Much of the growth between China and the U.S. will come from leisure traffic, as inbound tourism to the U.S. becomes more accessible to the Chinese middle class, Air China Vice President-North America Zhihang Chi said.
Gogo’s 2KU system, which Delta Air Lines will begin installing on more than 250 narrowbody aircraft starting next year, “is going to be the magic that makes ‘take rate’ accelerate,” Gogo’s CEO said in an interview.
The new service will be operated beginning May 1 with Turkish Cargo’s Airbus A330F aircraft, which can carry a payload of up to 70 metric tons. Turkish Airlines in early March began making refueling stops at the Shannon Airport for its Istanbul Ataturk-ORD freighter service.
Speaking as a panelist on at the CAPA Americas Aviation Summit, Etihad Chief Strategy & Planning Officer Kevin Knight said the north-transatlantic market had been at the forefront of many innovations in the airline industry.
The airline will use its third 787-9 to partially take over its daily Tokyo Haneda-Munich route beginning May 5. The -9s will fly the route on alternate days, dividing the service with Boeing 777-300ERs.
The airline earlier this month converted options for two Bombardier Q400 NextGen aircraft to complement its current fleet of three Airbus A319s, one Embraer 170 and two Q400s.
Healthy first-quarter commercial aftermarket figures from several engine manufacturers point to pent-up demand and predicable maintenance schedules, rather than a surge in aftermarket work tied to lower fuel prices or changes in fleet utilization.
Pratt & Whitney’s Christchurch Engine Center will be the first facility in its geared turbofan MRO network, outside of the OEM and its partners MTU and Japan Aero Engine Corp. The Christchurch MRO—a joint venture (JV) between Air New Zealand and Pratt & Whitney—will overhaul the PW1100G-JM, which powers the Airbus A320neo. Air New Zealand ordered three A321neos and 10 A320neos in 2014. Pratt controls 51% of the JV.
The FAA says airlines may be able to begin using ground-based augmentation systems (GBAS) for satellite-based Category 3 instrument landings that culminate in a 50-ft. decision height or an automatic landing by 2018, offering a lower-cost alternative to legacy ground-based instrument landing systems (ILS).
The airline in January announced a new voluntary departure plan as part of Air France-KLM Group’s comprehensive Perform 2020 restructuring effort, which eyes a cost reduction of €650 million ($706.7 million) between 2015 and 2017 at Air France.
According to an analysis published April 27 by a group of investigative reporters, the federal government received two separate warnings from its own diplomats and intelligence-service Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) after a Ukrainian military transport aircraft was shot down while flying at high altitude over Eastern Ukraine on July 14.
The association’s data analysis shows that smaller Asian carriers, following years of dramatic safety improvements, are now suffering more crashes than they did around 2010. This seems to point to how new airlines are assessed as a cause for concern.
Hainan Airlines, China’s fourth-largest carrier, hopes to enter leased 787-9s into service from next year, an industry official familiar with the airline’s fleet plans said.
The carrier uses its full allocation of weekly seats in the Australian market, with five weekly services from Manila to Sydney. Cebu executives have told Aviation Daily they want to increase the frequency of the Sydney flights, as well as introduce new routes (Aviation Daily, Feb. 13).
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected] . (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) Apr. 27-29—ISAGO Auditors Symposium, (Held in conjunction with the 28th IGHC Ground Handling Conference), Hilton Istanbul Bomonti Hotel, Istanbul, Turkey, www.iata.org/events/Pages/isago-auditors-symposium.aspx
For a complete list of Aviation Week’s upcoming events, and to register, visit www.aviationweek.com/events May 5-6, 2015—MRO BEER (Baltics, Eastern Europe, Russia), Budapest, Hungary Jun. 17, 2015—Commercial Aerospace Manufacturing Briefing C0-located with the International Paris Air Show, Auditorium, (Conference Centre - Hall 2C), 9:00am-11:15am
Aigle Azur finalized a codeshare agreement with Hainan Airlines and will start selling the Chinese airline’s thrice-weekly services between Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Xi’an Xianyang International airport via Hangzhou Xiaoshan. The route is operated with an Airbus A330-300 configured with 16 business-class seats and 235 economy seats. Aigle Azur in 2012 revealed it would launch a scheduled Paris–Beijing route, cemented by the acquisition of a 48% stake by HNA Group.
