UK air navigation service provider NATS has won a contract to provide tower and engineering services at London Luton Airport (LTN) for another three years.
Azerbaijan’s national carrier AZAL (J2) and Serbian Jat Airways (JU) are in negotiations to launch joint flights from Azerbaijan to the US via Belgrade’s Nikola Tesla Airport (BEG) in 2013.
Lufthansa will launch 1X-daily Munich-Vancouver Airbus A330 service from May 16, 2013. This is the first time it has offered non-stop flights on this route. It already offers Frankfurt-Vancouver 1X daily. Swiss regional SkyWork Airlines will increase its Bern-London City service from 2X-daily to 3X-daily from Mar. 29, 2013. This winter it will operate 13 destinations from Bern, but it is planning to grow its network to 34 destinations in summer 2013, compared with 25 in summer 2012.
Now in its second decade, the most compelling evidence of the US Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) performance is demonstrated by what has nothappened since 9/11. The number of terrorist attacks successfully brought against a US carrier since TSA’s creation in 2002 remains at zero. There can be no eroding of that security gold standard; global economies, the health of the airline industry, and most important, the lives of the general public and airline crews, depend on it.
Italian civil aviation authority ENAC has downgraded Blue Panorama (BV) to a provisional license and given it 12 months to restructure under a form of bankruptcy protection.
China Southern Airlines (CZ) has reported a third-quarter net income of CNY2.22 billion ($353 million), down 29.3% compared to a net profit of CNY3.2 billion in the year-ago quarter, mainly due to foreign exchange losses.
Airbus has released the latest installment of its vision for sustainable aviation in 2050, addressing how aircraft could be operated more efficiently on the ground and in the air. Airbus research suggests that flights in Europe and the US could on average be around 13 minutes shorter, and flights in other parts of the world could also be shorter if the ATM system and technology onboard aircraft were optimized.
Boeing, American Airlines (AA) and the FAA have partnered to in a program that uses a 737-800 known as ecoDemonstrator to highlight testing of environmentally progressive technologies.
A combination of active reduction measures and a milder winter saw Swedish airport owner-operator Swedavia attained carbon-neutral status in 2011. The state-owned organization, which oversees 11 airports in the Scandinavian nation, has a target of zero CO2 emissions by 2020. Last year’s output of 4,600 tonnes of CO2 was a drop of 44% over 2010, achieved by substituting renewable fuel sources for fuel oil for heating, the organization said. A relatively mild winter also saw lower use of snow removal and ice-clearing airport vehicles.
The European Commission (EC) has published proposals to limit the amount of food-based (so-called “first generation”) biofuels that can be counted towards the renewable energy targets set for the European transport sector, including aviation. The EC plans to cap the percentage of first generation biofuels and bioliquids that can be counted towards the overall 10% target it set for the transport sector in 2009 at the current consumption level of 5% until 2020.
The difficulties of reaching international consensus over the European Union emissions trading scheme (EU ETS) aviation carbon tax should not be underestimated, an airline association chief has warned.
Lufthansa (LH) and Australia-based Algae Tec have signed a collaborative agreement to build facility that would produce algae on a large scale and convert it to aviation biofuels. The site will be in Europe and located adjacent to an industrial CO2 source, the companies said in a statement. LH will arrange 100% funding for the project while Algae Tec will manage it and receive license fees and profits.
UK airports have reported a 78% on-time performance (OTP) during the second quarter, down 4 points compared to 82% in the year-ago period, according to the Civil Aviation Authority.
Austria’s air navigation services provider Austro Control has begun implementing Free Routes airspace in the Vienna Flight Information Region (FIR), with the official publication of 37 ‘Night DCTs’ (Night Direct Routings).
London’s Stansted Airport (STN) has begun a three-month trial of a new walk-through security arch type body scanner that “instantly detects any potential threats and prohibited items,” the airport said, and uses a generic mannequin-type computer image to highlight for security officers the specific area to search.
EasyJet (U2) chief Carolyn McCall is aiming for 3%-5% organic growth over the next 3-5 years, as the airline continues to assess a possible aircraft order.
Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are urging the European Commission to put pressure on member states to meet their obligations as the Dec.4 deadline nears for the implementation of Functional Airspace Blocks (FABs)—a key element of the Single European Sky (SES) initiative
The cowling panel of an almost-new Caribbean Airlines (BW) ATR72 became detached during takeoff on flight BW300 bound from Piarco (POS) to for Caracas Friday morning. The aircraft returned to POS “without incident,” under normal power.
