Air India In Talks About Airbus A380

As AirlineWorld has reported earlier, India has merged its two national airlines earlier this year. The new merged Air India will be one of the largest airlines in Asia, and what would be a better way to represent this, than ordering a few Airbus A380 superjumbos?

According to ATW News, “Airbus CEO Tom Enders and CCO John Leahy told reporters yesterday at a press conference in New Delhi that the manufacturer is in talks with Air India regarding a potential A380 order. “We are in discussions with Air India now and we think they would need about 10-12 A380 aircraft as soon as we can deliver them,” Leahy said, according to multiple media reports. He said delivery could take place by 2011 if an order is placed soon. Enders added that it was “not an accident” that he traveled to India with Leahy. “India is one of the most important growing markets for us,” he said. AI said no decision has been made about a possible order.”

by balint01

New Runway In Beijing (Peking) For The Olympics

Beijing is now ready to handle the increased traffic for the 2008 summer Olympics. A new runway was opened yesterday that is 3,8 km long and 60 m wide. Even the A380 is able to take off and land on it. Today Beijing airport manages 1100 operations (take-offs and landings) daily. This number is expected to increase to 1900 during the Olympic games.

The next step of increasing the airport’s capacity will take place in February 2008 when the new terminal designed by British star architect Norman Foster will be opened for traffic. The new terminal will be one of the biggest airport terminal buildings in the world and with this additional building, Beijing will be able to handle 60 million passengers instead of the present 35 million yearly. The investment costs EUR 1,9 billion, but it is definately necessary for this mega sport event, where 500 thousand tourists are expected in August 2008.

By Szafi

SAS Stops Q 400 Operation And Replaces Them

Following the recent period of events involving aircraft of the Dash 8 Q400 type, SAS’s management, following an unscheduled meeting of the Board of Directors held today, has decided to immediately discontinue the use of this type of aircraft.

“Confidence in the Q400 has diminished considerably and our customers are becoming increasingly doubtful about flying in this type of aircraft. Accordingly, with the Board of Directors’ approval, I have decided to immediately remove Dash 8 Q400 aircraft from service,” says Mats Jansson, President and Chief Executive Officer of SAS.
In January 2000, SAS was the first customer to use the Dash 8 Q400 in its traffic operations. The aircraft have accounted for approximately 5 percent of the Group’s passengers. The aim is to replace traffic based on the Q400 by reallocating current aircraft in the SAS Group’s fleet and by means of leasing.

“The Dash 8 Q400 has given rise to repeated quality-related problems and we can now conclude that the aircraft does not match our passengers’ requirements concerning punctuality and regularity. SAS’s flight operations have always enjoyed an excellent reputation and there is a risk that use of the Dash 8 Q400 could eventually damage the SAS brand,” says John
Dueholm, Deputy CEO of SAS.

In total 27 aircraft of SAS Group fleet of 303 aircraft are affected, accounting for approx 5% of total aircraft seat capacity.
SAS Group will do everything possible to mitigate the negative consequences for the passengers. Short and medium term SAS will take the following actions to handle the replacement of the Q400 fleet (with estimated time frame)

1. Review of network and reallocation of aircraft capacity within the SAS group (0-3 months)
2. External wet lease capacity (0-1 month)
3. External dry lease capacity (3-6 months)

In parallel, work has already been initiated how to replace the aircraft type long term. SAS expect to start to implement a long-term solution by second half of 2008.

An early estimate of the negative impact on the SAS Group result is around 300-400M SEK (USD 46 – 57 million) for the remaining part of the year. The estimate takes into account the above mentioned actions and lower seasonal demand in the coming months. It is based on revenue loss, fixed cost and negative feeder effects and comes in addition
to the effects communicated earlier.

Due to the decision, SAS’s traffic services will be affected by flight cancellations in the period immediately ahead. The customers concerned will be given an opportunity to either rebook or have their tickets refunded.

SAS press releases 28, 29 October 2007

By Szafi 

Copenhagen – Another Q400 Accident Again!

A plane carrying 46 people made an emergency landing at Copenhagen Airport in Denmark on Saturday, sliding onto its right wing after the landing gear collapsed, a police official said. No one was seriously injured in the accident, Copenhagen police spokesman Tommy Keil said. Prior to the accident, the pilots of the aircraft reported problems with its main landing gear, according to SAS.

The accident took place at 16:55 local time and the runway on which the aircraft landed — one of two at Copenhagen’s Kastrup Airport — was closed after it happened. The Q400 involved bore the registration number LN-RDI and was operating SAS flight number SK 2867 from Bergen to Copenhagen, the airline said.

See all details on Aviation.com

As AirlineWorld reported it earlier, there were similar crashes of the Bombardier Q400, when Bombardier together with FAA recommended all operating carriers the grounding of their Q400 fleet for a safety check. We even had a discussion with Mr Murray Cohen, a flight engineer and Bombardier’s spokesman about the accuracy of this check. Now I am wondering what might have happened during that safety check when not late after relaunching them the first accident happens.

