Founded by Max Farndale 1947 - 2018
Air New Zealand will fly almost 60,000 additional seats between Auckland and Honolulu from April to October next year, an increase of 75 percent compared with this year.
The airline will operate an additional 94 return services during the period, moving to daily flights and up to nine services per week during the busy July school holiday period.
Services will be operated by the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner for the majority of the year, with a change to the Boeing 777-200 during the July and September holiday periods.
Air New Zealand’s Chief Revenue Officer Cam Wallace says the airline is excited to offer such a significant capacity boost on the very popular route.
“Hawaii is clearly a favourite destination for Kiwis, particularly for those wanting to escape the New Zealand winter. Air New Zealand has increased its services to Honolulu to offer customers even more flexibility as well as a greater number of premium seats during the peak periods by deploying our Boeing 777-200.”
Air New Zealand offers its popular Economy Skycouch™ product as well as Premium Economy and Business Premier on its services to Hawaii.
| An Air New Zealand release || August 4, 2017 |||
The Australian government will roll out a “contactless traveller” clearance process for travellers arriving at the country’s international airports, after Vision-Box signed a contract to deliver the service.
The three year contract will deliver upgraded biometric technology, enabling the Department of Immigration and Border Protection to use biometric data to clear passengers arriving at Australia’s international airports.
It will also deliver a new capability that will eventually enable known travellers to self-process through the border without producing their passport, relying wholly on facial recognition technology.
Australia’s Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Peter Dutton, said the project is another step towards “contactless traveller” processing.
“Australia is committed to being a world leader in the use of biometrics at our border to facilitate legitimate travel, protect our community and prevent the activities of potential terrorists and criminals,” Dutton said.
“The government’s investment in advanced state-of-the-art biometric systems continues to enhance existing border automation measures and further improves the efficiency and speed of border processing for legitimate travellers, who represent the vast majority of people crossing Australia’s border.”
This investment is part of the government’s broader $123.6 million investment in improving the experience for passengers at the border.
| AN FTE release || August 4, 2017 |||
Price:From $2,375
Stay:4 nights
Travel Dates:Thursday 5th of October 2017 until Monday 9th of October 2017
Description:SUPERCHEAP AUTO BATHURST 1000 - 4 Nights from $2375* per person (with Sporting Tours).
Every year the Bathurst 1000 produces incredible showdowns as drivers try to conquer ‘The Mountain’. The 4-day 1,000-kilometre touring car race is a round of the V8 Supercar Championship Series and is considered the pinnacle of Australian motorsport. Experience the exhilarating atmosphere on and off the track with fantastic entertainment, a full schedule of V8 Supercars and excellent facilities. We’re delighted to have motor racing expert Willie Kay hosting our group again. Willie is an exceptional tour escort with immense knowledge and industry contacts, which helps gives this trip its legendary reputation. Past tours have had the chance to get up close to the drivers, go behind the scenes and really be part of the Bathurst experience. Let us know when you want to fly and we’ll provide the best airfare options and prices. Extend your stay and explore more of Australia, we’ve got some great ideas to get the most out of your trip! Want to know more? Give us a call, we’re always happy to help.
Inclusions:
WILLIE KAY
A former speedway and circuit driver, a car owner and Indy Car crew man, was a Director of Speedway NZ for eleven years, and promoter of Western Springs and Baypark tracks for nineteen years. Willie has escorted motorsport tours including Indianapolis 500, Formula One Grand Prix, vintage car events, V8 super cars, major speedway races and aviation events for thirty five years. Motorsport in its many facets has been his life and work, and Willie takes no greater pleasure than in sharing his experience, knowledge and contacts for the benefit of tour members.
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Air New Zealand is growing its Vancouver-Auckland operation by nearly 20 percent from January – July 2018, providing customers with greater choice and flexibility.
The airline will kick the increases off by moving from seven to eight weekly services during the first half of January peak period, making it easier than ever for Kiwis to escape to the snow.
