USA: Airline Wars Flare Between US Airlines And Gulf Airlines

Late last month, Delta Air Lines posted a video on its public relations website attacking Emirates, Etihad, and Qatar Airways.

Now, the airline's rivals have hit back at Delta with an economic impact study and an attack ad of their own.

The long-running feud between America's three legacy carriers and their Middle Eastern rivals continues to be most the volatile and heated business dispute in recent memory.

Here's the shorthand version of the feud: Since 2015, American, Delta, and United Airlines have been complaining about competition from three huge and fast-growing Middle East-based rivals — Emirates, Etihad, and Qatar Airways (the ME3).

The US3's position, which is succinctly explained in Delta's 15-minute-long video, argues that the ME3's growth has been fueled by more than $50 billion in subsidies over the past decade. As a result, they believe this allows the ME3 to flood the international market with un-sustainably low prices designed to drive out competitors and threaten the job security of US aviation workers.

They're taking our jobs, they're taking our markets, and over time, they want to take over international flying, Delta CEO Ed Bastian said of the ME3 in the video.

Delta and its allies believe the playing field is inherently unbalanced and that it is unfair to expect a private company to compete against the resources of a national government.

As a result, they also say the ME3 are in violation of the Open Skies agreements that govern air travel between the US and 120 nations including the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

The US3 has asked the Trump Administration to re-examine the Open Skies agreements with the UAE and Qatar while prohibiting any further expansion into the US by the ME3.

In reaction, Emirates released a study on Monday claiming the airline's activities generated $21.3 billion worth of economic impact in the US during 2015.

The report by Virginia-based consulting firm Campbell-Hill Aviation Group posits that Emirates' activities, directly and indirectly, supported more than 104,000 jobs in the US that year.

Emirates, while closely associated with the government of the Dubai, has always maintained that it is an independent profit driven enterprise. In an interview with the Business Insider earlier this year, the airline's president, Sir Tim Clark, called the US3's unrelenting campaign against his company as "infantile".

Delta Air Lines declined to comment on the matter and instead referred Business Insider to the Partnership for Open & Fair Skies, the lobbying organization representing the US3 in the dispute.

Emirates’ new study is based on fundamentally flawed assumptions and is simply meant to distract from their trade cheating behavior, the Partnership's chief spokesperson, Jill Zuckman, said in an emailed statement.

Economists have already empirically demonstrated that the presence of Gulf carriers fails to meaningfully stimulate new demand in U.S. markets."

Also on Monday, US Airlines for Open Skies (USAOS) released a new 30-second attack ad calling for the Trump Administration to ignore the US3's demands which they characterize as merely an attempt to limit competition.

The group whose members include JetBlue, Hawaiian Airlines, FedEx, and Atlas Air believe the US3's actions put US airlines operating in the UAE and Qatar at risk for retaliatory actions.

In fact, the USAOS believes the US3's campaign will destabilize the whole network of more than 100 Open Skies agreements that support hundreds of thousands of US jobs while saving consumers $4 billion annually in airfares.

The presence of USAOS represents a faction of the US aviation industry that operates in an environment very different from the nation's three remaining legacy carriers.

FedEx and Atlas Air are two of the world's largest international freight carriers with major operations in the Middle East and around the world.

Although they do depend Open Skies agreements to do business around the world, they are not in direct route competition with the ME3.

While most major US airlines, including American and Delta, benefit from direct business dealings with the ME3 and their subsidiaries, JetBlue is the most open about it.

The New York-based boutique airline is a major partner for Emirates and takes on much of the airline's connecting traffic within the US.

In 2016, JetBlue was awarded a Fly America Act contract for all US government travel to Dubai as well as between New York and Milan, Italy.

Since JetBlue does not operate any long haul international routes outside of the Americas, all of its Fly America passengers will actually travel on Emirates planes.

In response to USAOS, Zuckman said:

Our opponents have chosen to stand with foreign airlines that want to kill U.S. jobs and undermine international trade agreements. It’s outrageous and offensive that any American business would defend these foreign trade cheaters over the livelihoods of over 1.2 million American workers. We hope that President Trump and his administration will see through this misleading campaign and enforce our trade deals to protect American jobs.


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USA: First Boeing 727 Prepares To Fly

As the Museum of Flight prepares the final flight of the first ever built Boeing 727 from its Restoration Center down to the actual museum this week, we look back at the history of the Boeing 727 program.

This specific aircraft, N7001U, has spent the past 25 years at the Museum of Flight Restoration Center up at Paine Field in Everett. This prototype 727 was the first of 1,832 made when production ended in 1984 with a final delivery to FedEx. Until the 737 broke its record in the early 1990s, the 727 held the sales record for the most popular jet airliner ever built.

Unlike many Boeing test aircraft, this 727-22 was delivered to United Airlines (UAL) and entered commercial service on October 7, 1963. It flew mainline routes with United until January 13, 1991 when it served its last commercial flight from San Francisco to Seattle and it was donated to the museum. Prior to the handover, it was repainted in its delivery colors. It flew 64,495 hours with 48,060 landings, and it is estimated that it transported approximately 3 million passengers during its commercial service.

The restoration team was led by former Boeing engineer Bob Bogash who was in-charge of the restoration of this aircraft. FedEx, which donated a Boeing 727 in 2004 as spares source, worked together with Aviation Technical Services and the Museum of Flight to get N7001U to life for a last time. In total, $500,000 has been invested to restore the aircraft, along with millions of dollars’ worth in labor cost donated by dozens of volunteers who put their lives on hold to get the aircraft back airworthy.

