AirFrance-KLM Group has confirmed today that they are placing an order for 25 Boeing 787-9s with an option for 25 extra birds.

The group has has stated they want the 787-9′s to operate with KLM first – due to commence in 2016 – and with Air France at a date to be determined.

The Boeing 787-9 is a lengthened version of the 787-8 frame, allowing more passengers and frieght to be carried with a higher range – according to Boeing – 264 passengers in a 3 Class Configuration on a 787-8, 280 passengers in a 3 Class Configuration.

Air New Zealand will be the first carrier to operate the 787-9, although it’s highly probable that the Entry into Service date will probably slip (like a lot of the 787 project so far) judging how Boeing is delivering its current stack of 787′s.

AirFrance-KLM is still negotiating its order with Airbus of A350′s with Airbus at this time.

News from over the channel, with Air France preparing to commence an A380 equipment service from Paris Charles De Gaulle (CDG) to Los Angeles International (LAX) from the 28th May 2012

The proposed schedule is :

AF066    DEPT CDG 10:30      ARRIVE LAX 13:05
AF065    DEPT LAX 15:50      ARRIVE CDG 11:20+1

Commencement: 28/05/2012, All times local
 Booked Equipment: Airbus A380

In addition to operating the LAX with an A380, Air France serves New York-JFK and Washington Dulles-IAD.

An important note to those of you who do fly A380 on Air France – the premium economy product (Premium Voyageur) will be live on all A380′s from 12th December 2011 which should make those long journeys across the pond or where-ever a bit more comfortable….

All seems not to be good at Air France-KLM, with the CEO of the group and Air France itself – Pierre-Henri Gourgeon resigning.

The group has reacted with Alexandre de Juniac becoming CEO of Air France, and Jean-Cyril Spinetta appointed as chairman and CEO of the Air France-KLM group – these two gentlemen were instrumental in setting up the merged Air France-KLM entity in the first place.

Air France has been suffering, with shares dropping 50% in the past 6 months, and reported squabbles at the top.

Air France-KLM Group board state it had..

“determined the orientations in relation to the organization and governance of Air France and of the Air France KLM Group, as well as to the appointment of its senior executives. The aim is to improve the group’s operating and financial performance in a context of economic uncertainties affecting the European air traffic, as well as the position of Air France in respect of increased competition from new entrants.”

As Air France fight to keep it’s market share, it will be holding off creating full-dedicated AF KLM holding, from early 2012 to 2013 because “top priority” must be given to the recovery and improvement of the performances of Air France and KLM.

Times are tough for the carrier, being nibbled away from the bottom by the Low Cost Carriers, and from the top with Lufthansa and IAG (BA/Iberia) breathing down their necks. It’ll be interesting to see if Air France can achive it’s 15% regional operating costs reductions with the implementation of routes from Marseilles. However, in these times – I doubt it.

It’s time for Galic charm as Air France take us through their safety procedures aboard their 747-400′s.

More next week!

* POS = Passenger of Size

In two steps, Air France seems to be trying to make money. First up is the introduction of silmline seats.

Slimline seats are the current modern marvel that reduces the weight of the seat, yet allows more passengers to be packed in a plane at the same time. Nifty.

Image – Air France

These seats are being introduced on the Short-Haul A319′s, A320′s and A321′s (37 frames in total) – in many respects – adding one row extra. Keep an eye out when selecting your seats

In perhaps not an unrelated news, Air France is now offering POS’s the option to buy a second seat at check-in at 75% of the fare (minus taxes and fees). If the flight is light, then you don’t have to pay for your extra seat.  Which is nice.

Alternatively – for safety reasons Air France can choose not to carry you. So if you’re 43″ waist or above,you don’t have to pay, but will be offered the extra seat actively.

Spokesman Jean-Pierre Lefebvre clarified:

“It is not an obligation; we suggest to such passengers they buy a second seat for their own comfort and in order to be sure the seats are adapted to their needs. If the plane is not full, they can get a refund.”

This new rule comes into effect from 1 February. Oh well Air France, win one loose one….

And it’s time of the week again – time for some Airplane p0rn!

This week – an Air France Boeing 777-200ER about to take off from LAX on the long route back to Paris (along with an interloping US Airways Express (Mesa) CRJ in the background).

More airplane p0rn of course next week!

Sorry I haven’t had a chance to do this this past two weeks – life at Kevin Towers has been close to a living hell. Those who know the words “Exchange Server Migration” will know where I’m coming from.  As last weeks news is more or less irrelevant like any news (ask the The Daily Mail after this weeks furoiri over the death of Steven Gately commentary piece by one of their so-called columnists), this is from last Saturday to today.

Lufthansa IFE – adds a C with the return of LONG HAUL KU BAND INTERNET SERVICES

This is a BIG thing as companies develop ways of getting out their holes. LH is once again going to have a go at delivering In-Flight Internet Services.  Originally delivered as Boeing Connexition, LH has signed a Deal with Panasonic eXConnect – for rollout in late 2010 on LH only – BMI, Austrian or Swiss need not apply – yet.