Frequency of services will also grow over the shoulder season with the airline moving from five weekly services to daily flights during February, and increasing to five services a week in March and April (up from four) and four weekly services during May – mid-June (up from three).
Air New Zealand Chief Revenue Officer Cam Wallace says the airline is delighted to be able to offer its customers more scheduled flights to and from Vancouver.
“We recognise how popular Canada is as a winter destination for Kiwis. We also see the value in increasing services to New Zealand for Canadian tourists, allowing them to escape the winter and enjoy a chance to experience our beautiful summer and the tranquility of New Zealand through the shoulder season.”
| An Air New Zealand release || August 3, 2017 |||
Cathay Pacific needs someone from the Swire family to “come out and lead the company for a while,” according to the airline’s latest big investor, quoted by the South China Morning Post.
Circuit-board tycoon Cheung Kwok-wing, who has bought an 8.3% stake in Cathay, expects the airline to return to financial health in six to 12 months, according to the newspaper.
The Swire Group, very British, is deeply rooted in China, in Hong Kong and in Cathay Pacific. The Swire Group’s privately owned parent company is John Swire & Sons Limited, founded by John Swire (1793–1847) in 1816. Swire’s roots in China date back to before the first Opium War between Britain and China.http://www.granmonte.com/
The publicly quoted Swire Pacific Limited holds the Swire Group’s core businesses in Hong Kong. They are grouped into property, aviation, beverages and food, marine services, trading and industrial. In 1948, Swire Pacific acquired Cathay Pacific, Hong Kong’s largest airline, and remains as the largest shareholder with 45% shareholding.
Current chairman of the Swire Group is British billionaire businessman Barnaby Nicholas Swire.
Bloomberg’s Gadfly has suggested that one strategy for the airline would be to embrace, rather than fight China’s growing might. There’s conjecture that Air China may make a move on Cathay Pacific, taking it over to create the world’s largest cargo airline and second-largest passenger carrier. If you combine Air China and Cathay Pacific, the joint entity is bigger, in revenue-passenger-kilometre terms, than Emirates.
Air China could promote Cathay as its premium brand.
Bloomberg Businessweek notes that Cathay is now the most richly valued of the world’s major airlines, despite heading to its second consecutive year of losses. It speculates that the current Chinese leadership, very patriotic, might see value in bringing under Chinese ownership the one big Chinese airline that’s still run by British aristocrats. It might pay a lot for that.
| Written by Peter Needham for eTravel NewsMedia || August 3, 2017 \\\
As Australian domestic airlines wait to see whether lengthy passenger waits caused by enhanced airport security screening will affect business, a major union has warned that high staff turnover at airports is creating an additional security risk.
A nationwide air travel security alert began at the weekend after counter-terrorism squads launched armed raids on four Sydney properties over an alleged “Islamic-inspired” plot to bring down an aircraft – reportedly by using poison gas.
As a result, passengers now need to arrive at Australian airports two hours before domestic flights and three hours before international flights to allow ample time for screening.
This means that a traveller making a short day-trip for a business meeting – Melbourne to Canberra or Sydney to Brisbane, say – faces spending at least four hours at domestic airports, when their flight may last under 90 minutes or even less than an hour.
There can be no compromise on safety, but some travellers may decide to defer their meetings, use phone links instead – or even drive or use surface transport. Time will tell.
Meanwhile, the Transport Workers’ Union (TWU) has cautioned that the high turnover rate of staff at airports, linked to low pay and poor working conditions, is in itself creating a major security risk.
The turnover problem means large numbers of staff do not have full security clearance to operate at airports and do not have the experience or training to spot potential terror threats, the TWU warns.
“On any given day there are many hundreds of people working at our airports with no ASIO or Federal Police security checks,” TWU national secretary Tony Sheldon said.
Airport sleeping quarters for staff. Photo obtained by ABC earlier this year
“ This includes people doing regular work airside from maintenance to ground crew and, most concerning, security personnel. These staff are often on below-award rates, split shifts, forced part-time and are subject to horrific workplace injuries.
