Oracle CEO Larry Ellison Wednesday gave the world another lesson in how to
spend like a billionaire. He announced that he's bought Island Air, the
airline that makes hops between the Hawaiian Islands, to go with his purchase
last year of almost all of Lanai, the resort island off Maui, for a reported
$500 million-$600 million. Apparently the airline has been restructuring and
Larry's acquisition is a job-saving Godsend.
... (more)
http://twitter.com/fuatkircaali
I see Simon Hradecky, the site editor of The Aviation Herald
(www.avherald.com) reported this a few hours ago, about our JetBlue emergency
landing experience on Saturday, November 21.
"A JetBlue Embraer ERJ-190, registration N279JB performing flight B6-904 from
Chicago O'Hare, IL to New York JFK, NY (USA) with 64 passengers and 4 crew,
was on final visual approach to JFK's runway 31R descending through 2000
feet, when the crew reported they needed to abort the approach due to a
slat/flap indication.
The airplane climbed back up to 3000 feet and was vectored to allow the crew
troubleshoot the problem. The crew requested the longer runway 31L and
advised, their approach speed would be "a little bit higher" and requested
the emergency services on standby and subsequently declared emergency due to
an abnormal flaps indication. The airpla... (more)
(LinuxWorld) -- Editor's note: The following scenario is that of a consultant
brought in early in the business planning cycle for a new airline. Unlike the
other articles in this series, this example does not reflect the author's
real-world consulting experience. Murphy worked for an airline, but nothing
on this scale. SafetyJet is a wholly imaginary company constructed solely to
illustrate three outstanding Unix characteristics:
Smart display explained A typical smart display has a powerful graphics
engine and runs Java/OS, Windows, or X clients, often concurrently.
The image shown is of a 21-inch NCD900. Companies like Sun, IBM, and Thinknic
make others. Typical MTBF ratings are in the 300,000-hour range and there are
neither moving parts nor user-accessible OS components to cause failures.
Massive scalability.Very high reliability.The ability to use maintenance-fre... (more)
Development rational and processes
The decision to try to develop what amounts to a real-time operating system
for an airline is a potential business killer and correspondingly
questionable. My fundamental arguments for doing it are:
The SafetyJet business model is not a good fit for any established system
that we're aware of. The one we liked best, built around a core reservation
system that provided the foundation for Southwest Airlines' success and is
now powering several other airlines to pre-eminence in their markets, seemed
to require more than 100 ancillary systems and is dependent on MPE/3000 -- a
product that HP has recently end-of-lifed.
The vendor assures us that continuity will not be a problem and we accepted
that, but it is my belief that good software reflects both the business it
serves and the mentality of its developers. As companies using other major... (more)
Smell of change was in the air, but summer holiday season promises further
sensational developments: travel and tourism sector has become the number one
in e-commerce market. The tourism sector share in the Internet market, has
become the most important, exceeding 50% of unique users.
Airlines, shipping companies and car hire, have invested considerable
resources on the web, as did the tour operators and travel agents linked to
these ones. The leading sectors of e-commerce tourism are the flight tickets,
which boasts 60% of the total share, and this is mainly due to the growth of
web surfer interest for cheap flights, but also for travel by train: online
hotel bookings is however a constantly growing sector. Hotel managers have
encouraged the trend to reduce the costs of intermediation: 90% of
accommodation activities has its own website. In this scenery, intermediar... (more)
EDS announced the signing of a comprehensive agreement with Microsoft around
EDS airline reservations, flight operations and service oriented architecture
products. With the announcement, EDS will use selected Microsoft tools,
software and resources in the modernization and operations of its airline
service oriented architecture (SOA) products. Microsoft will provide
architecture specialists, advanced 24-hour support, a new model for software
licensing, additional investment into the products and access to new customer
channel management tools to form a truly unique go-to-market relationship.
The agreement is for a duration of eight years.
