DATE:23/04/08
SOURCE:Airline Business
NEWS FOCUS: Merger mania spreads to Libya
By Günter Endres
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Libya's two state-owned carriers, Afriqiyah Airways and Libyan Airlines, are to be merged and privatised as part of a government initiative to shake up the country's air transport sector, following years of sanctions.
Both airlines, together with business jet operator United Aviation and the handling, maintenance and catering companies, have been grouped under an umbrella organisation, the Libyan African Aviation Holding Company (LAAHC), which was created to oversee a co-ordinated development of Libya's air transport sector.
The handling, maintenance and catering organisations had previously been separated from former Libyan Arab Airlines, with the flying activities refocused under the name of Libyan Airlines.
LAAHC is owned by four government entities: the Libyan National Social Fund (30%), Libyan National Investment Company (30%), Libya-Africa Investment Fund - previously the owner of Afriqiyah Airways - (25%), and the Libyan Foreign Investment Company (15%).
LAAHC and chairman Captain Sabri Saad Abdallah Shadi says: "The ultimate goal is to have the private sector fully control such companies. We are working on this, trying to improve their financial position and getting them to a state where they become attractive targets for private investors. At the moment they are not."
Sabri Shadi says United Aviation, the Libyan Handling and Maintenance Company and the Libyan Catering Company will be the first to be privatised, a process he expects to be completed within two years. "The airlines will be the last to be taken out of government control," he adds. "No one is investing in airlines at the present time, anywhere in the world."
Although privatisation is the ultimate aim, the immediate priority is to concentrate on preparing the two airlines for a merger. "From day one of the operation of Afriqiyah Airways [in 2001], I knew that the time would come when we would have one airline," Sabri Shadi recalls. "I also knew that for the first five or six years we would both have room to grow without much overlap or conflict, and that one day this would have to change.
"That time is now. We need to expand our network, and for Libyan Airlines to do so also it will need to fly where we fly. The codeshare set to be implemented on all flights of the two airlines from 1 June this year is the first step towards a merger."
Sabri Shadi is convinced that such a merger will almost certainly take place in 2009, although he admits that there may be political obstacles to overcome first. Whose name will survive, or whether a new name will be created, remains open for discussion. In all probability, he says, there will be one international flag carrier and one domestic airline.
Although United Nations economic sanctions against Libya for its refusal to hand over two government agents suspected of the 1988 bombing of the Pan Am Boeing 747 over Lockerbie, Scotland, did not come into force until 1991, the national carrier, Libyan Arab Airlines, began to suffer as early as 1980. This was the year when Boeing was refused an export licence for three Boeing 747-200 Combis the airline had ordered for its long-haul network.
From that time on, Libyan Arab Airlines was no longer able to purchase any aircraft with more than a 10% US content. Obtaining spares and other equipment from the West was also becoming more difficult following a general trade embargo imposed by the USA in 1983.
The airline was then prevented from operating external flights, only managing to sustain a skeleton domestic service with just four airworthy aircraft out of a total fleet of more than 30. It was expected that following the lifting of the UN embargo, the USA would follow suit, but this did not happen until four years later.
Still prevented from obtaining new aircraft, Libyan Arab Airlines and newcomer Afriqiyah Airways were, however, able in the interim to slowly re-enter the international arena on the back of lease deals. The real breakthrough was made in 2006 when first Afriqiyah and then the newly restructured Libyan Airlines embarked on a wholesale renewal of their fleets.
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This photo shows AP-AXB in basic markings of ATI Aero Trasporti Italiani. The Fokker built in 1965 was purchased by PIA from Italian airline in 1973 and it was delivered to PIA on April 6, 1973. AP-AXB remained in service with PIA for twenty seven years. In 2000 it was retired and put on display at Liaquat Park in Quetta, Pakistan

