The end of the code share agreement between Qantas and South African Airways (SAA) will likely open the way for SAA to further extend its new relationship with Virgin Australia. The recent announcement that Qantas and SAA will terminate their partnership on important Australia-South Africa routes came soon after SAA struck a code share deal with Virgin to improve access to certain Australian cities. It has long been apparent that regulatory headaches had put the Qantas-SAA relationship in doubt.
Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic are modifying the interior of SpaceShipTwo (SS2) to accommodate the final configuration of the rocket motor that will be used to power the space vehicle to suborbital space later this year. The modifications also include fitting the interior and passenger seats for the first time. Completion work on the cabin, and the upgrades to install the full-duration-capable Sierra Nevada RM2 motor, are expected to take several months and will pave the way to the fourth powered test flight (PF04) around mid-year.
Garuda Indonesia will become a full member of SkyTeam on March 5, boosting the alliance’s presence in the Asia-Pacific region to seven airlines and growing the alliance group’s membership to 20 airlines globally. Garuda will be SkyTeam’s second member airline from Southeast Asia, after Vietnam Airlines.
Research commissioned by the Transportation Research Board’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) could help redefine the thresholds for homes and schools that qualify for government-funded soundproofing near large metropolitan airports.
The U.S. faces “an infrastructure deficit” that could have negative consequences for commercial aviation, U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said today. Speaking to the Aero Club of Washington DC, Foxx pointed out that civil aviation contributes $1.3 trillion to the U.S. economy annually. “The industry supports more jobs than exist in the whole state of New York,” he said.
Iberia management concluded an agreement in principle with representatives of four of five of its cabin crew unions on the terms of a new collective bargaining agreement through 2017, following a similar deal reached two weeks ago with the pilots’ union Sepla. Both agreements still need to be approved by a vote of the flight attendants who are members of the SITCPLA, CTA Vuelo, UGT, and CCOO unions, and by the pilots. The Stavla union, which represents 30% of the airline’s approximate 3,300 cabin staff, has not signed the agreement.
Even as some Asian flag carriers, such as Malaysian and Thai, are reporting lackluster performance and potential route cuts, Middle East carriers seem happy to continue their push into the regional Asian market. Qatar Airways, currently flying to only three Asia/China destinations—Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing—has signed a “strategic agreement” that will see the airline fly direct for the first time from its base at Doha International to Hong Kong International.
Click here to view the pdf Top Carrier: Las Vegas - Los Angeles, February 15-21, 2014, Ranked By Scheduled Seats Top Carrier: Las Vegas - Los Angeles, February 15-21, 2014, Ranked By Scheduled Seats Daily Each Way Departures Share ASKs (000) Share Seats/D
AgustaWestland has begun the certification test phase for its AW609 commercial tiltrotor. The two AW609 prototypes, AC1 in the U.S. and AC2 in Italy, have flown almost 1,000 hr. between them, a third of which were flown in the last two years since AgustaWestland took full control of the program from Bell Helicopter, which was a partner until 2011.
Rockwell Collins avionics could be flying in a variety of new and existing Russian-made commercial aircraft and helicopters under a new agreement with St. Petersburg-based Transas Aviation. A division of the Transas Group, Transas Aviation builds integrated avionics, navigation and flight management systems and related avionics for Russian and international flying fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters.
Registration Open SpeedNews 4th Annual Aerospace Raw Materials & Manufacturers Supply Chain Conference March 3, 2014 Beverly Hills, California SpeedNews 28th Annual Commercial Aviation Industry Suppliers Conference March 3-5, 2014 Beverly Hills, California Click here to view the pdf
Aer Lingus has defined what now looks like the final version of its long-haul fleet strategy. The airline plans to take delivery of a mix of Airbus A350-900s and A350-900 Regionals between 2018 and 2020. That represents a delay of up to three years compared to earlier scenarios.
Denied Boardings, October - December 2013 Denied Boardings Enplaned Involuntary Per 10,000 Passengers Rank Airline Voluntary Invlountary Passengers Current Last Year % Change 1
With street violence still being reported in Bangkok, Thailand’s aviation and travel sectors are feeling the effects in the form of dramatically lower passenger numbers.
A tail wind and a braking system installation error by the Tashkent Aircraft Production Company were among the causes and contributing factors that led to an overrun of a Volga-Dnepr Ilyushin IL-76D on Runway 11 at the St. John’s International Airport in Newfoundland, Canada in August 2012, according to a final report on the incident by Canada’s Transportation Safety Board (TSB).
Norwegian Air International (NAI), in its closing salvo arguing for expedited approval from the U.S. DOT to launch service between the U.S. and Europe, laid out more detail about why it sought to base itself in a European Union (EU) country.
Click here to view the pdf Top Carriers: Chicago O’Hare - New York LaGuardia, February 15-21, 2014, Ranked By Scheduled Seats Top Carriers: Chicago O’Hare - New York LaGuardia, February 15-21, 2014, Ranked By Scheduled Seats
The FAA today is expected to propose more rigorous inspections of Boeing 737 Classic forward galley service door areas, based on “multiple” reports of operators discovering cracks in areas not currently targeted for checks. The proposed directive, based on a revised Boeing alert service bulletin (ASB) issued in September, targets fuselage skin and bear straps, or skin doublers, around the doors. The checks are a mix of detailed (visual) and low-frequency eddy-current inspections, and the inspection type and intervals vary based on the specific airframe type.
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Frantz Yvelin, founder of all-business carrier L’Avion, and former Jet Airways COO Peter Luethi have created a French company called Dreamjet as the basis for a new start-up airline slated for launch this year.
