AirBaltic announced an insurance agreement with ERGO/ERV to offer passengers traveling on the airline "improved travel insurance," including coverage for sports injuries and sports equipment. ERGO Baltic States Management Board Chairman Kestutis Bagdonavicius said the "main advantage" of the "completely new travel insurance product" is that "winter sport and snorkeling [are] included into insurance coverage without any extra insurance payment."
Air Astana temporarily suspended four-times-weekly service between Almaty and Kyrgyzstan capital Bishkek "due to the political unrest in Kyrgyzstan," where President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was ousted last week following violent protests that led to his political opponents attempting to form a new government. Air Astana said it hoped to resume the flights on April 19 "subject to security improvements." It said it would offer passengers with tickets on the route full refunds.
Lufthansa confirmed it will take delivery of its first A380 on May 19 and conduct a series of trial flights for pilot training across 13 German airports plus Zurich and Vienna from May 31 through June 3. The aircraft's first "passenger" flight will occur on June 6 to transport the German soccer tram to Johannesburg for the World Cup tournament in South Africa. The carrier has not yet released a scheduled service route network for the A380. It will receive three additional A380s this year and four more next year.
Embraer delivered two 76-seat E-170s worth $66.8 million at list price to Libyan aviation service provider Petro Air at the end of March. Deal includes purchase rights to acquire two E-190s, which could bring the total contract value to $146.8 million if all purchase rights are confirmed, it said.
Brussels Airlines reached a codeshare agreement with US Airways in which its code will be placed on US's Brussels-Philadelphia flights and onward domestic flights from PHI. In turn, US will add its code on some 30 routes operated by Brussels in Africa and Europe from its hub at BRU. Flybe will launch a six-times-weekly service between London Gatwick and Nantes from July 15.
Qantas wrote to its frequent flyers to both defend its reputation and express its regret over disrupted travel plans owing to recent failures in its fleet, including a dual tire blowout on an A380 landing at Sydney ( ATWOnline, April 5). The letter also was prompted by increasing speculation in the Australian media about the airline's safety standards, fueled in part by claims from elements of QF's unions that safety is being compromised.
US FAA said Friday it is proposing a $380,000 civil penalty against Frontier Airlines "for operating several aircraft on approximately 900 flights when they were not in compliance with federal aviation regulations." According to the agency, the carrier reconfigured passenger cabins on some of its A318s and A319s in 2008 and 2009 "to permit dual-aisle access to the overwing emergency exits. However, the airline did not replace the existing placards with placards showing the new configuration, as required. The placards are in place to tell passengers how to operate the overwing exits.
GECAS and Celestial Aviation Trading last week rejected Paramount Airways' offer in a Delhi court to pay $1 million daily over 10 days to clear a reported $10 million in overdue fees, casting doubt on the airline's immediate future.
IATA said last week that it "strengthened its commitment to China's aviation development" with the opening of its new North Asia Regional Office in Beijing.
The A330-200 freighter has received EASA Type Certification, Airbus said Friday, noting that certification was achieved for a payload capability of 70 tonnes, 1 tonne more than originally expected.
Hainan Airlines subsidiary Deer Jet Co. said it plans to grow its business aircraft fleet from 23 to 35 by year end to take advantage of China's fast-growing commercial business aviation market.
Air Berlin said it transported 2.4 million passengers in March, up 4.8%, and load factor fell 1.7 points to 72.3%. Air France KLM flew 16.78 billion RPKs in March, a 4.7% increase from the year-ago month. Capacity was down 1.9% to 20.83 billion ASKs and load factor lifted 5 points to 80.5%. Aer Lingus flew 1.09 billion RPKs in March, down 11.1% year-over-year, against an 11.3% cut in capacity to 1.44 billion ASKs. Load factor dipped 0.3 point to 75.9%
Hamilton Sundstrand Power Systems yesterday announced it successfully completed ETOPS testing of its APS5000 APU for the 787. To date, the APS5000 APU has logged 10,000 APU operating hr. and successfully completed 24,000 starts in its lab- and flight-test program.
Raytheon said yesterday that its Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System in Philadelphia became the first FAA facility to go live with fused ADS-B track data for aircraft surveillance. It said aircraft separation will be able to be reduced safely from 5 mi. to 3 mi. owing to the fusion, which allows a control system to combine surveillance reports from multiple sensors including traditional radars, ADS-B and multilateration ground stations into a single track, giving air traffic controllers improved aircraft position and velocity estimates.
US National Transportation Safety Board stated that US scheduled airlines operating under FAR Part 121 experienced just one fatal accident in 2009, the Colgan Airways/Continental Connection crash in which 50 persons died, according to preliminary safety statistics. Nonscheduled Part 121 operators had one fatal accident in which two persons died--the FedEx MD-11 that crashed while landing at Tokyo Narita in March. Scheduled airlines experienced a total of 26 accidents, or 0.149 per 100,000 flight hr., while the fatal accident rate was 0.006/100,000 flight hr.
African Airlines Assn. stated its "concern" over the EU's latest blacklist, noting that the list of airlines banned from European airspace for safety reasons heavily penalizes Africa-based carriers. The 13th update of the list was announced late last month ( ATWOnline, March 31). AFRAA said "13 of the 17 countries affected by the EU ban are from Africa, with a total of 111 African airlines 'blacklisted' . . .
Lufthansa pilots represented by the Vereinigung Cockpit union agreed to drop their call for a four-day strike starting April 13 and enter mediated talks with LH management instead. An LH spokesperson told this website in Frankfurt that the two parties had agreed on key points for mediated discussons. A date for the talks was not set.
United Airlines passenger who caused a panic that sent two USAF F-16s scrambling to intercept UA Flight 663 and escort it to Denver International was a Qatari diplomat traveling to Denver on "official embassy business. . .and was certainly not engaged in any threatening activity," according to a statement from Qatar Ambassador to the US Ali Bin Fahad Al-Hajri posted on the embassy's website.
ARC reported that the recovery in US air travel sales that began last November accelerated in March as ticket sales through participating travel agencies surged 29.2% compared to March 2009 to $7.60 billion while credit card sales soared 30.5% to $6.83 billion, the highest figure for March since 2001.
AirAsia and VietJet Aviation yesterday signed an agreement that they said reinforces their "strategic partnership" and builds on their commitment to launch a Vietnam-based LCC tentatively named VietJet AirAsia. The accord includes an engineering support services pact. The signing took place during the 16th ASEAN Conference in Nha Trang. "The governments of Vietnam and Malaysia have been fully supportive of the launch of VietJet AirAsia, which will be offering low fares to grow travel and tourism in Vietnam and in the rest of the ASEAN region," AirAsia said in a statement.
British Airways and Iberia formally signed a definitive merger agreement yesterday, creating a third mega-airline grouping in Europe if all the necessary approvals are granted.
Lufthansa Technik gave its A380 maintenance facility in Frankfurt a trial run Wednesday and Thursday with a test aircraft flown in from Toulouse. "After seven years of preparation to maintain the A380 in the future, this is a very important day for us," LHT Director-New Aircraft Readiness and Aircraft Maintenance Dean Raineri told ATWOnline at the FRA hangar. "Having the A380 here in Frankfurt is the last opportunity to re-check all our devices before scheduled operations start."
