API is Accommodating
Accommodations Plus International (API) has announced its investment partnership with ClearPoint Investment Partners and Invus Opportunities and the appointment of Richard McLeer as Chief Executive Officer.
Mr. McLeer brings decades of executive experience as a leader of technology-enabled services companies. API’s serves more than 70 airline, cargo, and cruise clients with a network of over 100,000 hotels globally.
Fred Kamel, President, added, “I am excited to welcome our strategic partners”.
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New airlines scheduled to fly out of JFK in third quarter of 2018 are Nigeria Airlines, Kenya Airlines and Viva Aerobus. WFS will be handling freight on both Nigeria and Kenya. Terminals to handle the new airlines are yet to be announced but it is thought that the international capabilities of T1 and T4 are logical choices.
Air Canada CEIV certified
Air Canada is the first airline in the world to be awarded the CEIV award. Air Canada Cargo, Vice President Tim Strauss said, “Whether it is a family relocating with their pet, a flock of sheep relocating overseas or zoo animals travelling to support conservation efforts, transporting animals by air is a complex and highly planned operation. Ensuring that animals travel in safe, healthy and humane conditions requires coordination across the supply chain. Air Canada Cargo is delighted to be part of the CEIV Live Animals program.”
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Delta ‘s new Global Corporate Priority will let Delta, Air France and KLM corporate travelers to pick better main cabin seat without additional fees, priority boarding and priority assistance in “irregular operations, all regardless of which airline they are flying or have booked.
AF/KLM CEO opposed.
On the appointment of Ben Smith, an outsider, to the CEO of AF/KLM, Anne-Marie Couderc AF/KLM Interim President said: “The arrival of Benjamin Smith is excellent news for the Group. Benjamin is a world-renowned leader in the airline sector who successfully transformed Air Canada. As a man who prefers dialogue, he developed and implemented the historical long-term win-win agreements with the airline’s social partners for the benefit of Air Canada’s teams, the airline and all other stakeholders.
Lost luggage’s purpose
Southwest Airlines and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced a new formal partnership arrangement as part of the Donations Acceptance Program. Under this partnership arrangement, Southwest Airlines will provide CBP with discarded luggage available at air ports of entry where both partners operate. CBP will in turn use this luggage to train canines to search for and detect narcotics, weapons, and other illegal contraband entering and leaving the United States.
Finnair to LAX
Finnair announced it will begin flying to Los Angeles, California, as of next spring.
“We are very happy to expand our North American network and fly a new route to Los Angeles with our Airbus A350,” says Juha Järvinen, Chief Commercial Officer at Finnair.
Los Angeles will be Finnair’s fifth US destination, along with New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Miami. The approximate flight times are expected to be 11 hours to LAX and 10 hours and 30 minutes to Helsinki.
The new route will be operated within the Atlantic joint business between Finnair, American Airlines, British Airways and Iberia. Currently, the four airlines operate over 100 daily return flights between Europe and North America.
China airlines will thrive
Mike Boyd, of the Boyd Group says higher fuel costs will impact US international travel except for Chinese travelers who “are going on Chinese airlines, not U.S. airlines.
They don’t want to get on United or American. They want to get on their own airlines. So there will be a windfall, but not for U.S. carriers. Right now, 60 percent of the traffic is being carried by Chinese airlines, and that’s only going to grow. But at some point in time, we’re going to see Air China fly into Denver. They partner with United Airlines, so they’ll connect people from Beijing throughout the U.S., including here.”
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BOOM! International Aviation Forecast Summit, where approximately 400 heavyweights in the airline industry have gathered at Denver’s downtown Hyatt Regency to discuss the trends travelers will be experiencing a few years from now. One of the exciting results is that Denver will reportedly build the new BOOM supersonic aircraft.
Centennial-based Boom Supersonic, whose signature craft “will be coming on in five years,” Boyd says, “and it’s going to be built here. It’s going to have 55 seats and fly faster than the Concorde did — and none of it is really new technology.” Richard Branson has put money into the operation. Japan Airlines has ordered aircraft. Virgin Atlantic has ordered airlines. Trip out of China [now known as Trip.com has invested in it. To me, everything looks like we’re going to have a supersonic airline”.
