Aeroports de Paris Lowers 2009 Earnings Forecast

June 17, 2009

Aeroports de Paris on Tuesday lowered its EBITDA forecast for 2009, citing a larger-than-expected drop in traffic due to the economic crisis.

The airport operator maintained its forecast for slight sales growth in 2009, but said in a statement that EBITDA should come in at the same level as last year. It had previously forecast a slight rise in EBITDA year-on-year.

ADP now expects a drop in traffic of between 4.5 percent and 6.5 percent. It had previously forecast a drop of between 2.5 percent and 4.5 percent.

ADP saw 7.2 million passengers in May, down 6.3 percent compared to a year earlier. Traffic fell 6.6 percent in the first five months of 2009.

(Reuters)

Aeroports de Paris Lowers 2009 Earnings Forecast

June 17, 2009

Aeroports de Paris on Tuesday lowered its EBITDA forecast for 2009, citing a larger-than-expected drop in traffic due to the economic crisis.

The airport operator maintained its forecast for slight sales growth in 2009, but said in a statement that EBITDA should come in at the same level as last year. It had previously forecast a slight rise in EBITDA year-on-year.

ADP now expects a drop in traffic of between 4.5 percent and 6.5 percent. It had previously forecast a drop of between 2.5 percent and 4.5 percent.

ADP saw 7.2 million passengers in May, down 6.3 percent compared to a year earlier. Traffic fell 6.6 percent in the first five months of 2009.

(Reuters)

US Airways Flight Narrowly Misses Truck

June 19, 2009

A US Airways aircraft with 89 people on board taking off from Boston’s Logan Airport narrowly missed a truck on the runway on Thursday, in an incident described by airport authorities as “serious.”

US Airways Flight 27 to Phoenix was taking off at 6:36 am (1036 GMT) when a vehicle driven by an outside contractor working at the airport drove across the runway, airport spokesman Phil Orlandella said.

Airport authorities stripped the driver of his right to drive in the airport. The flight landed safely in Phoenix.

The Boston Globe reported that the plane missed the truck by seconds, quoting an airport official as saying the incident was serious and would be investigated.

(Reuters)

Continental Pilot Dies, Plane Lands Safely

June 19, 2009

A pilot on a Continental Airlines flight from Brussels to Newark died in mid-flight on Thursday, but the plane landed safely in New Jersey under the control of two co-pilots, authorities said.

Continental flight 61 from Brussels landed at Newark Liberty Airport, according to Continental.

“The captain of Continental flight 61, which was en route from Brussels to Newark, died in flight, apparently of natural causes,” Continental said in a statement.

“The crew on this flight included an additional relief pilot who took the place of the deceased pilot. The flight continued safely with two pilots at the controls,” it said.

The plane was a Boeing 777 with 247 passengers on board.

The pilot, 60, was based in Newark and had worked for Continental for 32 years, the airline said. Continental has one flight daily between Brussels and Newark.

(Reuters)

Air France Crash Sparks Black Box Debate

June 18, 2009

While search teams search the Atlantic ocean for the black boxes of Air France flight AF447 before their signals die out, aviation experts are considering satellite data streaming to collect vital flight data in future.

An airliner’s black box — which is made up of a flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder — is designed to withstand a crash and emit a signal for about 30 days afterwards. If it is not found by then, the data is unlikely to be recovered.

Many military aircraft already use data streaming, sending flight information real-time via satellite to ground stations.

But the massive bandwidth and sophisticated infrastructure needed to manage and process data from tens of thousands of commercial flights per day could make it prohibitively expensive.

“There have been studies on this for years. There are arguments both for and against, and also there are costs,” Paul-Louis Arslanian, France’s chief air disaster investigator said, after reporting that the search was progressing, but hampered by difficult search conditions.

“Data streaming is currently technologically possible, but technologically impractical,” Dan Elwell, Vice President Civil Aviation of the US-based Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) industry group, said at the Paris Air Show.

“There are opportunities there to improve the data stream and how we get it on and off the aircraft,” said Bob Smith, Vice President for Advanced Technology at Honeywell, which made the black box that was on the Air France aircraft.

Bruce Coffey, President of the Aviation Recorders division of L-3 Communications — the world’s largest supplier of crash-survivable recording units — said the use of data streaming in conjunction with traditional recording units could provide a “belt and suspenders” approach.

