AviTrader Weekly News 2017-11-27

WEEKLY AVIATION HEADLINES
10
OTHER NEWS
Biosciences (Agrisoma), the Canadian-based
agricultural-technology company who developed
the carinata seed. The two organizations
will work with Australian farmers to grow the
country’s first commercial aviation biofuel
seed crop by 2020.
As from March 25, 2018, Air France customers
will be able to fly to Nairobi (Kenya) departing
from Paris-Charles de Gaulle thanks
to three new weekly frequencies. Flights will
be operated by the latest-generation Boeing
787, equipped with 30 seats in Business Class,
21 seats in Premium Economy Class and 225
seats in Economy Class. These flights will be
operated on a code-share basis with partner
Kenya Airways. Customers will thus benefit
from 10 weekly non-stop flights between Paris
and Nairobi, with three flights operated by
Air France and seven flights operated by Kenya
Airways. Moreover, as a continuation from
Nairobi, Air France customers will be able to
fly to 23 regional destinations operated under
a code-share with its partner.
Ryanair has extended its connecting flights
service at Milan Bergamo Airport, adding a
further 31 routes including Budapest, Lisbon
and Ibiza, providing Ryanair customers with
an expanded route choice of 131 connecting
services in total, and the opportunity to book
and transfer directly onto connecting Ryanair
flights.
Allegiant and the Transport Workers Union
(TWU), representing Allegiant flight attendants,
have reached a tentative agreement on
the first collective bargaining agreement between
the parties. The tentative agreement is
subject to ratification by the Allegiant flight
attendants, and results of the vote are expected
before the end of December. Allegiant
currently employs 1,150 flight attendants.
The process of negotiating a first collective
bargaining agreement for Allegiant flight attendants
began in 2011. The Transport Workers
Union was most recently certified as the
group’s exclusive representative on February
26, 2016. An initial tentative agreement
reached between the parties failed to ratify in
September 2016, and negotiations continued
under the supervision of the National Mediation
Board to reach the current tentative
agreement.
The International Air Transport Association
(IATA) and the African Development Bank
(AfDB) have signed a memorandum of understanding
(MoU) to establish a framework for
collaboration to boost the aviation sector in
Africa. The MoU was signed on the sidelines
of the International Civil Aviation Organization
World Aviation Forum – Financing the
Development of Aviation Infrastructure – in
Abuja, Nigeria by IATA’s Director General and
Chief Executive Officer, Alexandre de Juniac,
and African Development Bank President Akinwumi
Adesina. Under the MoU, IATA and
the AfDB will work in partnership to further
Africa’s economic and social development
by helping build a safe, secure and efficient
aviation industry. The two organizations
have committed to create and implement
programs and projects, including technical
cooperation for capacity building. Priority areas
will include improving connectivity, safety
and aviation infrastructure. “Aviation in Africa
currently supports $72.5 billion in economic
activity and 6.8 million jobs. Over the next 20
years, aviation is forecast to grow at nearly 6
percent per year. This creates significant opportunities.
But achieving this potential will
not happen by chance; strong partnerships
are key. The MoU with ADB will help facilitate
the growth and development of Africa’s aviation
industry. In so doing, it will expand prosperity
and change peoples’ lives for the better
in the continent’s 54 nations,” said de Juniac,.
“The aviation sector is especially important as
it opens up doors to investors,” said Adesina.
“Very few invest where it’s difficult to travel
to. That’s why ease of access via air travel is
strongly correlated to economic growth. We
must make regional aviation markets competitive
and drive down costs, raise efficiencies
and improve connectivity and convenience.”
Commsoft has welcomed UK-based leasing
and charter airline, Titan Airways, to the
fast-growing global OASES community. OASES
combines a very high level of technical sophistication
with an intuitive user interface and is
structured in a modular format to allow for
flexibility and scalability. To support its mixed
Airbus and Boeing fleet, Titan Airways has
selected the Core, Airworthiness, Planning,
Materials, Line Maintenance Control and Production
modules which will be installed on
local servers. The Core module provides the
essential system components that allow operation
and integration of all the other functional
modules and incorporates the Oracle
database, a navigator functionality, a built-in
help system, and a security manager which
controls access rights and privileges. Between
them, the other modules will enable Titan
Airways to manage continuing airworthiness
processes; predict when all maintenance
tasks, modifications and defect limitations
will become due; ensure that all material is
available when required and replenished or
repaired when necessary; integrate OASES
with suitable data feeds from operations
systems; and log labor time expended. Titan
Airways is establishing its own CAMO team
to replace an existing third-party service and
Commsoft will be providing extensive support
in implementing the system for the management
of Titan’s A318-112, three A320-200s, a
A321-211, a Boeing 737-400F, a 737-300QC,
two 757-200s and a 767-300ER. It is anticipated
that the airline will be expanding its fleet
in the near future with the addition of a Boeing
737-400 in January 2018 and further A320
/A321 aircraft later in the year.
Despite ceasing operations in October, Monarch
has won its appeal concerning its right to retain
valuable airport slots, in turn providing a boost
for administrators, KPMG, responsible for recovering
money for creditors. The slots in question
are at London’s Luton and Gatwick Airports and
have an estimated value of around £60 million
(US$80 million).
“We are delighted with the ruling,” said
Blair Nimmo, partner at KPMG and joint administrator.
“We will now progress the slot
exchange transactions we have underway,
whose buyers will be announced at completion.”
The initial High Court ruling on November
8 stated that as the airline had no planes
and had retained only three trained pilots,
who held management positions, the Airport
Coordination Limited (ACL) - an independent
slot co-ordination company - had no duty to
assign it slots for summer 2018. Subsequent
to the ruling, the civil Aviation Authority
(CAA) revoked Monarch’s operating license.
However, the Court of Appeal ruling found
that despite this, Monarch was still an air carrier
when slots fell to be allocated last month
and in fact remains one. EasyJet (EZJ.L), IAG
(ICAG.L), Wizz (WIZZ.L) and Norwegian (NWC.
OL) have all expressed interest in the slots at
the London airports. The High Court ruling
that Manchester and Birmingham slots should
be returned immediately to the slot pool to
be re-assigned by the ACL was unaffected by
the appeal.
The Arab Air Carriers Association (AACO)
has turned to the International Air Transport
Association (IATA) to intervene in new taxes
proposed by the U.S Administration which
some observers believe is intended to target
the ‘Big Three’ Gulf carriers, Emirates, Qatar
Airways and Etihad Airways.
The proposed taxes are to be levied on carri-