Survivor of Air France
An Italian couple missed their flight Air France 447 on 31 May heading from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. We thought to ourselves: these people are really lucky.
Some days later the German-Italian couple Johanna and Kurt Ganthaler arrived back in Europe safely. From Munich they decided to drive home – Merano, Italy – by a rental car.
On the way around Kufstein their car changed lanes for some reason and they ended up in the opposite direction, where they had a head-on collision with a truck.
The woman died in the hospital where she was taken after the accident. Her husband was also injured and he is still in hospital.
After reading such stories, I start to believe in fate.
Air France Flight AF447 Missing
It has been confirmed by Air France that their flight AF 447, linking Rio de Janeiro with Paris (Charles de Gaulle) had disappeared earlier today from the Brazilian radars and has never contacted Senegalese air traffic control.
The Airbus A330 should have landed in Paris at 11:10 local time but it has dissappeared earlier this morning. The plane – with 216 passengers(126 men, 82 women, 7 children and a baby) and 12 crew members onboard– took off from Rio de Janeiro Sunday evening at 7pm local time, heading towards Europe on a route that would lead northwards above Brazil, then crossing the Atlantic towards Senegal and flying through Spanish air-space before arriving to the French capital. However, contact with the aircraft was lost about 3 and a half hours into the flight (~1:33 GMT), when the plane was cruising at 35.000 feet at a speed of 840 km/h, approximately 300 kms from the Brazilian shore (565 kms north-east of the Brazilian city of Natal), above the Atlantic Ocean – already outside of Brazilian radar-space. It had last contacted air traffic control in Recife, Brazil. Brazilian Air Force started the search early Monday morning around the Northeastern Brazilian island of Fernando de Noronha (365 kms from the South-American coast). They were later joined by a French military plane flying out of Senegal to help with the search. Brazilian officials cautioned that the search area could be three times the size of Europe. See map on CNN.com and the map on BBC.co.uk.
There were several possible scenarios why contact was lost, it could have been a transponder problem, a hijack or a crash. Transport analyst Kieran Daly told CNN that the lack of communication with the aircraft “does suggest it was something serious and catastrophic.” He said the aircraft involved was one delivered to Air France in April 2005. Given the fact that that Airbus A330 is one of the safest airplane types currently flying around the Globe – not having a regular fatal accident since its first commercial flight in 1998 -, theoretically it could have done a water landing – similar to the US Airways flight that ditched in the Hudson river earlier this year - but the fact that all radio contact had been lost does not sound too positive at this stage. Also in the middle of a storm at the open ocean it is a much harder task than the Hudson river in quite weather.
The plane was hit by heavy turbulance in stormy weather and reported electrical problems before it lost contact, Air France said Monday. The automatic system of the Airbus A330-200 began a four-minute exchange of messages to the company’s maintenance computers, indicating that “several pieces of aircraft equipment were at fault or had broken down,” at 02:14 GMT (four hours after leaving Rio de Janeiro) as it hit strong turbulence early in its 11-hour flight from Rio de Janeiro to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, Air France CEO Pierre-Henri Gourgeon told a news conference. “This succession of messages signals a totally unforeseeable, great difficulty,” he said. “Something quite new within the plane.” During that time, there was no contact with the crew, Gourgeon said, adding that ”It was probable that it was a little bit after those messages that the impact of the plane took place in the Atlantic,” he added. He also said that flight AF 447 was probably closer to Brazil than to Africa when it crashed. Speculations are now pointing towards a possible lightning strike as the cause of the electrical malfunction – but that alone should not have brought down a modern airliner such as the Airbus A330. The jet had also sent a warning that it had lost pressure, the Brazilian air force said. The missing jet, registered as F-GZCP last had a maintenance check on April 16 and has been flying in service since April 18, 2005 – with 18870 recorded flight hours and was powered by General Electric CF6-80E engines. According to Reuters, two Lufthansa planes have flown over the same area shortly before and shortly after the Air France flight – without any incidents. Both German pilots reported the bad, stormy weather.
