Latest Sky Club open for business

Delta Air Lines has opened a new Sky Club in Terminal C at New York’s LaGuardia airport: this takes the carrier’s total to 54 in its network.
The latest club is actually Delta’s third at LaGuardia. Around 7,600 square feet in size, it incorporates a wall of glazing which overlooks the runway. Amenities include a full service bar, providing complimentary beverages and snacks throughout the day, as well as Delta’s Luxury Bar program. The décor includes aerial landscapes of the region.
In addition to opening the new club in Terminal C, Delta is shortly due to enlarge and renovate LaGuardia’s Terminal D South Sky Club. This should be completed by next spring, and will comprise over 10,000 square feet of facilities in all.

 

 

Bad news at American Airlines

The latest cuts to affect the Chapter 11 protected airline concern some of its maintenance staff.American Airline executives have said that the company must lose 10,400 jobs as well as reduce its labor costs by US$1.06bn a year if it is to emerge from bankruptcy in good shape. Amongst other cost-saving measures, American’s latest proposals include the outsourcing of up to 35% of its aircraft maintenance function, which is currently executed in house. To that end, American has said that it will be closing its Dallas/Fort Worth maintenance base by the end of the year, which will entail laying off over 800 mechanics. It will subsequently consolidate its major aircraft maintenance operations in Tulsa and at Dallas/Fort Worth International. More than 1,700 mechanics and sundry other workers at American’s three aircraft overhaul bases will be laid off in December and February, officials have revealed. Additional reductions of mechanics and related positions at the Tulsa maintenance base have not been ruled out.

 

 

Jazz in tune with its staff

Jazz Aviation has announced that its flight dispatchers, who are represented by the Canadian Air Line Dispatchers Association, have ratified a tentative agreement which was reached on August 31, 2012. The agreement will be in place for a six year period. CALDA represents approximately 67 flight dispatchers employed at Jazz.

Jolene Mahody, Chief Operating Officer of Jazz, congratulated the staff on reaching this milestone and expressed the hope that this agreement would strengthen the company’s profile within the aviation marketplace.

 

 

Aviation employment figures remain firm

US scheduled passenger airlines employed 1.4% more workers in June 2012 than they did in June 2011, according to a recent study from the US Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics. This actually represents the nineteenth consecutive month that full-time equivalent employee (or FTE) levels for scheduled passenger carriers have been higher than the equivalent month of the previous year.

In June, an FTE total of 390,923 for scheduled passenger carriers equated to 5,540 more than the total for June 2011. This year-on-year growth rate, although down from the growth rates achieved during the last half of 2011, reveals that there has been a gradual increase in the sector’s employment in the wake of the declines that occurred back in mid-2008.

Interestingly, virtually all the low cost airline segment reported an increase in their FTEs. Frontier Airlines was the exception, reporting fewer FTEs. Southwest Airlines reported 46,128 FTEs in June 2012, in a joint report following its merger with AirTran Airways. The combined report was 1,729 more FTEs (or 3.9% more) than the 44,399 FTEs the two airlines reported separately in June 2011.

It was a case of mixed results amongst the regional carriers: out of the 15 regionals, six reported reduced employment levels, compared to 2011 figures.

 

Third lounge for Dallas airport

At Dallas/Fort Worth airport, the airport board’s concessions committee has approved a seven year lease with American Express to operate a VIP lounge. The decision has been met with disappointment by American Airlines, which runs the Admirals Club within the same terminal. In fact, there is also a third lounge available to travelers with time on their hands: this is called The Club, for which there is no membership requirement.

For American Express cardholders (and non-cardholders), access to the lounge is via a daily pass, which ranges in cost from US$40 to US$75.

 

Commuters to lose out?

Delta, the largest operator of 50-seat aircraft in the US, will be closing the hangar doors on Comair by October. Moreover, other carriers with subsidiaries, such as Pinnacle and AMR, have filed for Chapter 11 in the recent past. Faced with the cold wind of change blowing through the economic corridors, the big names have had to reassess their regional offshoots – and so cutting out certain regional routes to focus on those that are more lucrative becomes par for the course.

