Dutch aerospace conglomerate Fokker is assisting Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China (Comac) now that it has set up an aircraft customer support system in Shanghai. “Fokker Services has signed a consultancy agreement with Shanghai Aircraft Customer Service Co. (SACAS), the customer services division of Comac, to assist in establishing some specific support processes to support their new aircraft,” says a Fokker spokesman in Nieuw-Vennep, one of Fokker’s main industrial bases in northern Holland.
Washington Airports Task Force elected new board members David Birtwistle, senior VP-business development, Balfour Construction; Kenneth Gazzola, president and CEO, FlightLogix, Gazzola Consulting and former executive VP and publisher of Aviation Week Group; Jonathan Genn, executive VP and general counsel. Percontee Inc.; and John Milliken, partner in law firm Venable LLP and former chairman of the board of commissioners of the Virginia Port Authority.
Click here to view the pdf Summary of Value Carriers Systemwide Expense Indicators, First Quarter 2011, (Dollar Amounts in Thousands) Aircraft Property & Aircr
ICAO’s target of having satellite-based approaches at every qualifying airport by the end of 2016 will not be met at the current rate of deployment, industry experts say. Only a few years into the ICAO timeline, deployment is already well behind schedule. There would have to be a significant acceleration in the rollout of these procedures for the ICAO goal to be met, says Steve Fulton, technical fellow with GE Aviation’s PBN Services. Fulton was speaking at GE’s annual Global PBN Summit in Seattle.
Orders from Air Lease Corp. and Nordic Aviation Capital have helped propel ATR to a new order record. The Italian-French airframer has now booked 145 firm orders for 2011 and taken options for 72 more aircraft. It puts the list price value for the firm orders at $3.2 billion, with another $1.6 billion in the options. ATR CEO Filippo Bagnato suggests more deals are pending before the year-end. The backlog now stands at 275 aircraft, valued at $6.2 billion, also a high for the EADS/Finmeccanica joint venture.
AirAsia’s founder Tony Fernandes is pushing for the low-cost carrier and Malaysia Airlines (MAS) to collaborate on airline maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO), pilot training and ground services to achieve cost savings through economies of scale. Fernandes told reporters in Kuala Lumpur that AirAsia may be sending its Airbus A320s to MAS Engineering & Maintenance for heavy checks. “If you put the volume of MAS and AirAsia [together], it becomes a mega-MRO that can become a real competitor to Singapore’s MRO.”
Australia’s competition regulator has approved a transpacific joint business agreement between Oneworld alliance partners Qantas Airways and American Airlines. The approval by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) was widely expected, as it had previously granted a similar transpacific agreement between Virgin Australia and Delta Air Lines.
United Airlines’ Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) leadership is calling on management to delay implementation today of new operating procedures despite a court ruling that the deadline does not degrade the carrier’s safety. ALPA was unable to show that actual and imminent harm would arise from the airline’s decision, and that the union’s call for a temporary restraining order did not warrant the “extraordinary and drastic remedy” requested.
LAN Airlines is asking Chile’s antitrust court to re-evaluate yield calculations used in its recent determination of the carrier’s pending merger with Brazilian operator Grupo TAM, which LAN says misinterprets revenues generated from domestic services. The Tribunal de Defensa de la Libre Competencia, or TDLC, last week in a split decision approved the merger, albeit with a series of demands, including a restriction on fare increases in key markets (Aviation Daily, Sept. 21).
Southwest Airlines is departing from the near-unanimous airline opposition to the U.S. Transportation Department’s proposed new requirements for reporting ancillary revenue by suggesting a compromise.
Some of the six small regional jets Republic Airways is pulling out of service for Frontier Airlines in November have been contracted out for temporary charter service for November through March, a spokesman for the holding company and its low-cost carrier subsidiary says.
A drag-reducing upgrade kit developed for Boeing MD-80 operators has received supplemental type certification from the FAA. Developed by Long Beach, Calif.-based engineering company Super98, the first part of the kit is initially designed to reduce fuel burn by 2.5% or more, with a further 1% benefit available from a more extensive upgrade. Fuel savings were verified in flight tests of an instrumented MD-83 in late 2010 and early 2011.
Following a bitter dispute over many months, Air Baltic’s two main shareholders agreed to increase the airline’s capital by €153 million ($208 million), giving the airline enough support for operations through the low season and the planned renewal of its fleet. The Latvian government and Baltijas Aviacijas Sistemas (Baltic Aviation Systems, BAS) formally made that decision at a shareholder meeting on Thursday and said that the final details will be negotiated until Oct. 4, when the meeting is set to be resumed.
Officials of a dozen Texas commercial airports are joining forces to increase their influence with state and federal governments on mutual concerns, including funding mechanisms. The officials spent most of Tuesday in Houston addressing issues ranging from the prospects of reduced federal funding and the impact of airline mergers to the weak economy. A second gathering is tentatively set for December in Austin when the group is expected to organize formally.
There are further changes ahead for the Italian domestic airline market as Merdiana Fly—in the process of merging with Air Italy—is about to add the Sardinia regional government as a new shareholder. Meanwhile, there is new hope that Livingston, an airline grounded by the Italian civil aviation authorities one year ago, could fly again.
US Airways' claims its pilots union is engaged in illegal work action are supported by a judge at the U.S. District Court in Charlotte, S.C. The preliminary injunction against the US Airline Pilots Association (USAPA) should stop a “go-slow” the airline says has been implemented by the union as a tactic in their protracted labor negotiations (Aviation Daily, Aug. 2). The industrial action has seriously affected key performance metrics, including on-time efficiency, notes the ruling. USAPA is now also legally bound to prevent any further illegal work action.
United Technologies Corp’s Hamilton Sundstrand subsidiary has contracted Lufthansa Technik to provide maintenance, repair and overhaul services on the manufacturer’s Boeing 787 components, a deal that adds Lufthansa Technik to Hamilton Sundstrand’s official 787 supplier network.
Lufthansa placed an order for 12 additional aircraft to continue its fleet renewal. The order includes two Airbus A380s, one A330-300, four A320s and five Embraer 195s. The decision was approved by the company’s supervisory board on Thursday. The two A380s will join the airline's fleet in 2014 and complement an existing order for 15 of the type, eight of which have already been delivered. Lufthansa says passenger demand for A380 flights has exceeded its expectations.
Lufthansa Technik Sofia has signed a 10-year contract with Russian operator Air Tatarstan to provide heavy maintenance for its fleet of Airbus A319 and Boeing 737 Classic aircraft. The maintenance agreement will cover light C check and heavy D check maintenance visits at Lufthansa Technik’s hangar in Sofia, Bulgaria. The agreement will include maintenance for Air Tatarstan’s one A319 and five 737 Classics. Lufthansa Technik says the agreement will cover the purchase of any additional aircraft within the 10-year contract period.
The small Southeast Asian nation of Singapore, with its limited airspace, is nonetheless fast becoming a global player for ab initio and commercial pilot training by using another country’s airspace.
Long-time International Aero Engines partner Japan Aero Engines Corp. (JAEC) has signed on with Pratt & Whitney for a 23% risk-revenue share of the PW1100G engine that will power the Airbus A320NEO, and MTU Aero Engines is increasing its stake in the program to 18%. To mark the collaboration agreement with JAEC and MTU, which will have a combined 41% stake, Pratt is renaming the engine the PW1100G-JM.
