NEWSBRIEFS
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NORTH AMERICA
American Airlines is targeting
$1.3 billion in “profitability initiatives” in 2019, with $1 billion
coming via revenue-generation
strategies. One initiative
includes adding 100 departures at home hub Dallas Fort
Worth International Airport
with 15 new gates coming
online midyear, giving it about
910 daily flights.
JetBlue Airways revised its
first-quarter RASM guidance
downward, citing several areas
of weakness. The new guidance has year-over-year (YOY)
RASM declining 1.5%- 3.5%.
Previous guidance, issued
in January, saw a 2% YOY
decline to a 1% bump. The
New York-based carrier continues to make market-driven
changes to its network and
capacity plans.
Southwest Airlines received
FAA approval to conduct
Hawaii services, linking
San Francisco Oakland
International Airport and
Honolulu Daniel K. Inouye
International Airport, with a
single daily frequency. The
Dallas-based carrier will
steadily add flights on other
routes—including intrastate
runs—through midyear.
North Carolina-based Eastern
Air Lines is seeking permission from the US Department
of Transportation to operate
twice-weekly roundtrip Boeing
767-300ER services from New
York to Jinan, China, with a
technical stop in Anchorage,
Alaska.
Alaska Air Group regional
carrier Horizon Air started
scheduled services from a
new passenger terminal at
Paine Field Snohomish County
Airport (PAE) north of Seattle,
Washington state. Alaska
Airlines plans to operate 18
daily departures from PAE to
Las Vegas, Phoenix, Portland,
San Diego, Los Angeles,
San Francisco, San Jose and
Orange County, California. The
carrier acquired eight 76-seat
Embraer E175s to serve PAE.
The US Department of
Transportation issued fines
of $1 million to American
Airlines and $750,000 to
Delta Air Lines for extended
tarmac delay incidents at air-
ports across the US over the
last several years.
United Airlines named Robert
Rivkin as SVP and general
counsel.
MIDDLE EAST/AFRICA
Omani LCC SalamAir will open
a second operations center at
Salalah Airport, in the southwest of the Arabian nation.
The airline, which began services in 2017, operates to 14
destinations in the Middle East
and the Indian subcontinent
with a fleet of three Airbus
A320s and an A320neo,
with plans to add five more
A320neos in the 2029 first
half.
Turkish leisure carrier Corendon Airlines will
establish a base in May at
Germany’s Cologne Bonn
Airport, with Boeing 737 MAX
8s, operating 25X-weekly
flights to 11 destinations.
Air Seychelles will end service to Abu Dhabi May 11
and increase frequencies to
Mumbai, India, from 5X- to
6X-weekly beginning May 12;
and to Johannesburg, South
Africa, from 6X-weekly to daily
beginning June 3.
RUSSIA
The Irkutsk region
Development Corp. will
acquire 51% of IrAero Airline
and plans to invest in the
carrier’s further growth. The
airline will be developed with
Ramport Aero, which operates Zhukovsky International
Airport near Moscow.
Pobeda Airlines plans to
increase traffic by 40% and
carry at least 10 million passengers in 2019 as the Aeroflot
LCC subsidiary expands its
aircraft fleet and network.
Yekaterinburg-based Ural
Airlines will launch 3X-weekly
Airbus A321 flights from
Moscow Zhukovsky to Paris
Charles de Gaulle from April
23. It will start 2X-weekly
Zhukovsky-Nice A320 service
from May 4. The carrier also
plans to launch 3X-weekly
Moscow Domodedovo-Bordeaux A320 service
from June 1 and Moscow
Domodedovo-Montpellier
A320 service from June 2.
Ural Airlines will resume
daily domestic Zhukovsky-Kaliningrad A321 service from
June 3-Oct. 26.
Aeroflot Airline will launch
daily Krasnodar-Simferopol
and Volgograd-Sochi Boeing
737-800 service from June 2.
S7 Airlines resumes 3X-weekly
Moscow Domodedovo-Vienna
Airbus A320 service from
April 30. The carrier will also
launch 3X-weekly Novosibirsk-
Astana (Kazakhstan) Embraer
E170 service from May 28.
Belavia Belarusian Airlines
will launch 4X-weekly Minsk-Tallinn Embraer E175 service
from May 30.
Azur Air received its second
Boeing 777-300ER and will
operate to Dubai (UAE),
then to Varadero (Cuba) and
Cancun (Mexico).
Saudi Arabian Airlines
(Saudia) CEO Jaan Albrecht
told ATW the carrier is evaluating a major widebody fleet
order within the next six
months, such as either an
Airbus A350 or Boeing 787.
Utair Aviation is developing its domestic network
from Khanty-Mansiysk when
it begins 3X-weekly Ufa,
2X-weekly Omsk and Kogalym
ATR 72 service in the summer
2019.
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