The chances of finding any survivors were “very low,” French President Nicolas Sarkozy admitted Monday. Air France identified the nationalities of the victims (based on the information received from the Brazilian Authorities) as two Americans, an Argentinean, an Austrian, a Belgian, 58 Brazilians, five British, a Canadian, nine Chinese, a Croatian, a Dane, a Dutch, an Estonian, a Filipino, 61 French, a Gambian, 26 Germans, four Hungarians, three Irish, one Icelandic, nine Italians, five Lebanese, two Moroccans, three Norwegians, two Polish, one Romanian, one Russian, three Slovakian, one South African, two Spanish, one Swedish, six Swiss and one Turk. This means 32 countries are involved in the tragedy. The four Hungarians are said to be 2 adults and 2 children. A woman returning from a 3 week training in Brazil - that she held on behalf of the International Pető Institute – with her spouse and her child – traveling together with another child who had visited relatives in Brazil. According to Brazilian sources, Luis Roberto Anastáci, President of Michelin South America was also among the passengers. Two ticket holders were not allowed to get on board due to the expiration of their passports.
Garuda Indonesia Airlines Stewardess
Garuda Indonesia Information:
PT (Persero) Garuda Indonesia is the national airline of Indonesia. It is named after the mythical bird Garuda. In Indian Vedic tradition, Garuda is the carrier of the Hindu god Vishnu; a representation of Garuda appears in the coat of arms of Indonesia. The airline is based in Jakarta at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, with hubs at Ngurah Rai International Airport, Bali, Juanda International Airport, Surabaya, Polonia International Airport, Medan, Sepinggan International Airport, Balikpapan, and Singapore Changi Airport, Singapore.[citation needed] The airline flies to a number of destinations in South-East,East Asia, the Middle East and Australia. It also previously flew to several destinations in Europe and North America. However, as of June 2008, Garuda, along with all Indonesian airlines, is banned from flying to the EU[1]. Garuda Indonesia is listed as a 3-star airline by Skytrax, and is also listed among Skytrax's Quality Approved Airlines. It is wholly owned by the Indonesian Government and employs 6,285 staff (as of March 2007).
Garuda Indonesia Office at Jakarta :
1. Jakarta Gedung Garuda Indonesia Lt-1 Jl. Gunung Sahari Raya No. 52 (62-21) 4223721
(62-21) 6256777, Ext. 5201/5701.(62-21) 4223722, (62-21) 6599211
2. Wisma Dharmala Sakti Jl. Jend. Sudirman Kav 32 (62-21) 2512237
(62-21) 2512286/88 (62-21) 2512236
3. Gedung Garuda Indonesia Jl. Merdeka Selatan No.13 (62-21) 2310082
(62-21) 2311817 (62-21) 2311679
4. Hotel Lee Grandeur Jl. Arteri Mangga Dua Raya (62-21) 6127749 (62-21) 6127751
5. Dharmawangsa Square, The City Walk Blok 57 Jl. Dharmawangsa VI & IX No. 54 Kebayoran Baru (62-21) 72788324
(62-21) 72788364 (62-21) 72788317
6. Puskopal TNI-Al, Jl. Raya Hankam, Cilangkap (62-21) 8712685 (62-21) 8712686
7. Menara Bidakara Jl. Gatot Subroto Kav 70-73. (62-21) 83700821 (62-21) 83700823
8. Graha Rekso Building Ground Floor, Jl. Bulevar. Arta Gading Kav A1, Kelapa Gading. (62-21) 45856233 (62-21) 83700823
9. Garuda Indonesia (khusus Umroh, ONH Plus & Tenaga Kerja) Airport Halim Perdanakusuma. (62-21) 80885207 (62-21) 80885217
10. Garuda Indonesia Soekarno-Hatta Airport, Terminal D/E/F. (62-21) 5500704 (62-21) 5501668
Garuda Indonesia Logo : 
Garuda Indonesia Aircraft - Garuda Indonesia Boeing 747-400 : 
Garuda Indonesia Sexy Stewardess (Pramugrari Indonesia) :
Pakistan International Airline Allowed Into EU
The European Commission adopted today the sixth update of the Community`s list of airlines banned in the European Union. With this update the Commission is lifting the ban imposed upon Blue Wing Airlines from Surinam together with the operating restrictions imposed on Pakistan International Airlines (PIA).
Blue Wing Airlines and PIA have successfully completed the implementation of a corrective action plan following their inclusion in the list. Their oversight authorities have produced evidence that they verified the measures taken by the airlines and that these measures provide for long-lasting sustainable solutions to avoid the same problems recurring in the future.
