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Aviation History
1997
1997 - 0116.PDF
AIR TRANSPORT NEWS IN BRIEF • ANSETT SELLS 727S Ansett Australia has sold its last six Boeing 727s (five -200 Advs and one -200 Adv Freighter) to Intrepid Avi ation Partners of Memphis, for A$20 million ($16 mil lion). Three will be delivered in January, and three in April, and the non-cargo aircraft converted to freighters. The 727 capacity has been re placed progressively by Airbus A3 20s. A decision on international fleet additions (Flight International 13-19 November, 1996) is not now expected until former Cathay Pacific chief executive Rod Eddington takes up his new position at Ansett later this month. • IASL INSTALLS EFIS International Aviation Ser vices (IASL) is undertaking a major overhaul and upgrade of an ex-airline Boeing 747SP for an undisclosed Middle- Eastern head-of-state cus tomer. The work includes the installation of a five-tube Honeywell EFIS-85 elec tronic flight instrumentation system (EFIS), dual naviga tion-management systems, dual global-positioning sys tem and satellite communi cations. The supplemental type certificate for the avion ics upgrade is expected in mid-1997. Delta ends intra Europe flights DELTA AIR LINES is to dis continue the intra-European operations which it acquired from Pan American World Airways in 1991, and instead increase transat lantic flights, principally from New York's J F Kennedy Airport. The restructuring will result in a one-time charge against earnings of up to $60 million, mainly to cover redundancies at Delta's German hub at Frankfurt, but is expected to improve operating income by $62 million a year. Delta will discontinue intra- Furopean service from Frankfurt to Athens, Bucharest, Istanbul, Moscow, St Petersburg and Warsaw, and redeploy five Boeing 727s to more profitable routes in the USA. The airline will also cease transatlantic service to Frankfurt from three US cities. To compensate, Delta will add new non-stop services from Ken nedy to Istanbul, Madrid and Manchester, increase services to Athens and Rome and add new flights from Atlanta to Stuttgart and Zurich. Warsaw will be served from Kennedy via Berlin, and the airline hopes to resume services to Bucharest and St Petersburg through codesharing. Delta president and chairman Ron Allen says that the changes, to be completed by July, will increase weekly transatlantic departures from Kennedy from 84 to 112, serving 15 European cities, up from 12. Delta will operate 266 weekly flights in total to 26 Eur opean destinations. Allen says that die changes "...build on our lead ership as the number one US air carrier across the North Adantic". Operating results on intra- European routes were "unsatisfac tory", Allen says, as service ".. .was severely constrained because of international regulator ' restric tions." Delta's transatlantic opera tions, meanwhile, are "solidly prof itable", he continues, and the changes will "...significantly im prove the finances" of its transat lantic business unit. • Augsburg considers expansion with Dash 8400 AUGSBURG Airways, which recently became the first "Team Lufthansa" franchise part ner, is considering further fleet expansion with the de Havilland Dash 8-400. While no firm purchase decision has been taken, the southern Germany-based regional airline says that its partnership with Lufthansa opens the possibility of future operations on medium-haul routes to northern Germany, which would be economical for the 70-seat -400. The type's 350kt (650km/h) cruising speed makes it "very attractive", says the airline. The airline now operates four 37-seat Dash 8-100s and three 50- seat Dash 8-300s. By the third quarter of this year, Augsburg will take deliver)' of a fourth -300, which will be based in Munich. Augsburg began its partnership with Lufthansa at the end of October, flying from Munich to Erfurt, Dortmund and Leipzig. The airline sold its last Beech 1900 to an air-ambulance operator in Kenya in December. As part of its co-operation with Lufthansa, Augsburg has now opened a new four-times-daily fre quency from Augsburg to Frankfurt from 13 January which will be flown by a Dash 8-100. Augsburg Airways has suffered years of losses, the size ot which it declines to reveal, and says that this is one reason for expanding its fleet."If you have a fleet of five air craft, then basically the overhead costs are killing you," it says. • I .ufthansa is about to enter into a second franchise partnership, with Danish regional carrier Cimber Air, based in Sonderborg. The airline will operate one air craft from its fleet of AI(R) ATR 42-300 turboprops, in Team Lufthansa colours, on a four- times-daily route from Dortmund to Berlin, starting on 20 January. The Danish airline has already been co-operating with Lufthansa and Lufthansa CityLine for many years, savs the German airline. • Boeing confirms 767-400ERX stretch but raises 747-X doubts BOEING HAS confirmed that the stretched 767-400ERX is on course to be launched this year, but raises furdier doubts about the timetable for a go-ahead on the proposed stretched 747. Ron Woodard, president of the Boeing Commercial Airplane Group, says that the main board gave its formal approval to start offering the 767-400FRX to air line customers on 6 January (Flight International 8- 14January, P5). He adds that the project is likely to be launched "by the end of the year". He remains more cautious on the chances of a go-ahead for the stretched 747-500/600X. The airframe company has backtracked markedly since its push to sign up customers ahead of the Farnborough air show in September 1996. Woodard now says that he rates the chances of going ahead with the project at only "50:50". "Our concern is the size of the market, so we're spending a lot of time on the business case. We're working our way dirough that, but it's a tough case," he adds. Most of the concerns are focused on the 767 stretch is moving towards launch, but questions hang over 747-X continuing impact of "fragmenta tion" on long-range routes, caused by the growth of direct point-to- point services with smaller, twin- engined, aircraft. "The big ques tion is: will the Pacific fragment in the same way as the Atlantic has?" savs Woodard. J 10 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 15 - 21 January 1997
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