The 50-seater has become synonymous with the type of aircraft serving the smaller community, often one in a remote location. Making those remote routes pay, though, has become less and less easy for the big carriers. Delta, for instance, is clipping its fleet of 350 or so commuter jets by over 200 units over the coming years. And if Delta’s example is followed, would-be flyers are going to be facing longer drives to the nearest airport.

The big carriers are all citing the same reasons for the cut-backs. Budgetary restraints have put the brakes on new investment and the price of fuel continues to test the hedging experts. Allied to this is the reality of ageing aircraft: maintenance costs are on the rise and every extra aircraft in a fleet represents another cash drain on the already straitened coffers. The difficulty involved in making the small aircraft viable will, analysts believe, ultimately lead to drastically reduced numbers of these aircraft circulating in years to come.

 

Backscatter X-ray machines: transparent technology?

There has been growing concern over the country’s 250 or so X-ray scanners that rely on so-called backscatter technology. These machines utilize a narrowly focused beam of high-intensity radiation for scanning passengers. Whilst this beam moves quickly across the passenger, the potential threat posed by the technology is little understood, in part because it is a secret process. At least one professor has said that he believes the radiation dose to be up to 45 times as high as that disclosed by the TSA.

Currently, the use of these machines is banned in Europe, a fact that has been noted as significant by those who feel the technology requires more study. To that end Congressman Steve Israel has called upon the TSA to conduct a thorough investigation into the use of this particular type of X-ray machine.

 

 

Environmental pledge from United

United Airlines is to further strengthen its commitment to sustainability and the environment by joining the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Users Group. This is an industry working group whose objective is to accelerate the development and commercialization of aviation biofuels.

“We are excited to collaborate with other industry leaders in our shared quest to advance sustainable biofuels,” said Jimmy Samartzis, Managing Director of Global Environmental Affairs and Sustainability for United, in a statement. “We will all benefit from our collective work to find solutions to make alternative fuel available at commercial scale and secure a sustainable future for aviation.”

Overall, the group’s members represent around 32% of commercial aviation fuel demand.

 

 

Cheaper with CHEP

Air Canada has selected CHEP Aerospace Solutions to supply and manage its fleet of unit load devices.

CHEP Aerospace Solutions will be acquiring Air Canada’s existing fleet of ULDs (which numbers more than 8,000 airline containers and pallets) and will migrate them into its shared ULD fleet over time, taking CHEP’s total ULD pool to in excess of 53,000 items. Outsourcing its ULD management to CHEP will thus enable Air Canada to eliminate the administration element whilst reducing the cost of positioning, maintaining and managing its own ULD fleet.

Air Canada’s decision to outsource this critical operational activity to CHEP Aerospace Solutions comes in the wake of an in-depth, due diligence process on the capabilities and value of outsourcing. Key to Air Canada’s decision was CHEP’s extensive ground service support team and its global maintenance and repair network that covers 50 stations worldwide; as well, the synergies and cost savings available from sharing assets with other CHEP airline customers was deemed a significant factor.

Air Canada’s Vice President, Cargo, Lise-Marie Turpin, said that the decision to partner with CHEP Aerospace Solutions had come after a lengthy and detailed analysis conducted by the Air Canada team. The results of the analysis revealed that CHEP was the best provider to deliver the requisite cost-savings and efficiencies.

In turn, CHEP Aerospace Solutions’ President, Dr Ludwig Bertsch, added that he was proud to have Air Canada as a business partner.

 

 

Delta to cut subsidiary by end of year

Delta Air Lines has announced that it will be shutting down Regional Elite Airline Services. This is the subsidiary that performs ground handling and customer service for its regional carrier flights. The subsidiary musters about 4,000 employees around the US and its operations are likely to be taken over by the end of the year by other companies, including another subsidiary, that of Delta Global Services. Delta hopes to be able to provide job opportunities at the same locations for the vast majority of affected workers.