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Pieter C.

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I miss TAROM Romanian Airlines along the lines here... :(

 

TAROM,Uncle Pieter? They're ST associated member,right?

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TAROM,Uncle Pieter? They're ST associated member,right?

 

Right, but not mentioned in the overview, so wonder what happened.....

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Continental has announced they plan to leave Skyteam and instead join Star Alliance. They are thought to be unhappy about the Delta / Northwest merger and their close co-operation with Air France KLM. They will instead be working closer with United.

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Continental has announced they plan to leave Skyteam and instead join Star Alliance. They are thought to be unhappy about the Delta / Northwest merger and their close co-operation with Air France KLM. They will instead be working closer with United.

 

It's not a plan, but a fact already: move will be 01jul09 ...

 

Sad to see them go... :(

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Received newsletter from Korean Air and it reads:

 

Continental Airlines and Copa Airlines will end their participation in SkyTeam Alliance on 24 October 2009

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Received newsletter from Korean Air and it reads:

 

Continental Airlines and Copa Airlines will end their participation in SkyTeam Alliance on 24 October 2009

 

Correct: both will join Star Alliance :(

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The back part of the plane looks OK, but the front ? :nea:

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Air France-KLM Pulls Out Of CSA Czech Bidding

 

August 19, 2009

Air France-KLM pulled out of the bidding for state-owned CSA Czech Airlines on Wednesday, citing the impact of the economic environment on the airline business.

 

Europe's biggest carrier said economic circumstances meant CSA could focus instead on trying to restore its profitability on its own through a recovery plan.

 

"In this context Air France-KLM wishes to further strengthen the existing partnership between the two groups and to continue to explore with CSA any new areas of cooperation that could be of mutual benefit to each company," it said in a statement.

 

In April, the Czech Finance Ministry had picked Air France-KLM and a consortium of Czech companies Unimex and Travel Service as second-round bidders for CSA. Analysts said the sale could be worth around CZK5 billion czech koruny (USD$276 million).

 

In June, the ministry extended the deadline for binding bids to September 15 from July 13 to give more time for due diligence.

 

"Air France-KLM today informed the Czech Ministry of Finance of its decision to withdraw from the tender process for the privatisation," Air France-KLM said on Wednesday.

 

A spokesman for the Czech ministry did not have any immediate comment.

 

Air France-KLM has been a key player in the much-anticipated consolidation of the European airline industry as carriers struggle with increasing competition, rising fuel costs and a drop in air travel caused by the financial crisis.

 

(Reuters)

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Are KLc Leaving GLA For Good At Start Of The Winter Timetable 09/10?

 

Pieter,

 

See AMS-GLA v.v. services go all KL from the end of October 09.

Is this the end of KLc at GLA?

Am booked on a KLc flight to AMS in a fortnight which hopefully will be my first flight on a KLc Embraer 190.

KLc are one of my favourite airlines having had many flights on Fokker 70 & Fokker 100's over the years (also flown on the Fokker 50!).

The old birds and crews have always been a pleasure to fly with.

It would be a real shame to see KLc go for good from GLA.

 

Kind regards,

Ken

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Are KLc Leaving GLA For Good At Start Of The Winter Timetable 09/10?

 

Pieter,

 

See AMS-GLA v.v. services go all KL from the end of October 09.

Is this the end of KLc at GLA?

Am booked on a KLc flight to AMS in a fortnight which hopefully will be my first flight on a KLc Embraer 190.

KLc are one of my favourite airlines having had many flights on Fokker 70 & Fokker 100's over the years (also flown on the Fokker 50!).

The old birds and crews have always been a pleasure to fly with.

It would be a real shame to see KLc go for good from GLA.

 

Kind regards,

Ken

 

Ken,

 

Hopefully, you booked KL1474 for your travel-needs, as this is the only E190 scheduled for GLA-AMS till the end of October !!!

Loads have been so good, indeed, KLM will take-over the flights, eff. 25oct09 from GLA with 73W and 733 equipment.

However, in the lull period of 04jan10-21feb10, a F70 will return to GLA on the KL1477/1478 flights...

 

Glad to hear you've enjoyed the 'young' crews of KLC on the 'old' birds :pardon:

 

Cheers,

 

Pieter...

