Air Canada, continuing its efforts to control the cost of its regional feed, will issue a request for proposals (RFP) on existing services to the U.S. The mainline carrier—which once was wholly reliant on affiliate Jazz for its regional operations—is not disclosing what routes are on offer, but does say the contract will start in the middle of 2014. “Select Canadian and U.S. regional carriers will be invited to participate in the RFP process and submit their respective pricing and other terms and conditions of carriage,” the airline notes.
FAA Administrator Michael Huerta is warning that the ongoing “fiscal uncertainty” surrounding the U.S. government’s budget is “very damaging” to the FAA’s long-term planning capability, and in particular could hurt the agency’s effort to modernize air traffic control (ATC).
By Siim Kallas, transport commissioner and vice president of the European Commission. It is no exaggeration when I say the eyes of the aviation world will be fixed on this month’s Assembly of the International Civil Aviation Organization in Montreal.
A conflict between the two main air traffic management industry exhibitions appears to have been resolved, with one of the rival events moving from Europe to China while also shifting to a date much later in the year. The ATC Global Conference, organized by UBM, will be held in Beijing from Sept. 17-19 next year. This long-standing conference for many years has been run in Amsterdam—and before that Maastricht—typically in February or March. Until the latest change, it was scheduled to be held again in Amsterdam on March 11-13.
Air Lease Corp. (ALC) and GE Capital Aviation Services (GECAS) have finalized double-digit orders for Boeing 787-9s and -10s, reaffirming the models’ anticipated popularity among the wide range of customers that lessors count on to keep their inventory flying. ALC finalized a 33-plane buy, including a launch order for 30 787-10s and three additional 787-9s, announced at June’s Paris air show. GECAS’s order is for 10 787-10s, a commitment also made at Paris. List-price values for each deal are $9.4 billion and $2.9 billion, respectively.
Twenty of the top avionics manufacturers reported combined sales of $1.6 billion in the second quarter, according to the latest data from the Aircraft Electronics Association’s (AEA) fledgling Avionics Market Report. Launched earlier this year, the report compiles sales figures from companies willing to share that information, including Garmin, L-3, and Rockwell Collins. The manufacturers submit sales figures to a third party that produces the report, preserving confidentiality of the data.
Indonesia’s Lion Air intends to launch its Thailand-based joint venture carrier this year with a fleet of two Boeing 737-900ERs, a Lion Air spokesman tells Aviation Week. According to the spokesman, Thai Lion Air is expected to receive regulatory approval and begin operations by the end of this year. The 737-900ERs, configured the same as the aircraft in Lion’s Indonesia-based fleet, initially will serve three routes from Bangkok: Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai.
StandardAero is transitioning its leadership with a new overall CEO and a new senior vice president to steer the Business Aviation group. The appointments, announced last week, come a little more than a week after StandardAero parent Dubai Aerospace Enterprise (DAE) announced that talks over a potential merger of portions of its business with BBA Aviation have ended.
Lockheed Martin’s new Montreal engine maintenance facility, fresh from a multimillion-dollar overhaul and grand opening, expects to complete 15 engine overhauls this year and boost that figure to 65 in 2014, company executives report. Kelly Aviation Center Montreal—Lockheed Martin’s second commercial engine overhaul facility—has signed up six customers so far, including Jazz and Skybus, a company spokeswoman says. The four other customers have not been made public.
18th Annual Regional & Business Aviation Industry Suppliers Conference Montelucia, Paradise Valley (Scottsdale), AZ November 6-8, 2013 PRELIMINARY PROGRAM AVAILABLE AT WWW.SPEEDNEWS.COM Who should attend?
French infrastructure group Vinci Airports has finalized its acquisition of Portuguese airports operator ANA. The deal—worth $4.17 billion—marks the final step in the Portuguese government’s privatization of ANA, which was approved by the European Commission earlier this year. ANA holds a 50-year concession for 10 airports in Portugal, the Azores and Madeira, which collectively handled more than 30 million passengers in 2012.
The New Zealand government has renewed its approval of the Air New Zealand-Virgin Australia partnership, essentially affirming the same capacity conditions that the Australian government already has imposed on the two airlines. The New Zealand Ministry of Transport and the Australian competition watchdog authorized the partnership through 2018, which means that it will expire in the same year as the partnership authority granted Emirates Airline and Qantas Airways.
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The Tata Group, which in recent months has made some bold moves into India's aviation industry, is in talks with the country’s airport regulator to establish an aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) unit. “Currently, the group is trying to get space for the MRO operations and is in discussion with the Airport Authority of India, which manages the majority of the country’s airports to secure its permission,” a government spokesman says.
Russian state-owned bank Vnesheconombank (VEB) will participate in the Superjet 100 program by taking a stake in Sukhoi, the parent company of the aircraft’s manufacturer Sukhoi Civil Aircraft Company (SCAC).
As the ban on FAA certification of new foreign repair stations passes the five-year mark, the number of applications from companies seeking U.S. approval has grown to close to 90, according to the regulator. Industry groups maintain hopes that the ban could be lifted sometime in the upcoming weeks or next few months, but still fear it could take years for the FAA to process the backlog given limited resources.
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