Business & Commercial Aviation

A near-collision between a drone and a Boeing 777 on March 25 has prompted Air New Zealand to call for stricter regulations for drone operators. The 777 was on descent into Auckland Airport when it passed within about 15 ft. of the drone.

Great Lakes Airlines ceased operations in March, a decision it says resulted from the inability to hire enough pilots after the FAA's 2013 increase in minimum qualifications for first officers.

Horizon Air Group, based in Dallas, has changed its name to Leviate after acquiring Word Class Jet, known as Starbase Jet, in August.

Bombardier Business Aircraft has introduced 12 product enhancements for Bombardier in-service aircraft, such as situational awareness, regulatory compliance and cabin upgrades.

Israel Aerospace Industries plans to develop an electric short-haul commercial aircraft. The company says future electric-powered aircraft will reduce emissions and noise and provide significant savings in fuel costs.

Honeywell's Aspire 400, its newest satellite communications system for flight crews and passengers, is now available.

Former FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said the effort to spin off U.S. air traffic control (ATC) from the FAA failed because it became too focused on the structure of a proposed new entity.

Tamarack Aerospace Group received additional EASA and FAA approvals for its active winglets on the Cessna Citation business jet line, with new supplemental type certificate (STC) authorizations for the C525A series including the CJ2 and CJ2+ aircraft. Tamarack already has approvals on the C525 and C525B CJ series.

Daher introduced the latest features and functionality on the Garmin G3000 all-glass integrated flight deck configuration for the TBM 930 — the high-end model in Daher’s turboprop aircraft family.

New from Cloudbase are sunglasses that feature Carl Zeiss lenses chosen specifically for pilots. These lenses are designed to provide high contrast, outstanding optical clarity and excellent UV protection.

The headset has phone and audio interface and, smart audio muting that allows you to choose what auxiliary audio you hear, including automatic muting of aux audio when the intercom is active.

Leonardo has pushed back the timeline for the certification of its AW609 civil tiltrotor by another year in a bid to further mature the aircraft.

StandardAero Component Services is expanding its facilities in Cincinnati and Hillsboro, Ohio, and Miami by a total of 260,000 sq. ft. at a cost of $16 million.

Textron Aviation is halting production of the high-performance Cessna TTx single. Last year, it delivered just 23 units, down from 31 in 2016 and 44 in 2015.

Embraer delivered 109 executive jets—72 light and 37 large—in 2017 and says it plans to deliver 105-125 jets this year.

Honeywell has announced that President and CEO Darius Adamczyk also will be chairman when current Chairman Dave Cote retires at the end of April.

Air medical transport company Air Medical Resource Group has changed its name to Guardian Flight. Air Medical Group Holdings recently acquired Guardian Flight, which operates a fleet of about 100 fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft in the Upper Midwest, Mountain West, Southwest, Alaska and Hawaii.

According to the U.S. Transportation Department Inspector General's Office, evaluations in 2013 and 2014 found that the FAA's Civil Aviation Registry lacked accurate and complete information on pilots and aircraft registered in the U.S., including aircraft owned under trusts.

Med-Trans Corp., an air medical transport company, and Care Flight have partnered to provide helicopter medical service to Nevada and California.

Bell has officially dropped the word "helicopter" from its name. CEO Mitch Snyder explained that the term had become "very confining" but added "this does not mean we are not going to keep building helicopters or tiltrotors."

ConnectJets has confirmed the first delivery of an Avanti EVO turboprop to a UK customer.

With the airlines poaching business aviation pilots to fill their rosters, Executive AirShare is raising its pilots' salaries across-the-board.

XTI Aircraft says its TriFan 600 prototype is on budget and on schedule for a first flight later this year. A unique design, it is a six-passenger vertical- and short-takeoff luxury aircraft expected to reach speeds of more than 260 kt. and have a range of slightly more than 1,200 nm.

Bell is equipping its Model 407GXi single-engine light helicopter with Garmin's G1000H NXi integrated avionics suite and powering it with an uprated version of the Rolls-Royce M250 turbine engine.

Airbus Helicopters plans to build a second commercial helicopter, the EC145e, in the U.S. to support the emergency medical services (EMS) market. The company's Columbus, Mississippi, facility will build 25 of the models, following an order from Metro Aviation, an EMS operator and completion firm.