However, only one of L-3’s black boxes has ever been lost after a crash — from the American Airlines flight that crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11 2001.

CRUCIAL INFORMATION

Richard Hayden, President of Canada’s Aeromechanical Services, thinks he has an answer to the question of cost.

The company’s automated flight information recording system compresses data, allowing it to send 10 times more from an aircraft in the same bandwidth than with a standard satellite communication, dramatically cutting the cost to the operator.

Hayden said the system can be programmed to start transmitting data non-stop as soon as there’s a problem on board, and that this could have sent crucial information about the June 1 Air France crash that killed all 228 people on board.

“Today we have a situation where there’s a possibility, if not a probability, that the FDR won’t be recovered. All we have left is a very small set of messages,” Hayden said, referring to the automated maintenance messages the A330-200 sent in its final moments, charting problems in all onboard systems.

Data streaming may be able to supplement black boxes, but not replace them, L-3’s Coffey said. “If you’re not able to recover the black boxes, there are going to be a lot of questions that remain unanswered, that should be answered.”

But industry specialists want guarantees that the highly sensitive data — in particular the cockpit conversations — will be properly protected, and pilots’ privacy preserved.

“There is a huge sensitivity among pilots at the thought of every utterance being recorded and transmitted to some faraway place,” said AIA’s Elwell.

(Reuters)

How will Airasia X pay US$2.2b for the 10 Airbus ordered?

By C.S. TAN

PETALING JAYA: AirAsia X’s latest fleet purchase has raised concerns among analysts that it is following the high debt-leverage route of AirAsia Bhd, expanding the risks to its bankers.

The long-haul, low-cost airline company’s CEO, Azran Osman-Rani, said there was a fundamental difference between the business model of AirAsia X and that of traditional airlines.

“For AirAsia X, most of its tickets are sold through the Internet and bought by customers months before their flights.

“As for traditional airlines, tickets are mainly bought through agents and paid by customers just two weeks before the flights.

“The agents may even pay the airlines after the flights,” he told StarBiz in a telephone interview yesterday. The airline has a similar business model as AirAsia as both are low-cost carriers.

“We have forward cash. In this business, what is important is cashflow. We’re holding the forward cash,” he added.

It was announced on Tuesday that AirAsia X placed a firm order for 10 Airbus A350 aircraft which carried a list price of US$2.2bil.

This follows an earlier order for 25 Airbus A330 planes for delivery between last year and 2015.

On the company’s debt leverage, he said AirAsia X’s gearing was about 200% and was not expected to increase.

The 10 planes in the latest order will only be delivered from 2016.

“It’s not like we’re buying all the planes at the same time. But it is important to place the deposits now. This is to ensure we’ll have the delivery slots. The deposit is just US$10mil, we’re not paying US$2.2bil yet,” he added.

Progressive payments will start 36 months from delivery but the bulk of payments will be made when the planes are delivered.

By the time the A350 planes are delivered from 2016, most of the borrowings taken for the A330 planes would have been repaid.

Azran said some equity analysts did not understand AirAsia X’s business model, but that was not important.

“What is important is what the banks do. If the banks are worried with our gearing, wouldn’t they be the first to run away?

“But the banks are saying they’ll fund all our deliveries this year,” he said.

AirAsia X will take delivery of three Airbus A330 planes between September and December. Financing has been obtained for these planes.

Currently, the airline flies five planes to London, Melbourne, Perth and Gold Coast (Australia), and Tianjin and Hangzhou in China.

Its most profitable routes are Gold Coast and Hangzhou because these were the first two routes flown by the airline.

“They’re more matured markets for us than London or Melbourne. It’ll take us a year to build brand awareness for the newer routes and, initially, the pricing has to be aggressive,” he said.

(The Star)

BA Pilots Offered Shares For Pay Cut Deal

June 17, 2009

British Airways pilots are set to vote on a deal under which they would receive shares in the company in return for a pay cut, the latest measure to help the airline through the economic downturn, a union said on Thursday.

Pilots are being urged to accept a draft pay and productivity package agreed between the British Airline Pilots’ Association (BALPA) and BA, designed to save the company GBP26 million pounds (USD$42.28 million) annually.