While Blue Wing Airlines is a very small, private airline with old, small planes, PIA is the national flag carrier of Pakistan. Its fleets consists of B777s, B747s, B737-300s, A310s and ATR42s.
The EU put restriction on PIA’s landing rights at certain airports. The restriction concerned only the B747 and A310 fleet. To overcome the EU’s concerns,PIA had developed a comprehensive Recovery Plan to strengthen its systems and procedures relating to the upkeep and airworthiness of its fleet.
Now EU has shown satisfaction over the progress PIA has shown. In a statement from Transport Commissioner of European Union, Jacques Barrot said: “When airlines take rapid corrective action to comply with safety standards, they can be withdrawn from the list of restricted airlines quickly”.
Well done, PIA!
Southwest wants to buy Frontier
In a pretty surprising announcement today, Southwest Airlines has said that they've submitted a proposal to purchase Denver-based Frontier Airlines, which is still under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Southwest will bid for the airline in a bankruptcy auction next month, along with Republic, which said last month that it would bid for Frontier. There aren't too many details out right now, but some interesting information is available over at the Southwest blog. Some excerpts:What’s in proposal?More details will emerge soon, but this has some big implications for service at Denver, where Southwest has been going up against well-established United and hometown carrier Frontier. One question that I have - what happens to the Airbuses that Frontier operates? Would Southwest keep them for a while, or swap 'em out eventually for Boeings?
What we can say is that we are interested in a substantial investment in Frontier and to operate Frontier as a wholly-owned subsidiary, independently and separately from Southwest Airlines, for a period of time until the carrier could be combined into Southwest.
Is this a response to Republic’s bid?
Frontier has been in bankruptcy since April 2008, and we’ve been considering a bid for some time, independent of any action Republic took with its bid proposal. In the past month, we began an intensive study of the airline and expressed that interest to Frontier.
As for what this means for the Republic deal, here's an excerpt from a press release issued today:
The Republic investment agreement provides for an auction period, during which Frontier may seek higher or otherwise better competing bids. If Frontier identifies such a bid, it can terminate the Republic investment agreement and accept the other offer. Under the auction procedures approved by the Court, interested bidders must submit an initial proposal by Aug. 3, 2009, and a final proposal by Aug. 10, 2009. Frontier and its advisors, in consultation with the Unsecured Creditors’ Committee appointed in Frontier’s Chapter 11 cases, will conduct an auction, if necessary, on Aug. 11, 2009, to consider all qualified proposals and determine the highest or otherwise best proposal.
American AirLine
In May 2008, American served 260 cities (excluding codeshares with partner airlines) with 655 aircraft. American carries more passengers between the US and Latin America (12.1 million in 2004) than any other airline, and is also strong in the trans/inter/intracontinental market.
American has five hubs: Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW), Chicago (ORD), Miami (MIA), Lambert St Louis International Airport (STL), and Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in San Juan, PR (SJU). Dallas/Fort Worth is the airline’s largest hub, with AA operating 85 percent of flights at the airport and traveling to more destinations than from its other hubs. Los Angeles (LAX), New York-Kennedy (JFK), and Boston (BOS) serve as focus cities and international gateways. American operates maintenance bases at Tulsa (TUL), Kansas City (MCI), and Fort Worth Alliance (AFW).
American Airlines has one regional affiliate:
* American Eagle Airlines, with hubs in Chicago O’Hare, Dallas Ft Worth, New York Kennedy, Los Angeles, Miami, Raleigh and San Juan.
American Eagle Airlines provides regional feed to American throughout the United States, the Caribbean, Canada, and Mexico.
American Airlines is a founding member of the Oneworld airline alliance
Trinidad - Caribbean Airlines
Thanks to our Trinidadian friends and BWIA / Caribbean Airlines for connecting Guyana to the rest of the World. Even though Guyana is a VFR destination (Visiting Friends & Relatives) it still remains a lucrative destination for Caribbean Airlines. Caribbean Airlines has cut the non profitable routes (such as POS to London) and retained the profitable ones. The airline is state owned but has no Government representatives on the board to screw things up, they might end up like Guysuco if they did. They currently have eight Boeing 737-800s and five Dash 8 aircraft.
