The bill to extend the FAA’s operating authority is in peril again. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) won’t agree to the bill because of a provision on transportation enhancements in the highway bill that is moving through Congress with the FAA extension. “I’m not interested in holding up the FAA bill,” Coburn says, going on to blast the offending portion of the highway bill. “I’m interested in not spending money that doesn’t help bridges and highways and wasting 10% of the surface transportation budget on something that doesn’t help anybody.”
A detailed study of the impact of departure metering of aircraft at John F. Kennedy International Airport indicates substantial fuel and carbon emission benefits as well as a savings of 14,800 fewer departure hours of taxi time per year.
Labor woes have deepened for Qantas Airways as the union representing its ground-handling employees has announced a strike. The Transport Workers Union (TWU) told the carrier that up to 3,800 baggage handlers, ramp workers, and catering and freight employees will strike for four hours, starting at 5 a.m. Sept. 20. The union representing aircraft engineers is already engaged in limited strikes. Both employee groups are in negotiations for a new contrac.
Led by Boeing’s more-electric 787, new and future commercial aircraft designs are driving a surge in demand for increased electric systems power, says Rolls-Royce. Graham Hopkins, executive VP-external supply chain engineering for Rolls-Royce, says the current trend is driving toward a 10-fold increase in overall electrical demand.
Icelandair will start flights from Reykjavik to Denver May 11, 2012. The airline will initially operate four weekly roundtrips with Boeing 757-200s, making Denver its ninth destination in the U.S. It currently operates a fleet of 19 aircraft—one 757-300 and 18 757-200s. Icelandair has one 787-8 on firm order. The airline is focusing on a niche market connecting European destinations with U.S. markets via a small hub in Reyjakjavik.
International Lease Finance Corp. wants to start tracking maintenance repair and overhaul performance on the web, ILFC VP-Technical Nick Pittler told attendees at Aviation Week's MRO Leasing forum yesterday in Dublin. The company will put the portal on its website and rank MROs according to quality and performance.
The House Homeland Security's transportation security subcommittee Wednesday defeated amendments to raise the passenger security fee and to eliminate the Transportation Security Clearinghouse from competing in the task of providing background screening at airports.
New checkpoint procedures going into effect this week at U.S. airports will no longer require children 12 years old and under to remove their shoes as they proceed through Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screening.
American Airlines has started to trim its fall schedule and expects to cut a further 0.5% from its fourth-quarter capacity, although plans for 2012 have yet to be determined. The cuts, unveiled by VP-Corporate Development and Treasurer Beverly Goulet during Deutsche Bank’s Aviation and Transportation Conference, are part of an effort to optimize the carrier’s operations as its peers also revise capacity plans for the remainder of 2011 and into 2012.
Emirates officially confirmed Thierry Antinori as its new executive VP-passenger sales worldwide, succeeding Richard Vaughan, who plans to retire. The 49-year old Antinori will take on his new role Oct. 1.
The interagency Joint Planning and Development Office (JPDO) responsible for maintaining the long-term vision for U.S. airspace modernization is developing a revised 2025 “end state” for NextGen, recognizing that traffic growth is not expected to meet projections made when the program was launched in 2003. While the FAA is responsible for implementing NextGen and is focused on capabilities that can be deployed in the mid-term, by 2018, JPDO is the custodian of the overall architecture and long-term vision.
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) finds Lufthansa’s mandatory retirement age of 60 for pilots to be illegal. The court says that sending pilots into retirement at 60 constitutes discrimination on grounds of age. Lufthansa and its pilots union, Vereinigung Cockpit, say they will wait for the ruling to be converted into national law and then start renegotiating their collective bargaining agreement.
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The vast majority of Air Canada’s flight attendants has authorized a strike action if the airline and the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) fail to reach a new tentative labor agreement. Some 98% of the flight attendants who participated in the 10-day ballot voted in favor of the strike authorization. And while this does not mean a strike is ensured, CUPE notes that a labor action could be called as soon as Sept. 21.
SAS Group is making major changes to its senior management as the airline launches its new 4Excellence strategy. Deputy CEO John Dueholm and Chief Commercial Officer Robin Kamark are leaving the airline, CEO Rickard Gustafson said on Wednesday.
Six months after the devastating earthquake that struck Japan, engine maker Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries (IHI) is still regrouping and implementing new strategies to limit its exposure to future calamities. The company’s Soma plant, the IHI facility closest to the epicenter of the March 11 earthquake off the Northeast Coast, suffered the most damage and was also affected by the radiation scare generated by the nearby Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, badly hit by the tsunami that followed the quake.
Germany's Frankfurt Airport has posted its best August in terms of passenger traffic, but cargo tonnage declined by 7% to 172,415 metric tons. The airport served 5.35 million passengers in August, a 2.5% increase compared with the previous August. In the first eight months, it has managed 37.45 million passengers, a 7% increase year-on-year. Another August record came in accumulated maximum takeoff weights, which increased 1.2% to a record-breaking 2.56 million metric tons.
Delta Air Lines is considering the addition of an Economy Comfort class for its domestic fleet because sales for it have been so strong on its international services, President Ed Bastian says. Delta already installed Economy Comfort, which offers more legroom and recline, on all international aircraft to create a product category and price point between business class and regular economy.
Public-private partnerships for NextGen airspace modernization projects will be eligible for funding support from the infrastructure bank that would be established under the Obama administration’s American Jobs Act, says a senior government official.
Rep. Mike Rogers (R.-Ala.), chairman of the Homeland Security Committee’s transportation security subcommittee, will oppose any increase in the passenger security fee as the subcommittee meets today to consider a committee print of the Transportation Security Administration Authorization Act of 2011. An amendment is expected seeking to raise the $3 fee to $5 or more, in keeping with proposals in President Obama’s budget.
