Japan Airlines expects its frequent- flier membership passengers to be able to make or change seat assignments on the web beginning Apr. 1. Boarding passes will be available at the airport through a self-service machine or check-in counter.
Iberia Airlines hopes the terms it has negotiated for its new Airbus A320-series twinjet aircraft will help it combat competition from low-fare carriers, a chief depressor of its yields for 2004. In its annual results presented last week, Iberia reports consolidated income of 220 million euros ($289 million), a 52.4% increase over 2003. It increased load factors in long-haul operations to 81.6% and boosted the network load factor to a record 75.2%. Domestic operations saw a 1.5% drop to 71.5%.
Peter Goebbels has been named vice president-business unit service management for Germany-based SAP. Other new appointees are: Juergen Weiner, vice president of the merged Aerospace and Defense and Machinery, Engineering and Construction units; and Martin Elsner, director of the Aerospace and Defense Manufacturer group.
A drawdown of U.S. soldiers in Iraq hinges on the ability of Iraqi forces to take over security responsibilities. But Sen. Carl Levin (Mich.), the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, complains Congress can't get a straight answer on how many Iraqi security forces there are, much less how many are needed. President Bush announced last September that "nearly 100,000" Iraqi soldiers, police officers and other personnel were at work. But subsequent estimates from U.S. military commanders put the number at 30,000-40,000.
John W. Guffey, Jr., has become CEO and John J. Perrotti president/chief operating officer of the Gleason Corp., Rochester, N.Y. Guffey has been chairman of the board of directors' audit committee and is a former president/CEO of Coltec Industries. Perrotti has been executive vice president/chief financial officer. They succeed David J. Burns, who has resigned as president/CEO. John W. Pysnack has been promoted to vice president-finance from controller.
India's proposed fiscal 2005 budget has a jackpot for aviation services, a 62% increase from 2004 that reaches $528 million. The allocation for the state-owned domestic/regional carrier, Indian Airlines, has jumped nearly four times to help it pay for 43 Airbus aircraft, for which orders are said to be in the final stage. An exemption to a lease withholding tax on aircraft and engines has been extended to Sept. 30. National demand for about 40 aircraft had carriers in overdrive to place orders before the exemption ran out Mar. 30.
I agree with your editorial that the Airbus A380 is a major achievement (AW&ST Jan. 24, p. 58). However, your implication that it represents technical innovation is a reach. The A380 is simply a bigger Boeing 747 with an extended upper deck. Similarly, the Boeing 787 is just a 767 with higher composite content. Both new airplanes are the same tube, wing tail and podded engines layout with Mach 0.8- something speed that has been the norm since the l960s. They promise more efficiency and perhaps are right for the market, but they are not innovative.
Michael Cox (see photo) has been named vice president-communications for Fort Worth-based Bell Helicopter Textron. He succeeds Carl Harris, who has retired. Cox was acting director of public affairs and advertising.
Dain M. Hancock has been named to the board of directors of Textron Inc., Providence, R.I. He is retired as corporate executive vice president of the Lockheed Martin Corp./ president of the Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co.
Don Peterson has been promoted to director of aircraft sales from Midwest U.S. director of Pilatus aircraft for the Kansas City Aviation Center, Olathe, Kan.
India's proposed defense budget for fiscal 2005 will increase more than $2 billion to $19 billion, but military leaders say it isn't a "healthy sign" that the procurement account was bumped up only $220 million to $7.8 billion. The proposal, which will apply to the fiscal year that begins Apr. 1, emerged last week against a backdrop of an expanding national economy but warnings from neighboring Pakistan that India's proposed military spending is not a "healthy sign" for the region.
China Telecommunications Satellite Corp. (ChinaSat) has accepted an agreement that calls for Space Systems/Loral to continue to seek State Dept. approval for the delivery of ChinaSat 8, but recognizes that SS/L "has no obligation to deliver the ChinaSat satellite until all required export licenses are received." The case dates to 1998, when Congress was scrutinizing allegations that Loral Space & Communications (SS/L's parent company) and others had improperly given technical assistance that could be used in China's military space programs. U.S.