Lets face it other airlines have come and gone, but BWIA / Caribbean Airlines have stayed. They offer the best daily connections between Guyana and North America. It has become the natural choice for most Guyanese, they even still serve food while other airlines are cutting back. They code share with British Airways to London where connections could be made to the rest of the World.
Having said that, there should be some consolidation within the Caribbean, there are too many airlines serving a relatively small population. There should be one regional airline similar to Scandinavia's SAS (Scandinavian Air Systems) or Central America's TACA (Transportes Aereos del Continente Airways). But we have to get past the crabs in the barrel mentality pervasive in some areas of the region.
We are still waiting for Ogle airport to be developed into a regional airport to allow smaller aircraft such as the Dash 8 to land there. We don't know what the hold up is, but if the Government of Guyana expects to boost tourism, then it has to provide and maintain the required infrastructure - and we don't mean they have to get into the airline business again. We already know they would not be able to manage that efficiently.
AirLine challenges
The challenges facing airlines around the world are well publicized: increasing competition from Low Cost Carriers (LCCs), skyrocketing jet fuel prices, rising labor costs and demand that is subject to turbulent or even dramatic change. Airlines have little control over these issues, but they can exert cost control in the area of aircraft maintenance.
A clear trend is now apparent toward outsourcing certain MRO functions, such as heavy maintenance, or segmenting Technical Operations units into separate P&Ls. Airline maintenance functions typically retained as in-house include line maintenance, maintenance engineering, technical records, maintenance control, quality assurance and reliability, maintenance planning and work package management. With the emergence of outsourcing, airlines are looking for software products that give them greater control over maintenance tasks they are no longer performing in-house. That means they will are looking for simplified systems that target labor costs, procurement, asset control and visibility across functional departments or organizations.
The new LCC business model also relies on the rapid turnaround of maintenance activities for larger numbers of aircraft, which emphasizes the need for accurate record-keeping, tighter inventory control, and cost reduction at every stage of the MRO process. Of course, this has made it increasingly difficult to plan, track, control and manage the range of MRO activities using traditional methods. Fortunately, the emergence of powerful, modern, MRO IT systems now provide airline operators the means to deal with these issues.
Please refer to the following page for information on how Miro's AuRA™ software meets these challenges.
2009 AirLine Survey
With the global economic recession showing nosignof abating, airlines are in survival mode, slashing extraneous costs and prioritising immediate revenue enhancements. While bearing their share of cost cutting, IT departments are not only the critical enablers of this business strategy, they will also be a vital element of recovery plans.
Across the industry, airline IT is focused on delivering a difference to the bottom line in the fastest possible time scale. Nice-to-have projects and those unable to deliver a return inside 18 months are being shelved. Investment is highly selective; projects that contribute cost savings, customer benefits and revenue enhancements are getting the green light.
And while no one is expecting the economy to return to where it was a year ago any time soon, airline IT chiefs remain optimistic about the investment outlook for IT and keen to implement some of the new technologies like virtualisation (a form of computer enhancement) that bring with them real competitive advantages.
Against this backdrop, the 2009 Airline IT Trends Survey, conducted by Airline Business in association with SITA, continues to receive significant support, with 116 airlines participating in the 11th annual study, representing about half the airlines in the 2008 Airline Business Top 100 Financial Ranking and 60% of the Top 100 Passenger Ranking.
This year, on a revenue weighted basis, an average of 1.74% of airline revenues are set to be pumped into IT and telecommunications operating spend, down from 2.18% (revenue weighted) last year when the mood among the 2008 respondents, surveyed before oil prices hit the roof and the financial crisis really hit home, was relatively buoyant.
Significantly, this is the lowest level since the Airline IT Trends Survey was first conducted in 1999, and is a sharp fall after rises in each of the past two years.
For the first time this year, the Airline IT Trends Survey also asked airlines about their planned IT&T capital spend, which stands at an industry average of 1.11% (revenue weighted) of airline revenues (1.30% unweighted).
In the current climate it is no surprise that just over half - 54% revenue weighted (42% unweighted) - of airlines experienced a decrease in total IT&T budgets, a turn around from 2008 when 47% revenue weighted (60% unweighted) optimistically forecast budget increases for 2009.
