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Aviation History
1985
1985 - 1239.PDF
Britannia axes 350 jobs AIR TRANSPORT LUTON UK independent Britannia Airways is to cut 350 staff from its 2,400-strong work force and reduce its number of 737s from 27 to 22. It cites disappointing holiday book ings because of high levels of unemployment in industrial areas, the miners' strike, and the weakness of sterling as reasons for the cutbacks; but its main grievance is "poaching" of customers by British Airways' charter subsidiary British Airtours. The axe will strike hardest in Britannia's engineering department, among no.l cabin attendants and some pilots, but a Britannia spokes woman stresses that most of the 350 should be absorbed through voluntary redun dancy or early retirement schemes. She adds that Britannia was forced to make the cuts because of "unfair compe tition" from British Airtours, which has increased its number of flights to holiday destinations. The fault lies with the UK Government, Britannia claims, for licensing BA on these routes and its failure to protect the indepen dent's interests. Last September Air Europe was forced to cut its fleet and staff numbers because of what it said was predatory behaviour by BA. British Airtours strongly denies the indepen dents' claims. Britannia, wholly owned by holiday company the Thomson Group, has a 40 per cent market share of the European charter market. It carried about 4-5 million passengers last year. British Airtours, which operates TriStars and 737s, has a 15 per cent share and in 1984 carried 2 million passengers. Britannia points out that it had already sold two of the five 727s earlier last year to Guinness Peat, one of which is now flying with Welsh char ter operator Airways Inter national Cymru. • Air Europe has won CAA approval to begin London/ Gatwick-Gibraltar schedules from November 1 this year, Initially offering two flights a week with 737s. Its London- Palma schedule will be inau gurated on May 2. Welsh charter operator Airways International Cymru, one year old in May, bought this ex-Britannia 737-200 from Guinness Peat, It also flies two BAe One-Elevens and all three aircraft are operating charters to such destinations as the Greek Islands and Tenerife. It carried 75,000 passengers with the two One-Elevens in 1984, and recently load factors have been averaging 90 per cent. Last week the airline took on 35 more cabin crew MARKET PLACE American Airlines has revised its order for seven more Boeing 767-200s to ER versions, to be delivered three years sooner than planned, in 1986. The seven will initially serve on American's US domestic routes, but a spokes man says that the airline is studying overwater twin oper ations with the possibility of dedicating one or two of the aircraft to European services from Chicago/DFW to Frankfurt or Paris. Chair man Robert Crandall has talked of flying the 200ER on a proposed new Chicago- Manchester, UK service. As part of its European expan sion programme American Airlines is now seeking Department of Transport approval to begin scheduled services to Madrid. For US domestic routes American's -200ERs will be configured to hold a total of 204 passengers in first class and coach, while for international routes it will accommodate 181 seats in a three-class layout. Lufthansa subsidiary DLT has become the first European customer for the Embraer Brasilia having concluded a contract for five of the type plus five options. Deliveries will begin in 1986 (see Flight, page 3, March 2). As a result of its Brasilia and Fokker F.50 purchase (DLT has also ordered six of these), Lufthansa's 26 per cent share in the airline will go up to 40 per cent because of the money Lufthansa is providing for the new fleet purchases. Lufthansa claims it chose the aircraft because with a speed of 546km/hr it was faster than its competitors; also that 90 per cent of the Brasilia's flightdeck electronics are identical to the F.50's, which makes life easier with pilot training. DLT's Brasilias will be configured for 28 seats, serving on domestic and European routes. Air Queensland has con firmed its order for four Aerospatiale/AeritaliaATR42s and taken an option on three more of the type. The contract is worth A$50 million (£26 • 3 million) including £1 • 5 million worth of spares. AQ will accept the first aircraft in 1986, gradually replacing its fleet of DC-3s and F.27s. Air Queensland has also expressed an interest in the ATRST stretch, which would seat between 66 and 70 passengers over a 700 n.m. range (see World News). The ATR42 orderbook now totals 57 aircraft plus 26 options. NEWS SCAN The China Airlines 747, which was badly damaged on February 16 when it plunged from 41,000ft to 9,000ft over the Pacific (Flight, March 2, page 4), is expected to be back in service soon. Vought Aero Products of Dallas has completed a new set of hori zontal stabilisers to replace those broken during the uncontrolled dive. The UK Civil Aviation Authority has tightened up the rules governing hand baggage on British- regis tered aircraft in response to the growing quantity of per sonal luggage being brought into the cabin. In future items only which can be "stowed and secured in approved stow age compartments" will be permitted to reduce the risk of injury in turbulence or during an emergency. Swiss regional Crossair will launch services on two new routes in May. The daily Lugano-Nice service will be operated with an 18-seat Metro III and the daily Basle- Lugano service with an SF- 340. Olympic Airways has launched a twice-weekly Athens-Damascus service using 737s. Correction: An entry in the table of non-fatal accidents/ incidents to scheduled flights (Flight, January 26, page 41) was inadvertently repeated. The correct date of the inci dent in which Philippine Airlines BAe One-Eleven RP- C1182 overran the runway at Tacloban City was August 4. The entry was repeated with the erroneous date of August 20. The wrong caption was put to one of the pictures on the Swedair article last week (Flight, April 20, page 41). The "Learjet" was a Mitsubishi Mu-2. FLIGHT International, 27 April 1985
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