Aviation News

Emirates, one of the fastest growing international airlines, continues its expansion in South East Asia with the addition of Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam to its global network from 4th June 2012.

The Republic of VietNam has been one of the fastest growing economies in Asia, with Ho Chi Minh City, home to over seven million people, recognised as its commercial capital.

Emirates will use an Airbus A330-200 in a two class configuration on the route to Ho Chi Minh City, which is set to become the airline’s 124th destination.

From 28th October 2012 this service will be operated by a Boeing 777-300 ER in a two class configuration.

Operating as EK 390 the daily non-stop flight, with 27 Business Class seats and 251 Economy Class seats, will depart Dubai International Airport at 0925hrs arriving at Tan Son Nhat International Airport at 1920hrs.

The return flight EK 391 will depart at 2050hrs arriving in Dubai at 0045hrs the following day.

“Following the signing of the Air Services Memorandum of Understanding between Vietnam and the United Arab Emirates in April 2011, we have been busy planning this route and it comes at a very exciting time for the airline, as our global network continues to expand,” said Tim Clark, President Emirates Airline.

“Emirates will offer tourists and business travellers, particularly from the Middle East, Africa and Europe, a convenient option to access Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh City is one of the most vibrant places in South East Asia and we are convinced that this will prove to be a highly popular route. We look forward to growing our partnership with Vietnam and would like to thank the Government and Airport Authorities for their support in the planning of our launch,” Mr Clark added.

Ho Chi Minh City offers tourists the ideal gateway to explore the wonders of Vietnam, be it the shopping options in the city, the various UNESCO World Heritage Sites of Hoi An, the islands of Halong Bay, the beaches of Nha Trang or the floating markets and restaurants of the Mekong River Delta.

Trade between the UAE and Vietnam exceeded US$24 million in 2010 and Emirates, through its cargo arm SkyCargo, has had an active presence in the market for a number of years. Vietnamese exports – which range the full value chain from high-end tablet PCs, smartphones and printers to garments, sportswear and shoes – have been shipped through other Emirates’ Asian gateways including Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong on to European, American, Middle Eastern and African markets.

Ho Chi Minh City will be the Emirates’ eighth route launch in 2012, following on from Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro on 3rd January; Dublin on 9th January; Lusaka and Harare on 1st February; Dallas on 2nd February and Seattle on 1st March.

Emirates’ Airbus A330-200 offers its customers in both cabins meals prepared by gourmet chefs, award-winning service from the airline’s international cabin crew recruited from over 120 countries, as well as hundreds of channels of entertainment and the facility to send and receive emails and text messages.

With a fleet of 168 aircraft and already the largest A380 operator in the world, with 20 in service, Emirates currently flies to 117 destinations in 69 countries.

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QANTAS is aggressively accelerating its national push into the booming resources market, as regional carrier QantasLink and recently acquired charter unit Network Aviation add 14 aircraft over the next 12 months.

The airline may also consider committing bigger A320 or 737 size aircraft to fly-in, fly-out work if there is sufficient demand and says it expects interstate flying to become increasingly important to resources companies.

The new planes will bring the combined fleet to 80 aircraft, as QantasLink plans for double-digit expansion, fuelled by the combination of its Network expansion and the resources boom.

QantasLink executive manager Narendra Kumar, who also oversees Network, believes the aviation resources market will grow by 50-70 per cent over the next few years and says the timing of the latest addition to the Qantas stable leaves the group well placed to grab a healthy piece of the action.

The planes are in addition to the airline’s two existing F100s and six 30-seat Embraer 120 turboprops.

Another nine of the 100-seater twin-jets are due to enter service with Network over the next year, including two expected within the next month, with a fourth due in March-April and a fifth shortly afterwards.

Four of those planes are currently undergoing refits with Fokker Services in The Netherlands and the remaining five are set to change hands in March or April .

“So we can ramp it up or ramp it down as we feel necessary,” Mr Kumar told The Australian. “But the key point is we’ve actually got our hands on 10 aircraft, five already in Holland and the other five with deposits made and contracts signed.

“So all 10 are definitely coming as opposed to speculation it was just a statement.”

In the 12 months since Qantas acquired Perth-based Network, after prompting from some of its resource customers, it has spent considerable time looking at governance and management systems to ensure it is ready for the expected growth. This includes manpower, an area in which Mr Kumar said there had so far been no difficulties.

“Lindsay Evans and the team had obviously built a great business and we just wanted to make sure the scaling up of the organisation did not compromise anything from our perspective,” he said, adding that this had included a network management framework to handle growth as well as regulatory and other approvals.

The airline and QantasLink both have Basic Aviation Risk Standard (BARS) accreditation, a safety audit system introduced by the Flight Safety Foundation to assure resources companies that the airlines they contract meet appropriate standards.

Mr Kumar said the F100s could have entered service earlier, but Qantas decided to upgrade cabins and update navigation systems to be ready for new satellite-based technology, ADS-B, which was being introduced in Australia and seen as essential to combating increasing congestion in mining areas. It also made sure all air service bulletins and airworthiness directives in the pipeline had been done in an effort to give the fleet a life of up to 10 years.

“As you can appreciate, the fly-in, fly-out work generally does 800 to 1200 hours a year, so we have a fleet that will come in, giving us a lot of life and capabilities,” he said.

Having new planes and crews in place meant Network could bid aggressively for work, and several major contracts and tenders were currently in play, Mr Kumar said.

“Some of them are more advanced than others,” he said.

“We have about two or three contracts that we have put in place across QantasLink and Network, large contracts, and there are quite a few RFP (requests for proposals) either at advanced stages or early stages.

