Sam Choy Partners With American Airlines to Celebrate New Route
American Airlines is marking the launch of its four-times-a-week service between Chicago and Beijing by collaborating with Honolulu celebrity chef Sam Choy to create Asian-fusion menu items for on-board service.
Choy, a four-time nominee for the James Beard Best Pacific Regional chef award, worked with American Airlines to design premium-class menus for Hawaii flights in 2007 and for flights between the U.S. and Tokyo this February.
American Airlines’ Chicago-to-Beijing service is designed to complement its existing Chicago-Shanghai link. American Airlines is a subsidiary of Fort Worth, Texas-based AMR Corp.
US Airlines and Aviation Industry Needs Foreign Cash
Foreign ownership restrictions in the American airline industry should be dumped so that overseas investors can inject capital into the struggling aviation market, Barack Obama was told yesterday.
In a letter to the President-elect, Giovanni Bisignani, director-general of the International Air Transport Association, said that he was not asking for an industry bailout of the type requested by carmakers.
Instead, he urged Mr Obama to liberalise ownership rules of the industry, which allow foreign carriers to take a stake worth no more than 25 per cent in any American group.
America fiercely protects its airline business and, in addition to ownership, it also blocks foreign carriers from competing on many domestic routes, such as New York to Washington.
In the letter, Mr Bisignani wrote: “Travelling by air – whether passengers or cargo – is crucial for the country’s economic recovery. Airlines around the world are expected to lose billions of dollars this year, but there are several important unresolved problems you [Mr Obama] have the power to fix that will put the industry on the road to recovery.
“To build a sustainable future, airlines need the same management tools that other businesses take for granted: market access and access to capital. We are confident that government, airlines and labour can work together to remove these arcane restrictions and allow the industry to reach its full global potential.”
Many in the industry believe that the aviation market will require federal assistance in the future. While the fuel price has halved, many carriers are struggling to feel the benefit of the fall in energy costs because they are hedged at a much higher price. At the same time, the global recession has hit demand for air travel hard, particularly lucrative business travel.
Yesterday, American Airlines said that traffic during November had dropped by 14 per cent as companies cut travel expenses and families postponed holiday plans. Continental said that traffic over the same period was down 10.5 per cent.
Chris Tarry, an analyst at CTAIRA, an aviation consultancy, said: “To be successful in this avaition market, you need to cut capacity quicker than the market is falling. And once you have cut, you need to make sure that there are enough passengers prepared to pay your higher fares.”
Mr Tarry predicted that the American aviation market would have to rip out more capacity by scrapping flights and cut the number of carriers. “The Delta and Northwest deal has already happened,” he said. “United and Continental may happen. But while consolidation does happen, will it solve the problems of the industry, which is too much capacity, too high costs and not enough revenue? Sticking two troubled airlines together doesn’t necessarily make a better one.”
Russia Airlines ‘KD Avia’ Suspended Its Activities
Russian Aviation canceled the airline operator certificate of ‘KD Avia’.
The aviation authorities of Russia recommend to ‘KD Avia’ passengers return their tickets to the sale point. This information is available on the Russian Aviation’s website. According to the website, on September 1, 2009, KD Avia stopped selling tickets for its flights, and officially notified the Federal Air Transport Agency of the forced suspension of operations due to the inability to finance its own resources.
According to the deputy of chief of Russian Aviation -Oleg Klimov, passengers who have already bought tickets should not to worry, they will automatically turn over the flights of other airlines at the time of registration. Transportation of passengers, with KD Avia tickets, will be implemented by airlines Aeroflot, Transaero, STC Russia, S7, SkayEkspress, UTair and the others.
British Airways Cancels Short-haul Flights Into and Out Britain on Sunday
British Airways said on Saturday it had cancelled all its short-haul flights into and out of Britain on Sunday.
A spokeswoman for the airline said the cancellation covered all flights to and from European destinations as well as domestic services. A decision on long-haul flights would be made later.
Aviation authorities have closed British airspace until at least 2400 GMT on Saturday because of the danger posed by clouds of volcanic ash from Iceland.
Airline Stocks Fall, Led By Continental, United
Airline stocks declined Wednesday. At last check, the NYSE Arca Airline Index shed a fraction at 24.95 points with all but two of its 13 components trading down. Continental slipped 1% to $13.47, United parent UAL Corp. fell 1% to $6.68 and US Airways lost less than 1% at $3.74. Trading up were shares of AMR , Gol and Ryanair . The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell nearly 12 points to 9,530.
