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Thursday, April 26th, 2012
London Underground cleaners are being called on to vote whether or not to strike over pensions, pay and benefits. The Rail, Maritime and Transport union is still to set a date for the ballot, but said it would be held shortly. The RMT said that employees of ISS and Initial deserved a fair deal and were being treated like dirt.
Bob Crow, the union’s general secretary, said it was scandalous that staff who worked in appalling conditions to keep the Tube network running were being treated so poorly, especially in the run up to this summer’s Olympic Games.
ISS said it was confused by the decision to ballot staff over industrial action since the RMT had refused to attend meetings to discuss the situation. The company added that staff had in fact received a more than 30 per cent increase in wages over the past two years.
In a statement ISS said the move by the RMT disregarded an agreement which was signed less than a year ago. It added that the ballot had been announced before any proper discussions. ISS said it had already organised three meetings with the union, but that it had failed to attend the second one even though it was held at the offices of the RMT. The third meeting is scheduled for this Friday.
ISS is confident that if the RMT turns up it can come to a workable solution. A strike by Tube maintenance workers is currently under way over pensions and travel concessions. The industrial action which began on Tuesday is due to end on Friday.
Tags: Bob Crow, Initial, ISS, London Underground, Olympic Games, rmt, strike, tube
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Thursday, April 12th, 2012
Younger children will not be allowed on the upper deck of Malaysia Airlines’ Airbus A380s, the carrier has confirmed. In a bid to allow adults a more peaceful journey on long-haul flights the airline has said that the upper deck of its superjumbos will be reserved for those who are more than 12-years-old.
Although the decision may anger some families it is likely to be welcomed by adults who do not want to spend hours listening to screaming children. In a Tweet, Tengku Azmil, chief executive of Malaysia Airlines, explained that the carrier had received a large number of complaints from adults saying that they had paid for expensive tickets only to be kept awake by crying children.
The airline also pointed out that the economy section on the lower-deck of its A380s will be well equipped for families. Malaysia’s first Airbus A380 service will be between London and Kuala Lumpur. In September it will launch a second service between Kuala Lumpur and Sydney.
Malaysia Airlines has already made it practically impossible for infants to get into first class cabins by redesigning the space to be unable to accommodate carry cots. Some say that the airline is being discriminatory but others have pointed out that if there are quiet carriages on trains there should also be quiet zones on planes.
WeJustGotBack.com’s Suzanne Rowan Kelleher said she would be a little surprised if parents, when travelling without their younger children, didn’t make a beeline for the child free section of the superjumbos.
Tags: A380, airbus, airline, Malaysia Airlines, Tenku Azmil
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Thursday, April 5th, 2012
Job cuts in the UK Border Agency could cause problems at airports over the busy Easter weekend as too few immigration officers are available to deal with the number of people flying in. Airlines have warned the Home Secretary that Heathrow could become swamped and the unions have expressed fears that passengers could end up waiting hours to have their passports checked.
It is unlikely that the problems will only affect incoming travellers. If the UK Border Agency becomes swamped then passengers will have to remain on planes until there is enough room to process them. This means that the window of time in which the airlines have to prepare for scheduled departures will become smaller which will inevitably lead to delays.
The unions are claiming that in order to prepare for the Easter deluge, the UK Border Agency has resorted to asking former workers and retired staff to help out. However, the Home Office has said that this is not the case.
According to an industry insider, some automatic scanning gates are being left unused because there simply isn’t the manpower to operate them. He added that immigration officers were not deployed to match airline landing schedules but after arrivals has filled up.
Because the number of passengers arriving at airports is on the increase, and the number of immigration officers is being cut, it stands to reason that queues are likely to continue to get longer, according to a spokesman for Virgin Atlantic.
Tags: airlines, airports, Easter, Heathrow, Home Office, UK Border Agency, virgin atlantic
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Thursday, March 22nd, 2012
An increase in fuel tax announced by Chancellor George Osborne in his budget will see the price of petrol go up by almost 4p per litre. This is to be added at a time when customers are already paying record prices at the pumps.
Drivers’ groups are accusing the government of turning its back on families. As of 1 August fuel duty will rise to 60.97p per litre, an increase of 3.02p. When VAT is added on top the increase becomes 3.62p per litre.