“Because of the appalling conditions many airport employees do not stay in jobs long and this high turnover rate is creating a security risk that our Federal Government and airport owners are wilfully turning a blind eye to.”
The TWU says low pay and forced part-time hours are a common feature of the aviation industry.
Media investigations earlier this year exposed instances of staff forced to sleep at Sydney Airport because they couldn’t afford to go home between shifts. See: Staff sleeping in swags by Aussie airport carousels
The TWU said airports and airlines are refusing to take responsibility for the conditions of Aerocare staff who work in their supply chains.
The TWU has also sounded the alarm over what it says is a complete lack of security screening at most regional airports served by QantasLink.
“Screening does not exist at airports at Armidale, Lord Howe Island and Moree in New South Wales, Port Lincoln and Whyalla in South Australia and Charleville, Blackall, Miles and Longreach in Queensland.
“Airport workers and our cabin crew are contacting us because they are concerned about their own safety and the safety of the travelling public given no checks are being done at these airports. Again while the Federal Government and airport owners like to appear to be concerned about security in reality there are gaping holes in operation,” Sheldon said.
The aviation industry is highly profitable. The TWU notes that profits at the four main airports in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane increased to AUD 1.8 billion last year and Qantas is now highly profitable.
“Our airports are clearly making billions of dollars in profit but are not putting funding into security,” Sheldon said.
| An eGlobalTRavelmedia release written by Peter Needham || August 2, 2017 |||
The Connecticut-headquartered engine and aerospace leader will pay compensation to Indian airline IndiGo after not being able to supply enough spare engines that power Airbus A320neo jets.
Pratt & Whitney is paying compensation to Indian airline IndiGo as the manufacturer struggles to fix glitches in engines that power Airbus SE’s new A320neo jets.
“We continue to have a higher number of engine removals, and sufficient spare engines have not been available,” IndiGo President Aditya Ghosh said on a conference call Monday. “The operational disruptions are quite challenging, and we are not happy with that situation.”
The airline, operated by InterGlobe Aviation Ltd., was forced to ground as many nine new A320neo jets on some days, Ghosh said. It may be a year or so before Pratt & Whitney implements design changes to the geared turbofan, he said, declining to comment on the amount, mode or the timing of the compensation.
The groundings, which emerged in recent months, are holding back IndiGo’s push to add capacity to maintain its domestic market share of more than 40% amid a travel boom triggered by an emerging middle-class flying for the first time. The airline, India’s biggest and the world’s top customer for the A320neo, has said in the past it will consider a rival engine manufactured by CFM International, an alliance of General Electric Co. and Safran SA, if glitches persist with the Pratt engines.Pratt Confidence
Pratt, a unit of United Technologies Corp., is confident it’s getting a handle on the problems, saying last week that it still expects to hit a 2017 delivery target of 350 to 400 engines. The company is incorporating revised carbon seals to address a durability issue and should have a fix by October for a separate glitch with the combustor liner, United Technologies Chief Financial Officer Akhil Johri said in a recent interview.
While he acknowledged the issues are affecting customers, Johri said last week that “we feel GTF problems are understood and behind us to a large extent, from a production point of view.”
India has the largest fleet of A320neos and the country’s aviation regulator earlier this year ordered two airline operators to inspect powerplants with more than 1,000 hours of service. Pratt has been working to fix durability issues and production snags that have hampered the debut of the engine, which was selected to power new jets from Airbus, Bombardier Inc. and Embraer SA.
“A320neos have not been delivered as per the plan with Airbus,” Interglobe Aviation Chief Financial Officer Rohit Philip said, adding it is hurting the company’s profitability. “To make up for the shortfall, we had to go to the aircraft-leasing market, and had to enter into short-term leases for used A320s.”A Crucial Market for Pratt
India is a crucial market for both Airbus and Pratt, with IndiGo having ordered 430 of the A320neo jets, of which 22 have been delivered. Go Airlines India Ltd. has five in operation and was awaiting deliveries of 139 more. State-run Air India Ltd. and Vistara, the local affiliate of Singapore Airlines Ltd., also fly A320neos, but they are powered by CFM engines.
