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Aviation History
1999
1999 - 2057.PDF
Business NEWS IN BRIEF • ICELANDIC FLOTATION Air Atlanta Icelandic is to be floated. The Iceland-based wet-lease airline has been owned by Capt Arngrimur Johannsson and his wife since its creation in 1986. The company expects to go public in the next 18 months. Icelandic finance house Biinaoarbankinn Verobref has been hired to handle preparations for the flotation on the local stock exchange. In the meantime, the airline has increased its share capital and sold the bank a 20% share - half of which will be sold to Icelandic pension funds. Air Atlanta Icelandic operate five Boeing 747s, five Lockheed L-101 Is and three Boeing 737s. • WINAIR FOLDS US carrier Winair has folded after eight months of opera tion as a low-cost carrier. The Salt Lake City-based airline, which had its hub at Long Beach, California, shut down last week having lost $ 15 mil lion. Winair was launched as a charter carrier but switched to cut-price scheduled flights in November. Austrian checks on alliance options after Franco-US deal ANDREW DOYLE/MUNICH AUSTRIAN AIRLINES may ditch its Qualiflyer alliance partners in favour of a rival group ing - partly due to the recent Air France-Delta Air Lines tie-up and partly as a knock-on effect of an Austrian Government block on plans by Qualiflyer leader SAirGroup to increase its share in the Vienna-based airline. Austrian says it and the other Qualiflyer members linked to Delta through the Atlantic Excellence alliance - Swissair and Sabena - must "check all options" following the Franco-US deal. Extending the Atlantic relationship with the US major into membership of a global structure appears to be out of the question for die latter two carriers, which cannot live with the Air France link and which have already signed codeshares with American Airlines, possibly signalling a rift with Delta. Austrian's options appear wider, however, and the car rier last week expanded its own codeshares with Delta. Austrian confirms it has been invited to join Air France and Delta (an invitation which in theory at least extends to Swissair and Sabena). Other possibilities include membership of the Star Alliance or oneworld. "In the dynamic environment of worldwide co-operations and flight alliances, the co-operation of Delta Air Lines and Air France opens new- perspectives for the European part ners as well," says president Her bert Bammer. "Austrian Airlines will checkall options, together with the partners of the Qualiflyer Group, until December." The Vienna government's move to defend the independence of Austrian has meanwhile prompted calls by Lauda Air chairman Niki Lauda for a rapid re-evaluation of the alliance strategy of the Austrian Airlines Group (AUA) - to which Lauda belongs - and its focus on membership of Qualiflyer, that so farfeatures only European carriers. Lauda - a 30% shareholder in Lauda Air, of which Austrian owns 36% - argues that AUA should reconsider its future in die light of SAir's failure to increase its stake in Austrian, a defeat he believes may marginalise Austrian within Quali flyer. SAir had planned to increase its 10% stake in Austrian to 25% by buying All Nippon Airways' 9% holding and sourcing the rest on the open market, giving it effective board-level control. Lauda pre dicts that Lufthansa will sell its 20% stake in his airline if Austrian joins a rival to Star. Austrian has a codeshare with Air France and has announced that from 1 October, Delta will code- share on its flights from Vienna to Atlanta and will drop its own service on the route. Delta will also place its code on Austrian's flights to Dubai and to Tbilisi, Georgia. While Delta sources suggest the carrier dropped flights to Vienna for eco nomic reasons, the move could preface further developments, especially as Austrian has not yet joined Swissair and Sabena in a new codeshare with American Airlines. Austrian will not comment on future co-operation with SAir, which says the failure to increase its stake in Austrian does not repre sent a barrier to co-operation. • CityBird threatens Sabena THE DISPUTE between Belgian independent City- Bird and its shareholder Sabena has reached a new low, with CityBird planning to file a complaint with the European Commission against what it says is unfair competition. The move follows a row between the carriers over whether CityBird should have notified Sabena about plans to start flying the Kinshasa-Brussels route on behalf of Lignes Aeriennes Congolaises (LAC), the national carrier of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Sabena says it has a con tract requiring notification of any competitive changes and has filed a complaint with the Belgian Civil Aviation Administration over the LAC tie-up. The dispute is to be decided by a local arbitration court. CityBird says the Sabena atti tude is "monopolistic" and con trary to free market competition. As an independent, it has the right to do business and sign wet-lease contracts with others, it says. Sabena has recently disposed of 2.3% of its 11.2% holding in CityBird, a move which the nation al airline claims was unconnected to its dispute. Victor Hassan, CityBird's chief executive, says the sale, which led to the share price plummetting, is "part of Sabena's policy of damaging CityBird" The Brussels-Kinshasa weekly service began on 17 May, offering competition on what has been a high-yield route for Sabena. CityBird also has a five-year con- City Bird flights to Kinshasa cause partners to fall out tract to fly Sabena routes to Mon treal and New York Newark with BoiengMD-1 Is and 767-300ERs. It also operates its own flights to the USA and one Luxembourg-New York service under a wet-lease agreement with Luxair. Sabena expects LAC will soon allow CityBird to expand services to other African destinations, developing Kinshasa into an African hub. • 24 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 14 - 20 July 1999
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