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Pieter,

 

Thanks for the info.

 

Yes, I'm booked on KL1474.

 

Any additional AMS-GLA metal due for next Wednesday's football match with De Oranje?

 

Kind regards,

Ken

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Delta In Talks To Buy Big JAL Stake :blink: :blink:

 

September 11, 2009

 

Delta Air Lines is in talks to invest in struggling Japan Airlines (JAL) and become its biggest shareholder, Japanese media said on Friday.

 

Public broadcaster NHK and Kyodo news said Delta was in talks to invest several tens of billions of yen in JAL, Asia's largest airline by revenue, as part of a business alliance.

 

"I can't verify what has been reported by NHK and can't comment further at this time," said a JAL spokeswoman.

 

JAL is headed for its second straight loss this business year and is restructuring under state supervision after receiving a JPY100 billion credit facility backed by the government.

 

JAL and Delta are also talking about code-sharing on international flights, Kyodo and NHK said.

 

JAL reported a JPY50.9 billion operating loss for the year to March 2009 and has forecast a JPY59 billion loss for the current year, as it struggles to control costs and suffers along with other airlines due to a slump in global travel.

 

(Reuters)

 

DL is ST and JL is OW; interesting to say the least !!! :pardon:

Trying to woo JL into ST at a later stage ? :huh:

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Air France KLM details winter capacity cut

 

Tuesday September 22, 2009

 

Air France KLM Group will trim winter ASKs by 2% year-over-year, comprising a 1.8% reduction in its long-haul network and a 2.9% cut in medium-haul flying.

 

Air France and its subsidiaries will lower winter capacity by 1.7%, while KLM will cut by a more comprehensive 4%. The carriers insisted that connectivity at their Paris Charles de Gaulle and Amsterdam hubs will be maintained.

 

AF said it will rationalize its Latin American and Asian flights, implement transatlantic efficiencies thanks to its joint venture with Delta Air Lines and reduce frequencies to New York JFK, Dubai and Johannesburg. It will serve those three destinations daily with its first three A380s, which are scheduled to enter service on Nov. 23 to JFK, Jan. 18 to DXB and in early March to JNB. Capacity will increase to Havana and Punta Cana and will remain unchanged on Indian Ocean routes.

 

ASKs on AF's medium-haul network will be down 1.1%, and it said the "first effects of capacity reorganization planned for summer 2010 can already be seen on European routes." Frequencies from CDG to Amsterdam, Barcelona, Geneva, Madrid, Munich, Moscow Sheremetyevo and Rome Fiumicino will be cut "without impairing the quality of connections with long-haul flights, so as to use larger capacity aircraft which are more efficient." Flights also will be reduced to Verona, Dublin, Birmingham and Edinburgh. Service from London City to CDG, Strasbourg, Nice and Geneva will be discontinued, but there will be a new twice-daily flight to Nantes.

 

Domestic capacity will be reduced by 3.2%, with "major" capacity adjustments at Paris Orly, closure of services from Clermont-Ferrand to Biarritz, Lille, Marseille, Strasbourg and Toulouse and fewer frequencies on Bordeaux-Nantes, Lyon-Nice and Lyon-Bordeaux routes.

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Air France Eyes Breakeven In 2010

 

September 23, 2009

 

Air France-KLM, hopes to reach breakeven point at the start of the fiscal year beginning April 2010, excluding the impact of fuel hedging contracts, its head told les Echos.

 

Hedging will continue to have a negative impact on the carrier next year, but cost-cutting measures announced already should stop cash flow deterioration next spring, chief executive Pierre-Henri Gourgeon told the newspaper in an interview.

 

Air France said on July 30 that fuel hedging had a negative impact of EUR252 million euros (USD$373 million) on its results in the first quarter ended June 30.

 

The group announced then a review of its medium-haul network, with changes to be implemented at the start of 2010, and said it expected its passenger business to stabilise in the second half of this fiscal year.

 

It added that it expected its cargo business to see a progressive stabilisation in the second half.

 

Gourgeon told Les Echos the airline planned to resume fuel hedging next month but covering only 80 percent of annual needs. It would also hedge 18 months ahead instead of four years, he added.

