With more than 30% of CFM56 engines in commercial service now covered under its TRUEngine program, GE Aviation is launching a similar program for the CF6 powerplant and Nippon Cargo Airlines is the launch customer, the engine OEM said at Aviation Week’s MRO Americas Conference in Miami. GE has awarded TRUEngine designation to 43 CF6-80C2 engines that power the Japanese carrier’s fleet of Boeing 747s, but Troy Tomson, senior marketing manager at GE Aviation, said the program will not be limited to the -80C2.
Lambert-St. Louis International Airport is actively pursuing cargo operators to develop the facility’s intermodal cargo potential, in an effort to offset some of the lost passenger revenue resulting from American Airlines’ de-hubbing of the airport.
The U.S. Congress this week will consider a spending bill negotiated by the White House and congressional leadership to fund the government for the rest of fiscal 2011 that squeezes $446 million out of the Transportation Security Administration’s budget request and restores caps on screeners.
Curtiss-Wright Corp. has paid $20 million for the assets of Douglas Equipment Ltd., Cheltenham, U.K., supplier of ground support vehicles for defense and commercial aviation. Douglas makes aircraft tractors and runway friction measuring devices. The products fit with the handling systems produced by Curtiss-Wright’s Flow Control division, based in Falls Church, Va., said Martin Benante, chairman and CEO.
The National Transportation Safety Board says it will be reviewing flight recorders, air traffic control tapes and ground movement radar data as part of its investigation into an April 11 incident in which the wing tip of a taxiing Airbus A380 struck the tail of a Bombardier CRJ700 regional jet and spun the aircraft nearly 90 degrees. The incident drew widespread media coverage, in part because of a video showing the strike and spin. No one was injured.
Continental Airlines’ plans to launch nonstop Bombardier Q400 service between Newark Liberty International Airport and Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport have fallen victim to the rising price of fuel. The carrier, now operating as a division of United Continental Holdings, was awarded 16 slots at Toronto City under a slot allocation last year that also granted Air Canada 30 slots and incumbent carrier Porter Airlines a further 44 (Aviation Daily, June 25, 2010).
Jet Aviation, Gulfstream’s maintenance, repair and overhaul provider, has received approval to lease additional land at Singapore’s Seletar Aerospace Park, where it plans to build a second hangar and an engine overhaul shop.
Click here to view the pdf Top Nonstop Airport Pairs: Latin America/Caribbean-U.S., 12 Months Ending June 2010, Ranked By ASMs Onboard ASMs % Chg. Seats Per Load
United Airlines is hoping to place its “UA” designator code alongside that of sister company Continental Airlines on Mexican carrier Aeromar’s domestic services as the two U.S. carriers prepare for their eventual merger under a single operating certificate. Continental received the code-share authority with Aeromar prior to the financial merger with United in October (Aviation Daily, Oct. 4, 2010).
Demand for pilots, especially from overseas, to fly Indian airline aircraft may soar if the country's civil aviation regulator goes ahead with new rules on reducing daily flying hours to give pilots more rest. India's Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) recently framed new civil aviation requirements on duty time for pilots.
Spending on U.S.-originating business travel is now expected to increase by 6.9% this year to $246 billion, which is higher than predicted by the U.S.-based Global Business Travel Association, formerly the National Business Travel Association. The group in January estimated growth of only 5% (Aviation Daily, Jan. 14).
AAR Corp. plans to give its wheels and brakes operation in Miami more room to grow, with a new shop that will double its capacity. The Miami wheels and brakes operation's revenue has grown 12-fold in the past three years, says Pastor Lopez, VP and general manager of AAR Landing Gear Services. The new shop should open in the next 35 days or so, he says.
Two-thirds of U.S. travelers rate existing taxes on airline tickets as “high” or “very high,” according to a new survey by the U.S. Travel Association’s Travel Tax Institute. Just over 16% of the survey respondents said they would be much less likely to purchase a ticket if the taxes increased 1%; 29% said they would be less likely if the taxes increased 5%, and 53% said they would be less likely if the taxes increased 10%. When questioned about all travel taxes, however, 31% said they feel the taxes are about right and 68% feel they are too low.
Brazil’s Carnival holiday and improved demand for international travel in March boosted GOL Linhas Aéreas Inteligentes’ monthly load factor 5.5 percentage points to 70.1%. These factors, combined with new long-haul routes, a strong Brazilian real and daily utilization rates exceeding 13.2 block hours, produced a 19.6% gain in demand for the month to 2.9 billion revenue passenger miles on a 9.7% increase in capacity to 4.1 billion available seat kilometers.
SAS has taken on major lease agreements with Gecas to reduce its fleet types and limit capital expenditure. The move is the latest in a series of steps management is taking to nurse the ailing carrier back to financial health. The new agreements are for five Boeing 737-800s with plans to add 12 737-700s later. The -800s will replace MD-80s and 737 Classics, which are being phased out. The airline still operates nine MD-80s and 11 737 Classics. The leased aircraft will augment 67 737NGs in the SAS fleet based at Oslo and Stockholm.
The FAA’s system command center, which coordinates national traffic at a strategic level, has completed its transition to a new purpose-built facility in Warrenton, Va. Construction of the 64,000-sq.-ft. building started in late 2008. It is being built beside the existing Potomac terminal radar approach control (Tracon) facility, which opened at the Warrenton site in 2002. The cost of the project was initially estimated at $46 million, including a $22 million contract for Corinthian Construction Co. The FAA is still calculating the actual cost.
Air Canada apparently wants to launch a low-cost subsidiary and staff it with pilots hired under a separate contract from its mainline crew. Several Canadian newspapers, reporting leaked details of the carrier’s current contract offer to the Air Canada Pilots Association, report the low-cost operation initially will operate six Airbus A319s and four Boeing 767s, although the fleet eventually will grow to 30 A319s and 20 767s, probably by 2015.
Hamilton Sundstrand has authorized Air New Zealand Technical Operations as a repair facility for the APS 3200 series auxiliary power units, opening a significant potential market in narrowbody fleets.
Boeing is looking at expanding its comprehensive GoldCare aftermarket services program beyond the 787 and 737NG to the 777 and 747-8, says Jay Maloney, VP-fleet management for Boeing commercial aviation services.
Brazilian operator TAM Linhas Aéreas intends to use two Airbus A330s scheduled for delivery this month and next to boost capacity from Rio de Janeiro Jobim International Airport to key markets in Europe and North America. The new 223-seat, three-class aircraft will enable TAM in May to boost frequencies to Frankfurt International Airport to daily from five weekly, as well as add a fifth weekly service to New York John F. Kennedy International Airport.
As China's economy expands, so do its labor rates, putting some American MROs in a position to compete pretty favorably against the Chinese, which was not the case five years ago, says Ken Aso, associate partner at Oliver Wyman. The money is in the engines; powerplants represent 46% of all MRO spending, according to TeamSAI. While airframe maintenance costs break down to about 70% labor and 30% material, engine MRO is the opposite—70% material and 30% labor.