This photo shows AP-AUR of PIA wearing Libyan Arab Airlines livery in early 1970s. Libyan Arab Airlines, founded in 1965 as the national flag carrier airline of Libya, received support from PIA in various fields including crew training and aircraft maintenance facilities. PIA purchased AP-AUR as brand new aircraft from Fokker Company in 1966 and it was delivered to PIA on April 30, 1966. The aircraft's 38-year long career with PIA came to an end when it was damaged beyond repair in an accident at Chitral Airport on June 16, 2004

This photo shows PIA Fokker F-27 sporting Dutch pre-delivery registration PH-FPU at Fokker Company's aircraft plant in Holland in 1971. The Mark 600 Fokker F-27 was due for delivery to PIA under registration AP-AWM but due to separation of East Pakistan as independent country of Bangladesh in December 1971 a number of aircraft in PIA fleet became surplus. This resulted in PIA not taking delivery of this aircraft. Later this Fokker F-27 was gifted by the Dutch government to Biman Bangladesh Airlines of newly independent Bangladesh. The aircraft sported registration S2-ABJ during its service with Biman

which had been established in 1946. The new Syrian Arab Airlines took over the routes previously controlled by Syrian Airways and United Arab Airlines. The latter had been a short-lived airline formed by the merger of Syrian Airways and Misrair in January 1961 during the union of Syria and Egypt.
Syrian Arab Airlines began operation with three Douglas DC-6, two Douglas DC-4 and three Douglas DC-3, serving both domestic and international routes to the east. In summer 1963, Syrianair begin its expansion to the west, starting with Rome and Munich, then London and Paris. Sud Aviation Caravelle 10B3 joined the fleet in October 1965. In 1976, the airline acquired a Boeing 727-200 and 747SP.
In the 1970s, because of the closer political ties between Syria and the Soviet Union, Syrianair acquired Soviet aircraft. This included an Antonov An-26, Ilyushin Il-76 and Yakovlev Yak-40 in the 1970s and Tupolev Tu-134B-3 and Tupolev Tu-154M in the 1980s.
A joint service with Royal Jordanian to New York was opened in July 1978.
When the United States imposed sanctions on Syria, updates to Syrianair were interrupted until October of 1998, when Airbus A320-200 were bought.
As of August, 2006, Syrianair was in negotiations to purchase three Ilyushin Il-96-400 long-range aircraft and four Tupolev Tu-204 medium-range aircraft of various modifications."Russia Aircraft Industry Lands in Syria." Kommersant. May 18, 2006."Russian, Syrian companies agree on plane delivery to Syria." Champress. June 23, 2006.

Libyan Arab Airlines Airbus A300B4-622 TS-IAX taxies to the gate after landing on Heathrow's runway 27L.

A network of domestic support that links Oz's major cities, QantasLink won a SkyTrax award in 2006 for the Best Regional Airline Australasia. Although its performance is below Qantas', flights still arrived on time 89 percent of the time in May of '07.
*As reported by The Australian Government Bureau of Transport and Regional Economics (BTRE) Aviation Statistics, which measures domestic airline on-time performance for the financial year ending June 30, 2007

The boards of Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines announced a deal late Monday that will create the world's biggest airline and probably trigger other airlines to pursue mergers of their own

The boards of Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines announced a deal late Monday that will create the world's biggest airline and probably trigger other airlines to pursue mergers of their own

> The largest airline company in the world, Delta Airlines, chose this Mediterranean city in Spain because of its great potential and its growing renown as a major European destination. Valencia has made great progress as a tourist destination with the announcement of a new, direct air connection with New York that Delta Airlines, the leading airline in transatlantic flights, will begin to offer as of next summer. As of 6th June, this Mediterranean city will connect with JFK Airport. A regular...

