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Aviation History
2001
2001 - 3689.PDF
• Robert Horowitz has been appointed chief operating officer of Raytheon Aircraft. He was previously vice president opera tions and quality of Raytheon's Electronic Systems business. • Dean Flatt is to replace Mike Smith as the president of Honeywell's Aerospace Electronic Systems business. Smith has retired after 28 years with the company. Flatt is cur rently president and chief executive of Honeywell's Speciality Materials business group. • Fred Buttrell has been named president and chief executive of US regional carrier Delta Connection. He was pre viously the parent airline's senior vice president strategy and busi ness development. Joe Kolshak, formerly Delta's investor relations director has been appointed vice president flight operations at Delta Connection. • Polar Air Cargo has appointed Jim Jensen as president and chief operating officer. He joins Polar, recently acquired by Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings, from Trans World Airlines, where he was senior vice president maintenance and engineering. • Mike Fahey is now Bombardier Aerospace, Business Aircraft's regional vice president, sales for Asia, Africa and the Middle East. He was vice president, international sales for Bombardier's Learjets 31 A, 45 and 60 and the Continental. BUSINESS ITALIAN AIRLINES TOM GILL / LONDON BA affiliate NJl ends flights in ownership change cash crisis But Air Dolomiti unveils new routes as Lufthansa affiliate Air One plans fleet expansion National Jets Italia (NJ1), the Rome- based British Airways franchise car rier, has suspended operations amid a credit crunch in the transition to yet another owner, Dutch group Nikoram Holding. The ending of flights using British Aerospace 146s from Rome to Catania, Genoa, Palermo and Verona follows the grounding last month of both leased Boeing 737-400s serving its Rome-Nice and Rome-Athens routes. NJI has gone through several ownership changes since its start-up in 1999, with the latest prospective owner acquiring the airline from Aviation Partners Worldwide, which itself took over NJI in August. NJI was grounded when banks cut its credit lines, but the company insists it is not bankrupt. Talks with creditors, principally Rome, Catania and Palermo airports, have raised hopes it will restart operations in December. The current picture for Italian regional airlines is mixed. Lufthansa affiliate Air, One, which feeds traffic from Rome to Lufthansa's key hub in Frankfurt, is expected to show strong third-quarter financial results and plans to boost its fleet from 13 to 17 Boeing 737s by year-end. Trieste- based Air Dolomiti, in which Lufthansa holds a 26% stake, is strengthening its role in the lucrative market for Northern Italian pre mium traffic to the German airline. Next month it will add 12 weekly flights between Genoa and Frank furt, and a third daily flight from Frankfurt to Milan-Linate. The in crease roughly balances a 2-3% capacity cut by Lufthansa to Italy since October. Fairchild Dornier 328JET operator Gandalf Airlines continues to strug gle. After shedding routes to Germany in the summer, last week it reported gross operating losses that have widened in the first nine months of this year to L27.4 billion ($13 million) from L24.2 billion for the same period last year. This fall, which came as passenger numbers rose to almost 233,000, nearly 40,000 higher than for the whole of last year, makes Gandalf's bid to increase its capital by €15.5 million ($13.7 million) all the more urgent. The process, has so far only delivered €900,000 of around €3.6 million core shareholders have promised by 15 December. Closer ties with Air France, via codeshare deals between France and Italy, had boosted hopes. However, the start last week of a passenger and cargo codeshare agreement between Alitalia and the French flag carrier does not augur well for Gandalf. Alitalia's move, part of membership in the global airline alliance Sky Team, will see them jointly oper ating 82 flights between France and Italy. The fate of Swissair's loss-making partners in the country, meanwhile, hang in the balance. The sharehold ers of Volare Group, which com prises leisure-market carriers Air Europe and Volare Airlines, last week agreed an L47 billion increase in cap ital to fund existing operations. This was "a signal of confidence to the market", says the airline. But future plans remain on hold while discus sions are "finalised" on an offer made in October by the holders of the 50.2% stake not owned by Swissair to buy the Swiss carrier's stake. The company has not released results this year, but last year Volare posted an operating profit of L800 million, while Air Europe made losses of L18 billion. AIRLINE RESTRUCTURING IGOR SALINGER / BELGRADE JAT announces plans for piecemeal privatisation JAT Yugoslav Airlines is to be privatised gradually, beginning with subsidiary operations JAT Agricul tural Aviation, JAT Catering and JAT Hotels, according to new general manager and chief executive Predrag Vujovic. Speaking publicly for the first time since his appointment last month, Vujovic says other parts of JAT, including airline operations, need at least two years of investment and re organisation before they can be sold on. The airline is in the final stages of reassessing a long-standing deal to purchase new Airbus A320- family aircraft. A decision will be made within "four to five weeks", with number and type dependent on market conditions. Originally the contract was for eight A319s. JAT is beginning to recover from the sanctions imposed on Belgrade. In the nine months to September, it reported losses of around $2 million. Traffic rose 15% to 950,000 com pared with last year, but load factors stayed low at 60%. Poor domestic performance was the prime cause of the losses though Vujovic says fuel costs, which are rising locally despite falls on world markets, also took their toll. The airline has huge debts dating back to before the collapse of Yugoslavia - $208 million from fleet purchases and $90 million in unpaid interest. The Serbian and Yugoslav Governments are seeking to resolve the issue, negotiating with creditors and banks. JAT owns 30 passenger aircraft, a mix of Boeing 727s, 737s, and McDonnell Douglas DC-9s and -10s, of which 10 are in storage or being overhauled and 10 out on wet lease. JAT Agricultural Aviation oper ates 11 Antonov An-2s, a Grumman G164 Ag-Cat and 14 PZL M-18 Dromaders. Vujovic: other parts of JAT must wait www.fliqhtinternational.com FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 20-26 NOVEMBER 2001 25
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