News from FlightGlobal – Page 2289
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Argentina and USA talk again
Argentinian and US negotiators will meet again after failing to agree on a new bilateral. Earlier this year, presidents Bill Clinton and Carlos Menem asked their negotiators to wrap up an accord by March, which they hoped would result in an open skies agreement. A main sticking point is ...
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Micronesia faces change
Aviation ministers from four island nations in Micronesia are considering the launch of a joint regional airline to safeguard air transport in the region, now apparently heading toward less certain times. Ministers from the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru and Kiribati have retained an Australian-based ...
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Pilots hamper TAP privatisation
SAirGroup has agreed to take a stake in Tap Air Portugal, but a dispute over pilots' pay may jeopardise the Portuguese carrier's fragile profitability and remaining privatisation plans. As expected, Swissair's parent is to cement its relationship with the Portuguese flag carrier by taking a 20% stake, pending ...
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Iberia sues pilots for strike damages
Iberia is the second major airline in less than two months to sue its pilots, but American Airlines pilots have jumped to their help. Spanish pilots' union Sepla, which has announced a halt in months of escalating industrial action, is facing a possible fine of Ptas4.3 billion ($29 ...
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Alitalia defends Italy
Alitalia is considering setting up a southern Italian regional operation which observers believe may be a defensive action against similar plans by British Airways. Alitalia is carrying out a feasibility study, to be completed in June, into setting up a regional operation connecting southern Italy with other destinations ...
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News in Brief
Slot exchange - A UK high court has ruled that the former Air UK, now KLM uk, did not illegally sell its Guernsey slots at London Heathrow to British Airways. According to the presiding judge in the case brought by Guernsey, the fact that the exchange was unequal - Air ...
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LOT sell-off revived
The Polish Government has revived plans to privatise its national carrier LOT, six years after the sell-off was first announced. It aims to raise capital for the carrier and get it into a global alliance. According to Treasury Minister Alicja Kornasiewicz, a search for a partner is to ...
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Time to talk about the scope clause
Union limits on the scale and scope of regional flying are due to be brought out into the open as US regional carriers prepare to meet in Phoenix. How times have changed. In the not too distant past, regional airlines were the minnows of the aviation world, flying on "hometown" ...
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Link to the future
Europe's air traffic control datalink work is forging on Kieran Daly/COPENHAGEN and STOCKHOLM Processing in loose line astern up the east Swedish coast through the broken cloud of a winter Sunday morning, our four-strong formation is something of an oddity: a light twin turboprop flat out at 240kt (440km/h), tailed ...
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Air China joins prospective A318 launchers
Air China has signed a tentative agreement with Airbus Industrie and Pratt & Whitney to order eight PW6000-powered A318 twinjets as a trade-in for four Boeing 747SPs. A second potential launch customer, Air France, has asked CFM International to offer the CFM56-5A as an alternative powerplant (Flight International, 21-27 ...
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Old pals act
Just when it seemed that Philippine Airlines was on a plausible road to recovery, the road has been spiked by the carrier's major shareholder. Controversial beer and tobacco mogul Lucio Tan is one of the wealthiest men in the Philippines. He already owns about 70% of the Philippines national ...
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Herculean task
The European Commission's air transport liberalisation programme can justly claim to have succeeded with its legal framework to allow airline competition. To critical observers, the results can be clearly seen through improved attitudes to the passenger and to quality of service, aircraft condition and operational efficiency. The architects ...
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New York's New Air aims for new year start with Airbuses
Ramon Lopez/WASHINGTON DC New Air, which plans to launch low-fare services from New York Kennedy International in January, has ordered 25 Airbus Industrie A320 family aircraft worth an estimated $1 billion. The new US entrant also holds 25 options and 25 purchase rights on A320 family aircraft, with ...
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Varig shakes up aircraft plans as economy bites
Paul Lewis/RIO DE JANEIRO Varig has dropped plans to lease two new Boeing 777s and is negotiating with the manufacturer to reschedule deliveries of other newly ordered aircraft. The airline is also planning to restructure further its ancillary operations in the face of Brazil's recent economic difficulties. The Brazilian flag ...
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African Star ships in aircraft as it claims licence approval
Hilka Birns/CAPE TOWN South Africa's first independent and majority black-owned international airline, African Star, may have jumped the gun by announcing that the government has granted it an international air service licence. According to sources at the country's transport department, Pretoria's Air Services Licensing Council has given only ...
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European airlines call for ATC rethink
Emma Kelly/LONDON The Association of European Airlines (AEA) has called for a radical rethink on European air traffic control (ATC), after the latest capacity and delay predictions. European air navigation organisation Eurocontrol had originally targeted accommodating 8% more traffic this year, compared with the previous year, with a ...
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Cargolux takes stock exchange route for fleet recapitalisation
Freight airline Cargolux plans to go to the stock exchange later this year, with the aim of raising $100-$150 million to help fund the expansion of its fleet from seven to 12 Boeing 747-400Fs by 2002. The Luxembourg carrier's vice-president for strategy, Lucien Schummer, says the cash will be raised ...
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Humbled Korean Air stages management upheaval
Andrzej Jeziorski/SINGAPORE After the latest of a string of air safety disasters, Korean Air (KAL) is undergoing a management shake-up in an attempt to convince politicians, passengers and partners that it is turning over a new leaf. Chairman and founder Cho Choong-Hoon has resigned, "taking the entire responsibility ...
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Alliance attacks US pilot scope clauses
Graham Warwick/WASHINGTON DC Pilot contract scope clauses, which limit the number of regional jets US airlines can operate, are to come under attack from a widely based alliance to be unveiled at the US Regional Airlines Association meeting in Phoenix, Arizona, in May. The "Proposition RJ" alliance plans to lobby ...
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Subduing the shunto
With crisis gripping Japan's airlines, even the trade unions are unwilling to fight cost-cutting measures Andrzej Jeziorski/TOKYO Springtime in Japan is traditionally marked not only by the flowering of cherry blossom, but by the stirrings of industrial unrest. This year's strike season, known locally as "shunto", should be well under ...