which is based in Tashkent, has set up four such companies to cater for tourism, passenger and cargo charters and business aviation. The tourist company has been named Sun Ray, and expects to begin services to western Europe in mid-1992. It will use Ilyushin Il-62s on these routes initially, and, as currency is generated, will begin to repaint its fleet in Sun Ray liver)7. In another development, for eign partnerships are joining with one or more divisions of Aeroflot to establish new com panies. One of the first of these companies is Aeroliht, formed by Aeroflot's Vnukovo division and a Lichtenstein company, mainly to fly emigrants to Israel using Ilyushin U-62s. Transaero is regarded as the first of the new generation ol carriers, however. It was set up by Aeroflot's PKO and an amal gam of other partners, including the Ilyushin and Yakovlev de sign bureaux, and is already flying a fleet of Tupolev Tu- 154s, as well as 11-76s and ll-86s, on domestic and international charters. It has also begun scheduled services from Moscow, Kiev, Minsk, Kishinev and St Petersburg, using aircraft leased from Aeroflot. A fourth sector contains op erators established from the avi ation assets of former industrial concerns. An example is Yak Air, formed from Yakovlev's own resources, and using more than six Yak-40s on passenger and business charters from Moscow's local airport at Bykovo. Many- companies have been provided over the years with Yak-40, Il ls, 11-76, Tu-134 and Antonov aircraft to transport their own staff and products, and these will form the base of a cargo and passenger charter industry. • H Losses constrain Canadian industry Despite discounting, Canadian saw yields grow almost 6% dur ing 1991. PWA's positive cash position of C$165.9 million has yet to touch a C$300 million credit line, and Eyton projects a 1992 break-even on cash flow. Canadian has already held ex ploratory talks with American Airlines over a possible tie-up. Canadian's rival, Air Canada, which itself lost CS218 million last year, is opposed to such a link with the USA. Instead, it is mobilising public and political support for a merged Canadian flag-carrier. • eavy losses at Canadian Air lines have further increased pressure to restructure among Canada's carriers (Flight Interna tional, 4-10 March). Losses at PWA, Canadian's parent, soared to C$161.7 mil lion ($136 million) in 1991, while revenues rose 4.6% to C$2.87 billion.The 1990 loss was held at $14.6 million, thanks to C$76.6 million from the sale of aircraft and securities. PWA chairman Rhys Eyton says that 1992 will be another difficult year, with no strong signs of an end to recession. splits regional operations from big broil BA curtails regional costs British Airways has set up a new business, British Air ways Regional, in an attempt to reduce losses on operations from Birmingham and Manchester and airports in Scotland. The airline had explored the idea of establishing a joint ven ture with Danish carrier Maersk Air, but this was rejected by employees, who feared whole sale job cuts. They have agreed instead to accept lower wages and other changes in the new company, which is expected to save more than £8 million of the present £32 million staff costs. British Airways Regional will operate 23 British Aerospace One-Elevens from the two Eng lish airports, and 13 BAe ATPs from Scotland. The One-Elevens are likely to be replaced by Boeing 737s. The airline has also avoided letting carriers such as Air UK or British Midland on to routes that might have been sacrificed in the drive for lower costs — especially if the Maersk venture had gone ahead. BA flies almost 800 flights a week from the regional airports, and employs 1,000 people. Heathrow shuttle services to Bel fast, Manchester, Glasgow and Edinburgh and scheduled flights to Newcastle and Aberdeen are unaffected by the move. n Meridiana improves its operations The Italian branch of the southern European regional airline Meridiana is to spend LI20 billion (£55 million) on improvements to its fleet and sites at Florence's Amerigo Vespucchi Airport. The airline is to carry out its own maintenance on the four BAel46-200s it has on order, and is building a hangar and technical operations department for the aircraft. Meridiana says it is "very sat isfied" with its new domestic flights from Florence to Catania and Palermo, which began oper ations in July 1991. This fol lowed an agreement with the Italian Government reconfirm ing Meridiana's original routes and giving the airline permission to expand its Florence and Ver ona operations. It is now flying services from Florence to Barce lona, Paris, Zurich, Frankfurt, London and Munich. Meridiana also operates the Rome-Milan and Rome-Venice routes on a concession from Alitalia. The airline will replace Alitalia on Verona-Rome and is awaiting permission to develop international connections from Rome and Verona. Cargo operations are "ex tremely good business," says Meridiana, which intends to fly McDonnell Douglas DC-9s and MD-82s from Verona. "There is a lot of freight going to Venice and Milan that should be able to come to Verona." Meridiana and its sister com pany in Spain say they intend to create the largest private airline in southern Europe — although the Spanish arm is finding it difficult to win the routes it needs from Iberia. n w FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 11 - 17 March. 1992
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