DOMESTIC BLISS The JAL Group celebrated the first anniversary of the merger of Japan Airlines (JAL) and Japan Air System (JAS) with happy news for management. Besides being the world's third-largest carrier in terms of sales, it is fifth-largest in passenger count. Its share of Japan's domestic market now surpasses long-time leader All Nippon Airways. JAL was always Japan's leader for international travel. By absorbing JAS, it gained enough domestic routes to bring its overall operations to a 50/50 split.
NEW SPOT PARTNERS Spot Image continues to expand its global network of distribution and receiving agreements. Last week it added Inta SpaceTurk as the eighth member of its Channel Partnership, which grants exclusive distribution rights over broad areas of data use. Inta SpaceTurk will distribute imaging from the new Spot 5 spacecraft, launched last year, to Turkey, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Georgia, as well as Ukraine, Syria and Lebanon.
OSP POSSIBILITIES NASA's Integrated Space Transportation Plan, which set up the Orbital Space Plane (OSP) as the next U.S. spacecraft for human crews when it was introduced last November (AW&ST Oct. 28, 2002, p. 26) is back on the drawing board.
Where Atlantic Coast Airlines' wheel of fortune will stop is in the hands of its board of directors, which last week began weighing what it called Mesa Air Group's "unsolicited and unexpected" merger proposal.
Fresh from presentations to top Washington officials, EADS executives were in New York last week to woo Wall Street investors. Their aim: to convince U.S. money managers, who own just 2-3% of EADS stock--barely a tenth of its float--that the company would make a good investment. Co-CEO Philippe Camus said EADS hopes to obtain a listing on the New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq within three years.
J. Kenneth Glass has been named to the board of directors of the Fedex Corp., Memphis, Tenn. He is president/CEO of the First Tennessee Corp. of Memphis. Ralph D. DeNunzio and F.S. Garrison have retired.
WELCOME BACK The Pentagon is putting a new twist on the famous "revolving door," which traditionally has referred to the tendency of retiring civilians and military folks to jump right to the defense industry. But what started as an aberration when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld tapped Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the once-retired Special Operations Command chief, to be the new Army chief of staff has developed into a full-fledged trend. Also back is Navy Secretary Gordon R.
The U.S. Navy's meticulous road map for transitioning to the EA-18G "Growler" from the EA-6B later this decade may be in trouble, with signs emerging that the Pentagon will face a shortage of available support-jamming aircraft.
The Russian air force appears to have bolstered its medium-term claim to be the third leg in the country's nuclear triad, the role enshrined in the defense ministry's revamped doctrine unveiled this month.
PARTS TIME Kennametal Inc., a tooling company of Latrobe, Pa., and Vykor Inc., a Seattle-based provider of sourcing solutions for engineered parts, are offering a partnership program to parts manufacturers that promises a substantial increase in machining efficiencies. The companies tested the process improvements during production of 110 aerospace parts manufactured at 20 companies. A median reduction of 22% in cycle time was recorded. Ellanef Corp.
Honeywell Technology Solutions of Columbia, Md., has picked up two NASA support contracts worth as much as $1.685 billion growing out of the old Consolidated Space Operations Contract. Space communications work, worth a potential $785.2 million, is covered in the Near Earth Network Services contract, which consists of a $185.2-million "core component" to provide most communications from Earth-orbiting NASA spacecraft, including space shuttles, the International Space Station and the Hubble Space Telescope.
Russia may or may not have the money to keep supplying the International Space Station while NASA's space shuttle is grounded, but it has big ideas for future human space exploration that would follow some of the same technology tracks the U.S. space agency is pursuing.
EARTH OBSERVATION France has inked an agreement with China that will allow the two countries to work together in the field of Earth observation. Speaking in Paris, Chinese Science and Technology Minister Xu Guanghua said the accord would focus heavily on surveillance of the environment, agriculture, forestry and related areas. This autumn, China is slated to assume the presidency of the international Committee on Earth Observation Satellites.
The U.S. and Vietnam, connected only by third-country code-sharing under their March 2000 aviation agreement, initialed a broadened, five-year deal Oct. 9 that will open up direct service by airlines from each country. Two passenger carriers from each country will be able to launch scheduled service of seven round trips per week immediately, joined by a third airline from each in the third year. Any number of cargo airlines will be allowed to operate scheduled service without frequency limits.