The cost of filling up a standard 70-litre tank will be £2.54 more expensive than it is at the moment which will push the annual fuel bill by around £60. Currently the average price of petrol is 139.67p per litre with diesel costing 146.39 per litre. Mr Osborne said that road tax would also be going up in line with inflation.
Motoring taxes contribute around £45 billion each year to the exchequer.
Mr Osborne said that he was aware that the continuing high price of oil was putting pressure on peoples’ finances, but that fuel duty was cut in last year’s budget in an attempt to ease the situation. The government also said that it has scrapped the fuel duty escalator of its predecessor, and confirmed that a fair fuel stabiliser is in place which means that above inflation increases in the price of fuel will only be made if the price of oil drops below £45.
Tags: Budget, fuel duty, George Osborne, petrol
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Thursday, March 15th, 2012
Cathay Pacific has said that a slowdown in the world economy means that over the coming year it will be focusing its attention on growth in Asia. The decision comes as demand for international services to Europe and the US slows. The Hong Kong-based airline said that it will be increasing capacity to destinations across Asia including Seoul, Bangkok, Ningbo and Kuala Lumpur.
However, Cathay said it would not be introducing any new long-haul destinations and is looking at cutting back on its Middle Eastern services. The airline’s CEO John Sloser said that traffic in Asia was currently healthy and the Asian economy was faring better than much of the rest of the world which made it sensible to focus on the region at the moment.
Cathay admitted that 2012 could be tougher going than last year because of a shaky global economy, a slackening demand for cargo services and the continuing high price of fuel.
Last year North and Southeast Asian routes were responsible for 33 per cent of the carrier’s capacity. North America accounted for 25 per cent and an 18 per cent share went to Europe. Cargo volumes were down by 8.6 per cent and so far this year freight demands have continued to remain weak.
Full-year profits were down 61 per sent and analysts have said that they are not confident that earnings will be much better in 2012. Because of less resilience in the domestic market, Cathay is also likely to be out performed by other Chinese carriers.
Tags: airline, cargo, cathay pacific, global economy
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Thursday, March 8th, 2012
Embattled Kingfisher Airlines will be allowed to refuel its aircraft as oil companies agree to resume supplying fuel. Earlier this week, because of non-payment of outstanding debts, the airline was told that its supplies would be suspended.
The Indian airline is currently in talks with various government departments to try and resolve a situation which is causing its customers to become increasingly frustrated. The income tax department has already frozen a number of the company’s accounts claiming that it is owed around Rs 350 crore.
The department said that so far it had only received Rs 23 crore from Kingfisher and that it was considering attaching the airlines property to the debt. The carrier’s situation has not been helped by the fact that the International Air Transport Association has placed a ban on any of its agents from booking flights. This is very bad news for Kingfisher’s international business.
The airline’s management said that it was now doing everything in its power to come up with funds so that IATA will reinstate it. Kingfisher has said that the cause of its current woes is the decision by the income tax department to freeze its accounts.
It said that it needed access in order to begin paying workers’ salaries again, recover aircraft and bring some semblance of normality back to operations. On Wednesday, the cancellation of fuel meant that six flights at Mumbai Airport were severely delayed. Passengers are wondering why, given the disruption, they are still being issued with tickets and boarding passes.
Tags: airline, flights, IATA, International Air Transport Association, kingfisher airlines, tax
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Thursday, March 1st, 2012
Aviation bodies are predicting that 2012 will be a difficult year for airlines. The biggest problems for carriers at the moment are the high cost of aviation fuel and the sovereign debt crisis in the eurozone. According to figures released by the International Air Transport Association, there was a growth in international passenger numbers through January this year of 5.7 per cent compared to a year earlier.
However air traffic body Eurocontrol said that it had cut its prediction of a rise in flight numbers during this year of 2.5 per cent down to a decline in numbers of 1.3 per cent. According to IATA, the volume of cargo being flown around the globe by its members had dropped by eight per cent in January compared to a year earlier.
Tony Tyler, the organisation’s director general, said that although still weak the cargo figures were beginning to stabilise. He confirmed that the big problems for carriers at the moment were the high price of oil and the economic problems in Europe.
David Marsh, forecast and analysis chief at Eurocontrol, said that fuel price and economic weakness had already caused a cutback in traffic at levels which were higher than anticipated.
