Norway’s aviation accident investigation board (SHT) says mobile phones did not likely play a role in the 1988 crash of a Wideroe Dash-7 on approach to Bronnoysund airport.
Toronto’s city council is expected to postpone until March an executive committee meeting to review Porter Airlines’ request to operate Bombardier CSeries airliners from the city’s downtown island airport, which could lead to a full city council vote on April 1. But city staff are pushing to delay to March 2015 a decision on the proposal to extend the runway and lift the ban on operating jets at Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport (BBTCA). Porter placed a conditional order for 15 Bombardier CS100s in September, and plans to begin operations early in 2016.
United Airlines’s plan to significantly reduce its Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (CLE) hub stems from a bigger-picture initiative to shave $2 billion in annual costs by 2018 as well as a more pressing need to wring more efficiency out of its regional network.
Ryanair will hold another round of talks this month with Boeing on a 737 MAX order, but the Ireland-based low-cost carrier has extended its order deadline and now does not expect to announce any new aircraft acquisitions for the next six, “maybe even 12 months,” Chief Executive Michael O’Leary says. The airline said at the Paris air show in June it expected to sign a deal by the end of 2013 or early 2014 for more than 100 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft.
Continued solid airline financial returns could keep the current boom in cabin retrofit demand going, feedback from interiors specialist B/E Aerospace (BEA) suggests. “We had really strong retrofit sales in the quarter,” BEA CEO Amin Khoury told analysts on a Jan. 30 earnings call, adding that the recent uptick hasn’t slowed the pace of new inquiries. “We are having significant ongoing discussions with our customers about retrofit programs in the future,” Khoury says. “I would say there is a step-up in activity.”
Feb. 4-6—MRO Middle East, Dubai World Trade Center, Dubai, UAE Feb. 10—Air Transport World’s 40th Annual Airline Industry Achievement Awards, Pan Pacific Singapore Hotel, Singapore Mar. 4-5—Defense Technology & Affordability Requirements, Hilton Arlington, Arlington, Va Mar. 6—57th Annual Laureates Awards, National Building Museum, Washington, D.C. Apr. 8-10—MRO Americas 2014, Phoenix Convention Center, Phoenix, Ariz. Apr. 9—MRO Military 2014, Phoenix Convention Center, Phoenix, Ariz.
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Now that Lion Air has opened the first hangar at its new heavy maintenance center on the island of Batam, it plans to open another soon and two more by June. These four hangars will give it 12 aircraft bays, and the carrier says it wants to eventually build more hangars so it has 36 bays. The Indonesian low-cost carrier is also moving to develop Batam as a second major hub (DAILY, Jan. 29).
Rather than anticipating, the U.S. is “merely reacting to the challenge” of a growing influx of international air travelers and is in danger of turning off future tourists and businesspeople from visiting the U.S., Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) President and CEO Jack Potter said.
TAP Portugal is to add two Airbus A330s and four A320 family aircraft in 2014, and is evaluating further fleet growth for 2015 and beyond. “We are just re-evaluating our current [2012-2016] business plan and hope to have that completed within two to three weeks. Basically, our goal for 2016 will remain the same; we are just adjusting how we will get there,” TAP Portugal CEO Fernando Pinto told Aviation Week during a one-to-one phone interview.
FRANKFURT — St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Airport has received technical approval for its new Pulkovo-1 Terminal, paving the way for expanding the facility’s passenger capacity. The new terminal was opened on a trial basis in December. Pulkovo’s main carrier, Rossiya Airlines, has already transferred all of its flights to Germany to the new terminal, while Transaero is using the new facility only for flights to Moscow.
Lufthansa Cargo is close to converting options for five more Boeing 777Fs after the airline has seen a significant improvement in demand in some of its key markets. “We plan to replace our MD-11s with Boeing 777s and not only with five or 10,” Executive Vice President Sales Andreas Otto said at a Lufthansa Cargo event near Frankfurt.
India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) is adding inspectors and other technical personnel to address year-old and still-unresolved audit findings that led the FAA to downgrade the country’s International Aviation Safety Assessment (IASA) rating to Category 2. The downgrade, announced Jan. 31, means that Air India and Jet Airways cannot expand service to the U.S., nor can they add U.S. code-share deals to existing flights. The carriers currently combine for 28 weekly flights between the two countries, including 21 by Air India.
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Feb. 5-6—Aircraft Interiors Middle East (AIME), Dubai World Trade Centre, Dubai, UAE, www.aime.aero/ Feb. 5-7, 2014—National Business Aviation Association Business Aircraft, Finance, Registration and Legal Conference, St. Pete Beach, Fla. www.nbaa.org Feb. 11-16—Singapore Airshow 2014, Changi Exhibition Center, Singapore, www.singaporeairshow.com.sg/#&panel1-3 Feb. 14-15—14th Annual Great Lakes Aviatio Conference, The Lansing Center, Lansing, Mich., www.greatlakesaviationconference.com/
French air accident authority BEA has launched an investigation after a Saab 2000 operated by Swiss regional Darwin Airline lost its nose wheel on landing at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport. Darwin Airline, which recently rebranded as Etihad Regional, confirmed that the aircraft’s nose wheel “detached from the main nose wheel strut upon landing on runway 27” at around 0740 on Jan. 28.
French investigators say inadequate flight monitoring and management of automatic systems by the crew of an Air France Boeing 777-200 were key elements in the “momentary loss of control of the flight path,” as the aircraft attempted to abort a Category 3 landing in Paris in November 2011. The incident is an example of the growing problem that the French civil aviation safety agency, BEA, says flight crews are experiencing with go-around maneuvers, in part due to unfamiliarity with the maneuver and a lack of training.
FRANKFURT — CityJet's future owner Intro has concrete fleet replacement plans for the Irish regional airline, even though the takeover has not yet been completed. Intro Managing Director Peter Oncken tells Aviation Week that CityJet will replace its fleet of Avro RJ85s with Embraer 190s. That process is to be completed by 2016.
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Baltic Post has acquired 0.8% of Vilnius-based start-up Air Lituanica, taking the airline’s total capital to LTL11.3 million ($4.5 million). Air Lituanica, which recently split with partner Estonian Air over a debts dispute, launched operations in June. It operates scheduled flights from Vilnius to Brussels, Berlin Tegel, Prague and Munich and will begin flights to Paris on Feb. 14.
