News From Around The World

Richard Maslen March 24, 2011

ETIHAD AIRWAYS SELECTS MANCHESTER AS HOME FOR EUROPEAN CONTACT CENTRE

United Arab Emirates (UAE) operator Etihad Airways has announced that the UK city of Manchester will house the carrier’s new European Contact Centre. Speaking to The HUB at the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Sir Richard Leese, Leader of Manchester City Council and Charlie Cornish, Chief Executive of the Manchester Airports Group (MAG), earlier this week, the airline’s Chief Executive Officer, James Hogan, confirmed that the city was one of seven in the region that were considered for the facility. “We narrowed this down to a shortlist of three – Dublin, Malta and Manchester - in the final stage, but decided the latter had the right skills for a multilingual workforce and the right deal for building the facility.” The new centre, which is expected to be operational in 2012, will employ up to 160 people and operate in addition to Etihad’s existing contact centres in Abu Dhabi, including the newly opened Al Ain contact centre, India and Australia. The airline is currently working with Manchester Airports Group to identify a suitable location on the airport campus for the centre, inside one of the country's newly established enterprise zones. “Our contact centres handle around 2.5 million calls each year, and we expect more than half of these calls to originate from non-Arabic speaking markets by 2012,” added James Hogan. “As our network continues to grow, it is increasingly important for us to provide high quality, multilingual assistance for customers who choose to book directly with the airline.

BOEING 747-8I COMPLETES ITS MAIDEN FLIGHT

The prototype Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental passenger aircraft made its first test flight from the manufacturer’s Paine Field facility in Everett, Washington on March 20. The aircraft departed at 09:59 and landed at Boeing Field in Seattle four hours and 25 minutes later at 14:24. This is the first of an estimated 600 hours of flight testing due to take place ahead of certification of the airliner. During the inaugural test sortie, the jet underwent tests for basic handling and performance and reached a cruising altitude of 19,000ft (5,791m), and a speed of up to 250 knots, or about 288 miles per hour (463 km/h). Boeing claims that the 747-8I will have the lowest seat-mile cost of any large commercial jetliner, with 12 per cent lower costs than its predecessor, the 747-400. The aircraft provides 16 per cent better fuel economy, 16 per cent less carbon emissions per passenger and generates a 30 per cent smaller noise footprint than the 747-400, according to the US manufacturer. Korean Air and VIP customers have joined launch customer Lufthansa in ordering a total of 33 747-8 Intercontinentals, with Air China also placing a tentative order for five more, pending government approval.

AIRBUS AND TAROM DEVELOP FIRST BIOFUEL ‘VALUE CHAIN’

Airbus and Romanian flag carrier Tarom together with a consortium of key stakeholders have established one of Europe’s first projects to establish a sustainable bio-kerosene jet-fuel processing and production capability. The Romanian-based project aims to provide a bio-fuel made from the camelina plant, as a renewable, sustainable substitute to fossil-based jet fuel. The project is being overseen by a Romanian Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) and Airbus is acting as the catalyst in getting the Romanian value chain for a local bio-jet fuel solution up and running. Once feasibility studies on agricultural, technological and aeronautical development and sustainability assessment are complete, the project will also assess the existing refining facilities in order to identify the Romanian production capability. Camelina has been selected as the chosen feedstock because of its energy potential, its rotational crop qualities, its greenhouse gas reduction potential and its low water requirements. Camelina is also indigenous to Romania, and can be readily farmed and harvested by family farmers and has a high quality animal feed by-product.

VIRGIN ATLANTIC AND JETBLUE ANNOUNCE INTERLINE PARTNERSHIP

UK long-haul specialist Virgin Atlantic Airways and US low-cost carrier JetBlue Airways have announced a new interline partnership providing domestic US connection options to the UK carrier’s transatlantic flights from Glasgow, London and Manchester. JetBlue will provide onward travel opportunities to customers at its focus cities of Boston, New York, Orlando and Washington to destinations across the country, including Baltimore, Maryland; Charlotte, North Carolina; Chicago, Illinois; San Diego, California and Tampa, Florida, as well as San Juan in Puerto Rico. Under the agreement, travellers will be able to purchase single itineraries combining travel on both airlines and when travelling will be able to take advantage of one-stop ticketing.