It follows an earlier appeal by BA, which reported a record annual loss last month, for staff to work for free or go on unpaid leave.

“The pay and productivity package will help BA get through the current economic downturn whilst, for the first time, giving pilots the mechanism to take a real share in the wealth they will help to create,” BALPA said in a statement.

Under the union recommendation, pilots would see their pay cut by 2.61 percent and their flying time allowances reduced by 20 percent from October.

Pilots’ hours would increase and there would be shorter turnaround times on short haul flights.

Nearly 80 pilots’ jobs would go through voluntary redundancy.

If certain company targets are met, pilots will be eligible to receive BA shares worth GBP13 million in 2011, which they must hold for three years before selling.

BALPA members, who make up about 95 percent of BA’s 3,200 pilots, are due to vote during the next three weeks.

A spokesman for BA said in a statement it was “pleased” to have reached an agreement with BALPA.

On Tuesday, the company said it had asked for volunteers among its British-based employees to go on unpaid leave or carry out unpaid work for between a week and a month.

Chief executive Willie Walsh, who earns GBP735,000 (USD$1.2 million) a year and who has promised to work for nothing in July, said the idea was part of BA’s across the board cost-cutting measures.

BA, Europe’s third-biggest airline by revenue, posted annual operating losses of GBP220 million and scrapped its dividend in May, saying it had suffered from a downturn in air travel and forecast no immediate revival.

Walsh has said there would be more redundancies after reducing BA’s headcount by 2,500 since March last year.

(Reuters)

Ryanair Sees Irish, UK Cuts, Growth Elsewhere

June 17, 2009

Irish budget airline Ryanair will reduce the number of its aircraft at two Irish bases and will likely do so at airports in the UK as well, chief executive Michael O’Leary said on Wednesday.

O’Leary, who blamed taxes levied on air travel in the two countries for the planned moves, said Ryanair was still planning to fly 67 million passengers across its network this year, compared with 58.5 million in the business year to the end of March.

The aircraft taken out of use in Ireland will be switched to countries where traffic is growing, such as Belgium, the Netherlands, Greece and Spain, O’Leary said.

“There won’t be any more growth in the UK… until at least the end of the calendar year,” O’Leary told a news conference. “There are likely to be some cuts.”

He also foresees more cuts in Ireland, which could leave no Ryanair aircraft permanently based at Shannon, the main gateway to the west of Ireland, he added.

(Reuters)

Mediators Appointed To Air Canada Union Talks

June 17, 2009

The Canadian government appointed two mediators on Wednesday to help Air Canada and the union representing its flight attendants to reach an agreement.

The Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents about 6,700 flight attendants at the country’s biggest airline, said talks broke off early on Tuesday because the cash-strapped carrier’s proposals would reduce wages for some staff and lead to job losses for others.

CUPE is the lone holdout in contract talks as the company’s four other unions have reached tentative deals that will freeze wages and pension benefits for 21 months.

The government named former Ontario Superior Court Judge James Farley, already working to settle pension disagreements between the airline and its unions, and Quebec’s regional director of the federal mediation and conciliation services, Jacques Lessard, as the mediators. They have until noon on Monday June 22 to work out a deal.

At that time they can make recommendations for the settlement of any remaining differences between the parties.

Union and pension moratorium agreements are key to Air Canada securing fresh financing, which the heavily indebted airline hopes will help it avert a second bankruptcy filing in six years.

“In light of the seriousness of Air Canada’s situation, it is in the best interests of both sides to resolve their differences quickly,” said Minister of Labour Rona Ambrose.

CUPE said it welcomed mediation.

“Talks have broken down and we’re not communicating,” said Katherine Thompson, president of the Air Canada component of CUPE. “Obviously there needs to be some kind of step forward if the pension package is also to be ratified,” she said.

All five unions have reached tentative agreements with Air Canada on a 21-month funding moratorium on the airline’s CAD$2.9 billion (USD$2.56 billion) pension deficit. In exchange, they will get a 15 percent equity stake in the airline and the right to appoint one representative to the board of directors.

To take effect, the pension agreements require the approval of union members and federal regulators.

In addition to a moratorium on past service pension contributions until the end of 2010, payments into the fund will be fixed at CAD$150 million, CAD$175 million, and CAD$225 million for 2011, 2012 and 2013, respectively.