Reason For IT Investment
Looking at the detail behind IT investment decisions, the survey shows the top driver continues to be reducing costs - cited as high priority by 57% (unweighted) of respondents, (slightly down from 62% last year), followed by enabling new market and revenue opportunities - high priority of 43%, and improving customer services - high priority for 42%. As last year the top investment area is passenger processing and services - high priority for 49% (63% in 2008).
While the economic storms rage, there is considerable clarity and certainty among chief information officers about the strategy ahead for airline IT. "What I always used to say was we needed to do more with less. What I'm saying now is we need to do even more with even less," says British Airways chief information officer Paul Coby.
"What we have done is very much focused our investment spend on the things that really, really make a difference and [they are] things focused on our customers and improving the overall efficiency and productivity of the airline and things that increase revenue," he adds.
BA has substantially reduced its operations budget through simplification and standardisation, as well as adopting green IT strategies to lower costs, and has cut spending on new projects by about half."One of the things I recommended we postpone was investment in an enterprise resource planningsystem." says Coby. "It's important and needed but would the substantial investment in that generate any more revenue this year? And would it make our customers happier or more inclined to travel with us again? No, probably not, so let's invest in something that will."
The time scale for IT investment returns is speeding up for many airlines. At Cathay Pacific director of information management and chief information officer Edward Nicol is shelving back office projects without visibility in favour of projects that have "immediate benefits to customers, immediate cost savings or an affect on the regulatory framework". Some projects already underway will have a two-year payback, but Nicol is now looking for a payback by increasing revenue or reducing costof one year or less.
Return On Investment
Similarly Air France's executive vice-president of information technology Edouard Odier has a benchmark of 12-18 months return on investment. Projects that cannot deliver this ROI will be shelved, whereas those focused on delivering benefits from the merger with KLM are getting the go-ahead. "The main thing that the group can do is accelerate the convergence between Air France and KLM businesses and having common IT systems are absolutely required."
The fundamentals of the business are unchanged by the global economic downturn "but the bar has been raised", according to Patrick Naef, senior vice-president information technology at Mercator, the IT arm of Emirates Group and business technology solutions provider. "Tactically we focus more on solutions that help the businesses to quickly reduce cost while in the past the main focus was on growing the business."
Another element to theresponse of airlines to the crisis has been to defer significant upfront infrastructure investment."Investment is currently slower in purely process-orientated solutions such as IT infrastructure or payment card industry compliance," observes Wolfgang Gohde, chief executive and chairman of the executive board, Lufthansa Systems. "However we expect demand to pick up after some time because these solutions offer added value in one way or another as well, or are becoming a compliance requirement."
In the US, Frontier Airlines, which is operating under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, has delayed large infrastructure projects such as virtualisation and hardware refresh until at least 2010. "Our main focus is on the operations and 'sweating the assets' we already have in place," says chief information officer Gerry Coady, adding that this year Frontier has invested in a large project in revenue-generation and it is these types of projects, along with safety and compliance, that continue to be financed.
Delaying The Non-Essentials
At AirAsia, any projects that can wait another year or so - server upgrades, refreshing PCs or training courses - are all being delayed. Regional head of information technology Lau Kin Choy is using technology to improve efficiency, selectively focusing on those that increase revenue and productivity.
The strategic emphasis across the industry is on having a lean, efficient operation - airline survey respondents are adapting their IT strategy to these cost management pressures by putting more emphasis on renegotiating IT supplier contracts (72%), investing in solutions that lower overall enterprise costs (70%) and investing in applications to improve organisational productivity and efficiency (58%) (see chart 5). Although it may be tempting to assume in this cost-cutting environment that the importance of IT has been downgraded, in fact airlines and their partners see IT as more important than ever to enabling overall airline strategy.
"If anything IT is a major factor in ensuring that things have not been worse," says SITA chief executive Francesco Violante. "A lot of the impact of the current crisis is mitigated by the fact that the industry can reap the benefits of being the first global industry to fully exploit IP enablement, lower costs modes of operation such as self-service, e-ticketing and bar coded boarding passes."
Adds Nicol at Cathay Pacific: "We don't see this as a short-term economic problem, we see this as a medium- or long-term problemso we still need to run the business and we have got to think which things are really important and IT has a big role to play in many of these. We see people very focused on IT helping them to do their jobs or do it in new ways."
