Strategy – Page 1124
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Growing up
The flag carriers of the scattered Pacific islands are maturing and learning how to cooperate both with one another and major airlines. However, geography and colonial legacies remain the biggest obstacles to their future development. David Knibb reports. Isolation makes the scattered Pacific islands different from all other developing countries. ...
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EVA enjoys the fruits of youth
If spectacular improvements in efficiency and productivity are a measure of success, then on the surface at least Taiwan's international newcomer EVA Airways appears to be setting new standards. Productivity, measured in terms of revenue per employee, soared 62 per cent last year. Unit costs plunged 21 per cent and ...
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Profit share: a stroke of genius
Singapore Airlines' chairman J Y Pillay has absolutely no doubt that in an unforgiving airline industry, survival rests on the continuing struggle to improve productivity and keep ahead of costs. And there can be little doubt that Pillay's message is getting through at an airline which consistently turns in some ...
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Growth spurs on drive for cuts
Air Canada, in the midst of a significant growth phase, is attempting to counteract the costs of expansion with employee productivity gains and new technology. Air Canada expects to double its transborder service to the US within the next three years and in recent months has added new flights ...
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Get smart inside the system!
For Northwest Airlines, record profits this year have been less a result of recent, company-wide efficiency programmes than of a series of initiatives - including route restructuring, employee concessions and alliance-building - stretching back several years. Nonetheless, 'smarter' flying and pricing have produced lower costs and higher yields for the ...
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China cuts its numbers
Beijing has formally declared its intent to consolidate China's airlines after two years moving in that direction. The number is set to shrink by 40 per cent, but more carriers are likely to receive international designation as well. Li Zhao, deputy director of the Civil Aviation Administrat- ion ...
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Cape crusaders
Helped by the traffic boom, South Africa's domestic carriers are expanding into regional markets. By Sara Guild.Like most South African businesses in the post-apartheid, post-general election period, the domestic airlines are looking for opportunities - outside South Africa. Although international foreign tourist arrivals to South Africa should rise 30 per ...
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More than a fleeting gain?
At Malev Hungarian Airlines, a major improvement in efficiency is one of the main outcomes of a modernisation programme that started back in 1991 but only really started to take root last year. Indeed, commercial director Ferenc Turi says the restructuring has really only just begun in earnest. 'We are ...
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Moving targets
Singapore Airlines' chairman J Y Pillay calls it 'The genius of the organisation at work.' Productivity has become a mantra in an airline industry which is desperate to find ways of improving its long term financial performance. All airline managers are putting in a great deal of effort to improve ...
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PAL struggle: end in sight?
The seven-month standoff over control of Philippine Airlines between chairman Lucio Tan and the government is still delicately poised, but a compromise may yet settle the dispute. The future of the struggling Philippine flag carrier has been in limbo since March, when the government shareholders invoked a 1992 ...
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Open skies for Asean?
Aviation authorities from the Association of South East Asian Nations members are expected to start their first round of talks on implementing an intra-regional open skies policy after the Asean summit in Bangkok in mid-December. In a report following a September meeting in Brunei, Asean economics ministers suggested ...
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BA boosts Gatwick hub
Employee groups have given a guarded welcome to British Airways' decision to move more longhaul services from London/Heathrow to Gatwick, but negotiations over staff costs continue. 'We're reluctant to subsidise further growth at Heathrow through lower salaries at Gatwick,' says George Ryde, national secretary of the Transport and ...
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The quest is on for market power
In coping with more airline consolidation, regulators could well be out of their depth.In a recent television interview, a reporter asked a simple question: 'Why would anybody want to buy an airline which has lost over $3 billion in the last five years?' Put like that, the interest being ...
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Swiss show true colours
No sooner had Brussels given Swissair access to the single European market through its investment in Sabena than the Swiss government played the protectionist card, opening itself and the Commission up to criticism. The Swiss government was acting within the UK-Swiss air services agreement when it refused to ...
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Hawaiian set to post profit
American Airlines has reprieved Hawaiian Airlines for the fourth time over $6.9 million in payments due on its leased DC10s, as the carrier continues its restructuring efforts after emerging from bankruptcy 14 months ago. The payments Hawaiian owes American represent lease and maintenance charges that accumulated late last ...
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Past keeps AmWest shy
With the resolve of a carrier that has returned to health but the hesitancy of one that only emerged from bankruptcy protection last year, America West Airlines has instituted its first growth programme in four years. Its 29 per cent growth plan over two years is conservative compared to the ...
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East stakes going west
Western investors are showing a willingness to gamble in the vast aviation markets of China and Russia, with the prospect of a partially foreign owned Chinese regional and a foreign controlled Siberian airline. US financier George Soros wants to take advantage of Beijing's clearance earlier this year for ...
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Express trial grinds to halt
After a year's trial of its innovative Lufthansa Express product, the German carrier has cherry-picked parts of the pilot scheme for a revamp of its domestic operation. A poor performance halted the extension of the pilot to the whole system as originally planned. The German flag carrier was ...
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USAir courts main rivals
As speculation rose to fever pitch over the possibility of USAir selling out to United Airlines or American Airlines, all participants concerned stressed one word to describe the current state of the deal: 'preliminary'. Whatever the outcome, sources at USAir stress the talks are a culmination of a ...
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Airline news
Singapore Airlines has started twice-weekly services to both Cairns and Macau using A310 aircraft. SilkAir has launched a twice-weekly service between Singapore and Vientiane in Laos with Fokker 70s. ANA is seeking regulatory approval to start services between Osaka/Kansai and Rome. The carrier has also completed ...