CONTINENTAL AIRLINES GOING LIVE WITH IN-FLIGHT WI-FI

United Continental Holdings, the parent company of United Airlines and Continental Airlines, has announced that Continental has executed a letter of intent with in-flight entertainment provider LiveTV to offer inflight Wi-Fi onboard its aircraft, via Ka-band. The company plans to offer the service on more than 200 Boeing 737 and 757 aircraft from next year, which will be equipped with DIRECTV(R), providing onboard connectivity and more than 95 channels of live television programming to customers flying within the continental US. Ka-band will be able to offer higher transmission speeds for more extensive onboard connection capabilities, including browsing of content-rich websites, sending and receiving e-mails and downloading files than other options, says the airline. United Airlines already offers in-flight Internet service on 14 aircraft, including on all flights linking New York John F Kennedy International with Los Angeles and San Francisco.

IBERIA COMMENCES FUEL-SAVING DORIS FLIGHTS

Spanish national carrier Iberia has carried out its first tests as part of the DORIS (Dynamic Optimisation of the Route In Flight) program, which aims to optimise routes between Europe and North America. This, it is hoped, will be achieved by improving the efficiency of North Atlantic airspace, thanks to development in communications, modifications of flight plans after take-off and by taking into account changes to weather conditions. On the ground the best route is sought on the basis of winds, and if one is found that is more favourable than that in the original flight plan, the aircraft is advised so that the course may be altered in real time, as long as it is authorised to do so by air traffic control. Iberia says initial analysis indicates “that an average of two per cent of fuel per flight may be saved” and using one of its Airbus A340s as an example, this would amount to a savings of some 400 kg of aviation fuel on a flight from Madrid to Guatemala City.

EUROPEAN COMMISSION CONCERNS OVER RUSSIA’S TREATMENT OF EU AIRLINES

The European Commission this week launched infringement procedures against Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Lithuania, Malta and Slovenia over their bilateral air service agreements with Russia, sending each of these Member States a formal request for information known as a 'letter of formal notice'. The Commission is concerned that the agreements may hinder equal treatment of EU airlines and competition between European airlines and provide the basis for Siberian overflight charges that may be illegal under EU anti-trust rules. Similar letters of formal notice have already been sent to 17 other Member States in recent months, and the Commission is now assessing the compliance with EU law of the remaining four Member States' bilateral aviation agreements with Russia. “The fact that European Union airlines have to pay to fly over Siberia on their way to Asian destinations can not only make the flights more expensive, but can also lead to unfair competition between EU and non-EU airlines,” highlighted the Commission. The view of the European Commission is that air transport agreements must treat all EU airlines equally, and respect antitrust rules. Otherwise some EU airlines may be treated less favourably than their direct competitors or face paying unreasonable additional charges which can get passed on to consumers in higher air fares. Bilateral air service agreements between an individual Member State and a non-EU country have to include an "EU designation clause" recognising that the terms apply equally to all EU airlines, and not just the airlines of that Member State. This is an essential part of the Single European Aviation Market which was created in the early 1990s, guaranteeing that airlines are entitled to operate under the same conditions anywhere in the EU. “Russia is one of the few countries in the world that fails to recognise that all EU carriers must be treated equally, and that the terms of any bilateral agreement must include an ‘EU designation’ clause and apply to all,” said the Commission. “This creates serious practical problems, putting at risk traffic rights, for example, for airlines taken over by a carrier from another EU Member State. The Commission has highlighted Siberian overflight charges as another area where there is not currently a level playing field. Designated EU airlines are obliged to pay Siberian overflight charges for routes to many Asian destinations and it is estimated that in 2008 alone, the EU carriers concerned paid around $420 million in charges – most of it directly to the Russian airline Aeroflot, according to the Commission. It claims that this “is in breach of EU antitrust law whereby airlines should not be forced into concluding a commercial agreement with a direct competitor”.

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