Looking to next year, the industry is cautious about IT&T spend, with 47% (revenue weighted) of airlines predicting budgets will remain the same in 2010 and a further 25% (revenue weighted) forecasting a decrease. But the mood among the IT chiefs, whatever the airline business model, is far from gloomy. Indeed they are broadly optimistic about future investment.
"Investment will and should be very tight in the foreseeable future," says BA's Coby. "Does it offer opportunities? Absolutely. It places even more emphasis on making the right choices."
A "very positive" Patrick Naef says: "We have undertaken significant IT projects in the past two years for the Emirates Group, such as new engineering systems, network operations, enhancements to our reservations and distribution platforms and ERP/back office functionality."
With the long-term nature of the downturn, some projects currently postponed will inevitably need to be actioned. "It is clear that some IT investments will not be postponed for too long because some products would become out of maintenance," says Antonio Bugallo, senior vice-president Systems (IT) at Iberia.
Carriers with legacy systems and low-cost carriers keen to keep competitive are also buoyant about future investments. "We are quite optimistic," says Choy at AirAsia. "Especially for airlines using legacy systems, there are a lot of areas where new technologies will be deployed for these airlines to save costs and improve efficiency."
Further Upgrades
Jazeera Airways is currently upgrading its reservations platform and this key project is also creating a demand to update additional systems to ensure compatibility, with investments underway in operating systems such as departure control, revenue management and scheduling solutions.Chief commercial officer at the Kuwaiti carrier,Steven Greenway, says: "I am very optimistic because we have a lot of ground to make up in investment in key systems/solutions to ensure we are more competitive in the market place."
The critical technologies that IT bosses have their eyes on for the future are those that enhance delivery of the business benefits - efficiencies, cost reduction and revenue enhancement - that their strategies now demand. According to 2009 survey respondents, over the next three years the major investment areas will be hardware virtualisation for 42% of airlines, voice over IP/IP telephony for 37% and data security/identity management for 36%. On the R&D front over the next three years, the top technology will be application virtualisation, cited by 61% of airlines
"Virtualisation enables us to run a lot of applications on a lot less computers and that will be much more efficient and much cheaper, so will save production costs, " says Coby at BA.
Similarly, Mercator is putting its research and development efforts into cost reduction opportunities. "Open source applications may play a role in this as well as virtualisation in terms of applications service delivery," says Naef, who is looking to move away from a patchwork of best of breed systems to a more integrated applications landscape based on service-oriented architecture.
"Making use of new technologies such as mobility, virtualisation, efficient telecommunication, cloud and grid computing to achieve location independence and centralise hardware into state-of-the-art data centres rather than having all of the hardware distributed across the globe," he says.
But overall, it is clear that when the market upturn finally comes, lean, focused IT will be a key component of recovery for airlines. Investment in IT is vital for airlines wishing to take advantage of the upturn according to Violante at SITA.
"We should not forget that after seven successive years of losses, the industry finally returned to profitability in 2007 with gains of over $5 billion and the smart use of technology played a fundamental part of the recovery." he says. "IT will be at the heart of the next recovery when it comes."
Top Ten AirLine
Qatar Airway is best of Arabi Airways.t seems that everyone agrees on the fact that Singapore Airlines is the best air carrier in the world, according to two different surveys conducted by Skytrax Research and Travel + Leisure Magazine, Singapore Airlines came first for the second year in row.
Emirates Airlines, which moved from the 3rd place to the 2nd in the Travel + Leisure list, maintained its 9th place in the Skytrax list. While the Abu-Dhabi-based air carrier, Etihad Airways, which didn’t make it to Travel + Leisure’s list, managed to reserve a place in Skytrax’s list and came 10th.
The Skytrax awarded Qatar Airways the Best Airline and Best Cabin Staff for the Middle East award, the Doha-based airline dropped three places in the Skytrax list and came 7th after being 4th last year.
Few airline companies were common in the two lists, in addition to Singapore Airlines and Emirates, Thai Airways made it to both lists and came 4th in the Skytrax list and 3rd in the Travel + Leisure list, while Cathay Pacific Airways came 2nd in Skytrax’s and 4th in T+L’s.
