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Aviation History
1999
1999 - 3235.PDF
AIR TRANSPORT ROUTES ++ United Airlines will begin daily services between Los Angeles and Paris Charles de Gaulle next April using Boeing 777s. ++ Sabena is introducing daily services from Brussels to Washington this month using Airbus A330-300s The airline has also upgraded its flights between London City Airport to Brussels, replacing de Havilland Dash 8 turboprops with Avro RJ85 jets. Five daily round-trips are offered. ++ Emirates will begin serving Sydney from its Dubai base via Singapore next March, with four flights a week using Airbus A330- 200s. Frequencies will later increase to daily and the airline will add two Australian destinations - Perth and Brisbane. ++ KLM will cease services from Amsterdam to Guatemala City from its summer 2000 flight schedule. ++ British Airways will expand its ties with Nigeria Airways from early December, boosting the daily Boeing 747-400 service it operates from London Gatwick to Lagos in conjunction with the Nigerian carri er with three weekly flights from Heathrow. The new services will be operated by a BA 747 painted in Nigeria Airways' colours. ++ Newcastle-based Gill Airways is increasing its flights to Dusseldorf to twice daily. It has also agreed with KLM to take over services between Norwich and Aberdeen, starting a three times daily return service, with one flight each way on Sundays, using 66-seat ATR 72s. ++ Peruvian carrier Aero Continente will launch services between Lima and Miami later this month. Two flights a week will be operated by Lockheed L-1011 TriStars and Boeing 757s, and fre quencies will go daily in December. ++SIAsays it will continue to oper ate services to Australia and New Zealand "throughout New Year's eve and on 1 January, but in other regions there will be cancellations and service changes". Most affect ed are services to and from points in Africa, Europe, the Middle East and South Asia, as well as transat lantic services, because these are normally scheduled to be airborne at midnight in various time zones. Competition puts pressure on LIAT to restructure PAUL LEWIS/WASHINGTON DC LIAT IS facing growing pres sure to restructure its business due to the impending entry of Eastern Caribbean Express into a market overcrowded with finan cially struggling regional carriers. St Lucia-based Eastern Carib bean plans to make its debut early next year, backed by Air Jamaica. The carrier, bolstered by local political support, intends to oper ate an unspecified number of 37- seat de Havilland Dash 8 and Shorts 360 turboprops. The two mostly likely airlines to be affected by the start-up, of the 10 competing for market share, are local operator HelenAir and Antigua-based LIAT. Eastern Caribbean's impact "is going to be widely felt throughout the Caribbean, which at best is grow ing by 3 % per annum. Someone is going to have to give up traffic", says a local airline executive. LIAT has appealed to local island governments for financial help, but has received little response. St Lucia, which claims LIAT owes it $1.6 million in ticket taxes and air port user charges, has publicly backed Eastern Caribbean. Trinidad and Tobago-based BWIA International Airways has tried unsuccessfully to offload its 29.9% holding in LIAT, after efforts to co-ordinate services were Tales ofLIAT's oustanding bills prompted St Lucia to back the new carrier politically scuppered. BWIA instead plans to expand its own Dash 8-300 regional turboprop fleet. "The problem is BWIA is seen as being for the benefit of Trinidad, not the Caribbean," says a local airline source. Speedwing, British Airways' consultancy, was recently called in to advise on LIAT. It is understood that the consultancy made three recommendations to LIAT's pri vate Antiguan owners - either shut the carrier down, financially restructure it or seek government subsidies. The airline has opted for the sec ond course of action, but faces some difficult decisions. The hard est is cutting the size ofLIAT's 963- strong workforce and bringing it into proportion with its three Dash 8-300s and nine -100s, two of which are being withdrawn. • Impulse plans float to fund regional jets PAUL PHELAN/CAIRNS IMPULSE AIRLINES aims to expand into regional j ets and is to fund its growth with a share flota tion, following its severing of links with Ansett Australia last month. Impulse, based in Newcastle, New South Wales, operates feeder and hub-bypass services. It is preparing to raise funds with a pub lic flotation and has applied for a high-capacity air operator cer tificate (AOC). It has also begun discussions about terminal space with key airport operators. The new AOC would allow Impulse, owned by former TNT executive Gerry McGowan, to operate aircraft larger than the 19- seat Raytheon Beech 1900D. Impluse operates 20 Beeches. Impulse plans to expand into jet operations, with airline sources suggesting it is considering the acquisition of 100-seaters - either Boeing 717s or 737-500s. Al though it will not disclose its plan ned fleet or route strategies, Impulse says any new route initia tives will be "incremental, not developmental", suggesting it has no plans to launch a Compass-style assault on the prime routes of Ansett or Qantas. Instead, the airline is likely to build on its strategy of using Newcasde's Williamtown Airport as a hub, rather than Sydney. • FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 3 - 9 November 1999
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