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Wednesday June 29, 2005

Volga-Dnepr Group signed a 15-year financial agreement with Ilyushin Finance Corp. to become launch customer for the IL-96-400T with an order for two of the freighters. The first is due to be delivered in late 2006. The IL-96-400T will have a cargo capacity of 92 tonnes and a range of 5,000 km. It will be powered by four PC-90A1 engines. It will be used by AirBridge Cargo, Volga-Dnepr's scheduled cargo airline, to enhance its expanding network. The contract was signed by Volga-Dnepr Group President Alexey Isaikin and IFC General Director Alexander Rubtsov.

Qatar Airways will add 11 weekly frequencies to India following the recent successful round of bilateral discussions between the countries. Qatar currently operates 19 scheduled flights a week between Doha and Cochin, Trivandrum, Hyderabad and Mumbai. From July 14 it will add New Delhi with seven services a week, flown initially with A320s in a 144-seat, two-class configuration and later with A330s offering three classes of service. From July 15, the Mumbai route will increase from six services a week to daily with the introduction of a new Friday night flight from Doha. Cochin, currently served thrice-weekly, will be boosted with two additional weekly departures beginning July 18. On July 21, a fourth weekly frequency will be added to the Hyderabad schedule.

British Airways is stepping up competition with LCCs on its London-based short-haul network with the launch of a new winter service to Grenoble Dec. 10 with prices from £79 ($143.43) return. The fives-times-weekly flights will operate from Gatwick with a two-class 737-500.

Virgin Express will resume service between Brussels and Berlin Schoenefeld Sept. 5. The decision was taken by the management board following a joint network review with SN Brussels Airlines, the carrier said in a statement. SN Brussels will continue to operate a four-times-daily rotation to Berlin Tempelhof. Since April, Virgin Express and SN Brussels have been under the common ownership of SN Airholding (ATWOnline, April 13). Virgin Express initially will fly once daily on the route and will double its service from October. Flights will use 142-seat 737-300s or 164-seat 737-400s depending on market demand.

Bmi confirmed plans to launch services from London Heathrow to Riyadh from Sept. 1. "I am delighted to confirm the expansion of our long-haul network from Heathrow following the successful launch of our Heathrow-Mumbai service last month," CEO Nigel Turner said, pointing out that bmi will be the only British carrier offering scheduled services to Saudi Arabia. British Airways suspended its flights between Heathrow and Jeddah and Riyadh from March 27 owing to reduced passenger demand. Bmi will operate a thrice-weekly service using a three-class A330.

American Eagle will begin daily nonstop service between Chattanooga and Dallas/Ft. Worth Aug. 1 using 44-seat ERJ-140s.

Air Berlin will add a 12th destination in Spain to its network. From Nov. 1 it will start daily services from Santiago de Compostela to its hub in Palma de Mallorca.

Bulgarian Air Charter increased its MD-80 fleet

Virgin Atlantic said business-class travel increased 26% in its last financial year. During the 12 months ended Feb. 28, the airline carried 352,095 Upper Class passengers, up from 279,714 in the previous 12 months. This produced an Upper Class load factor of 56%, "the highest enjoyed by the airline since 2000," it noted.

Korean Air reported a 5.5% increase to 4.04 billion RPKs in May. Despite a drop in domestic traffic and slowing passenger flow to Japan and Southeast Asia, traffic between Korea and China jumped 32% to 204.4 million RPKs. Capacity between the two countries also climbed, rising 14.5% to 292.5 million ASKs. Capacity on European operations was up 24.1% while RPKs increased 15.9%. To the US, ASKs grew 14.9% and RPKs 7.1%.

SriLankan Airlines Cargo Center at Bandaranaike International Airport handled an all-time high 146,883 metric tons of cargo in 2004. Previously, the highest total the carrier handled was 127,116 tonnes in 2000. The company said it expects to handle even more cargo this year.

Kingfisher Airlines signed a five-year contract with SITA INC for VHF AIRCOM data link services. According to the airline, SITA was selected because of its ability to provide nationwide VHF data communications coverage. SITA has four VHF ground stations operational at Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Calcutta with two more being installed at Port Blair and Trivandrum. SITA INC is now in the process of installing VHF stations at 17 new sites in India as well as upgrading existing sites.

Lufthansa received the go-ahead yesterday to build a maintenance hangar to handle the A380 at Frankfurt. The administrative court of Kassel rejected opposition to the project from local authorities and environmental groups, upholding the state of Hesse's approval last November of the planned building. "Construction of the hangar will be able to start as scheduled in the autumn. Lufthansa will invest around €150 million ($182 million) in the new hangar," a spokesperson told ATWOnline. LH expects that the hangar will be ready when it takes delivery of the first of 15 A380s, expected to occur in the autumn of 2007.

Lufthansa Technik Malta, a joint venture between Lufthansa Technik AG and Air Malta, will add a second production line by the third quarter of 2006. Effective in July, LHT will raise its share in the JV to 75% from 51%. Air Malta's stake accordingly will be reduced to 25%. LHT Malta operates as a Center of Excellence and provides C checks for 737 Classics, 737NGs and the A320 family. It was established in 2002 and employs 110.

Sabre Airline Solutions reported sales through SabreSonic Web for the five months ended May 31 totaled more than $1.5 billion.

Telair International was selected by Boeing to design and manufacture the cargo handling system for the 747 Large Cargo Freighter, the specially modified 747-400 that will transport major assemblies for the 787. According to Boeing, the system's design features "intelligent" power drive units networked through a control system that allows them to communicate with one another. This enables safe and nonlabor-intensive loading and unloading of the aircraft as well as simplifying system maintenance.

ASI Entertainment's wholly owned subsidiary ASiQ Pty. Ltd. and EMS Satcom, a division of EMS Technologies, signed a letter of intent under which ASiQ selected EMS Satcom's eNfusion HSD-128 high-speed data solution for the ASiQnet Saudi Arabian Airlines program to provide global inflight Internet connectivity for the carrier.