The FAA is facing considerable uncertainty, with the U.S. government headed toward a possible partial shutdown Oct. 1 and sequestration levels of funding likely to remain in place even if a shutdown is avoided. “I have no idea what’s going to happen,” FAA’s deputy associate administrator-airports Kate Lang said at the annual Airports Council International-North America (ACI-NA) Conference and Exhibition in San Jose, Calif. “I have no idea whether we’ll be at work on Oct. 1 . . . Frankly, nobody knows.”
The MRO subsidiary of Egyptair Holding is seeking to double revenue from third-party customers to 50% of total sales, and has won two contracts to help achieve that goal. From Oct. 1, Egyptair Maintenance & Overhaul will perform the line maintenance for Qatar Airways’ 28 weekly flights at Cairo International Airport, taking over from Lufthansa Technik. And starting Nov. 1, it will take care of line maintenance for the twice-daily flights of Gulf Air at the same airport.
Four Asian customers will buy 140 Airbus A320-family aircraft in four orders or intended orders announced on Sept. 25. Of those aircraft, 91 are for the re-engined NEO series.
Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Contracting Opportunity Announcement The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority has issued a solicitation for the following project: RFP 1-14-C005: Air Service Development Consultant
If an airline orders more than 100 new aircraft, then two months later says that 95% of its annual maintenance and engineering contracted work is up for re-tender by 2017, the industry should take note. While EasyJet did exactly this in July and September, the news does not signal a seismic shift in its operations. Rather, the carrier is continuing to do what it does well—run a lean, low-cost operation. EasyJet considered proposals from Airbus, Boeing and Bombardier over a 20-month period, but Airbus’s final price seemed to clinch the deal.
Airbus and Copenhagen-headquartered Satair in February plan to open their first joint warehouse, a facility in Singapore. Both companies already operate their own spares and sales offices in Singapore, but this new joint facility will consolidate their operations to gain synergies and triple the number of spare parts available, Marcus Jungermann, Airbus’s vice president-material and logistics operations, tells Aviation Week on the sidelines of MRO Europe in London.
While at least three new entrant low-cost carriers (LCCs) are preparing to launch in Thailand, incumbent LCC Thai AirAsia is not standing still, adding aircraft and routes to strengthen its network. Thai AirAsia has had three Airbus A320s delivered this year, bringing its total to 30 A320s. It expects to receive another five by the end of the year, making 2013 the carrier’s biggest year for growth since it was established in 2004, a Thai AirAsia spokeswoman tells Aviation Week. Another eight A320 deliveries are scheduled for 2014.
GE Aviation, expanding on an existing program, is developing a used life-limited parts (LLPs) history designation that will certify a General Electric powerplant’s most critical parts as being operated amid the most optimal configurations. Under the TRUEngine LLP program—announced yesterday in London at MRO Europe—LLPs that are maintained to the manufacturer’s standards and operated with all so-called influencing parts maintained to those standards will be stamped TRUEngine LLP-certified.
Airbus today may officially launch a new version of its A330 widebody at the Beijing Aviation Expo. “We are going to have a product announcement in Beijing,” Airbus Chief Operating Officer-Customers John Leahy said yesterday at an event in London, although he declined to comment further.
Driven largely by rapid growth in emerging markets, Airbus expects that airlines and lessors will order close to 30,000 new aircraft over the next 20 years. Only around 10,000 of these will be used to replace older jets; around two-thirds of the demand will come from the expected growth, Airbus says in the latest version of its Global Market Forecast. Despite the slow sales of its A380, the manufacturer remains adamant that around 1,700 such aircraft will be needed in the next 20 years.
Stagnation in Europe’s airline industry will be a drag on the region’s aircraft aftermarket, which will grow slower than the world average over the next decade despite measurable expansion in Eastern Europe, forecasts revealed at Aviation Week’s MRO Europe conference.
Electric propulsion is already here, albeit on a small scale, and now NASA is looking ahead to the technology that would be required to power a regional aircraft in 10-20 years or a narrowbody airliner in 30-40 years. But the agency plans to start small, with tests to first understand, then model the behavior and efficiency of electric propulsion system components. These will feed into ground, and potentially flight, tests of a distributed propulsion system that would be closely integrated with the airframe.
The Luxembourg government is in talks with four bidders over the sale of its 35% stake in Cargolux, including Chinese investor Henan Civil Aviation Development and Investment Co. (HNCA). “The HNCA company, being one of the potential candidates which have expressed their interest in the Cargolux stake, is in close talks with Luxembourg,” the government said in a statement. The government would not disclose any more details.
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Allegiant Air is slowly returning MD-80s to service with compliant evacuation slides, and remains on track to put all of its available MD-80s back into service by Oct. 1, the carrier says. The airline late last week grounded all 49 of its in-service MD-80s to inspect emergency slides after discovering that its inspection intervals did not comply with slide manufacturer Zodiac’s standards. By the end of Sept. 23, the airline had 32 MD-80s back in service, and expected to be caught up on its flight schedule by the beginning of service today.
London Gatwick Airport says the U.K.’s economy would benefit more from a second runway at Gatwick rather than a third at London Heathrow Airport. Stewart Wingate, Gatwick’s CEO, tells the Financial Times that a move by one of the three alliances from Heathrow to the city’s second airport would be a prerequisite for the runway expansion to proceed. “If an alliance were to move down at some future point into Gatwick, not only would there be room for the alliance to grow—from a U.K.
The boards of directors at AMR Corp. and US Airways Group have, as expected, approved an extension to their proposed merger agreement, a decision that allows the two companies to pursue legal action against the U.S. Justice Department (DOJ) without fear of breaching a contractual deadline to finalize the deal.
