Aviation

Cyprus Airways subsidiary, Hellas Jet, picked up an air operator’s license for Greece but is still waiting on a commercial license. Although the airline had hoped to begin flights on June 23, as we go to press there has been no further announcements as to when flights will begin.

Greece’s number one private carrier, Aegean Airlines, celebrated its fourth anniversary recently and its 9,000,000th passenger. The airline began scheduled flights at the end of May in 1999 with two aircraft and four Greek destinations. Today, its 17 passenger aircraft executes scheduled flights to 18 Greek and foreign destinations and has charter flights to some 40 destinations.

The European Commission won the right on June 5 to start talks with the United States on airport landing rights, in a move destined to lead to a wholesale shake-up of transatlantic aviation.

International press coverage of a record order of 71 new passenger jets by Emirates centered on the airline’s attempt to rescue the airline industry as it did in 2001 with a $15 billion order for new jets. Yet, despite this widespread view of the new $19-billion-order, industry experts felt current circumstances simply enabled the carrier to negotiate better financial terms and obtain cheaper purchasing and leasing prices.

Germany’s low-cost carrier “germanwings” now flies out of Athens to Cologne four times a week and out of Thessaloniki three times a week with a ticket price of 19 euros, and that includes all taxes. That price, however, is for anywhere from 15 to 20% of all available seats. As the plane fills, the price increases in denominations of 10 euros.

A Carlson Wagonlit Travel study showed that potential cost savings on low-cost carriers (LCCs) for large multinationals are, in at least half the cases, just 10% off normal costs. Carlson said effective marketing of low price offers by these carriers often leads multinationals to overestimate the potential impact of LCCs on the total air travel budget.

Athens International Airport is the new leader in the world in its category, according to the annual results of International Air Transport Association’s independent survey “Global Airport Monitor” for 2002.

Global distribution system Sabre Holdings recently separated its business activities so as each department can serve precise fields in the tourism chain.

Worldspan has announced a technology agreement with Hotwire.com, a leading discount travel site, to power Hotwire’s airline bookings. As part of the new partnership, Worldspan will supply Hotwire with an enhanced technology agreement, which includes a range of essential technology services and utilizes state-of-the-art pricing solutions.

Concorde, the needle-nosed aircraft for the super-rich and super-rushed, is retiring after a quarter-century of service, its British and French operators announced last month. “Never has such a beautiful object been designed and built by man,” Air France president Jean-Cyril Spinetta said as he announced his company’s five supersonic jets were being grounded for good. Concorde thus goes the way of the gilded carriage, the Orient Express and the Bugatti Royale as emblems of the rich and mobile.