Airline News

Finnair in cooperation with Lithuanian Airlines is increasing frequencies between Helsinki and Vilnius from two to three daily flights. Service will start Aug. 1 2004, operated with LAL Saab 2000s. Jul 30, 2004

Frontier Airlines will launch twice-daily service between Denver and Little Rock Oct. 10 2004. The flights will be operated by Horizon Air as Frontier JetExpress with CRJ700s. Delta Connection carriers Atlantic Southeast Airlines and Comair will realign flights at Huntington, W. Va. Effective Sept. 15, Comair will offer four daily nonstops between Huntington and Cincinnati using 50-seat CRJs, while ASA will discontinue its three daily flights to Atlanta. Jul 2, 2004

Global ePoint said its AirWorks division received initial orders from American Airlines to install laptop power systems in 103 additional MD- 80s. The initial orders are valued at $361,000 with follow-on buys anticipated. AirWorks previously provided laptop power systems to American in 1998. Jul 2, 2004

Gol confirmed that it was approved by the Brazilian Committee of Studies Related to International Air Navigation to commence regular international flights to Buenos Aires. The airline said it is taking all necessary measures to begin the flights by year end. Jul 9, 2004

Hawaiian Airlines www.hawaiianair.com in August will offer its passengers on transpacific flights the option of using portable audio- video players. The device, known as digEplayer, will enable travelers to choose from among 10 to 15 first-run movies, eight to 10 short subjects or sitcoms, 20 music videos and 100 audio tracks. Hawaiian says it is the first to offer the player on transpacific flights, and purchased 1,500 of them following a two-month test run earlier this year. They will be available for free to travelers in first class and for a $10 rental fee to those in coach. Jul 13, 2004

Iberia said its franchise partner Iberia Regional Air Nostrum launched twice-daily service from Madrid to Bordeaux using a mix of CRJ200s, F50s and Dash 8-Q300s. Iberia Group now operates 602 flights each week between Spain and seven French cities. Jul 12, 2004

Iberia and its oneworld alliance partner Cathay Pacific agreed to market flights between Spain and Hong Kong under a codeshare arrangement. This is the first such agreement between the two. Under the pact, which takes effect today, Iberia's code will be included on Cathay Pacific flights between Amsterdam and Hong Kong while Cathay Pacific codes will be placed on Iberia flights from Madrid and Barcelona to Amsterdam. Jul 2, 2004

The world's airlines in aggregate lost $6.57 billion last year after nonoperating items and taxes, according to preliminary estimates from ICAO, which last month reported that carriers of the organization's 188 member states recorded an operating loss of $2.8 billion. The net result represented an improvement from the 2002 net loss of $11.32 billion. Operating revenues were estimated to have increased 2.3% to $312.9 billion while operating expenses were estimated to have risen 1.5% to $315.7 billion. "Following the poor results of the last two years, the recovery in 2003 would have been stronger, but was adversely affected by continuing security concerns, events in the Middle East and the outbreak of SARS," ICAO said in a statement. World RPKs rose 1% in 2003 to 2.99 trillion, although this was still below the 2000 figure of 3.04 trillion. International passenger traffic was flat compared to 2002 at 1.73 trillion RPKs and down 3.3% compared to 1.79 trillion RPKs flown in 2000. Total FTKs rose 5% to 125.2 billion while international FTKs increased 2% to 103.7 billion. Jul 1, 2004