The European body said that it expected the number of flights this year to drop to 9.7 million from 2011’s figure of 9.8 million. According to Marsh the number of flights should start to rise again in 2013, but it will not be until a year later that they will bounce back to pre-financial crisis levels.
Tags: airlines, Eurocontrol, eurozone, flights, IATA
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Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
The ongoing dispute over the European Union’s airline emissions scheme has resulted in nearly 30 countries around the world meeting in Moscow to discuss how best to tackle the situation. The emissions trading scheme was introduced at the beginning of the year and means that all airlines flying to or from an airport in Europe have to offset the greenhouse gasses they produce.
Countries including Russia, India, China and the US have complained that the tax is not legal and goes against long standing international agreements. At the meeting it was decided that each country should be responsible for tackling the issue in the way they thought best. This could result in a trade war or sanctions being place on European carriers.
The meeting has been criticised by Connie Hedegarrd, the EU’s climate chief, for not putting forward any suggestions for alternative ways to combat the effects of pollution caused by the airline industry.
The EU is claiming that airlines from the countries present at the Moscow meeting were all currently complying with the rules. China recently told its carriers that they were forbidden from getting involved. Europe’s top court was approached at the end of last year by the US over the scheme’s legality, but failed to change its mind.
Hedegaard said that any ideas on how better to combat emissions would be welcome. The International Civil Aviation Organisation has been holding talks on the subject for years but has never been able to come up with an agreement between countries on how best to price carbon for airlines.
Tags: airlines, climate, emissions trading scheme, european union, International Civil Aviation Organisation
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Thursday, February 16th, 2012
Following its emergence from bankruptcy protection, Japan Airlines has announced that it will be investing $6 billion in new planes. In an effort to cut down on fuel expenditure the carrier has placed an order with Boeing for its new Dreamliner 787 model which the manufacturer says is around 20 per cent more efficient than other planes of a similar size.
The airline is aggressively looking to improve its margins against increased competition. It has cut its workforce down by a third, pulled out of routes which were not making a profit, reduced operating expenses and modernised its fleet. The airline’s original operating profit target has now doubled to 180 billion yen.
Last month, JAL appointed a new president Yoshiharu Ueki. He said that he aims to have the company back into stable flight mode as soon as possible. Depending on the condition of the market, JAL could be in a position to raise as much as $6.5 billion if it relists in September.
However, experts predict that it could be difficult for the carrier to attract investors at a time when there is huge competition from rivals and attention remains focused on the problems in the eurozone. In order to tackle such challenges, JAL said it would be pushing 478 billion yen into investing in new aircraft and parts over the next five years.
The carrier is currently looking at replacing older planes with Boeing’s 737 and 787 models which the manufacturer claims are more fuel efficient than aircraft of a similar size currently in service.
Tags: 737, 787, boeing, Dreamliner, eurozone, jal, Japan Airlines
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Thursday, February 9th, 2012
Japan Airlines and British Airways are seeking approval from competition authorities after agreeing a tie-up on routes between Japan and Europe. JAL has confirmed that it has approached the Japanese government over anti-trust immunity and International Airlines Group, BA’s parent, said that it was currently talking to the European competition authorities about the agreement.
A similar tie-up between All Nippon Airways and Lufthansa gained anti-trust approval last year for a joint venture which is due to roll out in April. According to Credit Suisse a tie-up between JAL and BA would mean control of around 23 per cent of the Europe to Japan market. However, this will still be less than Lufthansa and ANA which will control around 37 per cent.
Willie Walsh, IAG’s chief executive, has been attempting to forge closer links with JAL ever since it filed for bankruptcy in 2010. Both are members of the oneworld airline alliance. Other members include Cathay Pacific and American Airlines.
Mr Walsh said that BA already had a good relationship with JAL, adding that he was looking forward to enhancing it. He went on to say that the aviation market in Japan had suffered recently, but that he was confident in the future and with JAL’s business outlook.
Both companies said that closer ties were likely to end in new routes from Europe across Asia, although until the regulators have given the go ahead for the deal, these routes cannot be confirmed.
Tags: All Nippon Airways, american airlines, British Airways, cathay pacific, Japan Airlines, Lufthansa, willie walsh
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