Battered by a sharp downturn in demand and intense competition, Air Canada has asked federal financing agency Export Development Canada for a commercial loan of about CAD$200 million, a third of the CAD$600 million it said it needs in the short term.

The loan, which would be negotiated on a commercial basis, would not be considered as a bailout by the government. The government would take on the risk, while EDC would administer the loan.

Separately, pilots at low-fare rival WestJet Airlines ratified a four-year deal, the carrier said on Wednesday without divulging details of the agreement.

WestJet’s pilots’ association said in a statement that the agreement, which takes effect from July 1, will provide the company and its pilots with stability to weather the industry downturn.

(Reuters)

Continental Says Biofuel Did Well In Flight Test

June 17, 2009

Continental Airlines said a blend of biologically derived fuel and jet fuel performed slightly better than jet fuel alone during a test flight by the airline.

During some parts of a 90-minute test flight in January, the blended fuel displayed a 1.1 percent increase in fuel efficiency over traditional jet fuel alone, the airline said in a statement on Wednesday.

Continental estimates greenhouse gas emissions were cut at least 60 percent by using the blend.

Airlines have been exploring alternative fuel sources for years in an effort to counter volatile fuel prices.

In January, Continental test pilots flew a Boeing 737-800 that had one engine operating on jet fuel and the other operating on a blend of biofuel and traditional fuel.

The biofuel blend consisted of oil derived from algae and jatropha plants.

(Reuters)

Airlines Reduce Capacity As Business Traffic Falls

June 17, 2009

Battered US airlines are trimming first- and business-class seating on international flights as they wait for signs of life in high-end travel that could signal a broader recovery.

So far, these signs are scarce, but if a global economic recovery takes hold, airlines with the best international routes will recover the fastest.

Until that happens, however, US-based global carriers — especially those with a large transpacific presence — will suffer more than their rivals.

“That’s going to be the trend to watch through the summer to see if we get any kind of moderation in the year-over-year declines in passenger unit revenue on the international side,” said Bill Warlick, an airline analyst at Fitch Ratings.

“That might be a leading indicator of some broader revenue recovery in the industry.”

In recent years, airlines such as United Airlines and Northwest Airlines, which was bought last year by Delta Air Lines, beefed up first- and business-class cabins for long flights hoping to attract well-heeled travellers.

They also tried to move capacity from competitive domestic routes to less crowded and more profitable international flights and competed hard for rights to fly to China.

“They would argue that, long-term, it’s going to drive some kind of unit revenue premium to the industry,” Warlick said. “But at this point, it’s hard to say that there’s any significant return on that investment.”

Business travel has been in rapid decline since the economic recession took hold last year and savings conscious companies cut back on travel. Some are buying cheaper seats on long-haul flights, leaving airlines scrambling to fill premium cabins.

In May, United, which has a huge Asian presence, saw its international traffic fall 15 percent, outpacing an 8.7 percent cut in capacity on those routes. United’s traffic on Pacific routes declined 21.4 percent even as it trimmed 12.7 percent from its capacity.

Delta, which has a hub in Tokyo, said international traffic fell 14.6 percent in May, while traffic on its Pacific routes declined 31.6 percent on a 20.5 percent decline in capacity.

American Airlines reported an 8.9 percent drop in international traffic in May and a 6.7 percent decline in Pacific traffic.

TRADING DOWN

Some of the decline may have been a result of concerns about the H1N1 flu virus in addition to the longer-term trend of falling travel demand.

“The single weakest area that they’re facing right now is premium international travel and it’s their most profitable segment,” said Jim Corridore, an airline analyst at Standard & Poor’s. “Obviously, they would love to see some signs of improvement on that front.”

Seeking to accommodate the shift in demand from first- and business-class seats, United is moving some of those seats to cheaper classes.

“We’re increasing slightly the total count because we’re putting some in coach (economy),” Greg Taylor, UAL’s senior vice president of corporate planning and strategy, said at an investor conference last week.

“Pulling 20 percent of the business-class seats out in the current environment is a good place to be.”

Delta said last week it would cut international capacity 15 percent starting in September. AMR also announced deepening capacity cuts and other airlines are expected to follow.