IndiGo, controlled by billionaire founders Rahul Bhatia and Rakesh Gangwal, will begin owning aircraft, purchasing them using cash in hand, in a move away from a sale-and-leaseback model it has followed so far, Philip said. New aircraft will be in service for more than the typical six years that the carrier now sees and will enable the airline to cut down on leased planes, the company said.
“We are shifting our fleet acquisition policy to allow us to reduce our operating costs, which will result in higher profitability in the longer term,” Philip said.
IndiGo said it had total cash of 101.8 billion rupees ($1.59 billion) as of June.
Profit for the quarter ended June 30 rose 37% to 8.1 billion rupees ($122.22 million), the company said Monday. IndiGo has made money every year since at least the period starting April 2009, even as the Indian airline industry lost a combined $10 billion over a similar period.
IndiGo shares rose 0.4% to close at 1,290 rupees ($20.10) in Mumbai. They have risen 57% this year, compared with a 22% advance in the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex index.
| An Industry Week release || August 2, 2017 |||
In a recent white paper, SITAONAIR proposed what will be the second in-flight revolution: the adoption of open architecture and common service provision. This will allow airlines to make passenger connectivity part of the airline brand rather than a lock-in to a supplier’s refresh cycle.
Thought leadership article, authored by SITA.
With airlines embracing connected aircraft, the first in-flight connectivity revolution is clearly in full swing. But we’re now poised for in-flight revolution no.2: open platforms and common standards that will unlock new opportunities for digital service innovation.
By 2025, two-thirds of the world’s airline fleet will be connected – enabling passengers to transfer their entire digital lives seamlessly from ground to air.
At the same time this is bringing significant operational opportunities and benefits for everyone involved in the value chain – from airlines and airports to airframe and engine manufacturers, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and service suppliers.
The drivers for upgrading to a connected aircraft are fourfold, according to SITA’s 2016 Airline IT Trends Survey: improvements to the passenger experience (46%), maintenance and aircraft health monitoring (15%), benefits for pilots (12%) and improvements for cabin crew activities, such as tablet apps and credit card payments (7%).
Stage 1
This first stage revolution is accelerating in pace. By 2019, two-thirds of the world’s airlines expect to operate fully connected aircraft, up from 37% in 2016.
By the same date, 74% of airlines plan to provide in-flight internet services (33% today), 60% plan to offer mobile phone services in-flight (21% today) and 92% of airlines are focusing on smartphone applications to interact with passengers.
Alongside these changes, the habits of passengers are transforming as they are themselves increasingly connected on the ground – and prepared to use their own devices. That offers the potential not only to deliver better in-flight connectivity and a more tailored passenger experience, but also to consider removing seat-back screens altogether – saving weight and fuel cost.
A drag?
However, the path to realising these opportunities is full of potential obstacles and constraints. There are operational limitations and incompatibilities across platforms, technologies, fleets and service providers’ own proprietary systems.
In part that’s because technology cycles for aircraft, satellite hardware and infrastructure, onboard communication equipment and mobile devices all evolve at different speeds. As a result, integration, innovation and the unification of the passenger portfolio and passenger experience is complex, time consuming and expensive.
“A lack of interoperability is one of the inhibitors in the growth of in-flight connectivity services across the world’s airline fleets,” says Craig Foster, Senior Consultant at Valour Consultancy.
“Many airlines weren’t even aware this was the case when they made a connectivity investment decision and I expect this will be a topic that grows in awareness and understanding soon.”
Stage 2
In a recent white paper, SITAONAIR proposed what will be the second in-flight revolution: the adoption of open architecture and common service provision. This will allow airlines to make passenger connectivity part of the airline brand rather than a lock-in to a supplier’s refresh cycle.
Fully open-system architecture, the paper suggests, is the only way that airlines can become fully empowered to have choice and flexibility in their in-flight services and optimise the business benefits of high-speed connectivity. Not least it offers the opportunity to separate key duties, so that the same provider is not responsible for both providing the system and performance monitoring.
