NEXA Capital’s NextGen fund, set up to help U.S. airlines pay for upgrades that will reap benefits from FAA’s satellite-based air traffic management (ATM) system, is in advanced talks with three airlines and expects to announce at least one customer by mid-year, says NEXA Capital Partners Managing Director and CEO Michael Dyment.
The U.S. is one step closer to establishing a preclearance customs facility at Abu Dhabi International. Aviation Week has learned that the U.S. and UAE governments have established operational protocols, authorities and facility requirements for preclearance at the airport. A U.S. government source says the Department of Homeland Security and the UAE are discussing other issues before the facility can open, although no specific details were provided.
Air Tahiti Nui and Air France plan to launch a joint venture between Los Angeles International Airport and Paris Charles de Gaulle International Airport, combining the services of the only two carriers that have non-stop flights in this market. The carriers have applied to the U.S. Transportation Department (DOT) for antitrust immunity to share revenue and coordinate schedules on this route, but not to points beyond.
FAA Administrator Michael Huerta warned lawmakers again that across-the-board budget cuts could prompt delays of up to 90 min. at major hub airports as the air traffic control workforce begins to experience furloughs.
Delta TechOps, long acknowledged as a key part of parent Delta Air Lines’ vast revenue-diversification strategy, plays an equally important role in helping the airline keep costs down, airline CEO Richard Anderson emphasizes. Speaking at MRO Americas in the shadow of the carrier’s Atlanta headquarters, Anderson revealed that the airline’s engine MRO prowess means the carrier’s pool of spare engines totals just 5% of its on-wing fleet—about half of what an engine OEM recommends.
Members of the European Parliament (EP) have voted to exempt flights to/from Europe from the European Union’s Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS) for a 12-month period. The draft law was adopted by 577 votes to 114, with 21 abstentions. It still needs to be endorsed by the European Council representing the EU’s member states, but this is a formality as the draft law, prepared by the EP’s environmental committee rapporteur Peter Liese, includes an agreement with the Council.
Click here to view the pdf Top Carriers: Delhi - Mumbai, April 15-21, 2013, Ranked By Scheduled Seats Top Carriers: Delhi - Mumbai, April 15-21, 2013, Ranked By Scheduled Seats Daily Each Way Departures Share ASKs (000) Share Seats/Dept.
A new subsidy by the Estonian government to Estonian Air to keep it flying has prompted the European Commission (EC) to extend the scope of its investigation into state aid received by the chronically loss-making carrier.
Following French media group Lagardere, German car manufacturer Daimler has sold its remaining shareholding in EADS. The auto maker sold a 7.5% stake for a total of €2.2 billion ($2.9 billion), or €37 per share, a part of which was picked up by EADS.The move came a day after EADS concluded the buyback of a 1.56% stake from the French government for €480 million and on top of a 1.6% stake acquired from Lagardere for €500 million earlier this month.
U.S. regional Pinnacle Airlines is set to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection May 1 as a division of Delta Air Lines after its plan of reorganization was granted court approval. Under the planned integration with Delta, Pinnacle will move its headquarters from Memphis to Minnesota by the end of May.
Managers of U.S. airports are worried about tax-code changes included in President Obama’s proposed fiscal 2014 budget that would make it costlier to use bonds to pay for infrastructure improvements, eroding a reliable source of relatively inexpensive funding that has contributed nearly $50 billion to such airport projects over the past decade.
Australia’s competition watchdog says it will rule next week on Virgin Australia’s proposed acquisition of a majority stake in low-cost carrier Tiger Airways Australia. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has set April 24 as the deadline for its ruling on the Virgin Australia move. However, this is not the first time the ACCC has set a decision deadline; it previously set target dates of Jan. 31 and March 14, but on both occasions it put the process on hold while it sought additional information from the applicants.
Rockwell Collins is experimenting with a graphical, touchscreen mode control panel designed to simplify autonomous operations and to help air transport and business aviation pilots fly more efficient flight profiles. The mode control panel, located at the top of the control panel, typically contains buttons or knobs for selecting autopilot modes and for setting desire heading, airspeed and altitude inputs for those modes.
Lion Air’s Malaysian joint-venture carrier, Malindo Air, in June plans to launch services to India, its first international destination. According to a schedule loaded onto the Sabre global distribution system, the airline on June 1 will launch daily, nonstop services from its base at Kuala Lumpur International Airport to New Delhi Indira Ghandi International Airport and Tiruchirapalli International Airport in southern India.
Driven largely by wing work for the A320NEO, A350 and A380 programs, Airbus is expanding its airframe design and analysis engineering center in downtown Wichita for a second time to accommodate the nearly 150 staff it has added in the past year. The work is not related to the company’s development of an A320 final assembly line in Mobile, Ala., or to the wing and fuselage fabrication performed in Kinston, N.C., by Airbus’s largest U.S. airframe supplier, Spirit AeroSystems, says the head of engineering for Airbus Americas John O’Leary.
Click here to view the pdf Top Carriers: Osaka Itami - Tokyo Haneda, April 15-21, 2013, Ranked By Scheduled Seats Top Carriers: Osaka Itami - Tokyo Haneda, April 15-21, 2013, Ranked By Scheduled Seats Daily Each Way Departures Share ASKs (000) Share Seats
Irish lessor Avolon owns the Lion Air Boeing 737-800 that crashed short of the runway at Denpassar-Ngurah BAli International Airport. A source at Lion Air involved in fleet management tells Aviation Week that the carrier recently completed a sale and leaseback deal with Avolon on six new 737-800s, one of which was PK-LKS, the aircrfat involved in the accident. That aircraft on April 13 landed in water just short of Runway 09. The aircraft then washed up on rocks about 50 meters from shore and broke into two.
If the U.S. Congress fails to approve the Obama administration’s requested plan for adjusting airport funding, the amount provided for airport grants will revert back to the status quo, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood tells lawmakers. The president’s budget request for fiscal 2014 reduces Airport Improvement Program (AIP) grants by about $450 million to $2.9 billion and increases passenger facility charges (PFCs) to $8 from $4.50.
The U.S. Transportation Department’s (DOT’s) fiscal 2014 budget request earmarks $225 million in off-budget money for a new-generation air traffic control facility in New York that would consolidate the New York Center and New York terminal radar approach control facilities. The plan to build a New York Integrated Control Facility (ICF)—a new type of center that serves both en route and terminal airspace—is not new. But the budgetary commitment is arguably the most significant signal yet that the FAA is ready to proceed with the project.
