U.K. APPROVES BRITISH AIRWAYS’ ATLAS LEASE

U.K. APPROVES BRITISH AIRWAYS’ ATLAS LEASE    Adding another strange twist to the U.S.-U.K. debate over air cargo rights, British Airway’s has received government approval to extend for one-year a wet-lease contract with Atlas Air for a B747-400 freighter.
   Just last month, U.K. transportation authorities declined BA’s application to extend a wet-lease contract with Atlas for a different B747-400 flying to Hong Kong. Industry observers assumed the action was taken to protest an American wet-lease policy that prohibits any foreign airlines from operating aircraft for U.S. carriers. Britain’s air cargo carriers have argued that the U.S. position is anticompetitive and must be changed before any U.S. open skies agreement is signed by the U.K.
   After receiving approval for it latest lease-extension request, BA said it is working to resolve the issue of the first lease. That B747-400 is flying four round trips a week to Hong Kong from London’s Stansted Airport, under a three-month extension granted by U.K. authorities while BA presents its case for a full extension.
   “We met with the DETR (Department of the Environment, Transport and Regions) and the Civil Aviation Authority and proposed a solution to the issue,” said Keith Heywood, general manager of network management at British Airways World Cargo. “This will be communicated in due course when the details of the proposal have been completed. We would like to stress that there is no impact on our customers.”
   The approved B747-400 flies two flights a week for BA to Japan. In addition, it operates a weekly rotation from Stansted to Frankfurt for BA. From Germany, the service becomes an Atlas flight to Atlanta with BA acting as the exclusive general sales agent.