According to Singapore Airlines’ Vice President of Product Innovation, Yung Han Ng: “Open system developments facilitate the creation of new and innovative ideas, and enable us to develop products/solutions that are platform and device agnostic, and with a shorter time to launch. If suppliers were to adopt open platform solutions in the future, it would be ideal.”
Best interests
The speed and scale of airline ambitions suggests that an open and common approach is the way forward and in the best interests of the industry as a whole. “The development of software platforms/middleware is obviously important,” comments David Lavorel, SITAONAIR CEO.
“In the broader Internet of Things space, a number of companies have developed connected device platforms and application-enablement platforms that have spurred growth. The airline space should not be any different.”
As passenger connectivity becomes more ubiquitous, providing solutions and systems on an open basis means that consistent passenger experience can be achieved regardless of the technology choices airlines may make or have already made.
Critically, this will promote innovation for airlines and passengers, and bring simplicity at application and user level.
“As OEMs open up their technology platforms,” concludes David Lavorel, “we are ready to work with airlines to maximise the resulting opportunities. We believe this is what airlines want.”
| An FTE release || August 1, 2017 |||
As it prepares to launch international services from Apia to Auckland and Sydney, Samoa’s new international airline, Samoa Airways, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Fiji Airways writes Peter Needham for eGlobal Media.
Under the MOU, the airlines will jointly pursue commercial opportunities and partnerships. Fiji Airways will provide initial support – through its established infrastructure in sales, commercial, operations and maintenance – to help launch Samoa Airways’ international services.
“We are happy to play a support role to help reboot Samoa’s international airline”, Fiji Airways’ managing director and chief executive, Andre Viljoen, said.http://travelindustryexpo.com.au/?utm_source=Global%20Travel%20Media&utm_medium=Banners
Samoan Prime Minister, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, said Samoa’s decision to pursue a commercial partnership with Fiji Airways was driven mainly by the critical need to look beyond New Zealand and Australia and open Samoa up to the world. This would be done through Fiji Airways’ long-haul network, which includes direct flights from Los Angeles, San Francisco, Hong Kong, Singapore into Nadi.
Chairman of Polynesian Airlines, Feesago Siaosi Fepuleai, confirmed that with the signing of the MOU, separate commercial and operations agreements would be negotiated between the two airlines which would form part of the overall Pacific Partnership Alliance Agreement between Samoa Airways and Fiji Airways.
“The MOU we signed today gives both airlines a broad and strategic framework of how the Pacific Partnership will be negotiated and finalised”, Feesago stated.
“Under the MOU, there will be specific routes like Samoa to New Zealand and Australia that will be solely managed by Samoa Airways and other routes where both Airlines will jointly manage through codesharing and interlining.”
| An eGlobal Media release || July 28, 2017 |||
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) and Airlines for America (A4A), have launched a year-long global campaign related to baggage tracking with the goal of reducing mishandled bags in addition to increasing efficiency in baggage operations.
Annually, more than 4 billion bags are carried by airlines globally. Less than 0.43 percent do not arrive with their owners. By June 2018, airlines have committed to being able to track a bag when it is accepted at the airport, loaded onto the aircraft, transferred to the arrival system or put into the transfer system for carriage by another airline. Airlines should also be able to share this tracking information with interline carriers as needed.
| A TravelInc Memo release || July 25, 2017 |||
Palace of the Alhambra, Spain
By: Charles Nathaniel Worsley (1862-1923)
From the collection of Sir Heaton Rhodes
Oil on canvas - 118cm x 162cm
Valued $12,000 - $18,000
Offers invited over $9,000
Contact: Henry Newrick – (+64 ) 27 471 2242
Mount Egmont with Lake
By: John Philemon Backhouse (1845-1908)
Oil on Sea Shell - 13cm x 14cm
Valued $2,000-$3,000
Offers invited over $1,500
Contact: Henry Newrick – (+64 ) 27 471 2242
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