In a land of few recent commercial setbacks, word that Federal Express and TNT have decided not to operate at the mega project Dubai Logistics City (DLC) has to be a bit of a downer.
    Peter J DeBenedictis, Marketing Manager of FedEx Middle East & Africa told Khaleej Times:
    "Since 1997, we have been operating from a large set up at the Terminal 11 of the Dubai Airport Free Zone for both our air and ground operations.
    “We are happy with it at present and have no plans to set up another at Jebel Ali.
    “However, we are still open to the offer and will wait and watch."
    DLC says it will commence some operations in 2007.
    DHL, Aramex, Panalpina, Danzas and Kuehne & Nagel are scheduled to operate there.


   

    Delta that said last week it is not going to merge or be sold to anyone also announced that on May 2, the airline launches service from Atlanta to
Prague and from ATL to Vienna.
    May 12, DL becomes the first U.S. flag to serve Dubai.
    Even though EK has thrice daily service via JFK to Dubai, DL launches ATL/DXB anyway.
    June 4, Delta begins daily Seoul flight with a Boeing 777.
    The carrier also adds a second Atlanta-Sao Paulo flight June 15 to Aug. 15.
    Delta will increase its JFK service starting May 31with JFK to Pisa,
Italy and JFK-Bucharest on June 5.
    All DL Asia flights will transition to B777’s while the Atlantic run will feature B767’s.  

     Leave it to the Germans.
     While in America, the place Columbus discovered was celebrated October 9, in Frankfurt, 12 October A.D. 1492 was dutifully recalled and marked on (what else?) October 12.
     The big airport party at Frankfurt doubled as celebration of “Ten Years Cargo City South” the place where air cargo lives at the big airport.
     Two million tons handled at Fraport?
     That magic tonnage figure is expected to be surpassed in December 2006 confirming the ranking of Frankfurt as number one in Europe and right at the top worldwide.


   Emirates Airline will acquire five aircraft to ease itself through delivery delays of Airbus A380.
   “We're just trying to get our hands on them while we can, as soon as we can, to fill the gap,” Emirates Airline president Tim Clark told Forbes.
   “We have a big problem in terms of the loss of profitability from the A380 and the cash that they would have generated,” he added.
   EK public statement from A380’s biggest customer is good news for Airbus.
   Losing Emirates that placed the biggest order of A380 aircraft at 45 aircraft would have put a huge dent in the program and could have been fatal for the super jumbo, but EK characteristically has decided patience is the right plan.
   New schedule will see Emirates get its first A380 in Summer 2008.
   Speaking of compensation for the delivery delays Mr. Clark told Forbes:
   “Whereas others bought 10-15, compensation is way down in our list, what I want to know is when we are going to get it (delivery).
   “When we get all of that sorted out, then we will talk about compensation,” he added.



   Northwest joins the list of USA flags including Delta, that are ramping up international flights although NWA choice of equipment (B757) on some transatlantic flights offer almost no cargo lift and not much comfort for flights of these stagelengths otherwise.
   But if copying is the greatest form of flattery NWA in using B757 chooses equipment CO has employed to small international markets from Newark for years.
   Flights from Detroit to Brussels start on May 7 and to Düsseldorf on June 5. Hartford to Amsterdam begins July 1.

   Qatar Airways added Dar es Salaam, Tanzania via four flights a week from Doha, also adding a sixth weekly flight between Doha and Osaka Kansai Airport.

   Finnair scheduled traffic increased by 20.6% compared to 2005.
   Asian routes grew 35.5%.
   Passenger load factor was 74.1%, up 4.6%.

    Aviapartner Cargo doubled its cargo handling capacity in Paris-CDG and has added some new clients.
    Aviapartner now provides Aeroflot with warehousing services for their export and import freight and trucking services to Frankfurt Hahn for the Russian carrier’s twice weekly DC10 full freighter.
    Aviapartner Cargo also signed a contract with Aer Lingus in Paris-CDG for cargo-handling services for the carrier’s 3 daily flights.
Indian carrier Jet Airways and Pulkovo have also joined the roster in the expanded air cargo operation.


  Lufthansa inked a pact for 35 new aircraft from Airbus, confirming an earlier announcement by the airline in September. The order is for five A319’s, ten A320’s and 15 A321’s, as well as five long range A330’s. In addition, the agreement also includes options for a further 30 A320 Family aircraft.
  Currently Lufthansa has nearly 150 Airbus aircraft in its mainline fleet. These include 14 A300-600, 12 A330’s, 40 A340’s plus 82 A320 family aircraft. In addition,
  Lufthansa has 15 A380 and five A340’s on order.