Airlines use predictive maintenance to slash costs, convert unscheduled maintenance to scheduled events and reduce asset downtime. They have been doing it on engines for some time, and now airlines can perform predictive maintenance much more effectively because new aircraft yield more data, and the tools for exploiting it have improved dramatically. Yet ways of thinking and business processes also must change, which often is more difficult than tapping sensors.
The High Level Working Group (HLG) tasked by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to evaluate market-based measures for aviation greenhouse gas emissions has yet to reach consensus just weeks before it is expected to produce a proposal, several industry sources tell Aviation Week. The HLG is scheduled to meet March 25-27 in Montreal to produce an emissions reduction package for the ICAO Council to consider in June. The Council then is scheduled to make a proposal to the full ICAO General Assembly in September.
Airbus on April 1 is scheduled to break ground at its planned final assembly plant in Mobile, Alabama. Airbus Chief Operating Officer-Customers John Leahy says assembly of A320s is scheduled to start in 2015 and first deliveries will be made in 2016. Leahy says the Mobile plant will provide aircraft for customers outside, as well as within North America. “I was talking to a CEO of a very large leasing company and he wants to take all his A320NEO aircraft from the Mobile plant,” Leahy says.
Aviation Week Laureate Awards March 7, 2013 National Building Museum Washington, D.C. Time: 6:00 p.m. Aviation Week’s 56th annual Laureate Awards will recognize individuals/teams for their extraordinary accomplishments in aviation and aerospace. To reserve a table contact Regan Pickett at +1.540.349.5738 or [email protected]
Airbus’s top salesman has called on governments in Asia to introduce more liberalized air services agreements and to encourage the development of low-cost carriers. Speaking at a news conference yesterday in Singapore, Chief Operating Officer-Customers John Leahy said, “Once you open the market to low-cost carriers and to air transport, you see the air passenger market take off and the economy follows along with it.”
You can now register online for Aviation Week events. Go to www.aviationweek.com/conferences or contact: Lydia Janow, 212-904-3225 or 800-240-7645 ext. 5 (U.S. and Canada only) March 5-6—Defense Technology & Affordability Requirements, Hilton Arlington, Arlington, Va. March 7—Laureate Awards 2013, National Building Museum, Washington, D.C. April 16-18—MRO Americas 2013, Georgia World Congress Center, Atlanta, Ga. April 17-18—MRO Military 2013, Georgia World Congress Center, Atlanta, Ga.
Air Berlin plans to sell six more narrowbodies over the next few weeks to reduce its fleet to 142 aircraft for the summer. The airline hopes to sell two Boeing 737s and four Airbus A320-family aircraft in addition to the two narrowbodies sold at the end of last year.
With fuel burn a critical performance discriminator for Airbus in its challenge to Boeing with the A350, the European manufacturer has received some encouraging signs from engine supplier Rolls-Royce as it heads toward flight tests later this year.
Air France-KLM Chairman Jean-Cyril Spinetta expects “significant improvement” of medium-haul operations in 2013 following “disappointing results” in 2012. The group this year plans to increase long-haul capacity 2% and reduce medium-haul capacity 2%. The cuts will target point-to-point markets, with capacity dropping 6.1% in this sector, while hub flying remains stable. Air France in particular will make sharp capacity cuts this year with the loss of 13 Airbus narrowbodies in the summer; low-fare affiliate Transavia, in contrast, is to boost capacity 12%.
United Airlines has taken most of its planned Boeing 787s launches from its schedule as federal regulators continue to investigate the failure of lithium-ion batteries on board the aircraft. The action will affect the already delayed launch of service between United’s Houston hub at George Bush Intercontinental Airport and Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos, Nigeria, and defers the operation of the Los Angeles International Airport service to Tokyo Narita International Airport launched Jan. 3 until at least June 5.
Increasing frustration at the lack of progress in reorganizing European airspace has led airlines to call for the effort to be refocused on more ambitious changes.
Aerovision International has disassembled five of the 10 young Embraer ERJ-145 aircraft it acquired last August and is in the process of parting out a sixth, which marks the first retirements of the 50-seat regional jet other than that of one prototype. But the Muskegon, Mich.-based company is repairing the other four in hopes of finding airlines willing to buy or lease them, says President and Co-owner Jeff Barnes.
Sequestration will force the closure of 100 low-capacity air traffic control towers and end the midnight shift at 60 more, a joint letter from the heads of the FAA and U.S. Transportation Department details. The Feb. 22 letter to industry groups also says the FAA will have to furlough almost every one of its 47,000 employees two days each month should Congress allow the mandatory budget cuts to take effect on March 1.
