All Safety News – Page 1231
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Balancing act
ALAN GEORGE BRUSSELS While keen to work within a global framework, Europe has its own environmental agenda, says Eckard Seebohm, the man charged with leading aviation environmental policy in Brussels For Europe, at least, next year's assembly of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), will mark a defining moment in ...
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Blue sky thinking
Colin Baker LONDON The aims of Europe's environmental policy have been There is little argument that last November's policy paper on transport and the environment from the European Commission was a comprehensive piece of work. Yet, while the air transport industry may agree on the broad aim of a ...
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Scramble for AeroPeru routes starts
Almost a year after AeroPeru stopped flying, Lima has revoked the airline's operating permit and confirmed that its international routes are available for re-allocation. For TACA Peru and LanPeru, the move comes none too soon. The director general for air transport (DGTA) delayed cancelling AeroPeru's permit because a group ...
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Play by the rules
David Knibb WASHINGTON DC As momentum grows to liberalise the skies, the rules for fair and open competition become more important. But few agree on what they should be. When Grupo TACA accused Continental Airlines last November of predatory pricing and capacity dumping, a charge the latter denied, it ...
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Placing your bets on fuel
Oil price changes can have a fundamental impact on the industry, argues Chris Tarry of Commerzbank. You do not have to spend long in airline boardrooms to realise that the oil price hike has been a painful experience for carriers everywhere. Already the fuel hike is being cited as a ...
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Lawyers question trend to prosecute over safety
DAVID KNIBB WASHINGTON DC US lawyers are raising concerns over a growing tension between air safety and criminal law. An 80% rise in US airline fines in 1999 and a jury's conviction of SabreTech for its role in a ValuJet crash have drawn attention to a trend by prosecutors to ...
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Hushkit row threatens to boil over
COLIN BAKER LONDON The simmering row between the USA and Brussels over the issue of engines hushkitted to meet Chapter III noise standards has escalated, with the USA carrying out its threat to issue a complaint through the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). ICAO president Dr Assad Kotaite has carried ...
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Travel agents hit back at Iberia's Internet ticket sales
BARRY CROSS LONDON Spanish flag carrier Iberia launched its first aggressive Internet sales campaign at the end of February, offering 150,000 seats to 30 destinations at discounts of up to 40%. To qualify, passengers simply had to book online. Travel agents reacted with a week's ban on Iberia ticket ...
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EASA delayed by debate over powers
ALAN GEORGE BRUSSELS The protracted project to create a European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) now seems unlikely to come to fruition until 2002 at the earliest. It still remains uncertain whether the new body will be an agency of the European Commission (EC), or, as originally envisaged, an international agency ...
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Plan set to solve dispute over Italian flight transfer
BARRY CROSS LONDON A new plan may have solved the long-running saga over the transfer of flights from Milan's Linate Airport to the new hub at Malpensa. The so-called Plan B is to be implemented on 20 April, even though the airlines involved are still far from happy. The ...
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British Midland steps up bid for transatlantic rights
COLIN BAKER LONDON British Midland (BM) has raised the stakes in its quest for transatlantic services from London Heathrow with a $1.2 billion order for four long-haul Airbus A330s. The order is despite the failure of the US and UK governments to reach an open skies "mini-deal" earlier this year, ...
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Tokyo's runway slots awarded
Japan's transport ministry has allocated 48 of the 57 valuable new slots to be made available over the next two years at Tokyo's congested domestic hub Haneda Airport ahead of the opening of a third runway in July. As expected, new carriers Skymark Airlines and Hokkaido International Airlines - ...
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Vietnam-USA seal deal
NICHOLAS IONIDES ATI SINGAPORE Vietnam and the USA have finally signed a bilateral to allow codesharing. That could be the prelude to a full air-services accord when talks resume in June. The codeshare agreement was signed early in March in Hanoi and is described as a "memorandum of discussions", although ...
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Life at the top
KAREN WALKER SINGAPORE Airbus is right to feel proud of its 1999 performance, as it overtook Boeing on new orders. But the fight to stay on top will be fierce. If Airbus Industrie's managers find the heights to which they climbed in 1999 overwhelming, they show no signs of vertigo ...
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EU fuel tax proposal criticised
A proposal by the European Commission that individual member states take steps to levy tax on aviation fuel has been criticised as "confused and confusing" by the Association of European Airlines. The proposal, a follow-up to the wide-ranging Communication issued at the end of last year, calls for member states ...
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Dragonair fleet expansion challenges Cathay Pacific
Nicholas Ionides ATI SINGAPORE Hong Kong's Dragonair has confirmed a major fleet expansion in what observers say is a clear sign that the carrier intends to mount a more direct challenge to the dominance of the former colony's de facto flag carrier, Cathay Pacific Airways. China-controlled Dragonair announced details of ...
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Hungary for a change?
Tom Gill BUDAPEST With a new chief executive and new investors on the horizon, things might be looking up for Malév Ferenc Kovacs is cautiously confident. Appointed Malév's chief executive in October after 23 years with the company, he is well aware of the many false starts that the Hungarian ...
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Back to Business: Alan Mulally, president of Boeing Commercial Airplanes
For Alan Mulally, president of Boeing Commercial Airplanes Group, this is the year the company can finally put its troubles behind it with new launches, a growing services business and, above all, a renewed focus on the customer
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Soft Landing
Tom Gill and Colin Baker LONDON There are all the classic signs of a downturn in the cycle, with aircraft prices weakening and deliveries slowing, but this time it looks more like a gentle decline rather than bust When the airline industry cycle last turned down a decade ago, it ...
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Spain set for regional battle
Andrew Doyle/GERONA Boeing is close to securing a second European airline customer for its 717 following Spanish regional start-up AB Bluestar's announcement that it intends to order six of the twinjets and take nine options. Spanish rival Air Nostrum, meanwhile, has concluded a major deal with Canada's Bombardier ...