Airbus’s largest order for the month came from Air Lease Corporation. The Los Angeles-based lessor firmed up an order for 30 Airbus A321neo LR aircraft, valued at approximately $3.73 billion at current list prices, and 25 Airbus A330-900neo widebodies, valued at approximately $7.12 billion at current list prices.
Installations are slated to start in August, with the Danish cargo carrier’s entire fleet expected to be done in about a year. The upgrade work will be done in Ireland.
To date, the FAA has refused an outright ban on the technique, despite nearly a decade of pressure by the NTSB. UPS separately says it plans to prohibit the practice in its pilot manuals.
Flights to Paris, Bordeaux, Lyon, Marseille, Nantes, Nice, and Toulouse are most affected, according to Air France, which revealed drastic short-haul schedule reductions in response to DGAC’s request.
This week, the carrier filed an application with the U.S. Transportation Department (DOT) to launch a one-stop service to Honolulu, and executives also said they are moving ahead with efforts to fly to an unnamed European destination.
WestJet’s decision to break in its Boeing 767s on the competitive Toronto-Calgary route could be more than just strategy to winning the ETOPS certification needed to operate overwater flights, analysts at Raymond James say. “If this increased frequency . . . is successful at attracting more passengers, especially in the corporate segment, it could become regular part of WestJet’s summer schedule as it transitions ‘sun destination’ capacity to the domestic market after the winter months,” a Raymond James research note says.
The flow of parked aircraft back into the fleet and potential deferrals should not disrupt the record backlogs at Airbus and Boeing, the lessor notes in “Aircraft Retirement and Storage Trends,” a study released late last month.
Most airline executives maintain that low oil prices are not a new normal but a temporary blip. This has led most airlines to say they will not be opening new markets or changing fleet and capacity plans despite oil being in the $50-per-barrel range.
“An examination of the flow of maintenance work among and between regions reveals that North America contracts more airframe maintenance to the rest of the world than it provides to other regions,” Cavok notes in is recently released 2015 MRO forecast.
NASA will work in partnership with five organizations to push the development of composite materials for improved aircraft performance under a new consortium established under the leadership of the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA) in Hampton, Virginia.
In 2014, the average Spirit passenger paid $55.03 in fees, up by $1.19 from 2013, or about 2.2%. Non-ticket income per passenger jumped 4.8% in 2012-13, the year before last. Earlier year-over-year (YOY) increases, not surprisingly, were much greater.
The US Airways Dividend Miles program has been folded into the AAdvantage loyalty program, and as of March 28, members of both programs belong to American’s frequent-flier system.
Company management is expected to announce its first-flight date in the coming days. “We plan to start operations in two weeks,” an airline executive says.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected] . (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) Apr. 7—SpeedNews Aerospace Additive Manufacturing Briefing, Palos Verdes (Los Angeles), California, speednews.com/all/conference
Schiphol Group received offical authorization from the Dutch government to start developing Lelystad airport.The airport will be allowed to accommodate up to 45,000 aircraft movements annually and should be operational in 2018. Lelystad will handle LCCs and charter airlines. Schiphol believes the development of Lelystad as a twin gateway to Amsterdam Schiphol (AMS) is imperative to support the growth of AMS as a major international transfer hub.
Having recently secured nonstop flights to San Francisco on United Airlines, Indianapolis International Airport is seeking new domestic routes to Seattle and Austin, but is not aggressively courting long-haul international service, its executive director said in an interview.
