May 2009 Archives

Frontier Airlines has reported a profit for the sixth consecutive month. The airline says it made a profit of $2.4 million for April, which compares against a net loss of $26.9 million that the company reported in April 2008, according to The Associated Press.

ATP welcomes four of its graduates as new CFIs:

• Ed from ATP Jacksonville
• Brian from ATP Atlanta - Lawrenceville
• Kyle from ATP Phoenix
• Jon from ATP Jacksonville

Hey everybody, all is well here at AirTran Airways. The company has brought back all of our pilots who were on furlough and they are all back flying the line. We are expanding to several new cities such as Cancun, Knoxville, Atlantic City and Branson to name a few. AirTran was number one for the second year in a row in the airline quality survey and best of all we are making a profit.

"The whole industry has been in a tremendous amount of turmoil for the majority of this decade and we're certainly no exception," says American CEO Gerard Arpey. "We've been undergoing a process of continuous restructuring since the events of 9/11, trying to manage our company to the point where it can be consistently profitable."

Republic Airways said it expanded the air services agreement between Midwest Airlines and Republic Airlines to include the addition of new Embraer 190AR jets. Midwest will introduce the new service in August and September, and will announce new routes and schedules in the near future.

AMR Corporation CEO Gerard Arpey said today that American Airlines may need to keep fares low to balance supply and demand in coming months, and he pointed to a busy summer ahead.

Piedmont Airlines was founded in 1931 when Richard A. Henson began a fixed-base operation as Henson Aviation in Hagerstown, Maryland. More than thirty years later, in 1962, Henson Aviation began scheduled passenger service as the Hagerstown Commuter between Hagerstown and Washington National.

I have been reading Flying Magazine since I was young. Today as I was looking over this month’s copy of Flying I found an interesting article about Airline Transport Professionals or ATP.

ExpressJet will be putting 10 of its Embraer ERJ-145 aircraft into service with United Airlines.

PSA Airlines began operating in Latrobe, Pennsylvania as Vee Neal Airlines (named after owner Vee Neal Frey) on May 1, 1980. Vee Neal Airlines began scheduled air service between Latrobe and Pittsburgh with a Cessna 402 operating about six or seven round trips a day.

The Regional Airlines are still a good source of qualified pilots for the Major/Legacy airlines and when they start hiring again they will begin recruiting the most experienced regional pilots. Those pilots, for the most part, will be senior Regional Airline Captains.

Historically, the Legacy Airlines have had a pool of experienced pilots to choose from when they begin to hire pilots. This pool has consisted of formerly furloughed pilots, retired military pilots and Regional Airline Pilots who have built up enough Jet Pilot-in-command experience to be attractive to the Major Airlines.

On December 13^th, 2007 then President Bush signed the law that allowed the mandatory retirement age for airline pilots to be raised from 60 to 65. That means that in only two years we will begin to see the impact that pushing all of those retirements back 5 years will have on the airline industry.

Airlines have been releasing April traffic data that indicate a bottoming-out in demand erosion, with improved load factors, or the percentage of available seats filled with passengers. As capacity matches demand, it could put a halt to falling ticket prices.

First-quarter profits at Pinnacle Airlines Corp, owner of Pinnacle Airlines and Colgan Air, soared on the strength of a favorable tax settlement and the steady performance of its regional airlines.

Air Wisconsin Airlines was founded in Appleton, Wisconsin and began operations on August 23, 1965. Originally established to provide service between Appleton and Chicago, IL, the airline quickly grew beyond these borders and began providing service to multiple destinations.

AirTran Airways said on Monday that its April traffic rose compared to the same period a year ago. The airline's load factor, or the average percentage of seats filled on a flight, also rose 6.5 percentage points to 80.4 percent.

"The revenue environment appears to have bottomed out, but we still expect significant headwinds in the rest of 2009,” Delta Chief Executive Richard Anderson recently said in a conference call.

Frontier Airlines reported its fifth consecutive monthly operating profit April 28 and said it is in the “due diligence” phase with numerous potential investors who might provide financing for the carrier to exit bankruptcy later this year.