LAN Airlines will resume Boeing 787 service in the next few days, after completing a nearly two-hour test flight of the modified lithium-ion battery system for the widebody’s auxiliary power unit. The airline has not given a date for resumption of 787 service, saying only that flights will commence “in the coming days.” LAN says it has worked with 30 Boeing technicians to make the needed modifications to the battery system on the three 787-8s in its fleet.
Delta Air Lines now says it expects to be receiving about 50,000 barrels of Bakken crude oil a day for its Trainer, Pa., refinery by the end of this year, a figure that would account for more than a quarter of facility’s 185,000 barrel-per-day processing capacity. Last month, Delta disclosed that it had already reached agreements to receive enough Bakken crude oil in the second half of the year to account for 10% of its refinery’s supply. Eventually, the airline expects to increase the Bakken contribution to 75,000-100,000 barrels per day.
Boeing’s goal of achieving 60 787 deliveries in 2013 came one step closer this week when All Nippon Airways (ANA) accepted Line No. 83 from the factory in Everett, Wash., the first since the company halted deliveries in January after regulators shut down 787 commercial flights due to battery failures. Launch customer ANA, which operates the largest 787 fleet, now has received 18 of the 66 aircraft it has ordered. The Tokyo-based carrier is to resume commercial 787 services on June. 1.
Click here to view the pdf Top Carriers: Buenos Aires - Madrid, November 20-26, 2011, Ranked By Scheduled Seats Top Carriers: Buenos Aires - Madrid, November 20-26, 2011, Ranked By Scheduled Seats Daily Each Way
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Australian regional airlines are using an upcoming general election to draw attention to policies they say are strangling the industry. And it appears that a power change is their best hope for seeing at least some of these concerns resolved.
Embraer has selected Moog Aircraft to supply the complete fly-by-wire (FBW) flight control system for its second-generation E-Jet family, turning its back on Parker Aerospace, supplier of the FBW system for the current-generation Embraer 170/190 family. Parker was not invited to bid for the Gen 2 E-Jet fly-by-wire, says a source familiar with the selection. This follows a one-year delay to the Legacy 450/500 business jet program after Embraer took back responsibility for the FBW system from Parker because of problems with software development.
Alenia Aermacchi is hoping that within the next seven months EADS, its 50% joint venture partner in regional aircraft-maker ATR, will agree to a business plan for the new 90-seat ATR turboprop program that Alenia wants to launch. Giuseppe Giordo, Alenia’s CEO, tells Aviation Week that talks between the company and EADS are ongoing. He says he hopes the two parties can reach an agreement by year-end on a business plan for the new-generation 90-seat turboprop.
Garuda Indonesia has made Polonia International Airport in Medan its fourth hub after Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Jakarta, Denpasar-Ngurah Rai Bali International Airport and Sultan Hasanuddin International Airport in Makassar. CEO Emirsyah Satar says Medan’s domestic services will be supplemented with flights to Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand as well as Hajj charter flights to King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
A London-based business lobbying group is calling for more night flights and use of mixed-mode operations at Heathrow to increase the airport’s capacity. In its report, Flight Path To Growth, the group London First says that in the absence of a strategy to provide new runway capacity in the next 10 years, it would like to see restrictions at Heathrow lifted, including more flights at night and the introduction of mixed-mode operations.
During the early days of the helicopter, engineers began dreaming of a new age of regional and commuter air transport. They imagined inner-city heliports where large 30-50-seat helicopters or even hybrids such as the rotor tip-jet-powered Fairey Rotodyne could take passengers from the middle of London or Paris to other major cities faster than even the speediest rail service. At a time when fuel prices were low and cities were enjoying major investment, the idea of helicopters operating in and out of city heliports seemed feasible.
The U.S. Transportation Department’s (DOT’s) decision to continue funding contract air traffic control towers until the end of this fiscal year comes as temporary relief for local communities, but backers of the program are continuing their push to preserve contract towers beyond September. The DOT on May 10 announced that the FAA would continue funding the 149 contract towers scheduled to lose federal support as part of the agency’s effort to meet budget cuts imposed by sequestration.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) says 52 of its 92 members operating international flights to the U.S. now subscribe to a new web portal that gives the carriers key intelligence to help them minimize service disruptions. Called the IATA tactical operations portal (ITOP), the no-cost, web-based suite of tools—built by data and intelligence provider Passur Aerospace—went operational on April 12.
GOL Linhas Aereas Inteligentes’s attempt to reverse its declining financial performance saw the operator cut first-quarter capacity 15.7%, more than double the industry rate for the period, but an almost equal decline in demand produced little load factor benefit for Brazil’s second-largest carrier.
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Mandating that the U.S.-Export Import Bank (Ex-Im) consider the specific impact on U.S. airlines on every loan guarantee offered to foreign carriers would “gut the ability of the bank” to provide that type of financial assistance, an attorney for Ex-Im argued yesterday to an appeals court panel. “This would have an enormously disruptive effect,” bank attorney Mark Stern told the three judges hearing the challenge at the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington.
Top Carriers: Durban - Johannesburg, May 15-21, 2013, Ranked By Scheduled Seats Top Carriers: Durban - Johannesburg, May 15-21, 2013, Ranked By Scheduled Seats Daily Each Way Departures Share ASKs (000) Share Seats/Dept. South Afr
