Jetstar Airways revealed that its first 787-8 will not be delivered until the latter half of 2010. The Qantas Group subsidiary was expecting the first aircraft in the second quarter of 2010 after the most recent delay in the 787 schedule was announced last month (ATWOnline, Dec. 22, 2008). A Jetstar spokesperson told The Australian yesterday that "it's obviously all predicated around the timing of first flight and how the program rolls from there.

The US Airways A320 that ditched safely in New York City's Hudson River following a bird strike last week previously had suffered a compressor stall on one of its engines, investigators said. A US National Transportation Safety Board spokesperson told reporters Monday that maintenance records of the nearly-10-year-old aircraft revealed the stall occurred on Jan. 13. The pilot on that flight will be interviewed by investigators.

Royal Australian Navy yesterday agreed to assist in the investigation into two air data inertial reference unit failures aboard Qantas A330s after initially denying that the joint Australia/US naval communications base in Exmouth, Western Australia, was to blame because it uses different frequency bands (ATWOnline, Jan. 8). The Harold E. Holt naval base uses very low frequency signals to communicate with US Navy and RAN submarines and it was reasoned they were too weak to penetrate an aircraft fuselage.

Gulf Air plans to ground five former SAS A340-300s and start a fuel hedging program in order to cut costs, according to the Arab Air Carriers Org. A340 lift will be replaced by four 777s. Gulf also plans to take delivery of four A330s and five A320s this year.

Pinnacle Airlines subsidiary Colgan Airways ordered 15 Q400s valued at approximately $432 million for delivery between August 2010 and April 2011. The order represents conversion of 10 conditional orders and the exercise of five options from an original order placed in 2007. Colgan will operate the aircraft under its existing capacity purchase agreement with Continental Airlines (ATWOnline, Oct. 8, 2008).

Airbus booked 777 net aircraft orders in 2008, topping Boeing's 662 net orders, but like its rival reported a significant drop-off from the previous year, when it recorded 1,341 net orders. The 2008 orders, valued at $100 billion, comprised 472 A320 family aircraft, 163 A350s, 138 A330s/A340s and nine A380s. The net total also includes cancellation of five A310s.

Airbus began construction on the A350 XWB final assembly line in Toulouse yesterday, with President and CEO Tom Enders saying the manufacturer "is making steady progress" on the next-generation aircraft program and is on track "for first delivery in 2013." The 74,000-sq.-m. factory is where the fuselage and wings will be joined, Airbus said, while aircraft testing and cabin equipping will be completed in the nearby A330/A340 facility.

FedEx exercised options on 15 777Fs valued at $3.75 billion, bringing its firm backlog for the type to 30, and took options on an additional 15. The delivery giant originally ordered 15 777Fs plus 15 options in November 2006, when it cancelled an order for 10 A380Fs owing to Airbus production delays on the now-suspended large freighter program (ATWOnline, Nov. 8, 2006).