DC-3 Trans World Airlines: A Top-notch Craft
This elegant DC-3 Trans World Airlines TWA mahogany desk top model plane is definitely the perfect gift and collectible you would want to give to your friends and family. Every DC-3 TWA desk top airliner model is a work of art. This DC-3 Trans World Airlines TWA model mahogany plane airliner is glossed with clear lacquer to provide long lasting protection as a finishing touch. Military Model Planes take pride in bringing out DC-3 TWA model wood with its exceptional design that aviation aficionados and model plane collectors find remarkable. This Douglas DC-3 Trans World Airlines plane model has a dimension of 16" wingspan and has a 11" length. The DC-3 TWA desk top airliner is meticulously handled and especially handcrafted by our highly-skilled craftsmen with the use of premium class materials. This Douglas DC-3 Trans World Airlines airliner desk top plane mahogany comes with a metal stand and wooden base.

The Boeing Stratocruiser
Original caption: Luxurious Stratocruiser Shown on Test Flight. The calm waters of Puget Sound near Seattle form the backdrop for this photograph of the graceful Boeing Stratocruiser. The new Boeing, largest, fastest, and most luxurious of all postwar airliners, will join the fleets of Pan American World Airways, Scandinavian Airlines System, Northwest Airlines, American Overseas Airlines, United Air Lines and the British Overseas Airways Corporation. The 67 1/2 ton, 80 passenger Stratocruiser is a double-deck airliner developed from the famed Boeing B-29 Superfortress and the AAF's Boeing C-97 troop and cargo transport. It is 110 feet, 4 inches long, has a wingspan of 141 feet and 3 inches, and the tip of its tail reaches a height of 38 feet, 3 inches from the ground

William B. Folsom and Andrew Shippin of Photogs-Wings are both available to undertake photographic assignments of commercial aircraft. We specialize in the Dulles and Washington Reagan airports and also are available to work at BWI in Maryland. We can provide photographic services for new airlines, airlines featuring new color schemes, inaugurating new routes or achieving milestones. The Southwest Boeing 737-700 was photographed during its inaugural landing at Dulles Airport on October 4, 2006.

William B. Folsom Photography, Inc. is a stock photography agency providing commercial clients with publication-quality photographs. Aviation photography is an area of special interest to William B. Folsom and his collection includes active duty military aircraft, de-commissioned military aircraft, historic military aircraft ("warbirds"), commercial airlines, corporate aviation, and private airplanes. William B. Folsom Photography, Inc. has a collection of over 200 different types of aircraft, mostly those built in the United States, but also those manufactured in Canada and Great Britain and a few other countries.
William B. Folsom Photography, Inc. welcomes inquiries from commercial clients, publication houses, editors or other professionals interested in purchasing aviation photographs.

Trans World Airlines was an early operator of the Boeing 707, inauguratingservice in 1959 between San Fransisco and New York. It was also the last US carrier to run a 707 passenger service in 1983

