Aviation Daily

Following several months of negotiations, which began the end of last year, KLM and the Dutch airline pilots association VNV reached an accord on a new collective agreement covering the period from January 2015-December 2017.

Flight attendants will receive more money—3% pay increases in 2015, 2017 and 2019, along with 3% annual bonuses in 2016 and 2018—but the company will get more flexibility regarding work rules, Southwest spokesman Bob Hughes said.

The Ministry of Transport recently told airlines had until July 31 to comply with regulations requiring carriers to have positive equity.

The airline is expected to announce the senior executives who will lead the unit following a meeting of the supervisory board in September.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) ruled that the proposed capacity increase provides sufficient public benefit for it to grant interim authority.

The acknowledgment is one of 19 flight-operations findings and conclusions agreed to by 251 pilots, regulators, aircraft operators and manufacturers who took part in a two-day Automation and Safety Forum in Brussels last month.

Hololei will succeed current DG Move Director General João Aguiar Machado, who only has been in the role since May 1, 2014.

Under a “memorandum of collaboration,” VietJet and Boeing stated their “intention to collaborate and expand the airline’s future fleet with Boeing airplanes.”

The 12-year deal—a Flight Hour Service (FHS) Component agreement signed as part of the delivery ceremonies for the airline’s first A350 held June 30 in Hanoi, Vietnam—will provide guaranteed access to line-replaceable units and pool access to spare parts.

Slattery’s remarks came during Avolon’s first investor day, held recently in New York. He cited several instances of airlines acting as disruptors of established markets, and each of them are classic or ultra-LCCs.

Boyd believes U.S. gateways could operate similarly to well-placed hubs in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha, Qatar, which take advantage of geography to funnel traffic to and from Africa, the Middle East and India.

The report by Hong Kong-based GMT Research attracted a lot of attention and is believed to be a factor in a rapid drop in share value for the AirAsia Group (Aviation Daily, June 22).

In siding with the Middle East’s most-powerful airlines over American Airlines, United Airlines and Delta Air Lines, the AIA acknowledged that its members—which include Boeing, General Electric, United Parcel Service, and United Technologies—conduct a considerable amount of business outside the U.S.

CEO Michael O’Leary called the labor court’s decision “bizarre,” and said the company would appeal the ruling, “which allows competitor airline [SAS] unions to blockade Ryanair-based aircraft at Copenhagen even though these unions do not represent any Ryanair pilots or cabin crew.”

Over the past three years, the central government in London has considered giving the parliaments in Cardiff and Edinburgh more power to decide whether the unpopular charge should be levied in those two countries.

The airline is a long-time Gogo customer, and in 2009, it became the first carrier to install the company’s early-generation Wi-Fi on its entire fleet.

The carrier announced that it has purchased Torque Solutions (Australia) Ltd., which will be integrated into its "Velocity Frequent Flyer" unit. The transaction’s value is not being revealed.

The move should alleviate a longstanding problem of HNA’s airline business: its scarcity of connections between major cities.

The carrier owns a fleet of 17 737-300s and -400s, after adding eight -400s over the past year that are being converted to freighters. The airline had previously said it would add six of these aircraft.

Australia’s Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is deciding whether the two carriers can broaden their existing joint business agreement into a full revenue-sharing model.

Last year, the focus was on Tokyo Haneda Airport, with ANA taking advantage of new capacity to expand its international network from that airport.

Boeing will collaborate with Embraer to fly a testbed for environmental technologies in Brazil in 2016, as a follow-on to the U.S. manufacturer’s series of ecoDemonstrators.

Vietnam Airlines says it is considering a further boost to its long-term fleet-upgrade plan and will negotiate with Boeing on potential new orders.

EASA last week handed over the first new single air-safety authorizations to 22 non-EU airlines: U.S. carriers Delta and United; Japan’s All Nippon Airways, Nippon Cargo Airlines and Japan Airlines; Middle Eastern operators Emirates, Etihad Airways, Qatar Airways, Oman Air and El Al; and Russia’s Aeroflot and Orenburg Airlines.

The State, Commerce and Transportation Departments now say the docket on the matter will close for new submissions on Aug. 2, and interested parties have until Aug. 24 to comment on materials already submitted.