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Monday, March 22, 2004

Briefs

  • To no one's surprise, Republic Airways Holding ordered 16 Embraer [ERJ]145s, with Rolls-Royce AE 3007 engines, to be delivered from May through September 2005. The deal is valued at $320 million. The planes will be deployed to its subsidiary, Chautauqua Airlines, which will use them for its new contract with United Airlines [UALAQ]. Embraer also announced that the Embraer 190 took its first test flight earlier this month. The plane, which can seat 98 to 108 passengers, is expected to be certified in the third quarter of 2005.
  • Agricultural Research Service scientists tested a "curtain of air" recently at Miami International Airport to prevent disease-carrying insects from boarding airplanes. Using equipment already available, the research equipped a jetway with two vertically mounted air curtains. The curtain is made of air blown away from the passenger doors by fans on either side of the walkway, at an air speed of at least one-meter per second. Insects cannot penetrate the barrier. It cost about $3,000 to modify the jetway. The U.S. Department of Transportation sponsored a pilot study of the curtain system. Results of the study show that air curtains can exclude 99 percent of flying insects. Certain countries - including India, Australia, Jamaica, Grenada, and Trinidad and Tobago - require airlines to ensure that aircraft are insect-free before passengers get off the plane. The countries want to prevent mosquitoes, flies and other insects that may spread diseases, such as malaria and West Nile virus, from crossing their borders.
  • American Eagle established a new maintenance base at the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport in Bentonville, Ark. Staffed by 27 mechanics; the crew will service the carrier's fleet of Bombardier [BBD] CRJ 700s. Within the year the staff will grow to 60 employees. American Eagle currently has 20 daily flights out of Wal-Mart's hometown.
  • At Mesa Air Group's [MESA] recent annual meeting, a majority of shareholders voted against the management on two proxy ballot items. Placed on the agenda by shareholders, the measure asking the board to submit any "poison pill" to a shareholder vote gathered a 72 percent "yes" vote (CRAN, March 1). The vote came despite an attempt to craft a poison-pill-as-the-last-resort policy. The same advisory issue got 71 percent of the votes last year. The board is not bound by the poison pill vote. A majority of shareholders also refused to ratify a new stock option plan that was proposed by the board. Institutional Shareholder Services had recommended that the investor reject the plan.
  • Atlantic Coast Airlines Holding [ACAI] has selected Navitaire to provide the infrastructure for the passenger reservation system to be used by Independence Air. The Open Skies system provides both call center and Internet support. As a regional carrier, Atlantic Coast relied on its partners to provide a reservation system. It now has to build that element of the customer service infrastructure. The Navitaire system is used by a number of low-fare airlines, including JetBlue Airways [JBLU], WestJet Airlines [WJA] and Ryanair [RYAAY]. Navitaire, based in Minneapolis, is a unit of Accenture [CAN].
  • AirNet Systems [ANS] has earned the ISO 9001:2000 certification by the European Quality Assurance Board. The regional cargo carrier's primary maintenance center won the designation since it met strict international service standards. While the designation is valid through 2006, a team from the European certification body will inspect the AirNet facilities every six months.
  • A national coalition of regional airlines has been formed in Australia. RegionalLink Airlines currently consists of three carriers: Airnorth Regional, Airlines of South Australia and Emu Airways. The founding airlines are all owned by Capiteq. However, talks have been held with other airlines to become "franchise" partners in the coalition. RegionalLink would not operate the planes, but offer bulk procurement power for supplies and services.
  • Output of U.S. transportation services rose for the fourth straight month in December to a record high, according to a new experimental index released the Department of Transportation. The new Transportation Services Index, or TSI, rose 1 percent in December to 118.5. The index was up 0.1 percent from December 2002, the previous peak. The passenger service element of the index fell 3.6 percent to 114.4, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics said. The TSI is a measure of the month-to-month changes in the output of services provided by the for-hire transportation industries, including railroad, air, truck and inland waterways transportation, pipeline transportation and local transit.
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