Stoppage of an 18-year-old legacy crew-tracking system is the likely focus of a U.S. Transportation Dept. investigation into the storm-connected disruption of holiday travel at the Delta Connection carrier Comair.
JEPPESEN HAS SIGNED A NEW FOUR-YEAR CONTRACT with NetJets to expand its support of the fractional business jet operator. Jeppesen personnel providing international trip planning will now be stationed at a NetJets facility near Hilton Head, S.C., as well as at its original Columbus, Ohio, flight ops center. NetJets expected to log 260,000 flights to more than 140 countries in 2004, with a fleet of 14 models of light, midsize and large business jets. NetJets is owned by Warren E. Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc., as is FlightSafety International.
The cost of airline food is one area that legacy carriers should attack vigorously, says consultant Edmund S. Greenslet. In the first six months of 2004, per passenger expenditures for food at the Big Six, in domestic services only, ranged from American's $3.88 to US Airways' $1.55. In between those extremes, Continental spent $3.67, United, $3.43, Delta, $2.87, and Northwest, $1.95. America West has already bit the bullet, dropping its food cost to 55 cents per passenger during this period. Southwest's food cost has been the same for years, about 23 cents per passenger.
For all its success in the past 12 months, EADS is starting the year saddled with some serious organizational problems. And there's no clearer evidence of what lies ahead than the unexpected ouster of Rainer Hertrich and Philippe Camus, co-chief executives of the European aerospace and defense giant.
James H. Tate has been named to the board of directors of Timco Aviation Services Inc., Greensboro, N.C. He is senior vice president/ chief financial officer of the Thermadyne Holdings Corp. of St. Louis.
Fueled by orders from new Asian carriers, Airbus continues to gain ground in single-aisle sales and Boeing is beginning to complain, proclaiming that the European manufacturer is discounting the market by as much as 60%. December was a good month for Airbus, which gained a 40-aircraft order for A320s from Malaysia's AirAsia, with an option for 40 more, and an order for 30 more A320s from India's Air Deccan. Another Indian carrier, Kingfisher Airlines, said it also will take 30 A320s.
Problems with the supply of a cryptological subsystem and other issues are driving up the cost of key U.S. Air Force communications satellites by 20% and will extend to at least five years a gap in the Pentagon's satcom architecture.
Arianespace has set Feb. 11 as the date for the reflight of its Ariane 5 ECA heavy-lift booster, intended to launch a Spanish military/civil telecom satellite, XTAR-EUR. The mission was initially set for November but had to be slipped when final checks mandated after a failed maiden flight in December 2002 took longer than expected (AW&ST Nov. 22, 2004, p. 20).
Klaus Bernhardt has been appointed CEO of Lufthansa Systems Americas. He had been acting CEO and was managing director of Synavion, a joint venture between Lufthansa and Siemens.
Scaled Composites' GlobalFlyer soars over Southern California with project leader Jon Karkow at the controls. Sponsored by Virgin Atlantic, adventurer Steve Fossett will attempt to fly GlobalFlyer around the world as soon as next month (see p. 46). Jim Sugar photo for Scaled Composites.
Thomas L. Dobrenz, a Northrop Grumman Corp. engineer who directs systems integration and survivability activities at the Integrated Systems Sector, has received the Combat Survivability Award for Technical Achievement from the National Defense Industry Assn. He was cited for contributions to stealth technology. Dobrenz helped design and develop stealth aircraft such as the B-2 bomber, F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and X-47B unmanned combat air vehicle.
The Philippine government on Dec. 21 seized control of construction of Manila's $650-million Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3. The move followed 18 months of deadlocked negotiations between the government and the building consortium, Philippine International Air Terminals company and its foreign partner, Germany's Fraport AG (Frankfurt Airport Services). Manila's Terminal 3, designed to handle 13 million passengers a year, was scheduled to open at the end of 2002.
I heard a noise when I opened up my mailbox, which contained the issue of AW&ST with the article "Sea Hunt." After I read the article, I realized the noise was the U.S. Navy. I see the Air Force is now spending money to see if smart bombs can sink ships.
Systems and integration issues threaten to delay delivery of the Chinese FC-1/JF-17 light fighter to Pakistan, while the air force may eventually order far fewer than the 150 originally anticipated. Export of the fighter's Russian engine, the Klimov RD-93, is uncertain, and several other subsystem vendor choices also remain outstanding. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov has reportedly warned that an export license would not be forthcoming.
Boeing recorded an end-of-the-year bonus when Continental Airlines became the first U.S. network carrier to order the 7E7, buying 10 of the mid-sized jets with a book value of $1.3 billion.
Shortly before the winter holiday season, Boeing began shipping the first parts for the prototype 747-400 Special Freighter to its Chinese supplier partner, Taikoo Aircraft Engineering Co. (Taeco) in Xiamen. Launched last January with an order from Cathay Pacific, the SF program converts passenger -400s into freighters, including installation of a side cargo door sized to accept 96 X 125-in. pallets. The company has 22 orders and firm options from five customers.
The Huygens probe is set to enter the atmosphere of Jupiter's moon Titan on Jan. 14, after a successful release from the Cassini orbiter late Christmas eve.
James E. Lara has become president/chief operating officer of MedAire Inc., Tempe, Ariz. As president, he succeeds company founder Joan Sullivan Garrett, who remains chairwoman/CEO. Lara has been a member of the board of directors. As COO, he succeeds Kjell Andreassen, who has resigned.
The White House Office of Management and Budget is telling the Pentagon to slash its 2006 budget plan by $10 billion and prepare for another $10-billion cut each year for the duration of the future years' defense plan, sending military officials scrambling to comply with the last-minute financial demand.
"There is no such thing as a little ice," says the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board in a Dec. 29 alert letter to pilots. Such alerts are rare, and the move was prompted in part by the Nov. 28, 2004, crash of a Bombardier Challenger 604 at Montrose, Colo. NTSB's preliminary investigation showed that conditions conducive to upper wing surface ice accumulation existed at the time of the crash. The board wanted to emphasize to pilots that minute amounts of ice--and not only visible ice contamination--can result in severe aerodynamic and control penalties.
MHI is expected to invest about 80 billion yen ($762 million) as it prepares to develop and produce the composite wing for Boeing's 7E7. About half the money will go for research and development, the rest for construction of plant and production facilities, including a new autoclave. Mitsubishi expects the program will be profitable within 4-5 years from the scheduled start of services by the 7E7 with All Nippon Airways in 2008.
Asia's airline establishment isn't doing badly, even as discounters play a bigger role in the region. The Assn. of Asia Pacific Airlines says members' passenger traffic jumped 11.1% in November over the previous year's 10.1 million. Revenue passenger kilometers were up 6.3%, slightly ahead of a 4.8% rise in capacity. As a result, load factors were up 1.1 percentage points to 73.2%.
Israel's publicly traded defense industrial sector is undergoing more reshuffling. In an interweaved process, the ownership structure for Elbit Systems, Elisra and Tadiran Communications will change. In the first phase of the latest alterations, the investment holding company Koor Industries is selling 13.8% of Tadiran to Elbit for about $63 million. Elbit already holds 4.4% of Tadiran. In turn, Koor will take a 5.3% stake in Elbit, buying it for $53 million from Federmann Enterprises. Then Tadiran will buy 70% of Elisra that is now held by Koor.
Boeing and the U.S. Air Force will make software and timing changes to performance measurement avionics on the Delta IV Heavy to correct an early engine-cutoff problem found during the initial flight test Dec. 21. The mission marked the largest all-liquid expendable booster since the last Apollo-Saturn V mission in 1973.