Delivered over the KU band this is satellite to aircraft mobile connectivity.  Along with Row 44 (who are equiping Southwest’s 737 ENTIRE fleet) and Aircell, the battle of Internet Connectivity is starting to warm up…

Flight, Runway Girl, Cranky Flyer

Boeing 748-8F – Growing Pains. 
It seems Boeing is just not having ANY Luck with airframes with the first flight of the first 747-8F being pushed back from first flight on Dec 9th and delivery next year to Q3 2010. Delays have been placed firmly at the door of the minor engineering errors that have been missed thanks to the resource pulling to get the 787 out of the hanger.

Expect more delays here – I’m seeing nothing from Boeing to indicate this frame will be out of the barn on schedule.

Flight

Cathay Pacific – 2% traffic drop in September

Its still bad if you’re a premium carrier as CX is proving. With a few “local” events, there is a small traffic upswing, but it is extremely tough going out there

Flight

Avianca-TACA tie up to go toe-to-toe with COPA.

It seems COPA Airlines will have a challenge shortly with the tie up of Avianca and Groupo TACA pooling their resources and joining forces. COPA says their network will be strong enough to resist.

I’m not sure – with COPA’s exit from Skyteam on the 25th October, they’ll be partnerless for a fair bit before entry to the Star Alliance is considered…

Avanica-TACA  don’t want a flight it seems, as they wish to grow resources instead of going toe-to-toe with LAN or COPA.  We’ll see on that front.

Flight

Blended winglets save cash – Air New Zealand.

Apart from getting neekid and doing the bodypaint thing, Air New Zealand appear to run airline services too, with good cash and fuel savings on the 767 fleet which have blended winglets.

Improved deployment has meant 19% fuel savings – or 7 Dillon liters of fuel a year. That’s a lot of go-go juice – before you get the green crowd happy.

That and those blended winglets do look very cute on a plane. More on Winglets in a GhettoIFE.com article when I get round to finishing it.

Flight


Air India switches entirely to Boeing 777′s from it’s motley collection of aircraft. Also gets bailed out at the same time

All westbound flights from India have been switched to 777′s – as well as Toyko. As well as that, Air India has been bailed out by it’s home government to the tune of  US$1.1 Billion which is to be delivered in wages.

Alas, there are wage cut concerns  as well with this change with a previous strike the week before.  Expect further fireworks shortly…

Flight, BBC News

US Airways gets shot of its E-190′s to… Oh guess who.

The fleapit of the Star Alliance has thrown in the towel with it’s E-190 operations – and has flogged them to.. Republic (who incidednly helped US Purchase them in the first place). Initally the first four will go to Midwest Airlines.

Of course, this means more cuts and job losses at US…

Flight

Odious Little Man is at it again
See http://www.ghettoife.com/2009/10/once-again-bbc-and-odius-little-man.html

GhettoIFE.com, BBC News, TravelMole

Unions tell BA – Hold off on cuts

Unite has stomped its foot up and down telling BA to try and stave off the cuts that are needed. Further talks are upcoming on the 21/10.  However, if they don’t go well, strike action is on the horizon..

BBC News

Mesa consider more CRJ-200′s to GO! to the Hawaiian Islands.

After driving Aloha out of the market, Mesa is considering deploying a 6th CRJ-200 over to the islands, with Shuttle America E-170′s moving out, and CRJ-200′s moving in to meet size and requirments.

What a downgrade. More on the flying coffin that is the CRJ-200 in a few weeks.

717′s head south of the border to Mexicana.

Mexicana is accelerating the collection of it’s 717 fleet with the displacing of the Midwest 717s, with 10 currently in service, and the full collection in-sitiu before the end of 2010with delays down to pilot training if anything.

The 717 as readers know is basicly a warmed over MD-90 with new avionics – which although is a very good beast isn’t compatible with the previous MD series or Boeings own 737 series.

It’s good to see these birds still flying.

Air France considers PE Cabin on A380s and decides to copy other carriers. 

With the rapid introduction of Premium Voyageur shortly on 777′s, they would like to deploy them on their new A380′s… if they can actually consider the retrofit to the aircraft.

In better news, A380 traffic between Paris CDG – New York JFK is due to kick off on 23rd November.

That’s your lot for this week. Next weeks news update will be delayed as I’m back in Chicago. Hopefully there should be *something* up…

It’s time to get your coupon cutters out again

Opodo with AirFrance/KLM and Delta are offering £25 off booking over £300.

Your magic coupon code is airfrance

Book by: 02/10/09
Min Purchase value: £300
UK Residents only

See:  http://promos.opodo.co.uk/flights/AirFrance_KLM_Delta/special/?CMP=uk-nl-240909

Remember – £25 is £25….

It’s Friday, so it’s time to wrap up this week in Civil Aviation and ponder what people were thinking this week:

US Immigration Considers $10 on ESTA service.

I’m not going to repeat this here – head to my Soapbox entry.

EK Send a A380 to BHX

I wasn’t going to cover this.. but hey. Here it is – an Emirates Airbus A380  landing safely at BHX (does that mean BHX now becomes a diversion airport for A380′s in the UK? Interesting thought..,..)

