Fielding depends on implementation of new fleet-management concept

Nigerian newspaper The Nation has reported that Dana Air has applied to the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) for a series of regional traffic rights that exist through bilateral agreements but not yet being utilised.

A radical conversion of an Avro RJ85 regional jet by firefighting company Conair Aviation has made its first flight. Canada-based Conair Aviation is one of four North American firefighting operators that have selected the British Aerospace BAe 146 and Avro RJ series of aircraft for the mission, but unlike the other three, the company has gone for a highly complex configuration attaching the water tank outside the pressure hull.

In-flight broadband provider Gogo has launched a hybrid network solution for the North American market capable of delivering more than 60 Mbps to an aircraft, 20 times the speed of Gogo’s initial air-to-ground (ATG) product, which was launched five years ago. Launch customer Virgin America expects to begin flying with the new technology in the second half of 2014. The new service, Gogo Ground to Orbit (GTO), is expected to increase speeds by more than six times the company’s current enhanced ATG product, says Gogo.

JetBlue Airways Chief Operating Officer Rob Maruster says the FAA has a “credibility” problem implementing the satellite-based NextGen air traffic control (ATC) system, leading many U.S. airlines to worry that expensive investments in equipment deemed critical to NextGen’s success will not “pay off.”

Installation of JetBlue Airways’ long-awaited Wi-Fi service is set to begin in the coming weeks following the FAA’s approval of the system for Airbus A320s. The airline has selected Aviation Technical Services (ATS) to retrofit up to 130 Airbus A320s with the Internet system, which JetBlue calls Fly-Fi. The first aircraft is set to be modified in November or “possibly sooner,” ATS CEO Matt Yerbic tells Aviation Week. JetBlue says the fleet will be completed by 2015, with some work being handled by its LiveTV subsidiary in Orlando, Fla.

Business aviation activity in North Africa is out-performing global average, according to MEBAA, the association for business aviation across the Middle East and North Africa.

Three important merger activities should be completed this week at Kellstrom Materials, the company formed through Kellstrom Commercial Aerospace’s May 17 purchase of AirLiance Materials from Lufthansa Technic. The combined company will start using Kellstrom’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) system Phoenix, which will go live at the legacy AirLiance facility near Chicago O’Hare International Airport.