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Aviation History
2004
2004-09 - 1896.PDF
AIR TRANSPORT CARGO UEITHEN FRANCIS / BEIJING Germany to invest in new Chinese freight operation Lufthansa Cargo and Shenzhen Airlines joint venture will be country's first foreign deal Germany's government will be an equity holder in a new Chinese freight carrier that Lufthansa Cargo and Shenzhen Airlines are plan ning to establish in the south of the country. This will be the first time a Chinese carrier has estab lished an airline in China in part nership with a foreign company. Lufthansa Cargo confirms that Deutsche Investitions Entwicklungs- gesellschaft (DEG), a division of KfW Bankengruppe, will own 24% of the yet-to-be-named cargo airline that will operate from the southern city of Shenzhen, where Lufthansa already operates an international air freight terminal in joint venture partnership with the airport. Lufthansa Cargo will own 25% of the new cargo airline and Shenzhen Airlines will have 51%. DEG is the division of KfW that is 80%-owned by the German govern ment and is a finance and consult ing corporation for German devel- Air services agreement due Germany's government has been negotiating a new air services agree ment with China that could benefit the new cargo carrier. Last month, Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) negotia tors agreed in principle with their German counterparts on cargo rights, but the deal has yet to be signed formally. In recent months China has been more willing to award fifth-freedom rights for cargo to allow flights beyond the country. This year it has granted such rights to Australia, Thailand and the USA. opment policy. Its aim is to promote growth in second- and third-world countries through private sector development. A formal announcement of the deal had been expected imminently, but has been delayed because some details are still to be finalised. But the plan is still to announce it by year-end in Beijing with the help of Chinese government officials. Lufthansa Cargo wants to estab lish a cargo hub in Shenzhen because it is one of the cities desig nated by the CAAC as an interna tional cargo hub. Shenzhen Airlines, which is a passenger carrier, is tak ing part because it was already plan ning to enter the cargo business. Last year Shenzhen looked to lease its own Airbus A300-600 freighters, but scrapped those plans and opted instead to work with Lufthansa Cargo because it realised it lacked the expertise to run a dedi cated freight operation. ORDER VICTORIA M00RES & JUSTIN WASTNAGE / VIENNA Copa poised to buy Embraer190s Panamanian carrier Copa Airlines is expected to place an order for 10 Embraer 190 regional jets, after GE Aircraft Engines revealed it had received an order from the airline for CF34-10Es to power the aircraft. Copa could unveil an order for the 100-seat aircraft - its first non- Boeing type - within the next month, say industry sources. Speaking at the European Regions Airline Association's (ERA) general assembly in Vienna, Ronald Hutter, GE general manager, small single-aisle marketing, listed the order to power 10 Embraer 190s among its firm commitments for 2004. Neither Embraer nor Copa has confirmed the deal, however. The Copa deal takes GE to 410 firm orders for engines this year, and Hutter says it expects to meet its target of 450 commitments for the year, which is level with last year's performance. But the "real growth" is in the 70- to 90-seater aircraft market, he adds. DELIVERY 170 arrives United Express operator Republic Airways has taken delivery of the first of 22 Embraer 170s on order. The aircraft are configured in a mixed-class, 70-seat layout with six first-class, 16 econ omy-plus and 48 economy seats. The airline holds options for 28 more aircraft. FUEL COSTS Airlines 'set to lose up to $4 billion' The International Air Transport Association has warned that the surge in traffic in the first eight months of 2004 is not enough to offset spiralling fuel costs and the world's airlines are set to lose as much as $4 billion this year, writes Max Kingsley-Jones. IATA director general Giovanni Bisignani says the rise of 18.7% in international passenger traffic and 14.2% in international cargo traffic over the first eight months of 2004 "is well beyond our expectations, but will not mitigate the high cost of fuel. We expect the airline industry [domestic and international] will lose between $3 billion and $4 billion in 2004." The association points out that this year's high growth fig ures are partially exaggerated by the comparison to a period in 2003 that was severely depressed because of the SARS crisis. But it adds that the indications of healthy traffic growth "are clearly evident in the August performance". Year-on- year for August, passenger traffic grew by 10.8%, while freight was up 13.6%. IATA points out that compar isons with the year 2000, which was the last year not affected by any industry crises, confirms that several years of growth have been lost, with January- August 2004 passenger traffic only 8.4% above 2000 levels for the same period. Bisignani says the the industry has "done a great job" in reduc ing non-fuel unit costs, which fell 2.5% in 2003, and look set to drop a further 3% this year, but warns: "The high price of fuel is eating up these gains and more." He has called for lATA's partners and governments to work in tandem to overcome the problems. "Airports and air navigation providers must achieve the same efficiency gains as the air lines. Governments must come to grips with more structural issues like security, insurance and liberalisation," he says. www.fliqhtinternational.com FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 5-11 OCTOBER 2004 13
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