"We have spent considerable time analyzing technology tools and capabilities
and reached the conclusion that EDS Agility Alliance partner Microsoft offers
us the best path forward for modernizing and enhancing our airline
reserva... (more)
BOSTON, July 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Booking a flight is no longer a
straightforward process; to help travelers make sense of the extra costs,
SmarterTravel.com(TM), a comprehensive online travel resource, has reviewed
each airline's policies and put together the "Airline Fees Survival Guide."
"Purchasing airfare is no longer as simple as putting in a destination and
dates and then selecting the lowest price available online. Airline fees can
really add up, making the discount tickets seem more like first class," said
Anne Banas, executive editor of SmarterTravel.com. "Travelers need to be
aware of how much each fee can tack on to already expensive tickets, and we
wanted to go the extra mile to show the best strategies for saving travelers
a few dollars."
SmarterTravel(R) reviewed several flight scenarios and compared ticket prices
with the additional airline fees. Given... (more)
DENVER, July 25 /PRNewswire/ -- Frontier Airlines Holdings, Inc. today
announced it has received a $75 million commitment in post-petition
debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing from Perseus LLC, a private investment
firm based in Washington, D.C. with offices in Evergreen, Colorado, New York
and Munich. Perseus has also agreed to serve as equity sponsor for Frontier's
plan of reorganization, allowing Perseus to purchase 79.9% of the equity in
the reorganized company for $100 million. The DIP facility and plan
sponsorship are subject to bankruptcy court approval and to various
conditions.
"Today's announcement is a major boost to Frontier and builds momentum toward
its emergence from bankruptcy as a viable enterprise. The $75 million
commitment in DIP financing from Perseus is a significant vote of confidence
in the employees of Frontier, our product and business pla... (more)
HONOLULU, April 2 /PRNewswire/ -- Hawaiian Airlines today was named the
top-performing airline for 2006, according to the findings released by the
17th Annual Airline Quality Rating (AQR).
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20040827/LAF044LOGO)
The comprehensive study, conducted by the University of Nebraska at Omaha
Aviation Institute and the Wichita State University School of Business,
evaluated the nation's 18 largest carriers using a weighted average of 15
elements in four major areas important to consumers when judging quality
airline services.
Mark Dunkerley, Hawaiian's president and CEO, commented, "This is fantastic
news. We work hard to provide the best airline service in America and I'd
like to thank the employees of Hawaiian Airlines for making that happen."
The 2006 study marked the first year Hawaiian was included in the AQR study.
Hawaiian earn... (more)
PARIS, June 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Austrian Airlines, a leading
European airline based in Vienna and Star Alliance member focused on
providing the highest passenger standards, and Connexion by Boeing, a
business unit of The Boeing Company , today announced the signing of an
agreement for the installation of real-time, high-speed Internet service on
the air carrier's long-haul fleet.
(Photo: NewsCom: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050616/SFTH041 )
The agreement calls for the initial installation of the Connexion by
Boeing(SM) service aboard seven of Austrian Airline's Boeing 777 (3) and
Boeing 767 (4) aircraft, with an undisclosed number of additional options.
Installations will begin in early 2006 and, as they are completed, the
Connexion by Boeing service will be introduced on select long-haul routes.
Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed... (more)
DENVER, Sept. 18 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Frontier Airlines on Sunday
launched the first in a new series of television commercials that will air in
the Denver market over the next six weeks, featuring several of the familiar
animals that appear on Frontier aircraft tails, and a bold new advertising
message: Frontier is Denver's favorite airline.
The advertising is based on a survey commissioned by Frontier and conducted
by independent research firm Harris Interactive(R) in July 2006. Harris
Interactive surveyed online nearly 600 Denver-area travelers about their
airline preferences. When asked what airline is their favorite, more
respondents chose Frontier than any other airline. Frontier was chosen more
often than second place United by fifteen percentage points and by
thirty-five percentage points compared to Southwest.
The first television spot in the new Fronti... (more)