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.
Aircastle is more than halfway to its target of investing $850 million in aircraft acquisitions this year when letters of intent are included in the total, the leaders of the Stamford, Conn.-based lessor say. The company is counting $279 million for closings or commitments in 2013 and early 2014 in its total, which suggests another $150 million attributable to the letters of intent.
NASA is planning full-scale ground and flight tests of an active flow control system that boosts rudder power, allowing an airliner’s vertical tail to be reduced in size, saving weight and drag. An aircraft’s vertical tail is hardly used in normal flight conditions, but its size is determined by one worst-case scenario: loss of an engine during takeoff, when maximum rudder deflection is needed to overcome the asymmetric thrust of the operating engine at full power and drag of the windmilling fan on the failed engine.
A chart in the April 15 issue of Aviation Daily detailing the FAA’s 2014 budget request should have specified that the Airports Grants total was $2.9 million.
Climate change will increase clear-air turbulence on transatlantic routes by the middle of this century, forcing longer detours, say U.K. researchers. Supercomputer simulations of the jet stream over the North Atlantic show both the frequency and strength of turbulence encounters will increase as the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rises.
United Airlines expects the first 15 gates of its new Terminal B south concourse at George Bush Intercontinental Airport to be fully operational by May 1 and that another 15 gates will be added by the end of the year. The $97-million 225,000 sq. ft. facility, which is dedicated to United Express regional flights, is almost four times the size of the previous south concourse. The concourse will handle a limited number of flights during the next two weeks.
Aegean Airlines has reiterated that it is imperative to form a larger Greek carrier to survive the protracted Greek recession and support the local economy. The airline’s warning follows indications by the European Commission (EC) that it will open a Phase II in-depth investigation into Aegean Airlines’ proposed acquisition of Olympic Air. Aegean offered to acquire its smaller competitor from Marfin Investment Group (MIG) in October for €72 million ($94 million).