Skytrax Top 10 Airlines 2008 List:
1. Singapore Airlines
2. Cathay Pacific
3. Qantas
4. Thai Airways
5. Asiana Airlines
6. Malaysia Airlines
7. Qatar Airways
8. Air New Zealand
9. Emirates
10. Etihad Airways
Travel + Leisure Top 10 Airlines 2008 List:
1. Singapore Airlines
2. Emirates Airline
3. Thai Airways International
4. Cathay Pacific Airway
5. SilkAir
6. Japan Airlines (JAL)
7. All Nippon Airways (ANA)
8. Virgin Atlantic Airways
9. Air Tahiti Nui
10. Korean Air
Lufthansa allowed to purchase Austrian
German carrier Lufthansa recently got the go-ahead from the EU Commission to purchase Austrian Airlines, but maybe it will have reason to re-think its decision in a few months. After all, Austrian recently reported a 78.5 million Euro ($113 million) loss between April and June, and has lost 166.6 million Euros ($239.8 million) for the first half of the year. Lufthansa, on the other hand, managed to obtain an operating profit of 8 million euros ($11.5 million) from January to June, although it also posted a net loss of 216 million euros ($311 million). The EU Commission has approved the takeover, and although a final decision is expected in a couple of weeks, the deal's pretty much as good as done. Of course, Lufthansa had to make some concessions in order to avoid running afoul of the European antitrust policies, giving up some prime take-off and landing slots at Vienna's airport.Some remain optimistic about Lufthansa's financial future. "We remain optimistic from a mid-term perspective," said one analyst. "Lufthansa has impressively demonstrated that it is able to reach a small profit even in a disastrous environment." "Based on its superior financial strength and its anti-cyclical approach to acquisitions, we expect Lufthansa to emerge as a long-term winner from the current global economic crisis," said another. Yet it's clear that in the short term, Lufthansa faces some serious struggles; not only does it have to cope with the weak demand for travel, but also the purchases of Austrian, bmi, and Brussels Airlines. Austrian, for its part, has been quickly racking up debt - almost two billion euros of it, which is over five times its equity.
Still, Lufthansa apparently thinks that it can turn around Austrian and make it profitable. And while this isn't an unrealistic expectation (and it helps that a new cost-cutting program was introduced at Austrian last week), this particular acquisition poses some interesting challenges. Two of Lufthansa's earlier purchases, Swiss and Brussels Airlines, are relatively new airlines, having been formed in the past decade. They were both created out of the ashes/assets of two historic but loss-making carriers, Swissair and Sabena, which both failed in 2002. This allowed Lufthansa to take over some choice assets without dealing with the incredible debt burden that caused the two airlines to collapse.
Austrian, as I mentioned before, has almost two euros in debt, and that number isn't likely to shrink anytime soon. A 200 million euro government bailout earlier this year is the only thing keeping the airline afloat, and it's already burned through two-thirds of that cash. Niki Lauda, founder of Austrian subsidiary Lauda Air and now founder of budget airline flyniki, has claimed that the deal is the "biggest catastrophe [for Austria] since World War II." "It takes no skill to give away an airline and then still pay 500 million euros on top of that," he said, referring to the fact that the Austrian government has agreed to absorb a third of Austrian's debt.
Still, Lauda got some good slots at Vienna thanks to the deal, so he can't be all that upset. And Lufthansa, if it manages to get Austrian's house back in order, could end up profiting from Austrian's extensive Southern and Eastern European route network. So it will take quite a bit of work, but that's something that Lufthansa and its CEO, himself a native Austrian, is willing to put forth.
JAL loses $1 billion in second quarter
You thought Delta's second quarter loss of $257 million was bad? Or evenAmerican's $390 million loss during the same time? Even perennial money-loser Alitalia's financial performance pales in comparison to Japan Airlines' whopping $1 billion loss between the months of April to June, which is larger than the amount it lost for all of 2008 (only $35 million). As a result, the airline has announced that it will reduce flying or switch to smaller planes on 25 international routes, although I'd think that more cuts will have to follow in short order.Can JAL sustain these heavy losses? The airline got a $1 billion bailout from the Japanese government in June, although it asked for twice that amount. The government will probably end up ponying up more cash to keep JAL afloat. It's true that JAL was hit pretty hard by swine flu fears earlier this year, not to mention the ongoing worldwide recession. Even Singapore Airlines, usually a rock of financial stability, has warned that it could post its first full-year loss since 1972, the year it was founded. But JAL is in much worse shape than its arch-rival ANA, which lost almost $300 million during the second quarter. While everyone's hurting right now, JAL clearly has some problems of its own that it needs to clear up quickly. Traffic (especially business traffic) isn't going to rebound anytime soon, and while JAL has made some progress at cutting costs, it's going to have to do much more if it wants to stick around.