When I was a young pilot landing on carriers, we snickered as the senior aviators approaching 30 cajoled the operations officers into scheduling their night flying during moonlit nights. As I approached 30, I gave myself another 50 ft. of cushion during low-altitude tactics at 500 kt. and treetop level. As an airline copilot in my early 30s, I was annoyed at the "old man" in the left seat wearing his silly bifocals at night with the cockpit lights turned up bright.
With the cloud of SARS fears lifted from the Asia-Pacific region, Chinese carriers are planning expansion in passenger and cargo services throughout Asia. In Beijing, Air China is consolidating routes, acquiring new domestic and regional aircraft and taking some cues from the West in terms of service quality as it strives to achieve a No. 1 ranking.
AN OPEN AND CUT CASE? Comair has asked pilot and flight attendant unions to reopen contracts to begin discussions about wages and work rules with an eye to cutting costs. President Randy Rademacher said a reduced cost structure would make the airline more competitive and a growth vehicle for owner Delta Air Lines. He said cost reductions could allow expansion of the Comair fleet of 152 regional jets by 50% within four years. Officials of the Air Line Pilots Assn.
All Nippon Airways is venturing onto sacred ground. It has proposed a 5% cut in basic wages for all staff, including flight crews, to begin next spring. The proposal comes on top of a 5% cut in pay for its administrative staff and a 10% cut in retirement benefits that went into effect last April.
The National Transportation Safety Board may be calling for tighter inspections because it "believes that airplanes may . . . have been returned to service after high-g events in an unairworthy condition"--given findings in the investigation of the AA587 disaster (AW&ST Sept. 15, p. 17).
The due diligence process between Finmeccanica and BAE Systems to establish a set of joint ventures in the areas of avionics, military communications and C 4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance) is slated to be completed in January, says Finmeccanica CEO Roberto Testore. The companies earlier this year agreed to establish the three joint ventures, with BAE Systems holding the majority share in the C 4ISR entity and Finmeccanica dominating the other two units.
NATO MISSILE DEFENSE NATO has selected a Science Applications International Corp.-led team to study missile defenses for the alliance. The SAIC group beat a consortium led by Lockheed Martin for the project agreed on last November during the Prague summit of NATO heads of state. SAIC--with its partners Boeing, Diehl, EADS, Thales, Alenia Spazio, Raytheon, ACSI, Dutch TNO and IABG of Germany--are slated to receive a 15-million-euro ($17.7-million), 18-month contract for a technical feasibility assessment, cost and schedule estimate.
POLISH LUFTWAFFE The German air force has begun a year-long process of getting rid of its remaining MiG-29s by handing them off to its eastern neighbor, Poland. The first five of 23 MiG-29s left Germany late last month for their new home, with final deliveries slated for mid-2004. The move allows Germany to prepare for the introduction of the Eurofighter Typhoon. The MiG-29s will allow Poland to replace aging MiG-21s. Warsaw last year also committed to buying new F-16s from the U.S.
BETTER HORNETS The Finnish air force is considering further upgrades to its F/A-18s. Under the proposed deal with Washington, Finland would buy 64 F/A-18C/D Fleet Retrofit Kits at a cost that could run up to $130 million. Included would be Joint Helmet-Mounted Cueing Systems, Tactical Aircraft Moving Maps and digital communications to wingtip wiring systems. The Finns also would get 144 AIM-9X-compatible launchers and 36 AN/APX-111 interrogator/transponders.
EVERGREEN AVIATION INTERNATIONAL OF MCMINNVILLE, Ore., purchased three Bell Helicopter Textron Eagle Eye tiltrotors. The aircraft are intended for aerial surveys of pipe and powerlines, as well as for observing forest fires.
FRANCE OKS ATBM RADAR DEMO France has tapped ThalesRaytheonSystems to develop a demonstrator for a new-generation radar aimed at defending against tactical ballistic missile and conventional aerial threats. Work on the Mobile Multifunctional Modular Radar (M3R), to be shared with the Thales group, will seek to validate novel solid-state component technology and a new modular active phased-array antenna design.