 

"In the end, we will be less well covered, but we won't risk losing as much money as today anymore," the CEO was quoted as saying.

 

Gourgeon added that the airline would remain at current capacity levels next year and the year after, following a 5 percent reduction in its offering. Traffic was not expected to return to 2008 levels before 2012, he said.

 

(Reuters)

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Delta Closes USD$2.1 Billion Financing

 

September 28, 2009

 

Delta Air Lines said on Monday that it has closed USD$2.1 billion of financing deals that have bolstered its liquidity by USD$600 million.

 

The company said the transactions also have addressed more than 40 percent of its 2010 debt maturities.

 

Delta said the financing deals were secured by liens against its Pacific route authorities, slots and gate leaseholds.

 

After refinancing USD$1.5 billion from bank credit and revolving credit facilities of its Northwest Airlines subsidiary, Delta said it will generate USD$600 million in incremental liquidity.

 

Delta, which had announced debt offerings in recent weeks, became the world's largest airline when it bought Northwest last year.

 

(Reuters)

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Kenya Air Expects Pick-Up As Global Crisis Ends

 

September 25, 2009

 

Kenya Airways, one of Africa's leading airlines, expects its passenger traffic from Europe to pick up as the global economic downturn bottoms out, its chief executive said on Friday.

 

Although most of the airline's revenue come from its African routes, which make up 67 percent of its destinations, European tourists and business travellers on routes such as London and Amsterdam contribute significantly to revenue.

 

"As soon as people don't have money to spend, the first things to go are the near-luxuries. Unfortunately, travel is one of them," Titus Naikuni told a news conference.

 

"We have noticed that in Europe... things are starting to improve. As the economy starts to move slowly then tourism will come back."

 

Naikuni said the other effect of the downturn on businesses like Kenya Airways was lack of funding for new investments. Although financing needs were minimal due to the slump, he said the situation could change rapidly.

 

He added the airline was looking for ways of offsetting a 25 percent rise in its wage bill after a settlement to end a three-day strike by workers.

 

"We have to find ways of ensuring that we improve on our own efficiencies to ensure that we recover that amount because it has to be recovered," the chief executive said.

 

The airline, whose big shareholders are Air France-KLM and the Kenyan government, has been opening new routes such as Ndola in Zambia and it is working to start flights to oil-producing Angola.

 

Naikuni said the best way for small African airlines to survive tough operating environment was to join up. He acknowledged, however, the difficulty in that because many of them are state-owned and viewed as national symbols.

 

Kenya Airways plunged into its first full year of loss since privatisation for the period ended March on the back of fuel hedging losses.

 

Naikuni said Kenya Airways had opened talks with Airbus with a view to buying new planes after delays in Boeing's 787. Kenya Airways had placed orders for nine 787s.

 

(Reuters)

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Sole Bidder Offers USD$58.3 Mln For CSA Czech

 

September 30, 2009

 

The lone bidder for loss-making CSA Czech Airlines offered CZK1 billion koruny (USD$58.3 million) for the state carrier on Wednesday, but attached strings that may make the deal unacceptable for the government.

 

A consortium of Czech companies Unimex and Travel Service said its bid price was based on the company having zero equity value, which analysts said may imply a cash injection by the government and which in turn made the bid look low.

 

The Czech carrier has slumped into deep losses after a poorly executed expansion in recent years and due to the global financial crisis that badly hurt the airline industry.

 

The Finance Ministry has said it would make its sale recommendation to the government by October 20.

 

Under Czech accounting standards, the airline had a negative equity value of CZK708 million at the end of June, according to internal documents quoted by analysts and media.

 

Under international standards, which better reflect the value of leased planes, the company's net equity was over USD$200 million, chief executive Radomir Lasak said earlier this year.

 

Analysts said it was not clear how the equity position had developed due to further losses at the airline, made as passenger numbers and revenue sink in the economic crisis.

 

CSA posted a USD$99.6 million loss in the first half as revenue dropped by 30 percent to USD$487 million and the airline said it planned to sell three Boeing 737s by the end of this year.

 

However, analysts said the bid still looked low.