By Robert Tuttle
July 14 (Bloomberg) -- Jet fuel's 100 percent rise over the past year to a record $4.36 a gallon is setting the stage for its decline in the next six months.
AMR Corp.'s American Airlines Inc. and UAL Corp.'s United Air Lines Inc. are among carriers readying their biggest cutback in fuel use since 1991 because of the price. The U.S. airline industry plans to ground 413 aircraft, eliminating 8.8 percent of seating capacity, as increasing fuel costs spur losses of as much as $13 billion, the Air Transport Association says.
Fuel demand will fall 7.5 percent this year, or 95,000 barrels a day, and 104,000 barrels a day in 2009, according to the U.S. Energy Department. That will spur as much as a 90 percent decline in the fuel's premium to heating oil futures, said Mike Busby, manager of oil and refined-products trading for Northville Industries Corp. in Melville, New York.
``People are responding to a doubling of prices and the airline industry is one industry that is responding,'' said Edward Morse, chief energy economist at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. ``The markets will weaken significantly after the third quarter.''
The decline in airline fuel consumption parallels the drop in gasoline sales to a five-year low as drivers take vacations closer to home and use mass transit. Crude oil declined 35 percent in the three months after Sept. 11, 2001, a time when airline traffic plummeted 30 percent.
Jet fuel, along with diesel, is traded at a differential to heating oil futures because the fuels are made from similar components of crude oil at the refinery.
Jet fuel, a form of kerosene used to power jets, sold for 19.5 cents a gallon more than the heating oil contract in the New York Harbor market today, twice the average during the past five years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The fuel's premium should decline to 2 to 8 cents a gallon by the fourth quarter, Busby said.
Price Decline
The airline cutbacks ``should help bring the price down,'' said Peter Beutel, president of energy consultant Cameron Hanover Inc. in New Canaan, Connecticut. The current premium is because of ``more than anything the summer demand, the peak demand.''
In 1991, when U.S. jet fuel consumption slid 8.2 percent, crude oil fell 40 percent from a high of $32 a barrel in January to $19.12 by the end of the year. Jet fuel traded at a 1.55 cent discount to heating oil by Dec. 11 of that year, down from a 3.85 cent premium six months earlier.
Lehman Brothers expects crude oil to average about $90 in the first quarter of next year. Oil climbed to a record $147.27 a barrel on July 11 amid rising fuel demand in China and India, and the potential threat of an Israeli air strike on Iran. Airline cutbacks may help send the price to $107 a barrel in 2009, Merrill Lynch & Co. said in a July 7 report.
Falling Demand
Demand for oil will be less than half of initial forecasts, increasing by 616,000 barrels a day, because of the slide in transportation use, Merrill Lynch said.
Jet fuel fell 1.67 cents to $4.2599 a gallon in New York Harbor today. It's gained 50 percent this year and touched the record $4.36 on July 3.
Heating oil for August delivery fell 1.17 cents, or 0.3 percent, to settle at $4.0649 a gallon on the New York Mercantile Exchange today. The contract reached a record $4.1586 a gallon on July 11.
U.S. jet fuel consumption for the four weeks ended July 4 was 2.2 percent lower than a year earlier, according to Energy Department data.
`Demand Destruction'
``There is definitely demand destruction going on,'' Sung Yoo, an oil analyst at JPMorgan Chase & Co., said in a telephone interview. ``We could see a bit of a pullback of the entire oil complex after the summer.''
Last month, Northwest Airlines Corp. said it would ground 14 Boeing Co. 757 planes and Airbus jets during the final three months of 2008. Overall, Northwest is reducing its domestic and international flying by up to 9.5 percent, the airline said in a regulatory filing.
Airline cutbacks are part of a broader trend in which higher fuel prices are reducing consumption. U.S. gasoline demand in the four weeks ended July 4 averaged 9.3 million barrels a day, down 2.1 percent from the same period a year earlier.
The reduction in U.S. fuel consumption may not be sufficient to reverse oil's climb toward $200, said Adam Sieminski, chief energy economist at Deutsche Bank AG. ``The difficulty is that demand is still rising in China and the Middle East and the rest of the world'' while oil production may be leveling off, he said. ``What price does it take to have demand growth go to zero to match zero supply growth? That's very scary because it might take a really high price.''
Overseas Expansion
While U.S. airlines cut back, some carriers overseas are expanding, ``soaking up demand reductions achieved in the United States,'' Merrill Lynch said in a July 4 report.
Exports of the fuel for the first four months of the year averaged 55,000 barrels a day, the highest since 2005, U.S. Energy Department data show. For the week ended July 4, U.S. jet fuel imports fell to 34,000 barrels a day, the lowest since Aug. 19, 2005.
The narrowing of jet fuel's premium to heating oil may be limited if refiners don't increase crude processing rates, Beutel, the energy consultant, said.
``One of the biggest factors here is the simple inability of refiners to bring up their runs,'' he said. ``We are still below 90 percent and that is unheard of.''
Operating Rates
Refiners have operated at an average of 86.4 percent capacity this year, the lowest since 2001, Energy Department data show. U.S. jet fuel production averaged 1.62 million barrels a day, 3.5 percent lower than a year earlier and inventories of 38.8 million barrels were 6.1 percent lower than a year earlier.
The airline cutbacks also may not be as bad as expected, said Jason O'Connor, head of refined products trading at Starsupply Petroleum, a division of GFI Group Inc., in Norwalk, Connecticut.