“We are facing a significant reduction in corporate travel which, combined with the aggressive sales activity that we’ve experienced, has led to much weaker booking class and cabin mix on board our aircraft,” Delta President Ed Bastian said at an investor conference last week.

“We feel like we’re stabilising, but that doesn’t imply recovery quite yet.”

(Reuters)

AirAsia Orders 10 Airbus A350 Aircraft

June 17, 2009

Malaysian low-cost airline AirAsia ordered 10 A350 aircraft from Airbus, with an option for five more of the wide-body planes, airline Chairman Tony Fernandes said on Tuesday.

At current list prices, the 10 firm orders for A350-900s would be worth USD$2.4 billion, although aircraft are typically discounted to secure sales.

Rolls-Royce said it had been chosen to supply engines for the aircraft, as well as for 10 A330s already on order, in a deal worth up to USD$1.8 billion in total at list prices.

“History has shown that we generally exercise our options pretty quickly,” Fernandes said, adding that “it’s not all doom and gloom”.

The airline said the order for Airbus’s newest model was for its AirAsia X affiliate and that it planned to use it to link its Asian hub in Kuala Lumpur to destinations in Europe and Australia.

(Reuters)

US Airways Sees ‘Nice Uptick’ In Leisure Travel

June 17, 2009

US leisure air travel bookings have increased in recent weeks, though demand for more lucrative business travel remains down, US Airways chief executive Doug Parker said on Tuesday.

“We have seen a nice uptick in leisure demand, leisure bookings, in the last couple of weeks which we believe is encouraging,” Parker told reporters on the sidelines of the National Summit in Detroit.

“It would be more encouraging if it were business,” he added. “There is something going on here that is different than we had seen in the last few months.”

Parker also said that the increase in leisure bookings came without added incentives on tickets. He cautioned that it had been only a couple of weeks of bookings, but that the increase in the volume of bookings was significant.

The US airline industry has been battered severely by high fuel prices and weak travel demand. Although fuel prices are down from record highs reached nearly a year ago, the cost of oil, which influences fuel prices, has crept back above USD$70 a barrel.

Meanwhile, the recession has hammered demand for both leisure and business travel and airlines have responded by cutting capacity and jobs. US Airways said last week that it expects further capacity cuts in its trans-Atlantic flying.

“The industry’s revenue shortfall this year has been due to the drop off in business demand,” Parker said. “It really happened in the early part of the year, January and February, and hasn’t come back.”

Parker said there is still little visibility on when business travel might return.

“I know it is driven by the economy,” he said of business travel. “I know there are some positive indications about the economy and I know that when the economy rebounds that business travel will come back, so those things I know. I just don’t know when that is going to happen.”

Parker said the airline industry has done a good job in cutting capacity to meet the reduced demand, but added that more would “probably” be required if the economy stays where it is for an extended period of time.

(Reuters)

Paris Air Show Haunted By Jet Crash, Economy

June 15, 2009

Gloomy aviation leaders gather for the Paris Air Show on Monday expecting limited new business to bolster an industry mourning the AIr France jet disaster, economic crisis and new concerns about swine flu.

The world’s largest aviation showcase attracts dealmakers from the aircraft and arms industries every two years to sign contracts and network under the roar of military jets — but this year’s show is certain to be a much more subdued event.

The heads of both Airbus and Boeing, fierce rivals in the USD$60 billion commercial jet market, gave separate reassurances at the weekend over the safety of air travel after the crash of an Air France A330 Airbus with 228 people on board earlier this month.

Investigators say it is too early to say what caused the crash but have disclosed evidence of inconsistent data from speed sensors on the Airbus plane, which Boeing chief executive Jim McNerney commended as a “reliable and proven” airliner.

“It is safe to say that the aviation community is still (in) some shock,” Airbus chief executive Tom Enders told a briefing ahead of the June 15-21 air show at Le Bourget.

The air transport industry has been battered by a slump in the economy coupled with weakened credit. Together these have cast doubt on the ability of airlines to pay for the roughly USD$800 billion of planes on order following a previous order boom.

Pressure mounted on Sunday when Britain recorded its first death from H1N1 swine flu, three days after the World Health Organisation declared an influenza pandemic.

The emergence of the virus in April triggered a worldwide health scare and accelerated sharp falls in passenger travel.

