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Aviation History
1998
1998 - 2257.PDF
AIR TRANSPORT SAA chief urges government protection HILKA BIRNS/CAPE TOWN SOUTH AFRICAN Airways (SAA) chief executive Coleman Andrews has urged Pretoria to cut jet fuel prices and use regulatory powers to defend SAA on interna tional routes while it reorganises its fleet and network. Andrews told a parliamentary committee that SAA could save up to R80 million ($12.6 million) in the remainder of the current fiscal year if the government removes levies and taxes and sells jet fuel at market related prices. SAA report ed a R240 million loss for the peri od ending.March 1998, hut expects improved performance in the sec ond half of the current fiscal year. Andrews has also called for the LEVEL BUSTS in the UKhave reached record levels in the first few months of this year, according to a report by the UK Civil Aviation Authority safety reg ulation group (SRG). The study also revealed that level busts, the term for incidents where aircraft climb or descend through the altitude to which they have been cleared by air traffic con trol, resulting in the loss of ATC separation, increased at a higher rate in 1997 than in both the two previous years. In a continuing campaign to counteract the level bust phenom enon, the SRG has published an lifting of a ban on the carriage of passengers on the domestic sectors of long-haul routes such as the CapeTown-Johannesburg leg of a Cape Town-London flight. He says that this would allow the air line to redeploy some of its narrow- body aircraft on to regional flights within southern Africa. "This ban costs SAA about R100 million a year," he says. Andrews says that the government, as SAA owner, is obliged to help the carrier and lift the ban. The restriction was placed on SAA following a spate of smug gling operations which took advan tage of customs and immigration loopholes which arose because of the combined local and interna tional multisector flights. analysis of occurrences in UK air space and has commissioned an independent project to uncover the reasons why the mistakes occur. The overall trend in level bust reports has been upward for the years analysed (1992-7), the SRG says. In addition, the reports for the first four months of 1998, at 138, are "...higher than they have ever been", and have shown a steep month-on-month increase at a time of the year when the frequen cy normally tends to decline. In the years 1995-7, the annual numbers of level bust reports were respectively 142,171 and 252 and, in the same years, the numbers of As part of its reorganisation, SAA has cut its flights to Dubai, preferring a daily code-share with Emirates Airlines. Airline sources also suggest that the carrier is con sidering cutting its ties with Thai Airways and realigning with Malaysia Airlines in a move that would see SAA's Asian hub shift from Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur. A draft opening balance sheet and revised business plan has been prepared for SAA, but at press time, these had not been presented to Transnet (SAA's parent) or the government. The airline says that the business plan defines a broad strategy and does not recommend specific aircraft types. • SAA has taken delivery of its first two of up to six Boeing 727 level busts which caused loss of ATC separation were respectively 45,45 and 79. The CAAsays: "It is difficult to say whether this is due to more diligent and self-aware reporting, or whether there is a genuine deteriorating trend." The major cause of level busts is "...pilots not complying with cor rectly read-back ATC vertical clearances," says the study. The S RC J report has analysed die incidents by aircraft type, factoring die figures for die numbers of each type involved. Those most likely to be involved are, in descending order, the Boeing 747, British Aerospace 146 and Airbus A320. 3 freighters on lease for domestic and regional cargo operations in col laboration with DHL. Earlier this year SAA Cargo and DHL estab lished Safron Services, a joint ven ture to provide air courier services throughout southern Africa using Johannesburg as a hub. The timing of the lease has raised eyebrows locally, as it adds an extra type to the airline's fleet at a time when its new management has proposed streamlining. It also coincides with the government's appointment of a task group to for mulate an aircraft noise and engine emission policy to make South Africa compliant with the policies of the International Civil Aviation Organisation and international environmental bodies. • Death knell for AE31X confirmed by Airbus THE END OF THE planned Airbus Industrie Asia/Avia tion Industries of China (AVIC) 100-seat AE31X airliner pro gramme has been confirmed by the consortium's sales vice-president, John Leahy. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Leahy says that Chinese officials now agree with Airbus that the S2 billion project would be too costly and is not com mercially viable. "If it goes ahead, it cannot be with an all-new aircraft," he says. Airbus has been talking to airlines for some time about the proposed A319M5 - a version of the A319 with five fuselage frames removed - and it is possible that there could be a launch of the derivative at the Farnborough air show. The aircraft has already been offered to carriers such as North west and Air Canada. 3 NEWS IN BRIEF • CIMBERAIR SAS is a 26% shareholder in Cimber Air, and does not have control of the airline as stated in Flight International 26 August-1 September. First heavyweight Tu-204 comes together THE FIRST Aviastar-built example of the increased gross weight Tupolev Tu- 204, the -200, is in final assembly at its plant in Ulyanovosk, Russia. The new model, which will be powered by the Perm PS90, incorporates strengthened landing gear to enable the maximum take-off weight to be increased by around 8t to 110.75t, compared to the existing Tu-204-100/120 model. A simi larly increased weight version of the Tu- 204 is already in production at the KAPO plant in Kazan, dubbed the Tu-214. Level busts in the UK bust the record books FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 2 - 8 September 1998
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