With a special flight permit, and a crew of three led by Captain Tim Powell, the 727 will be flown directly to the Museum at Boeing Field, where it will be on display next to the first 737 and 747, along with one of the 787 test aircraft and a 707. The pavilion is expected to open this, summer with all of the aircraft now protected from the elements of the Pacific Northwest Weather.

The Boeing 727 is a mid-size narrow-body that followed the 707 in Boeing production history. It first flew in 1963 and had a production life of 21 years, during which 1,832 of them were produced and delivered to many airlines worldwide. At the time the 727 filled the same role that the 737 does today, dominating the domestic route network along with being used on short and mid-haul international routes.

Three airlines worked together with Boeing to help produce the type, at the time United Airlines wanted a four-engine aircraft to help with high-altitude airports, while American wanted a twin-engine aircraft for fuel efficiency and Eastern Airlines wanted three to avoid the twin-engine 60-minute ETOPS regulation so that they could operate the aircraft overwater to the Caribbean. The three airlines eventually agreed to a trijet and the 727 was born.

On a cold November morning in 1962, the first Boeing 727 rolled out of Renton Factory wearing a mustard colored scheme with red cheat line. It was the first and only Boeing trijet ever produced with the T-Tail. It would take just four months to get the aircraft ready for its first flight when it took off on February 9th, 1963 and it was delivered one year later to Eastern Airlines.

Unlike its future sister, the 737, the 727 was only produced in two types, the 727-100 and 727-200, and used the same engines for both. While many variants of combi and cargo versions were to come in the aircraft’s lifetime, it would only have those two variants.

At the start of the 21st century, the 727 faced higher fuel and operational costs, combined with the post 9/11 economic scenario and noise restrictions led airlines to phase out their 727s. By 2003, as all U.S. major airlines retired the type, the number of 727s in service began to dwindle. Today, here are still a few 727s in service today, mostly serving as freighters and a handful as VIP transport. Interestingly, one of the last operators was the Justice Prisoner and Alien Transportation System (JPATS), which used four 727s to transport persons in legal custody between detaining centers and other places to where they should be transported.

The first 727 is expected to take flight this Wednesday (depending on the weather) for the short hop from Paine Field to Boeing Field in a flight that will last approximately 10 minutes, flying with the gear and flaps down en-route.

USA: Empire Airlines Inc, dba Empire Aerospace Adds Embraer ERJ 145 All Series To Ops Specs

On December 18, 2015 Empire Aerospace a subsidiary of Empire Airlines received amended Operating Specifications , adding the ERJ 145 to its maintenance capabilities.

Empire Aerospace has performed heavy maintenance on large turbo-prop aircraft for the past 10 years. We are known for our ATR experience throughout North America, providing service to U.S. and Canadian based operators.

With the lack of growth of turbo-prop operations in North America, Empire realizedan additional market opportunity in collaborating with operators of regional jet aircraft.

Using industry outlooks and trend analysis, and through discussions with operators at the Regional Airline Association conventions in St. Louis in 2014 and Cleveland in 2015, the decision was made to add the Embraer ERJ 145 to our Operating Specifications. Working with our customers and the Federal Aviation Administration, Empire Aerospace added the ERJ 145 to our capabilities.

This is an exciting new chapter in the history of Empire Aerospace as one of the leading aviation companies in the Idaho Panhandle. With the addition of the ERJ 145, Empire Aerospace continues to meet regional airline needs by providing premier customer service through dedication to quality, and expanding its capabilities at a fair price.

Empire Airlines is an Idaho based company with over 350 employees providing air cargo services for FedEx in 15 states and inter-island passenger airline services for Hawaiian Airlines in Hawaii. Empire operates two other divisions: Empire Aerospace providing heavy maintenance and modifications to the industry and Empire Unmanned which provides unmanned aerial surveillance and analysis for agriculture and related industries.

USA: Boeing Racing To Hit 2015 Sales Target

Boeing has booked 11 new orders worth about USD$1.1 billion at list prices, leaving it with about 180 more sales to land this month to meet its 2015 target.

Boeing also affirmed that orders will roughly equal the 755-760 aircraft it had expected to deliver to customers this year.

Airbus said earlier this week it had booked 1,007 net orders by November. That compares with 575 net orders for Boeing as of Thursday.

With its total topping 1,000, Airbus appears almost certain to win the annual order race, but for deliveries, Boeing is likely to again beat Airbus.

Boeing's latest orders included 10 737s for Turkish Airlines and one 767 for FedEx. Four orders for 737s were cancelled.

Boeing said the lost orders were "straightforward NG cancellations," referring to the current 737NG model, and not conversions of orders to the forthcoming 737 MAX.

Conversions have been a frequent cause of 737NG cancellations this year and do not reduce the order book as outright cancellations do.

Boeing rolled out the first 737 MAX this week at its factory in Renton, Washington.

The plane, which runs on 14 percent less fuel than the current 737, is due to make its first flight early next year and enter service in 2017.

USA: FedEx Pilots’ Union Leadership Approves Tentative Agreement

The FedEx Master Executive Council (MEC), the governing body of the FedEx Express (Memphis) unit of the Air Line Pilots Association, Int’l (ALPA), voted to approve the tentative contract agreement reached on August 19 with FedEx management.

The agreement now goes before more than 4,000 FedEx pilots eligible to vote in balloting that is scheduled to begin September 28, 2015, and close on October 20, 2015.

The new agreement provides across-the-board increases to hourly pay rates and new-hire compensation, a significant signing bonus that addresses the time elapsed since the agreement was amendable, retirement plan enhancements, and work-rule improvements. If ratified, the contract will go into effect November 2015 and would become amendable in 2021.