Fokker

Sweden's Largus Aviation purchased three Fokker 50s from Luxair. The aircraft will be flown by Amapola, an established Fokker 50 freight carrier. The planes will be used to deliver mail in Sweden. Skyways Aviation brokered the deal.

QantasLink

National Jet Systems, one of Australia's independent regional carriers, won a contract to fly eight Boeing [BA] 717s as part of the QantasLink network. National Jet beat out Jetstar, the Qantas-owned low-fare domestic carrier, for the rights to the B717s. Jetstar has been flying the B717s on its low-fare routes, but it is replacing the aircraft with Airbus 320s. It was competing to fly the B717s on the Qantas regional system. National Jet will gradually replace eight BAe 146s it has been flying on the regional network.

Sabre

Six air carriers, including Mesa Air Group [MESA] and Atlantic Southeast Airlines (ASA), recently purchased Sabre Airline Solutions' AirCrew Pairing Optimizer. The six purchased the Sabre unit that now operates on the Linux operating system. With the Linux version of the software, an airline can run the system on a desktop computer. Sabre previously marketed the crew pairing software for the Unix platform. Mesa, Air Jamaica and Frontier Airlines [FRNT] are already using the software while ASA, Spirit Airlines and Skyservice Airlines will implement the system later this month.

B/E Aerospace

B/E Aerospace, a manufacturer of aircraft cabin interior products, posted its second straight annual loss. The firm lost $22 million, or 53 cents per share, on sales of $733.5 million in 2004 compared to a loss of $53.5 million, or $1.49 per share, in 2003 on sales of $624.4 million. In the fourth quarter, it lost $9.3 million, or 17 cents per share, on sales of $189.6 million. A year earlier, the loss was $19.5 million, or 53 cents per share, on sales of $163.4 million. The commercial aircraft division sales grew in the fourth quarter by 8.4 percent to $133.5 million - earning $9.6 million in operating income.

CAE

As its reported a third quarter loss, Montreal-based CAE announced it was cutting its dividend and 450 jobs in an effort to return to profitability. The manufacturer of flight simulators said it lost $279.7 million in the third quarter while it posted a profit of $17.4 million a year ago. Its sales were up 1 percent to $209.4 million. CAE cuts its annual dividend from 12 Canadian cents per share to 4 cents. In an effort to trim costs, a new simulation products unit will be formed on April 1 to regroup manufacturing with engineering, program management and procurement. In other news, CAE announced that it plans to build a new training center in Morris County, New Jersey. The center will provide training on the new Falcon 7X, a Dassault business jet.

Smarte Carte

Smarte Carte, a leading provider of airport baggage carts, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this month. In the prepackage bankruptcy filing, Smarte Carte's largest lender, Black Diamond Capital Management, will end up owning 72 percent of the firm and GE Commercial Financing will end up with 23 percent of the new stock. The company expects to emerge from bankruptcy in about 60 days.

Bombardier

Flexjet, the fractional business jet ownership division of Bombardier [BBD] Aerospace reported a 32 percent increase of sales in shares of its Learjet and Challenger aircraft in 2004. December sales posted the strongest sales of any month in the last three years.

Embraer

Even as it builds ever larger regional jets, Brazil's Embraer [ERJ] plans to develop more corporate jet models. The company currently markets the Legacy, a corporate jet version of its 37-seat ERJ 135. The company has not tipped its hand at what the new models may look like. The Legacy is considered a "super mid-sized" airplane.