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Wednesday October 28, 2009

US FAA yesterday revoked the licenses of the two Northwest Airlines pilots who flew 150 mi. past their destination on an Oct. 21 flight from San Diego to Minneapolis-St. Paul (ATWOnline, Oct. 27). ATC and airline officials were unable to make contact with the pilots for more than 1 hr. and the crew later told the National Transportation Safety Board that they had been using their laptop computers and were distracted. FAA cited them with a number of violations, including "failing to comply with air traffic control instructions and clearances and operating carelessly and recklessly." The revocations are effective immediately but the pilots have 10 days to appeal to NTSB.

"It was effective immediately because of the issues involved," an FAA spokesperson told ATWOnline. "We thought the emergency revocation was appropriate. This obviously raises the question of the pilots' professionalism, which is one of the issues the Administrator has talked about over the past few months. We can require pilots to adhere to rules and standards but it's difficult to enforce professionalism."

by Sandra Arnoult

IATA reported that airlines experienced "further weakness in financial and market conditions during the third quarter," but noted that "the rate of deterioration did appear to stabilize." In its latest Airline Business Confidence Index released this week, the organization said an October survey of airline CFOs worldwide revealed that "confidence. . .that conditions will improve during the next 12 months rose markedly" compared to the last survey in July. "The gain. . .appears to be supported by evidence of rising economic growth and, so far, capacity restraint which is raising load factors and tightening supply-demand conditions." But it cautioned that "these supports are fragile" and pointed out that "the experience of the third quarter was that at best there was not further deterioration," hardly evidence of a surging recovery. In fact, more than 90% of respondents indicated that profitability fell during the three months ended Sept. 30 owing to "the ongoing effect of weak demand. . .compounded by low yield levels."

Nevertheless, more stable results compared to recent quarters and solid signs this month led more than 73% of surveyed CFOs to say that "profitability over the next 12 months will improve," changed from July when more than 46% predicted "further deterioration in profitability." IATA noted that "this does not mean that a return to profit is expected. It does mean that the majority are now expecting losses to diminish" over the next year. CFOs in different regions had contrary responses, however. For example, "a significant minority of European airlines expected a further deterioration" whereas "all the airlines in Asia expected an improvement," IATA explained.

Vueling Airlines, which merged with Clickair in July (ATWOnline, July 13), posted a third-quarter operating profit of €68.1 million ($102.1 million) compared to EBIT of €24.7 in the year-ago period when it was an independent carrier. Revenue rose 68.6% year-over-year to €259.2 million and operating expenses increased 48.2% to €191.1 million. Unit revenue fell by just 1.3% to 6.97 euro cents as fuel surcharges rose, while CASK sank 13.2% to 5.14 euro cents thanks to dropping oil prices and "cautious" fuel hedges. Third-quarter capacity grew 70.8% to 3.72 billion ASKs as Vueling's fleet rose from 20 to 35 A320s. Traffic increased 75.5% to 2.97 billion RPKs and load factor gained 2.1 points to 80%. The LCC served 47 airports as of Sept. 30, 25 more than on the year-ago date. Operating profit for the nine months to Sept. 30 was €71.9 million compared to a loss of €18.7 million in the year-ago period. The Barcelona-based carrier said "no major changes in the demand situation are foreseen" for the fourth quarter. It expects 2010 results to be "even better" than 2009's.

Copa Airlines expects to make a decision whether to follow Continental Airlines into Star Alliance fairly soon, CEO Pedro Heilbron told ATWOnline on the sidelines of yesterday's Star Alliance-Continental Airlines joining event at Newark. Copa has a very close partnership with CO, a former investor in the Panamanian airline, so much so that it also left SkyTeam on Oct. 24. Heilbron said Copa has two choices: "To remain independent or join Star." Oneworld is not an option owing to the need to remain in partnership with Continental.

by Perry Flint

KLM cityhopper reduced the number of seats on the five F100s that will remain in its fleet to 100 from 103 or 108, allowing it to operate the aircraft with two flight attendants instead of three, a spokesperson confirmed to ATWOnline. The carrier's new E-190LRs are equipped with 100 seats as well. It will take delivery of its eighth E-190 this week and an additional nine by July 2010. It holds 11 options. The Embraer aircraft gradually are replacing the Fokker fleet. Cityhopper's F50s are set to be phased out during the winter schedule.

Oneworld airlines operating to/from London Heathrow will be concentrated in Terminal 3 and Terminal 5 on Thursday, finalizing the alliance's biggest co-location project to date. T3 is the closest existing terminal to T5. T3 is nearing completion of an upgrade designed to bring customer facilities up to a similar standard to those offered at T5. The eight oneworld carriers operated from five different terminals in the past.

Etihad Airways will launch service from Abu Dhabi to Nagoya (via Beijing, four-times-weekly from Feb. 1 increasing to five-times-weekly on March 27) and Tokyo Narita (five-times-weekly on March 27) aboard A330s. They will be its first Japanese destinations.

Air New Zealand and South African Airways reached a codeshare deal under which SAA will place its code on ANZ's daily Auckland-Perth flight and ANZ will put its code on SAA's daily Perth-Johannesburg service. Agreement also covers internal flights to principal cities.

Turkish Airlines flew 29.22 billion RPKs through the first nine months of 2009, up 14.2% from the year-ago period. Capacity rose 20.6% to 41.21 billion ASKs, dropping load factor 4 points to 70.9%.

Iberia flew 4.07 billion RPKs in September, down 8.1% year-over-year, against a 6.3% cut in capacity to 5.16 billion ASKs. Load factor slipped 1.6 points to 79%.

Transaero Airlines flew 2 billion RPKs in September, a 12.2% increase year-over-year, while passenger numbers climbed 4% to 595,000.

Science Applications International Corp. of Virginia said it was awarded a $106 million contract by US FAA "to provide program management and technical services" in support of the NextGen transition. SAIC said its involvement will include work on safety management, aeronautical communications and weather programs.