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Aviation History
2000
2000-1 - 1660.PDF
AIR TRANSPORT NEWS IN BRIEF • ANZ PROFITS WARNING Air New Zealand chairman Sir Selwyn Cushing has warned shareholders that the airline will suffer a further slump in profitability due to rising fuel costs, weak Aust ralian and New Zealand cur rencies, restructuring costs from the absorption of Ansett and increased competition. If fuel prices are sustained, fuel costs for financial year 2001 will be $100 million above budget, despite hedging pro grammes, says Cushing. Investors at the 1 November annual general meeting were told that first-quarter results were behind budget, and foreshadowed a full year trading profit "substantially lower than last year". • PANTARES ALLIANCE Amsterdam and Frankfurt airports have named their alliance Pantares. Announced in December last year, the alliance will offer services in six areas: passengers and retailing, ground handling and cargo; real estate devel opment; facility manage ment; information and communications technology (ICT) and international activities. Two joint ventures will be launched soon, one for retail management and the other for ICT. The partners say the alliance will in future be open to other airports. • NATS AT LUTON The UK's National Air Traf fic Services (NATS) has won a 10-year contract to provide air traffic control at Luton Airport. More than 50 of the airport operator's staff have transferred to NATS. • B/E SEATED B/E Aerospace is to refurbish over 7,000 passenger seats for an unnamed Pacific Rim region airline. B/E is to pro vide modification kits and engineering services to allow the airline to add "amenities" to seats in 20 Boeing 747s. Iraq restarts internal flights following eight-year break GERALD BUTT/NICOSIA IRAQI AIRWAYS is to restart internal flights on 5 November linking Iraq's capital, Baghdad, with Basra in the south and Mosul in the north, after an eight-year break. Airline chairman, Iyad Hamam, says that one return flight a day will operate to each city for the first week, "with die option of expand ing the service if die demand is suf ficient." Single fares are priced at Iraqi dinars (ID) 12,500 to Basra and ID 10,000 to Mosul - about $10.75 and $10.00, respectively, at current exchange rates. Most of Iraqi Airways' fleet has been grounded at airports outside the country since Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and the Gulf war in 1991. Hamam says the airline's operational fleet "consists of nine aircraft: one Ilyushin 11-76, one Antonov An-26 and seven heli copters - Pumas and Mi-17s". The Iraqi authorities have recendy refurbished Saddam International Airport in Baghdad, i 11-7 6s have already been used for pilgrimage flights to Mecca along with the airports at Basra and Mosul, repairing damage caused to passenger terminals and radio and navigation equipment during die Gulf war. Internal flights were stopped in mid-1992 after the USA, UK and France imposed no-fly zones in die nordi and soudi of die country. But UN officials in New York indicated on 3 0 October that die resumption of civilian flights to Basra and Mosul in the two zones would not conflict with the Security Council's air embargo on Iraq. Over recent years, Iraqi Airways has operated a handful of flights with its 11-76 through the southern exclusion zone without seeking advance approval, taking Muslim pilgrims to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. The number of countries ignor ing the UN embargo on flights to Iraq increased sharply ahead of the start of an international trade fair in Baghdad in the first week of November. On 1 November, the prime minister of Jordan, Ali Abu Ragheb, arrived in die Iraqi capital in a Royal Jordanian aircraft - die most senior official from the inter national community to challenge the UN ban. The previous day, seven foreign aircraft landed at Saddam International Airport - from Ireland, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Lebanon, plus three from Russia. • Mesa links with Midwest Express US REGIONAL Mesa Air Group is to codeshare with Midwest Express Airlines from its hub at Kansas City, Missouri. The once-struggling carrier has also expanded and extended its code- share agreements widi US Airways. Mesa's Air Midwest subsidiary, which already operates as a US Airways Express carrier at Kansas City, will carry Midwest Express' code on regional turboprop flights to 14 destinations from the first quarter of next year. The two code- shared until 1993, when Mesa began to experience operational and financial problems. Midwest Express, which already has hubs in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Omaha, Nebraska, began services from Kansas City late last mondi widi flights to seven cities. The carrier's own Skyway Airlines regional subsidiary began services to three cities at the same time. The Air Midwest codeshare services will not duplicate those already operated by Skyway and will allow Midwest Express to build its Kansas City presence rapidly, the airline says. Mesa, meanwhile, has reached agreement to add four regional jets to its US Airways Express services, which had been capped at 28 air craft, all 50-seat EmbraerERJ- 145s. The terms of its codeshare contract have been extended by 18 months, from 2007 to 2008. US Airways has also extended Mesa's codeshare agreement for turboprop flying in Kansas City for five years, to 2005. Two other codeshare agreements have been extended. J UPS/Boeing deal may be worth $2 billion UNITED PARCEL Service (UPS) has concluded a deal to acquire up to 35 used Boeing MD- 11 converted freighters, as first reported in Flight International (17- 23 October). Over the next four years, UPS will acquire 13 pre- owned MD-11 s from Boeing, to be delivered between 2001 and 2004. An option for 22 additional MD- 1 Is is included in the terms of die deal, and, if exercised, die value of the agreement could reach $2 bil lion. The optional aircraft would be delivered between 2005 and 2010. Most of the aircraft to be con verted are believed to be from Delta Air Lines, which operates 15 MD-11 s. UPS plans to use the air craft on flights from the USA to Europe and Asia. J FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 7 - 13 November 2000
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