“We don’t expect to win every one of them, but the main approach was to make sure that we were able to meet the resource sector requirements, as opposed to not being able to bid because we didn’t have the aircraft or crew or whatever.

“We are pretty confident that we will have a share of the market that will be available, both in terms of new contracts and new work that is coming in, as well as hopefully being able to bid for contracts as they come up for tender.”

However, the QantasLink boss was cautious in estimating how much of the resources market the flying kangaroo will be able to snare.

He noted that a big contract could provide “a sizeable chunk of the market”, but this was also possible through a series of small contracts.

Flexibility was the key and the company’s offering was not confined to the F100s, although these would be the workhorses of the fly-in, fly-out operations.

The offering also included the smaller Network turboprop aircraft as well as QantasLink’s Dash-8 fleet and its 115-seat 717s.

A Boeing 737 or Airbus A320 could also be put on the table if customers wanted a 150-seat aircraft, he said.

There had been no firm decision that all fly in, fly-out work had to go through Network, with QantasLink already doing “a stack” of work from major contracts already in place.

“At this time, it’s fair to say it’s pretty fluid,” Mr Kumar said.

“All we know is that there will be demand, and based on the last few months of discussions and RFPs that have been put out to the market, we believe we’ll be well placed to win our fair share of that.

“Whether it’s 20, 30, 40 per cent remains to be seen.”

While Western Australia would be an initial focus of Network’s fly-in, fly-out push, Mr Kumar said the industry was also growing in other parts of Australia and Network could expand to other ports.

But he predicted that fly-in, fly-out destinations would increasingly be a function of where resource companies could source labour.

“As you know, we already have within our Qantas RPT (regular public transport) operations, services from Brisbane and Melbourne to ports such as Karratha,” he said.

“Increasingly, I think, the sourcing of labour from states other than WA for WA work will grow as well. So, where we operate our fleet will be a function of where labour is sourced.”

He said he would not be surprised if resource companies began sourcing labour from abroad, and the Qantas group was well placed to meet that requirement if it happened.

But the company was not interested at this stage in servicing overseas mines and its focus was primarily on the Australian market, although this could change in future.

Turning to QantasLink, Mr Kumar said the regional carrier would add two Queensland-based Boeing 717s and three Q400s turboprops this year, to bring its fleet to 62 aircraft.

Some of the growth has been underpinned by the resources sector, but the airline has also been establishing new routes and destinations over the past two years in South Australia, Queensland and Western Australia.

It has added turboprops services to Western Australia and recently increased frequencies to Geraldton and Exmouth.

“Our capacity has been growing about 9 per cent per annum on a compound basis,” Mr Kumar said.

“I think this year we’ll probably go double-digit — over 10 per cent is our current plan. It’s not just putting capacity on existing routes but also developing new markets and new routes as well that, I think, has been important.”

Mr Kumar acknowledged that the Virgin Australia-Skywest move into regional aviation would affect QantasLink but said focusing on market requirements and adding capacity to meet demand put his airline in a good position.

Having a high-frequency schedule in regional markets was useful, as was the airline’s ability to introduce different size aircraft to match demand and give it the right capacity at times people wanted to travel.

The company’s smarter, faster check-in was now available at QantasLink ports, giving customers a similar experience to that in major capital cities, and the airline was expanding its lounge network.

“You can’t take your eye off the ball,” he said. “And our focus is all about (not losing) sight of where we’ve come from and making sure the customer remains central to the offering that we promise.”

http://www.theaustralian.com.au

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With the major runway repairs set to take place at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport on January 10, 2011, airline companies have adjusted their flight schedules so as not to be affected by the scheduled runway closure that will take place for eight months.

The Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) is set to embark on a major repair on the main runway of the premiere airport which is 3,737 meters long and 60 meters wide.

The project, which is expected to cost around P300 million will take eight months to complete as the contractors only have a limited window of time to conduct the repairs.

The runway will still be used for normal operations from 5:30 a.m. to 12 midnight. After the last plane arrives, workers from Readycon Builders will have a five and a half hour window to work on the runway.

The work includes removal of the old asphalt layer as well as the base concrete, installation of new rebars and pouring of new concrete and laying of the new asphalt layer. All in all, the work is expected to be completed in eight months.

As a result, runway operations will be halted everyday between 12 midnight and 5:30 a.m. With the runway closure, Philippine Airlines has revised its flight schedules to adjust to the planned eight-month partial closure of the runway.  With the closure of NAIA runway, one domestic and 12 international PAL flights either departing from or arriving at the NAIA will be adjusted accordingly.

Certain flights departing from San Francisco and Los Angeles may experience some delays depending on wind conditions and the revised Manila airport schedule.

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Paris (dpa) – European aircraft manufacturer Airbus was tightlipped Saturday about reports that it has clinched a deal with Hong Kong Airlines for 10 Airbus A380 super jumbos, worth up to 3.8 billion dollars.

Britain’s Financial Times reported the deal, citing officials at Hong Kong Airlines.

The newspaper said Airbus would begin deliveries in 2015.

Airbus refused to confirm the deal. Spokesman Stefan Schaffrath said the airline would reveal new orders at a joint New Year’s press conference by France-based Airbus and its Munich-based parent company EADS on January 17.

Schaffrath confirmed the catalogue value of such a deal would be about 3.8 billion dollars, based on a unit price of 375 million dollars.

Airlines usually negotiate significant discounts, meaning the real value of the order is likely to be a good deal less.

The Financial Times reported that the order had gone through despite China threatening to derail the deal over its objections to a European Union scheme requiring airlines to offset their carbon footprint.

Starting this month airlines flying in and out of the EU have to offset some of the carbon that their planes emit by buying “allowances” from greener industries.

source: http://bikyamasr.com/

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