While the airline industry has made progress in setting its house in order, there are "no signs whatsoever" of a clear recovery, Northwest Airlines chief executive Richard Anderson said at the show yesterday.
"The recovery will be a much slower process than we thought," he says. "After 9/11 most people in the industry predicted recovery six months out but they predicted that every six months, so it would be remiss of me to predict anything."
Anderson says there has been progress internationally in cutting capacity. "In particular in the US there has been right-sizing."
Guest
Anderson was at the show as a guest of Airbus. He was previewing Northwest's first Airbus A330-300 parked on the static display for the day.
The aircraft is the first of 24 A330s ordered by Northwest and destined to replace older equipment such as DC-10-30s. It is the first new type introduced into service by the airline in 14 years.
Northwest is a major operator of A320 family aircraft and Anderson says the common cockpit featured in Airbus types offers "significant" savings in terms of pilot training and maintenance. Airbus says it can translate into $1-2 million savings per aircraft.
Source: Flight Daily News
