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Aviation History
1994
1994 - 1460.PDF
AIR TRANSPORT Air Inter strikes blow for greater autonomy BY GILBERT SEDBON IN PARIS Pilots and ground crew at Air France subsidiary Air Inter are staging a series of one-day strikes in a bid to force the Government to give the trou bled domestic carrier greater autonomy. In the latest industrial dis pute, over 100 strikers demon strated on the runway of Paris Orly Airport on 6 June, clash ing with riot police and dis rupting air traffic. Half of Air Inter's 400-500 daily flights were cancelled. An earlier strike on 17 May forced the airline to cancel nearly all of its flights, while another on 2 June forced it to charter aircraft from other French companies. The striking personnel are worried that fierce domestic and foreign competition, par ticularly from British Airways and TAT European Airlines (in Estonian leases its first Western- built aircraft Los Angeles-based Inter national Lease Finance is to lease two Boeing 737-500s to Baltic flag carrier Estonian Air. The aircraft are due to be deliv ered in June and November 1995 under a five-year lease arrangement. The 737-500s will be replacing Estonian Air's Tupolev Tu-134As on services flown to Amsterdam, Frank furt, Hamburg, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Helsinki. They are the first Western- built aircraft to be operated by the Estonian flag carrier. To date, Estonian Air has been operating 12 Tu-134s on international routes and four Yakovlev Yak-40s on local Baltic routes. • which BA has a 49% stake), which were due to begin oper ating from Orly to London Heathrow on 13 June, is threatening the long-term sur vival prospects for the state- owned airline. The European Commission has also decreed that Air Inter's most lucrative routes (Paris to Nice, Marseille and Toulouse) be opened to competition in the next few months. The powerful Air Inter unions are demanding that the carrier be allowed to operate on profitable European routes to airports such as London Heathrow and Gatwick, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Madrid and Lisbon, and to the Maghreb region of North Africa, in a bid to improve Air Inter's own profitability. Air Inter chairman and chief executive, Michel Bernard, appears sympathetic to the plight of the unions, declaring that "...Air Inter needs a clari fied future". The carrier is pushing for a holding company to look after the interests of Air France and itself, with some officials believing that, as the "mother" company, the national airline is more inclined to look after its own interests. Bernard says: "The planned holding company should clear ly define who does what, where and with which products. For instance, Air Inter has to serve as feeder airline to Air France's international services from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, but this task is costing money. Air Inter needs a clari fied future, with a strategic development which should not change with the four seasons as has sometimes been the case in the past." Bernard will be meeting Air France' chairman and chief executive, Christian Blanc, together with union represen tatives, at the end of this month to discuss the domestic carrier's future. • First South American R] customer SAM hopes for competitive edge Colombian airline leases Avroliners Avianca subsidiary Sociedad Aeronautica de Medellin Consolidada (SAM) has ordered eight Avro Inter national Aerospace RJ100 Avroliners in a $230 million lease deal, becoming the first South American RJ customer. The new aircraft will replace the Colombian carrier's fleet of six Boeing 727-100s and one 727-100C and will operate on 740-1,300km (400-700nm) sectors from SAM's Medellin, Bogota and San Andres hubs to domestic and international des tinations. Deliveries are sched uled to be completed by the end of this year. SAM president Jaime Humberto Lopez says: "The Latin American airline industry is about to enter a period of enor mous change and intense com petition." The airline believes that the RJ100 will give it a com petitive edge against operators of older equipment. • USA reduces number of El Al flights The US Department of Transportation has cut the number of flights which Israeli flag carrier El Al is allowed to operate to the USA. The move is in retaliation against an Israeli decision not to allow US carrier World Airways to oper ate scheduled flights on the New York-Tel Aviv route. World Airways planned to operate three weekly flights on the route, beginning on 22 June.The Israelis turned down NEWS IN BRIEF FLYING DOG An Indian Airlines training captain has lost his status as an instructor after allowing his wife to bring their pet dog on to the flightdeck during a flight between Bombay and Hyderabad. Although the pilot's decision contravenes Indian civil-aviation regula tions, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation says that it has left it to the airline to take action against the pilot follow ing the inquiry. the request, claiming that the added capacity will seriously hit El Al. On 2 June, the USA notified the Israeli authorities that it had reduced the number of flights which El Al is allowed to operate to New York every week, from 20 to 17. Sources in the Israeli trans port ministry say that the only solution to the unprecedented sanctions is to re-negotiate the air agreement with the USA. "This agreement is no longer adequate and puts El Al in a inferior position compared to US airlines. We cannot accept this," the sources say. Israeli Minister of Transportation, Israel Keysar, is due in Washington later this month to try and reverse or delay the sanctions until the air agreement is modified. The disagreement with the USA is one of several disputes involving foreign carriers' access to Israeli airports — British Airways' attempts to operate new cargo flights into Tel Aviv have also been blocked recently. • 12 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 15 -21 June, 1994
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