Courtesy Aura For AirLine
Built for commercial aviation
* Functional completeness - Line, Shop, Heavy maintenance, Engineering and Materials management
* Fully integrated inventory management with maintenance and engineering
* Enterprise model that captures all business processes
* Strong aircraft and component configuration management
* Comprehensive planning, scheduling and hangar work completion
* Sophisticated MPD modeling
* Powerful reporting & OLAP data mining tools
Ease of use
* Interface designed around business processes, not functions
* ‘Role-based’ functionality; menu structures customizable by ‘user profile’ to avoid overwhelming users with data
* Integrated with MS Office tools, e.g. MS Project, Excel, Exchange
Flexibility - airlines can deploy AuRA three ways:
* As a fully integrated, fully functional commercial MRO solution for line, shop, heavy, materials and engineering
* As a EASA Part M solution to support line maintenance and engineering functions
* As a hosted ASP solution to support small regional operators or an entry-into-service start-up airline.
Scalability - proven ability to support small or large operators
Connectivity
* Connectors and APIs for integrating AuRA with existing Finance, Flight Operations, or other customer applications
* AuRA is also integrated with OEM technical documentation (SGML manuals)
Benefits
* Reduced maintenance direct labor costs
* Reduced maintenance direct overhead costs
* Complete process and regulatory compliance
* Reduced inventory ownership costs
* Fewer aircraft cancellations and delays due to maintenance
* Improved accuracy and timeliness of data
US Airways and Delta work out a trade
Some interesting news today - US Airways has announced that it is going to swap slots with Delta and get some international routes from them as well. Under the terms of the deal, which is still pending regulatory approval, US Airways gains 42 pairs of slots at Washington's Reagan Airport and will be able to start flying to Sao Paulo, Brazil from Charlotte and Tokyo from Phoenix. In return, Delta will get 125 pairs of slots at New York's LaGuardia airport.US Airways was quick to point out that the slots that Delta is getting are currently being used by the US Airways Express operation, and that mainline US Airways service (including the Shuttle) won't be touched. Still, it's possible that mainline traffic could take a hit if there's less traffic being fed into LGA by the Express carriers, which will stop flying to 26 destinations from LaGuardia. And there will be around 300 layoffs at the airline's Piedmont regional subsidiary.
But the airline also gets some interesting assets in return.
Let's look at Delta, which already has significant domestic and international operations across town at JFK. The airline's press release notes that the airline will "build a hub operation at LaGuardia that will increase the number of customers served... without increasing congestion." It'll do the same thing that US Airways plans to do at Washington - operate larger planes. "
The airline also plans to spend $40 million on a project to upgrade and rebrand the US Airways and Delta operations at LaGuardia, so it's clear that they're planning on making this a hub. At the same time, "Delta will continue to invest at its hub at New York's leading international airport, John F. Kennedy International," the airline said. So now the airline will be pursuing a rather interesting strategy of operation two hubs in the same city, one of which is primarily international and the other domestic. This could pose some interesting challenges; what happens to passengers seeking to connect between the two airports for an international or a domestic flight?
For more information, check out the US Airways press release here and the Delta release here.
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A last look at a 757  Boarding a BA 757 at Heathrow, almost certainly for the last time - they are selling almost all of their fleet. Heathrow Madrid BTW. Back in the 90's I was on BA 757's almost all the time, I was in Brussels or Paris monthly - 757's - and Glasgow/Edinburgh shuttles used them as well. But now they look and feel old, compared to BA's Airbus fleet, so I suppose its time for them to go. The pane was pretty empty as well - which says a lot about BA's fortunes, aviation generally, and having a big 757 on a thinner route.  British Airways G-BUSG Airbus A320-211 C/n 39 Manchester 5th August 2009  |
Boeing 757-236
Registration: G-CPEN
cn: 28666/751
Boeing 747-436
Registration: G-CIVM
cn: 28700/1116
Airbus A320-232
Amsterdam schiphol [AMS / EHAM]
Touching down on Heathrow Airports Runway 27R as BA277 from Hyderabad International Airport, India (HYD/VOHS)