By Szafi 

Amadeus Turns 20

  

The largest European based GDS (Global Distribution System), Amadeus has just turned 20 years old a week ago, as it was officially established 21OCT1987 by four European Airlines: Iberia, Air France, Lufthansa and SAS. The four airlines wished to create a European GDS by merging their own computer reservation systems. The basis of the new GDS was System One, an existing US reservation system.

Within a year they have opened their headquarters in Madrid, Spain, their development center in Nice, France, and have started construction on the new Data Center, in Erding, Germany. In 1989 they have launched AmadeusPro to allow travel agents to book flights through neutral screens, while already 11 airlines were Amadeus users. One year later the Erding Data Center opened, which costed $200 million altogether, and was capable of handling 150 million transactions in the first year. 1991 saw 45.000 terminals being connected to Amadeus, while in 1992 the new Amadeus GDS was launched with the first PNR being booked for Mr. Wolfgang Amadeus. In the first year 70 million bookings were created. 1993 saw more than 10 million bookings each month, as well as 60% of European Travel Agencies were connected to 1A (1A is the two letter IATA code of Amadeus GDS). In 1994 Austrian Airlines joined the distribution system as the 100th airline selling through Amadeus. One year later Amadeus fully acquired System One from Continental Airlines, thus becoming the largest GDS in terms of travel agency locations. In 1996 www.amadeus.net was launched, while bookings topped 309 million. Only about 50% of old System One users accepted the forced migration to Amadeus. In 1997 Amadeus celebrated its 10 year anniversary, while serving 32% of the travel agency market worldwide, and the first Amadeus powered travel website was also launched by Icelandair.

In 1998, the first year of their second decade, they launched the SAP Travel Management tool, which is fully integrated with SAP’s finance and HR modules, and their data center handled one million transactions in a single day for the first time. By 1999, around 80 airlines and 3000 travel agencies rely on 1A e-commerce solutions, and this is the year, when 1A launches the world’s first neutral Electronic Ticketing solution: the Amadeus E-Ticket Server (ETS). In 2000 and 2001 Amadeus lays down the plans for the coming years, by starting development on Vista (a browser based version of their reservation system), on new Inventory and Departure Control Systems (for British Airways and Qantas as the first customers), as well as announcing the new Altéa Customer Management Solution. In 2003 the annual number of bookings passes the 400 million mark, while new airlines launch their websites based on 1A, among them bmi and Qantas. In 2005 Amadeus shifts its “identity” to become “Your Technology Partner”, and repositions itself as a leading Airline IT service provider. To support this change, they win a major contract to support the Star Alliance with a new Common IT Platform for all member airlines. Last year Amadeus handled 499 million bookings, and by 2007 they provide 192 airlines with their e-Ticketing. This year they have launched MoneyDirect as a Joint Venture with Sabre.

As the leading Airline IT provider, they provide the capacity for common shared access to flight reservations and frequent flyer information to nearly 150 airlines as Amadeus Altéa Reservation airlines (formerly known as System User). Current Amadeus Altéa Reservation customers include:

• 6 of the 11 oneworld airlines (55%)
• 13 of the 21 Star Alliance airlines (61%)
• 3 of the 10 SkyTeam airlines (30%)

And with the Common IT Platform for Star, this number will raise in the future. As we can see, in the first 18 years Amadeus focused on the travel agencies (and seems like they have won on that front being the leader on the market), and now they start to focus on Airlines. If they are as successful on this market as with the travel agencies, they may be the largest player in this field as well, within the next few years. It looks like they have started down the right path to do that.

http://www.amadeus.com/2020/

On the dedicated anniversary website you can find some more items besides the history of Amadeus, such as future plans, and thank you notes. They also added a fun “Personal Note for you” feature, with a personalized message, don’t miss that one, either!

We would also wish Amadeus a Happy 20th Birthday on behalf of AirlineWorld Blog!

by balint01

Friday Fun – Autumn Weather Report

 This coming weekend the airline world will switch to the “Winter Schedule” as it is called on the Northern Hemisphere. Every year this change also signals the beginning of the bad, autumn weather on this side of the globe, with cooler temperatures, rains and fog (which sometimes lead to delays). So such weather reports as the one in our Friday Fun cartoon will be more regular these days.

by balint01

Easyjet Acquires GB Airways

easyJet announced yesterday that it has agreed to acquire the entire issued share capital of GB Airways, excluding its slots at Heathrow Airport, from the Bland Group Limited, for a cash consideration of £103.5 million.