ORDERS LESS RELEVANT

Group of Eight finance ministers meeting in Italy at the weekend said the world’s leading economies were stabilising but that recovery from the credit crisis remained shaky.

Both Boeing and Airbus said there few signs so far of any recovery in aerospace, which is a leading export industry for the United States and European Union.

Whether the two rivals in commercial aerospace manage to net orders this week is seen as something of a sideshow since their order books are bulging with undelivered planes.

“When you have got 7,000 planes on the backlog, new sales aren’t relevant. It is about convincing people to take delivery,” Richard Aboulafia, Vice President at US aerospace consultancy Teal Group, said.

“It is out of the hands of Airbus and Boeing and in the hands of the travelling public, who are voting with their feet and not getting on planes or buying tickets,” he added.

Qatar Airways is expected to provide one of the few new orders at the show but there are doubts whether it needs to add to the 114 wide-body jets it has ordered from Airbus and Boeing.

Among those seen likely to do well at the show are jet engine makers, who are busy selling engines to power jets previously ordered by airlines in stronger markets two years ago.

As usual, the week-long show will give a chance for military commands to show off their best and latest hardware in the hope of grabbing export orders or increasing their prestige.

This year will see an unusual stand-off between ex-Cold War superpowers. The United States will display its most advanced warplane, the Lockheed Martin F-22, for the first time over French soil, while Russia will show off its first passenger jet since the fall of the Soviet Union — the Superjet.

The 75-95 seat Superjet, assembled by Sukhoi in a converted wing of a top secret fighter factory in Russia’s Far East, has been painted as a bid to assert Russia’s industrial renewal.

Built with French and Italian investment, its arrival upstages delayed Western projects like the Boeing 787 Dreamliner whose maiden flight is not expected until after the air show.

(Reuters)

European Airline Body Reports Worst Month Yet

Europe’s airlines appear to have just suffered their worst month yet of the downturn, with preliminary traffic figures down 9 percent year-on-year in May, the Association of European Airlines (AEA) said on Monday.

“AEA’s weekly figures for the last four weeks of May and the first week of June are relentlessly poor, with May likely to produce a decrease in the order of 9 percent,” said the group, which represents 34 major carriers.

The statement comes after the head of European airports body ACI Europe said last week it was cutting its 2009 traffic forecast to an 8 percent decrease for passengers and a 16 percent decrease for freight.

But Boeing’s chief executive Jim McNerney told European newspapers ahead of the Paris Air Show that the economic crisis was unlikely to worsen.

AEA Secretary General Ulrich Schulte-Strathaus said all three of its members’ markets — intra-Europe, the North Atlantic and the Far East — were suffering.

A positive recent development has been an increase in the tempo of capacity reduction. In April, the number of seat-kilometres offered was 2.8 percent down on last year, while the preliminary May figure is down 5.3 percent, though still below the traffic decrease.

“The four months reported so far are pieces of a jigsaw which, put together, reveal a 6 percent drop in traffic compared to the first four months of last year,” Schulte-Strathaus said.

“The next piece in the jigsaw will reveal an even worse scenario,” he added.

(Reuters)

Aeroports de Paris Lowers 2009 Earnings Forecast

une 17, 2009

Aeroports de Paris on Tuesday lowered its EBITDA forecast for 2009, citing a larger-than-expected drop in traffic due to the economic crisis.

The airport operator maintained its forecast for slight sales growth in 2009, but said in a statement that EBITDA should come in at the same level as last year. It had previously forecast a slight rise in EBITDA year-on-year.

ADP now expects a drop in traffic of between 4.5 percent and 6.5 percent. It had previously forecast a drop of between 2.5 percent and 4.5 percent.

ADP saw 7.2 million passengers in May, down 6.3 percent compared to a year earlier. Traffic fell 6.6 percent in the first five months of 2009.

(Reuters)

British Airways Asks Staff To Work For Nothing

June 17, 2009

British Airways, which reported a record annual loss last month, said on Tuesday it had asked its staff to work for nothing as part of the company’s battle for “survival” in tough market conditions.

The appeal to its British-based employees, which featured in the company’s staff magazine, asks workers to volunteer for between a week and a month in unpaid leave or in unpaid work.

