Low-fare carriers have seen tremendous growth, but a depressed global economy and a run-up in fuel costs during the summer has raised serious questions about the viability of the business model. And even though some low-fare airlines have disappeared, others such as Ryanair and EasyJet are seen as sufficiently financially resilient to survive. A special report on how the carriers are adapting to survive and what growth prospects remain begin on p. 72. Mark Wagner photo.
More than a third of the world airlines’ direct operating costs (DOC) are in the hands of the Organization of Petrol Exporting Countries—36% to be exact—based on the International Air Transport Assn.’s latest calculations. In 2002, IATA economists note, fuel accounted for no more than 13% of DOC.
Boeing has been chosen for the initial phase of upgrading the radar on Saudi Arabia’s fleet of five E-3A Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft. The foreign military sale, not to exceed $42 million, was contracted through the Electronic Systems Center at Hanscom AFB, Mass. The first phase will involve a study to determine obsolete and unavailable parts, followed by locating and testing parts from new sources for the modification.
British reliance on U.S. intelligence satellite capabilities has in some ways made the U.K. “lazy,” suggests RAF Air Vice Marshal Tim Anderson, the assistant chief of the air staff. Anderson, speaking at a Royal United Services Institute conference on military space in London last week, suggests “a national capability . . . is something we are going to have to increasingly look at.”
Michael A. Taverna (Lille, France), Douglas Barrie (London)
The European Space Agency hopes that an infusion of money from the U.K. will prevent a planned reduction in Italian funding from threatening key new programs.
Saying it can reduce Predator unmanned aircraft system losses by 50%, Raytheon submitted an unsolicited bid to the U.S. Air Force Sept. 16 for a common ground control system (CGCS). Raytheon also said it can save the service $500 million by reducing manpower and training time requirements by 20% and reducing training time and costs by 30%. The company said its proposed CGCS can be ready in less than 12 months, as long as it receives data support from platform primes and adequate funding support from the Defense Dept.
The TMB 850 is a single-engine, turboprop-powered business transport. It replaced the earlier TBM 700 in 2006. The TBM 850 is powered by a Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-66D turboprop engine rated 850 shp. It seats four passengers in a club layout or six passengers in a high-density configuration. The aircraft has a range of about 1,520 naut. mi. A total of 88 were built through 2007. Production of 460 TBM 850s is forecast for the 2008-17 time period. EADS Socata is aiming the TBM 850 to compete with Very Light Jets.
Brandee Reynolds has been named vice president-inflight services for Atlantic Southeast Airlines . She has been director of labor contract administration.
The U.S. government plans to buy up to two commercial-class satellites under a new Broad Area Space-based Imagery Collector (Basic) program to collect imagery for use by the Pentagon and intelligence community.
The credit rating for Italy’s Aeroporti di Roma SpA. had been reduced to negative from stable by Standard & Poor’s, in the wake of Italian carrier Alitalia’s descent into receivership as well as concerns about the airline’s restructuring. (S&P, like Aviation Week & Space Technology, is a unit of The McGraw-Hill Companies.) The airport’s weaknesses also include an aggressive financial profile, a protracted regulatory process for a tariff increase, its dependence on Alitalia and weak financial performance in the first six months of this year.
As Boeing deals with a massive strike affecting its flagship 787 transport program, a pair of legal issues in the space arena are coming to a head, contributing to its woes.
India’s Defense Research Development Organization has carried out a further series of ground-launched test shots of its Astra medium-range air-to-air missile. Two firings were carried out, one each on Sept. 13 and 14, to examine the weapon’s fly-out performance including mid-course guidance and data-link updates against a maneuvering target. Astra is expected to enter service around 2013. Trials using the missile’s active radar terminal seeker are anticipated in 2010. Air-launched testing will use the Sukhoi Su-30MKI.
This pressurized, single-turboprop-powered, corporate/utility transport aircraft first flew in May 1991, and received Swiss and U.S. certification in 1994. It has seating for nine passengers in its standard layout. Assembly of green aircraft, as well as the manufacture of certain components, is performed by OGMA of Portugal. The current PC-12 production version is the Next Generation PC-12 (PC-12 NG), a substantially enhanced version powered by the 1,200-shp. Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-67P turboprop engine.
China looks certain to become one of the world’s biggest low-cost airline markets, even though its budget sector is puny and will stay that way until the government removes substantial obstacles, probably over the next decade. Economically and geographically, the country is prime budget airline territory. China now has an average income that is about typical of the Asian countries where low-cost carriers have boomed beyond expectation this decade.
Advocates of space solar power (SSP) are citing a recent low-budget demonstration of long-range electric power transmission in urging some serious government work on the technology. At a time when both U.S. presidential candidates are promising to push alternative energy sources for economic and climate reasons, longtime SSP advocate John C. Mankins used less than $1 million—plus a lot of volunteer labor by students from Texas A&M and Japan’s Kobe University—to collect solar energy at high elevation on the Hawaiian island of Maui.
Tom Neufelder has become vice president-engineering for the Avidyne Corp. , Lincoln, Mass. He was vice president/general manager for General Electric Healthcare’s Independent Practice Engineering, Plano, Tex., and had been a senior engineer at the then-Westinghouse Electric Corp. in Baltimore.
Doug Runte has been appointed managing director/senior analyst in fixed-income analytics in the New York office of Minneapolis-based Piper Jaffray & Co. Scott Sodokoff has been named managing director/senior trader, also in the New York office. Dan Reese has become senior desk analyst in Minneapolis, and John Covello has become an aircraft finance trader in New York. Runte was a managing director in the transportation sector at RBS Greenwich Capital, while Sodokoff was a managing director/senior trader and Covello a trader at Bear Stearns.
The Japan Aircraft Development Corp. will give priority to a commercial version of the Kawasaki Heavy Industries C-X military airlifter over development of the YPX airliner. It is possible that the civil version of the twinjet C-X, which has not flown, would have a stretched fuselage.
San Francisco International Airport will refurbish its unused Terminal 2 in a two-year, $383-million project that will add 13 narrow-body gates and one for widebodies to its domestic services. Virgin America has committed to the new terminal and the airport is in discussions with JetBlue. They and Southwest Airlines helped push SFO’s passenger count up 14% last year.
At the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Joint Propulsion Conference in June 1983, Pratt & Whitney and Garrett presented technical papers on the use of Monte Carlo Simulation computer models, showing the validity and value of simulation in evaluating uncertainty in the development process. It is perfectly appropriate for USAF to use such a tool in evaluating proposals because it uses the same ranges of uncertainty as inputs, where separate use by proposers would likely see different ranges used.
