Air Transport World - April 2019

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.