Latin American airlines will purchase a grand total of 1,223 airliners for as many as $100 billion over the next 20 years, according to Airbus Co.´s Marketing Manager Laurent Roauaud.
Mr. Roauaud explained that Mexico alone will require some 321 planes for its own fleet at an overall price tag of $22 billion.
West Airways will restart flights to the Caribbean island of Aruba on June 10 as part of a project called West Aruba, carrier execs informed this week.
As a matter of fact, West Airways has intentions to make Aruba the starting block for its expansion plan and ink an Open Skies agreement that will allow its aircraft fly freely between Netherlands and the U.S., Central America and South America.
Argentina´s airlines made a killing last year with $729.2 million worth of profits, up 34 percent from 2003, according to figures published by the local press this week.
In addition to that, the Chamber of Argentine Airlines indicated that all carriers sold 1.5 million plane tickets combined in 2004, up 17.3 percent from the previous year.
American Eagle´s three daily flights between St. Thomas and St. Croix, the US Virgin Islands, ended May 1 when the four-month, $2 million contract between the carrier and this Caribbean territory expired.
Until final traffic and revenue numbers are evaluated, no decision will be announced as to whether the contract will be renewed for next winter, according to sources from both the airline and the U.S.V.I. government.
International air passenger traffic rose 9.4 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2005, but high fuel prices are robbing the industry of profits, the International Air Transport Association said today.
Average passenger loading amounted to 73.7 percent of capacity, while freight traffic grew 4.2 percent during the period, the Geneva-based organization said. Figures were slightly distorted as the quarter included the Easter holiday this year but not in 2004, it said.
The United States has announced the signing of an "open skies" transport agreement with Paraguay, modernizing aviation relations between the two nations.
U.S. Ambassador to Paraguay John F. Keane and Acting Paraguayan Foreign Affairs Minister Marciel Bobadilla Guillen signed the agreement Monday in Asuncion.