 

"If they would want to pour in CZK700 million and then get CZK1 billion, it would seem to me as an unacceptable bid," said Jan Prochazka, analyst and partner at brokerage Cyrrus. "Even if it was a CZK1 billion offer without conditions, I don't think the state would accept."

 

Prochazka added the ministry would probably view a bid somewhere between CZK2 billion to CZK3 billion as fair.

 

Earlier this month, the government brought to CSA a new supervisory board chief who said a drastic restructuring would be necessary.

 

Privately owned Unimex holds interests in travel, housing and development sectors. It holds a stake in Travel Service, a charter and low-cost air carrier. Icelandair holds a stake in Travel Service along with Unimex.

 

The consortium remained as the sole bidder for the airline after Air France-KLM pulled out of the tender in August.

 

(Reuters)

 

Travel Service is known in Malaysia as well, as it operated for MAS last year, and is currently operating in Viet Nam for Indo China Airlines...

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Air France-KLM September Traffic Down 3.7 Pct

 

October 7, 2009

 

Air France-KLM unveiled a 3.7 percent drop in September traffic and reported continued pressure on its unit revenues on Wednesday, but said it had managed to boost the proportion of seats sold on its flights.

 

The Franco-Dutch airline group carried 5.3 percent fewer passengers in September but traffic adjusted for the distance flown by each passenger, the industry's standard way of measuring activity, fell 3.7 percent.

 

The airline reduced the capacity of seats on offer by 4.9 percent, lifting the passenger load factor by 1.1 percentage points to 81.9 percent.

 

"Market conditions are similar to those prevailing before the summer and unit revenues remain under pressure," Air France-KLM said in a statement.

 

Cargo traffic, which is seen a barometer of international trade, fell 17.2 percent. The proportion of available space filled rose 2.2 percentage points to 66.1 percent.

 

The figures came as Ireland's Aer Lingus said it would 676 jobs in a restructuring plan.

 

British Airways said on Tuesday it would cut the equivalent of 1,700 staff in Britain, drawing a strike warning from unions.

 

Several carriers have reported traffic starting to level out this week but fuel prices are a worry and industry group IATA says most airlines face continued deep losses.

 

Singapore Airlines and Air New Zealand disclosed signs of improving demand on Tuesday but cautioned a sustained recovery in the battered air travel market was still far from certain.

 

British Airways carried 0.8 percent fewer passengers in September compared with the same month a year ago but its load factor rose, the airline said on Monday.

 

(Reuters)

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Korean Air Plane Delayed By Bird On Board

 

October 7, 2009

 

A Korean Air passenger jet was grounded just before taking off so that crew members could catch a sparrow that was flying around in the cabin, airline officials said on Wednesday.

 

"The bird got in through an open airplane door and was spotted during boarding," said Cho Hyung-chul, a spokesman for Korean Air. The passengers on the flight were asked to leave the plane as the airline tried to prevent the bird from taking the domestic flight.

 

"The bird was captured and set free," Cho said.

 

The flight's 123 passengers were put on board a different plane and sent on their journey, which was delayed for nearly three hours, the airline said.

 

Birds are a growing problem for the global airline industry, with an increasing number of planes getting damaged after hitting flocks of birds.

 

(Reuters)

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Happy 90th Birthday KLM! :yahoo:

 

Here's to many more in future.

Edited by Ken M.

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Dank je/Thank you/Terima kasih !!! ;)

 

Just beating Qantas and Avianca every time... :pardon:

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Tuesday October 13, 2009

China Southern Airlines launched "e-freight" service on its Guangzhou-Dalian route and said it will offer largely paperless cargo carriage on additional routes by year end. It said the initiative could save CNY1 million ($146,300) annually. It is the first Chinese carrier to implement e-freight, which is being pushed strongly by IATA. CZ noted that it sold the country's first e-ticket in 2000, introduced China's first self-service kiosk in 2005 and was the nation's first carrier to offer an online check-in option in 2006.

 

Separately, CZ reported 10.6% growth in September passenger boardings to 5.49 million, though load factor dropped 4 points to 72.2%. RPKs climbed 10% year-over-year with domestic RPKs up 8.5% and international traffic rising 19.4%.

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