Delta Air Lines are looking into offering customers broadband wireless internet access on its entire domestic fleet, they are hoping to get this all running by next summer. We already know that Continental Airlines had previously announced its plans to offer a similar service across a majority of its mainline fleet.
There are several other airlines looking at doing the same thing by offering or planning on offering a similar service, of course on a limited number of flights than Delta and Continental.
Delta who is based in Atlanta said that it would offer to sell Wi-Fi service to customers travelling throughout the continental United States, they are currently working with Aircell who is an airborne communications provider, and its plan is to install the network on Delta’s domestic airline fleet of over 330 aircrafts

The lower fee applies to flights in the U.S. and Canada. The $50 surcharge will be tacked on to trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific flights, as well as on routes to the Caribbean and Latin America.
The change takes effect on SkyMiles award tickets issued starting August 15th.
SkyMiles managing director Jeff Robertson calls it a "difficult but essential" decision and he hopes it is temporary. He says if fuel prices come down, Delta officials will re-evaluate the surcharge

American Airlines have daily flights from Dallas/Ft. Worth, and three flights per week from Miami to Juan Santamaria International airport in San Jose Costa Rica. They also have flights Tuesday to Thursday from Miami to Liberia, Daniel Oduber airport - and - from DFW to Liberia on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

we would have ranked as the nation's #1 on-time carrier for the entire year," said Dunkerley. The DOT issued its Air Travel Consumer Report today for December 2003 comparing the performance of Hawaiian and 17 other major and regional airlines that file monthly statistics with the federal agency. On-time service, according to DOT standards, is any flight arriving within 15 minutes of its scheduled time.Hawaiian averages approximately 30 transpacific flights and 100 interisland flights daily. The company's interisland service is marked by back-to-back flights and short, 25-minute transition times on the ground between flights that emphasize the operational efficiency needed for Hawaiian to maintain such a high level of on-time service.?The two consecutive months of #1 rankings reported by DOT to end 2003 followed an industry analysis by the Honolulu market research firm of Q-Mark Research & Polling showing that Hawaiian had the nation's best on-time performance from January through October 2003, with 92.1 percent of flights arriving on time. The analysis covered approximately 40,000 flights and 4.6 million passengers that Hawaiian serviced for the first 10 months of the year, and compared data collected from the airline with the published data of the DOT.Hawaiian's successful on-time service was enhanced in January 2003 when a task team of front-line employees and management conducted an exhaustive evaluation of operations and procedures "above and below wing." Numerous recommendations were implemented ranging in scope from minute procedural changes to increased staffing, which collectively produced consistently high flight schedule reliability and enhanced customer service.

There are two major airlines that offer service nationwide: GOL and TAM
TAM has service to the US and Europe, GOL only within South America.
From the US, TAM has flights from Miami to Salvador and also to Fortaleza via Manaus and Belem. These routes save you from having to fly into São Paulo and turning around and flying back North. If you fly one of the US airlines, you will first land in São Paulo or Rio.

Delta airlines has two flights daily from Atlanta Georgia to San Jose Costa Rica. It also has one flight per week from Atlanta to Liberia (Friday and Saturday). Office hours are Monday to Friday 8am to 5pm.

QANTAS

QANTAS has hijacked the media frenzy surrounding V Australia’s maiden flight by offering a $2 million seat sale.The nation’s carrier announced domestic flights for as low as $55 ahead of V Australia’s inaugural flight to the US.The Qantas Domestic Bliss Sale covers 38 domestic and regional destinations, with deals such as Sydney to Brisbane for $65 and Melbourne to Adelaide for $55.The deal is available now on the Qantas website and will run until midnight (AEDST) on Monday, March 2