GB Airways is primarily a London Gatwick based point-to-point airline operating to destinations across Southern Europe and North Africa under a franchise agreement with British Airways. It serves 31 destinations and operates 15 Airbus aircraft (9 A320s and 6 A321s) with an average age of 4.1 years, which are complementary to the easyJet fleet of 107 A319s. In total it operates 39 routes – 28 from Gatwick, 6 from Manchester, 5 from Heathrow.

Based upon its statutory accounts under UK GAAP for the year ended 31 March 2007, GB Airways reported profit before tax of £2.6 million and EBITDAR of £35 million on revenues of £250 million; it carried 2.8 million passengers; had gross assets of £182 million and net assets of £33 million.

The acquisition of GB Airways is consistent with easyJet’s expansion strategy and, importantly, strengthens its customer offering at Gatwick, the airline’s biggest base which has a highly attractive catchment area in London and South East England. The purchase adds valuable take-off and landing slots at Gatwick and the opportunity to accelerate easyJet’s route development. Following the acquisition, easyJet will operate 24% of Gatwick’s slots and will fly approximately 8 million passengers across 62 routes from Gatwick.

By Winter 2008/09, GB Airways will be fully consolidated into the easyJet business model, releasing cost savings. The acquisition will be positive to easyJet’s earnings per share and return on equity in easyJet’s current financial year, before one-off integration costs. easyJet anticipates GB Airways’ seat profitability reaching a similar level to its own at Gatwick in the first full financial year of operation.

My only comment to this press release is that the key part of this acquisition is the Gatwick slots as it appears  in the press release that I bolded.

By Szafi

The Scandalous Road of A380

On 25 October 2007 the first scheduled flight operated by an Airbus A380 takes off from Singapore to Sydney. Tickets for the first flight were sold on e-Bay for USD 1,25 million. The total profit of the first flight will go to charity. Singapore Airlines is a very caring, proud new owner. They took part in the developments from day one. CEO Chew Choon Seng said at the delivery ceremony: “From today there is a new queen of the skies in air travel.”

The Supersize Queen

The Superjumbo is a record from many aspects. The following numbers present how outstanding this giant plane is. It is 73 m long (as a comparison the width of a soccer field is 73 m). Its wingspan is 80 m and its height is 24 m. The operating empty weight is 277 tons, while maximum take off wieght is 560 tons. Usable cabin space: 630 sq m. In the cockpit there are no more rod controls, normal PC joysticks are used isntead. The big lady requires more space on the ground, too. The early studies thought that the A380 will ruin all runways and taxiways, but the first tests show it harms concrete and asphalt less than Boeing 747 as A380 has 22 wheels, while Jumbo has 4 less. It seems that any airport can accept the A380, but still it needs more space on tha apron and during maneuvering in front of the terminal buildings. Bridges designed for double decker planes are also necessary for simultaneous passenger boarding. Naturally the huge engines make bigger turbulance than other frequently used passenger aircrafts, so more space is needed for taking off or landing after an A380.

Flying Wonderland

The huge milady is definately luxurious. The new Singapore Airlines fleet member will carry 471 people on board (the plane itself can be seated up to 800, but the standard 3 cabin – economy, business, first – configuration can have 550 seats). The 399 economy seats will feature and a 23 cm widescreen for 100 movies, 180 TV programmes, 700 cd and 22 radio stations to choose from. The 60 business seats on the upper deck will be laid-out in a 1-2-1 formation, with each seat being 86 cm wide. The business seats convert to a fully-flat bed. The First Class Suites look something similar to old classy train cabins rather than airplane seats. They are cabins and not seats with a full size mattress, a wide screen on the wall and they can easily be transformed from a bedroom to a mini restaurant, where first class passengers can invite their first class mates for dinner. First class cabins can be paired up and opened to a bigger suite with a double bed.

It is not just Singapore Airlines that wants to give special services to its high yield passengers. Emirates that has just reseated it 777 fleet with first class cabins resembling the spirit of the old Orient-Express. They are expected to present similar luxury on board their new A380s. They will probably create more social scenes as well, such as a bar or a fitness room at least that is what Virgin Atlantic plans to do, so they must keep themselves competitive. Qantas also plans a bar and even their business class seats will have built-in massage function. Lufthansa has just presented the first part of their new First Class concept by opening a new First Class lounge at Frankfurt and Munich.