Chief executive Willie Walsh, who along with the chief financial officer Keith Williams has promised to work for nothing in July, said the idea was part of BA’s across the board cost-cutting measures.

“Many of you from across the airline are stepping up to help the company,” Walsh said.

“I am looking for every single part of the company to take part in some way in this cash-effective way of helping the company’s survival plan. It really counts.”

BA, Europe’s third-biggest airline by revenue, posted annual operating losses of GBP220 million pounds (USD$362 million) and scrapped its dividend in May, saying it had suffered from a downturn in air travel and forecast no immediate revival.

It said 1,000 employees had volunteered to take part in a Business Response Scheme launched at the time which allowed staff to take a month’s unpaid leave or to switch to part-time contracts.

Walsh, who earns GBP735,000 (USD$1.2 million) a year, was one of those to sign up.

The new measure, which is designed to be more flexible, would not be compulsory but the company was instead encouraging staff to “play their part”, a spokeswoman said.

Other companies have launched similar schemes in response to the global aviation crisis, including Cathay Pacific, where the majority of its workforce has signed up, BA said.

Last week, the company said it was in discussions with its pilots about taking pay cuts. Walsh has also said there would be more redundancies after reducing BA’s head count by 2,500 since March last year.

(Reuters)

Boeing Says Airbus A350 Aid Against WTO Rules

June 15, 2009

Boeing said it was disappointed with a move by European rival Airbus to obtain state financing for its new A350 XWB aircraft and called it illegal under World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules.

“We are disappointed by reports that the Airbus member states intend to provide – and Airbus to accept – billions of dollars of launch aid for the A350,” Boeing said in a statement on Monday.

“Such financing would violate the member states’ international obligations to abide by the rules of the WTO. It is long overdue for Airbus to fund its airplane development on commercial terms including using its own resources, which it has indicated are ample.”

Ministers of three European nations home to Airbus’ jet production earlier said at the Paris Air Show that they expected to make a decision on financing for the project by the end of June.

(Reuters)

Australian Airbus Makes Emergency Landing

June 10, 2009

An Australian Jetstar aircraft with 203 passengers and crew made an emergency landing on the island of Guam on Thursday after a cockpit fire broke out as the aircraft flew over the Pacific Ocean.

The Airbus A330-200 aircraft was flying from Japan to Australia late on Wednesday night when, four hours into the flight, smoke was seen in the cockpit and the right-hand cockpit window area caught fire, Jetstar said.

“One of our pilots utilised an extinguisher and we conducted an emergency diversion to Guam where the aircraft landed without incident,” Jetstar spokesman Simon Westaway told Australian radio.

The plane touched down in the early hours of Thursday, Australian time, Jetstar said.

All passengers and crew were safe and no one had been injured, the airline said, adding that the flight was carrying mainly Japanese passengers.

The aircraft was only two years’ old and would be held in Guam until the cause of the fire was established, Jetstar said.

An Air France Airbus A330 jet crashed at sea on a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris last week, killing all 228 people on board.

Jetstar is a unit of Australian carrier Qantas.

(Reuters)

Airlines Replacing Speed Sensors On Airbus Planes

June 10, 2009

US airlines that fly Airbus aircraft on long-haul routes were installing new speed sensors on those planes before the Air France crash last week of an A330 that killed 228 people.

Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and US Airways, each of which fly Airbus planes, said this week they were changing the sensors as recommended by Airbus.

The sensor, known as a pitot tube, has become the focus of the investigation of the June 1 crash. The Air France A330 was en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris when it went down in the Atlantic Ocean.

Investigators have said there were “inconsistencies” with the speed readings prior to the crash, raising speculation the pitot tubes may have iced up, feeding wrong data into the cockpit and confusing the pilots as they hit a storm.

The French air accident agency has said it was too early to identify a cause of the accident given the clues so far.

Airbus recommended in 2006 that operators of A320 aircraft replace their existing pitot tubes with new ones that offer better performance. Airbus recommended in 2007 that operators of A330/A340 aircraft replace the pitot tubes.

“Until these installations are complete we are communicating with our flight crews to reiterate the correct procedures to be used in the event of unreliable airspeed indications,” a Delta spokeswoman said.

The part replacements have been under way since Airbus issued its recommendations, she said.

(Reuters)