Week in Brief 5 August 2010

A survey conducted by CANSTAR CANNEX reveals that Virgin Blue is Australia's favourite airline - by pretty much a mile. The study, which surveyed 2500 locals right across the country and across key demographics, found that the Blue came out in front in Service, Punctuality and Availability - as well as Overall. It was only beaten in one category - Price - where, not surprisingly, Tiger got the five stars. In terms of total number of stars awarded across the four categories, the Blue accrued 19, while Jetstar scored 16, Qantas 15 and the Tiger 14. Two and half thousand mightn't sound a lot, but properly selected it is enough for a statistically valid sample. The question now is whether the Blue's drive towards a bigger corporate market share will endanger its popularity. One would think that the airline's new CEO would prefer market share over voiced popularity anytime.

The IATA 127th Schedules Conference will be held at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre from 11 to 14 November this year. This is a "Working Conference" with over 1000 delegates, from some 300 airlines and representatives of over 200 schedules-facilitated or fully coordinated airports. This semi-annual meeting is IATA's largest event. The goal of the conference is for airlines and airports to obtain the slots that will give them the best possible schedule to offer their customers. The meeting has grown over the years to include a large exhibition. Booths and sponsorship opportunities are still available! For more information, please visit: http://www.iata.org/events/sc127/Pages/index.aspx

Speaking of IATA Downunder, the organisation's director general Giovanni Bisignani will be in Sydney to address the National Aviation Press Club on Wednesday 25 August. The outspoken IATA chief will deliver an address entitled 'Global Opportunities for Australian Aviation'. We will, of course, be in attendance to provide a report.

Australian residents made a record 6.8 million short-term trips overseas in 2009-10, according to the latest figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. This is up from 5.8 million movements in 2008-09, and more than double the movements 10 years ago. The most popular destination for Australian residents going overseas on short-term trips (ie less than one year) was New Zealand, with over one million movements across the Tasman occurring in the last financial year. The next most popular destinations were Indonesia (650,000 movements), the USA (630,000), the UK (460,000) and Thailand (430,000). These top five destinations alone, accounted for just under half of all short-term resident departures for the year. The most frequently cited reason for journey was holiday, contributing 55 per cent of all short-term resident departures.

The FAA has announced that Mexico is not in compliance with international safety standards set by ICAO, following an assessment of the country’s civil aviation authority. As a result, the US is downgrading Mexico from a Category 1 to Category 2 rating, which means that Mexican air carriers cannot establish new service to the US, although they are allowed to maintain existing services.

A Canadian aerospace research institute has announced the successful abbreviated qualification testing of semi-synthetic jet fuel for use in the GE F404-400 turbofan engine, which powers Australia's F/A-18 Hornet. The project objectives were to compare the performance, operability and emission characteristics of the engine, when using a 50:50 blend of Fischer-Tropsch derived synthetic kerosene and NATO F-34 fuels. The only observable difference was in the specific fuel consumption of the engine, which showed an improvement while running on the fuel blend. The results will be submitted to General Electric as part of a certification process.

The Financial Times reports that Boeing and Airbus production rates may fail to keep up with forecast demand in the near to mid term, because of supply chain problems. Boeing's second-quarter earnings report, filed last week, apparently reflected some existing supply challenges. Boeing boss McNerney said that suppliers who couldn't keep up might need to invest more in their plant, equipment and skills sets, or face what were described as "different contracts". Airbus is likely to be facing exactly the same issues over the coming years. However, only this week Airbus has announced plans for a production ramp-up for its popular narrow-body product line, so..?

Boeing also announced that it has cancelled aircraft seat supply contracts with Japanese supplier Koito because it was discovered that the company had "falsified test results" on up to 150,000 seats. Makes you wonder just what else could be slipping under the radar in terms of component supply in the industry.

And finally, Virgin Atlantic has a new livery - and in classic Virgin style it features metallic-style paint to make sure that no one can miss the name of the airline. The undercarriage now features tha new logo in dark purple and the winglets are now red, with the Virgin script on the inside of the winglet so that the pax can be sure just whom they are flying with.