Former astronaut and USAF Col. (ret.) Rick Searfoss has been named to the board of directors of Sanswire Networks, a subsidiary of the GlobeTel Communications Corp., Pembroke Pines, Fla.
I was puzzled by Ronald H. Barnhard's logic regarding the Boeing 787/Airbus competition (AW&ST Jan. 10, p. 5). The Airbus brain trust has been correct on each program launched since the company's inception. That there were orders for 149 A380s by rollout for an aircraft so massive speaks for itself. The 747 line has been reduced to building freighters because Boeing's cash cow hardly represents the newest technology.
Teams bidding for the right to deploy and operate Europe's Galileo satellite navigation system are expressing dismay at a new postponement of the concession decision. The Galileo Joint Undertaking (GJU), the public-private partnership responsible for managing development of the system, announced last week that it was extending the bid review by three months. This came despite earlier assurances that it would select the winner by early March (AW&ST Jan. 31, p. 26).
Titan Corp. has agreed to pay a $28.5-million fine to settle federal bribery allegations, capping an affair that prompted Lockheed Martin Corp. to scuttle a $2.4-billion deal to acquire the defense IT contractor (AW&ST July 5, 2004, p. 38). The Securities and Exchange Commission had accused Titan of funneling $2 million to the reelection campaign of the president of the West African nation of Benin to influence a telecommunications project.
Stephen Penley (see photos) has been appointed chief financial officer and Charles Gumbert vice president-maintenance operations for M7 Aerospace of San Antonio. Penley was CFO of Procyon Technologies of Chicago, while Gumbert was president of the Electromechanical Div. of McKechnie Aerospace, Wichita, Kan.
Oliver Martins has been appointed Tulsa, Okla.-based vice president-engineering, quality assurance and planning in the Maintenance and Engineering Div. of American Airlines. He succeeds Randy Phillips, who recently retired. Martins was managing director of powerplant maintenance.
In your editorial entitled "Taxing One of Many Targets" (AW&ST Feb. 14, p. 70), I found the following sentence: "Harming commercial aviation and killing air travelers was, at most, a secondary reason Al Qaeda hijacked and destroyed three airliners on that fateful day." Have you so soon forgotten that four airliners, not three, were hijacked and destroyed?
Austria's air navigation service provider hopes to expand on the success of multilateration control of terminal airspace at Innsbruck Airport and reduce its dependence on radar for surveillance of en route traffic in the region.
With the threat of a hostile bid hanging over its head, Thales is trying to convince the French government and other major shareholders that independence remains the best strategy for the aerospace/defense electronics company. Chairman/CEO Denis Ranque insists Thales should, and can, continue on its own, noting that it has grown 70% and doubled its earnings since it was reorganized in 1998, despite having divested 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) in non-core activities.
The modified Lockheed Martin external tank for the space shuttle's planned May return to flight has been stacked on the mission's two solid rocket boosters in the Kennedy Space Center Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB). The stacking was delayed for several days by paperwork, tweaks to hardware and overall mission scheduling. The modifications to thermal protection foam designed to protect the tank from ascent heating, and to orbiter interface hardware, are the most critical changes to prevent a repeat of the launch debris damage blamed in the loss of Columbia and her crew.
NASA is attempting to absorb a 40% cut in its aircraft technology-development programs without a clear national aeronautics policy to guide it--leaving the door open to parochial logrolling as the agency mothballs wind tunnels to achieve the new deep-space focus ordered by President Bush. With the drumbeat growing on Capitol Hill to save constituent jobs threatened by the shrinking aeronautics accounts, the official in charge of managing the shrinkage says he needs a little more guidance to do the job right.
The French defense ministry says it will seek 1.3 billion euros ($1.7 billion) in new funding for 2005-08 to finance development and construction of eight multimission Fremm frigates. The move would mean boosting outlays in France's 2003-08 multiyear defense spending plan, which is already under heavy pressure because of the country's ballooning government deficit.