Photo Credit  – BHX Flight Guide – photo blog with more photos at http://bhxflightguide.blogspot.com/2009/09/ek-380.html.  Happy 70th BHX.




Well done to the ground team for organsing this, and to Emirates for having a go at deploying this. 
 

Asia Air 09

Some quick highlights an news in a sentence sort of thing:

Air France: Considering new aircraft for the short haul, but want larger, quicker offloading and much lower running costs – and Open Roter might be nice.  and how do you want the moon delivered?
Airbus: A380′s for LCC’s - In a move to destroy any glamour in flying, Airbus are pitching the A380 as a Low Cost carriers dream of connecting Asian cities. This could work with some routes – but 840 people crammed aboard a tin can isn’t my exact idea of fun (ala Air Austal)…
Bombardier -  Buy our CSeries… please?  Taking aim at Embear and Airbus, the CSeries is hoping to make a competitive splash in China when it launches.

BMI Baby steps in at EMA

As Easyjet throws in the EMA towel, BMI Baby are moving in anohter 3 737′s for extra duty at their base at EMA with links to Barcelona, Cork, Malta, Venice, Dubrovnik, Sardinia, Corsica and .. umm… Newquay.

What will Mother Lufthansa say? We’ll see…

Jet Airways Staff “Fall sick”

Jet Airways staff have “fallen sick” in a labor dispute for two pilots joining a new Union, with a total of 186 flights cancelled – the bulk dometic, but  32 international services cancelled to. A follow-on sick day costed another 31 flights cancelled.

Talks are continuing.

Frontier to send Flip and Hector Back to Mexico!

Yup. Now Frontier is out of Bankruptcy, they’re making a bid for Mexico again with A319′s servicing Cancun with a daily return flight.

Hopefully this will be the first of a lot of good news for Frontier.

LOT has almost hat their LOT with Boeings 787.

Oh dear. With the continuing delays to the 787, LOT is getting annoyed with Boeing, and has opened up a few options – deploy 777′s, a major overhaul of the 767 fleet, or talk to Airbus.

Whilst Boeing may crow about how many of these aircraft have been ordered – there is a monumental messup in design and rollout of this aircraft – something that other airlines will get more annoyed at.  It’ll only take a big name to pull out to watch the cards fall on this game.

More roundup next week.

Its Friday, so it’s time to do the news

British Airways – Bleeding Cash.

Oh it’s been over the wires last week – BA managed to make a £148m loss this quarter. Not as bad as some of it’s competitors, but still pretty bad. Of course, the changes they’re making have been well documented in this Blog…

Air France/KLM Group –

Air France/KLM lost 496m euros (£425m) loss this quarter. The usual reasons again.

JAL (Japan Airlines) – Lost money also

.. of $1 BILLION (£618m). Cites the usual reasons (Ressesion, H1N1), and is reacting with route cuts and

ANA – Death by a few cuts

It seems that the Dreamliner launch partner is having a few more problems, and is starting to cut the little things papers in Y, free telephone calls to reservations and newspapers/magazines in economy , and offer parts of the product for sale to Y passengers that accessable only in premium cabins such as meals, drinks and lounge access. In other words… ANA PE could finally open up to th

Lufthansa – A profit

Hold the presses – someone actually made a profit!Lufthansa managed to walk away with a £8 million profit this quarter. However, with it spending money on acquiring the European aviation sector and in most cases – Basket case airlines (BMI, Austrian and Brussels Airlines) and it is actually loosing in comparison 9/10′s of what it was earning last year.

Cathy Pacific – Another Profit.. but the devil is in the detail.

CX also joins the profits crowd, making HK$812m (£61.8m) with drops in premium passengers and cargo. How? Fuel Hedging of course! This is the practice of betting the price of fuel, and seeing saving money if the hedge goes above a set price, or loosing money if the price of fuel drops below that price.

Fuel Hedges don’t last forever though….

Wizz Air Wizz around with more A320 series aircaft

Wizz Air converts its thoughts (letter of intent) into actual orders – ordering 50 A320 aircraft (in A320 configuration). A nice boost for them.
—

More news next week!

Ok – not the greatest of offers, but every penny counts these days

Your magic code is QUIDCO529 valid on Airfrance.co.uk only.

Valid depature airports (UK only) – Aberdeen, Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh, London Heathrow, Manchester, Newcastle or Southampton
Valid to: Tokyo, Guangzhou, Osaka, Nagoya, Seoul, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Santiago de Chile, Caracas, Johannesburg, Lagos, Santo Domingo, Seychelles, Mauritius
Valid Class: Tempo (Economy – Y)
Promo Valid Until: 06/08/09

*Terms and conditions.
* booking made between 13/07/2009 and 06/08/2009
* outbound flight made between 13/07/2009 and 14/12/2009, depending on the destination.
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* class of travel: Economy (Tempo)
* minimum price of ticket before the reduction and application of any taxes, surcharges and service charges: £200

Not the greatest of offers, but hey. A penny there, a penny here. It all adds up. No mention of miles in the T&C;’s, so assume it’ll qualify for the miles under your SkyTeam plan…