The long and winding road

Airbus started planning the development of a Megaliner – as they called it at that time. Their goal was to break the dominance of Boeing in the giant planes segment with its very successful 747. Other competitors also tried to enter the market, but they all failed. It was clearly visible that this segment is too small for more than 2 models, therefore Airbus and Boeing joined efforts and wrote a feasibility study of a common plane together. The common development never started, so following the decision of Airbus’ Supervisory Board on 19 december 2000, a EUR 8.8 bllion project was started. The number 8 in the A380 is a symbol of the double deck and in many Far-Eastern cultures it is a lucky number (and as mentioned above, Singapore Airlines took part from the first day). The number was not that lucky in this case though as the project missed its deadline by 1,5 years and overdrafted its budget by EUR 2.2 billion. The first delay was announced in June 2005 blaming the enormous amount (530 km) of cables needed for each oaircraft. The next delay came in June 2006 followed by a 26% drop in the value of Airbus and the owner company EADS shares. At this point there were serious consequences and the CEO of EADS and Airbus and the A380 programme manager had to leave their companies. It was the new CEO who announced the biggest delay in October 2006 and successfully estimating the first delivery to happen a year later. In connection with the delays, a new scandal came into the sight of both the media and the French parliament. It appeared that before the June 2006 delay announcement, EADS and Airbus high level managers sold their shares. They are accused with internal trading and now a legal procedure is on against them.

What is next?

Seventeen airlines have ordered the A380, including an order from aircraft lessor ILFC. Total orders for the A380 stand at 190, of which 165 were firm as of 30 September 2007. Airbus expects to sell a total of 750 aircraft, and estimated break-even at 420 units, increased from 270 due to the delays and the falling exchange rate of the US dollar. In April 2007, Airbus CEO Louis Gallois said that break-even had risen further, but declined to give the new figure. Industry analysts anticipate between 400 and 880 sales by 2025. As of 2006, the list price of an A380 is US$ 296 to 316 million, depending on equipment installed.

It is still unprojectable whether the business model of such a huge tin lady will be successful or not. It can be operated profitably by airlines taht have many long haul flights with huge number of passengers on these routes. The number of such airlines is limited and due to travel seasons it is not sure that even on these routes they can always fill this huge bird. Anyway we keep our fingers crossed, because when seeing such scientific development, we can always see our own evolution.

By Szafi and Balint01

New Meal On Iberia Flights

In Iberia’s intercontinental Business Plus class the airline has turned again to master chef Sergi Arola to design the gourmet meal service.

Clients flying Business Plus from Spain can enjoy the offerings from a completely new menu, and taste new dishes made from original recipes and ingredients of the highest quality.

A “wholesome choice·” with extra protein

The gourmet meal service on Business Plus allows passengers to choose among three main course options –meat, fish, or a “wholesome choice” based on a selection of vegetables with extra protein in the form of delicious cured Iberian ham, cuttlefish, and large prawns.

After the main dish, diners are offered a plate of the best traditional Spanish cheeses made with milk from goats, sheep, or cows.

For those who fancy a sweet, the award-winning pasty chef Francisco Torreblanca has designed new and original desserts using careful selected ingredients.

To help cheese the right wine to accompany the gourmet in-flight meals, Iberia again called on wine experts TodoVino, which renews our wine list every three months with vintages from Spain’s principle wine regions –two whites, two sparkling cavas, and three reds, one of them the monthly recommendation of TodoVino’s chief sommelier Custodio L. Zamarra.

By Szafi

SITA Plans To Develop New CRS

SITA announced the development of a new Reservation System. You can read the full story on ATW Online. I must admit I am not a SITA fan myself. After an almost failed project in 2003 and a completely failed project in 2006 with them and after seeing their “Horizon” project slowly sinking into the ocean. By the way in the airline industry it is fancy to give applications names related to aviation. But Horizon is not a smart name as the closer you try to get to it, the further it moves from you.
I was honestly surprised by this announcement. After failing the Horizon project together with Unisys, Lufthansa Systems bought that half ready, unusable product (I worked with it; there were completely insane features in it and very important functions missing). Not long ago LH Systems announced they stopped developing it – which I think was a very wise decision. This is the relationship between SITA and Lufthansa Systems that appear in the article.

When I take a look at this announcement, I have a guess about what is going on at SITA. Ian Ryder’s name appears in the article. I first met him during our first e-commerce project together with SITA. At that time he was the head of SITA’s newly bought, Godalming based e-commerce department. SITA bought that company in late 2002 or early 2003. They had a product called I-Travel Direct. It was first implemented for Air New Zealand on a different GDS and Malev was the next client on SITA Gabriel. Later Malev migrated to Amadeus and we developed our own e-commerce solution based on Amadeus. But it was clear that SITA’s solution was at least competitive, although for us it was not flexible enough. At that time they also developed a new pricing system there also mentioned in the article.

So my guess is that this e-commerce and e-pricing solution will be the basis for this new development. And if this is the case, I have to say it is a good idea and this way they are right; even low costs will be able to take advantage of it. Such a development is a mega project though with many departments involved and if I just take a look at that department responsible for SITA’s DCS, they will stumble into lack of knowledge and lack of professionals. They can only succeed with it if they will hire some good project managers (better than the ones I met before – except Kevin Bull) who can split up this huge project into well definable pieces and monitor developments closely. These project managers will also need support and attention from the highest level management.

I will write an email to SITA and ask for their comments.

By Szafi