AirlinesAlaska Airlines Adds California RoutesAlaska Airlines today announced it will add new, three-times daily service between San Diego and Sacramento and Burbank and San Jose, beginning March 16, 2017. The nonstop service will connect California fliers to London, Beijing and Tokyo on Alaska's partners British Airways, Hainan Airlines and Japan Airlines.
LinkAlitalia CEO: Goal is ‘not breakeven, but profitability’ in 2017Italian flag carrier Alitalia is holding firm on its target of hitting breakeven in 2017, although new CEO Cramer Ball is hoping to go further and post a profit. The new Alitalia began operations on Jan. 1, 2015, following a €1.76 billion ($2 billion) recapitalization that saw its historic debt wiped out and Etihad Airways take a 49% stake.
LinkAmerican helps staff checkpoints to speed up security linesAmerican Airlines plans to help staff checkpoints with assistants to alleviate long lines at airport security. Airline employees will help with non-security functions, enabling the Transportation Security Administration to focus on screening passengers. The American staff will start at O'Hare International Airport this week.
LinkAmerican Airlines donates travel for Ecuador quake reliefAmerican Airlines Cargo transported 560 water purification kits to Ecuador after the country suffered an earthquake last month. "We are proud to have played a part in the safe and speedy arrival of these kits to the heart of the quake zone," said Linda Dreffein, managing director of cargo sales for the eastern region. The carrier donated the travel to nonprofit GlobalMedic.
LinkFlydubai crash probe completes cockpit recording transcriptRussian investigators have completed transcription work on the cockpit exchanges between the pilots of the Flydubai Boeing 737-800 which crashed at Rostov-on-Don. The Interstate Aviation Committee says 2h 3min 49s of information from the cockpit-voice recorder have been downloaded and examined.
LinkHong Kong Airlines opens New Zealand routeHong Kong Airlines (HKA) will start a daily direct service from Hong Kong International Airport to Auckland, New Zealand from November 2016. The Hong Kong-based carrier, which is a subsidiary of Haikou-based Hainan Airlines, will use Airbus A330-200 aircraft in a 283-seat configuration. HKA said the new route was driven partly by the surge in tourism numbers from China, and would build on the success of its existing 3X-weekly schedule to Australia, launched in January 2016.
LinkLion Air, Indonesia AirAsia Ground Ops InvestigatedIndonesia's transport ministry said it plans to suspend the in-house ground handling operations of budget carriers Lion Air and Indonesia AirAsia at two of the country's biggest airports while it investigates possible handling errors. Ministry spokesman Hemi Pamuraharjo said the airlines have until Tuesday to hire other handling services before its investigation begins. He said, without elaborating, that the possible errors involved passenger handling.
LinkNigerian Domestic Flights Disrupted By Fuel ShortageFuel shortages have caused an increase in cancellations and delays to internal flights in Nigeria over the last few days, a spokesman for the aviation authority said. Nigeria is facing its biggest economic crisis for decades due to the knock-on effects of a slump in oil revenues. Its supply of dollars, needed to pay for refined oil products and other essential imports, has dried up and caused fuel shortages.
LinkPiedmont Airlines, American to decide future of Dash 8 fleetSalisbury, Maryland-based Piedmont Airlines and its parent company, American Airlines, soon must make decisions about the future of the regional carrier’s Bombardier Dash 8 fleet. Some of its aircraft will reach a limit on how many cycles they can perform, while others eventually will run up against a federal mandate requiring updated cockpits. In a briefing last week at the Regional Airline Association (RAA) convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, Piedmont president Lyle Hogg said the Dash 8 fleet can perform 80,000 cycles under normal operations. Hogg said some of the airline’s 37 Dash 8s are already bumping against that cap and will need be retired within the next two years, while others will not reach it until after 2020.
LinkQatar Airways Arrives In Atlanta Ahead Of Its Start Of ServiceQatar Airways hosted a capacity-crowd press conference in Atlanta to discuss its new service, which will commence June 1, 2016. Atlanta is the tenth destination the airline serves in the United States, connecting to Qatar Airways' home at Hamad International Airport in Doha, Qatar, and to more than 150 destinations world-wide.
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