All Safety News – Page 1230

  • News

    US majors fight for new China routes

    2000-04-01T00:00:00Z

    KAREN WALKER WASHINGTON DC The availability of rights for 10 new weekly non-stop flights between the USA and China has pitched US passenger airlines into an unusual battle against cargo carriers. Under an updated US-China aviation agreement, China is granting the US Government the 10 new flights as well ...

  • News

    Canada proposes tougher rules

    2000-04-01T00:00:00Z

    DAVID KNIBB SEATTLE Canada's transport administration, Transport Canada, proposes to rewrite the country's aviation laws, but the Competition Bureau thinks it is not enough. In response to Air Canada's takeover of Canadian Airlines, a parliamentary committee has completed a review of the laws. Ottawa believes these need revision to ...

  • News

    Struggling VASP looks to domestic market

    2000-04-01T00:00:00Z

    BRIAN HOMEWOOD RIO DE JANEIRO VASP, Brazil's third-biggest airline, is struggling to maintain its credibility after a run of embarrassing problems caused by an apparent lack of cash. The beleaguered airline, which has cut several international routes and returned four Boeing MD-11s, nearly had its landing rights suspended at Brazilian ...

  • News

    Taiwan-Philippines dispute back on

    2000-04-01T00:00:00Z

    Scheduled flights between the Philippines and Taiwan have again been halted as a dispute over capacity has re-erupted. China Airlines, EVA Airways and Philippine Airlines all suspended services between Taipei and Manila in mid-March, one month after resuming them. This followed a settlement to a dispute between Taiwan's Civil Aeronautics ...

  • News

    All parcelled up

    2000-04-01T00:00:00Z

    PETER CONWAY LONDON The long awaited shake-out in the logistics sector could be about tore-write the rules for airline cargo departments and express operators alike When Ocean Group and NFC, two UK companies with global logistics businesses, announced a merger a month ago, it probably did not create much ...

  • News

    Back from the Brink

    2000-04-01T00:00:00Z

    NICHOLAS IONIDES JAKARTA President-director Abdulgani, at the helm of Garuda Indones President-director Abdulgani does not mince his words about Garuda Indonesia's troubles over the past few years. "If changes had not happened, Garuda may have collapsed - it really was that serious. Garuda has had deep financial and big ...

  • News

    Balancing act

    2000-04-01T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • News

    Blue sky thinking

    2000-04-01T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • News

    Scramble for AeroPeru routes starts

    2000-04-01T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • News

    Play by the rules

    2000-04-01T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • News

    Placing your bets on fuel

    2000-04-01T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • News

    Lawyers question trend to prosecute over safety

    2000-04-01T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • News

    Hushkit row threatens to boil over

    2000-04-01T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • News

    Travel agents hit back at Iberia's Internet ticket sales

    2000-04-01T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • News

    EASA delayed by debate over powers

    2000-04-01T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • News

    Plan set to solve dispute over Italian flight transfer

    2000-04-01T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • News

    British Midland steps up bid for transatlantic rights

    2000-04-01T00:00:00Z

    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, ...

  • News

    Tokyo's runway slots awarded

    2000-04-01T00:00:00Z

    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 - ...

  • News

    Vietnam-USA seal deal

    2000-04-01T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • News

    Life at the top

    2000-04-01T00:00:00Z

    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 ...