SWISS RETURNS TO ASIA-PACIFIC Code-share agreements with Japan Airlines and Qantas have put Swiss International Air Lines, the successor to Swissair, back into the Asia-Pacific region. Combined with agreements signed last December, Swiss is once again represented on five continents. Agreements signed late last year with Finnair and Iberia mean that Swiss now has code shares with six Oneworld alliance partners (including American Airlines, British Airways and Aer Lingus).
Additional air-launched precision-guided munitions--likely including the Enhanced Paveway--are being bought by Britain as a result of the crisis in Iraq. The Defense Ministry has now approved 170 urgent operational requirements valued at around 500 million pounds ($800 million) covering a broad range of acquisitions.
Dallas Mayfield has been appointed general manager of AAR Cargo Systems, Wood Dale, Ill. He succeeds Pete Compton, who is retiring. Mayfield was vice president/division controller for Eagle Picher.
Few in the Pentagon believe the military part of an offensive against Iraq will be anything but a walkover, but there is an undercurrent of concern about the gritty details of intelligence gathering and sharing, communications and the shaking out, before the shooting starts, of a lean, regional command structure flexible enough to react quickly to unanticipated crises once combat begins.
The U.S., U.K. and other members of a "coalition of the willing" are on the verge of a war with Iraq. Military action could start as early as next week, and President Bush's administration does not appear to have its act together. Late last week, Bush was using telephone diplomacy in an 11th-hour attempt to scare up enough votes in the United Nations Security Council to get his, or any, resolution through with enough strength to validate a war with Iraq.
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AEROMEXICO REPLACING DC-9S AeroMexico has formally approved contracts for 15 Boeing 737-700s with 8-ft. winglet wing extensions to replace its DC-9 fleet. The $500-million deal involves a combination of sales and lease-back and straight lease contracts with Lombard Aviation Capital and International Lease Finance Corp.
L-3 Communications' Display Systems has been awarded a contract from Marshall Aerospace to provide electronic flight instruments/radar display units for Royal Australian Air Force's C-130s under a $3-million contract.
FORGOTTEN CONCERNS A leading advocacy group for gulf war veterans is concerned that U.S. soldiers could develop mysterious illnesses in a second war with Iraq. They say a law requiring the Pentagon to monitor the situation is not being followed. A spokesman said that provisions in the 1998 defense authorization bill calls for the military to collect baseline data before troops deploy.
An F/A-18 lands on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln from which Senior Pentagon Editor Robert Wall watched operations in the Persian Gulf before heading for assignment with U.S. Marines in Kuwait (see p. 44). The U.S. Navy has spent a decade improving its carrier-based strike force. U.S. Navy photo.
John P. Nahill has become CEO of Flight Options of Cleveland. He was vice president-corporate strategy and development for the Raytheon Co. and had been a director of Flight Options since its merger with Raytheon Travel Air.
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Jeff Griffith has become vice president-air traffic management for The Washington Consulting Group, Bethesda, Md. He was deputy director of air traffic for the FAA.
Charles A. Kick has been appointed president of the Gaithersburg, Md.-based Signia-IDT division of Integrated Defense Technologies. He was vice president-operations.
CTT Systems has received an order from England's Air 2000 to equip up to six Airbus A321 aircraft with its CTT Zonal Drying System. The order is firm for two aircraft, with options for another four.
Theo Staub (see photo) has been named interim chief operating officer of U.S. operations for Zurich-based Jet Aviation. He succeeds Terrance P. Kelley, who has resigned as president/COO of U.S. operations.
HELP LINE Some Iraqi troop commanders are phoning their counterparts in U.S. and coalition units in Kuwait, trying to arrange quick surrenders as soon as any invasion starts, according to a senior Pentagon official. There also have been contacts at much higher command levels, leading to speculation that actual combat with Iraq might be forestalled by senior-level defections. Cynics say any such move, if at all possible given Saddam Hussein's periodic, Gestapo-like purges of senior officers, would have happened before now.
SETI@HOME RESULTS Researchers plan to use the Arecibo radio telescope this month to take another look at some 150 celestial radio sources identified as likely targets in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) by a unique distributed computing project that takes advantage of home-computer downtime around the world.
Emirates Airlines, nearing the end of what it believes will be its most profitable year ever, thinks it would be affected only mildly and briefly by a war in Iraq.
NASTY BREAK Fiber-optic cables protect critical military communications from interception by electronic eavesdroppers, but recent U.S. Air Force tests show that general purpose bombs dropped on connector boxes, where lines enter and emerge from the ground, "shatter fiber-optic cables for a couple of miles," said a senior Air Force official. "It distorts the fiber optics and leaves them hard to repair." Iraq has spent nearly a decade rebuilding its air defenses with fiber-optic cables to make them more secure.
Eumetsat has approved the acquisition of a fourth new-generation MSG geostationary weather satellite to provide Europe, Africa and Asia with expanded meteorological and extreme weather forecasting. The 391-million euro spacecraft will complement the first MSG, launched last year, and two others currently on order (AW&ST Sept. 9, 2002, p. 86).
General Electric's propulsion candidate for Boeing's 7E7 aircraft will incorporate new technologies that should boost component efficiency, decrease noise, reduce emissions, and simplify maintenance and support.
An agreement between the Allied Pilots Assn. and American Airlines on concessions is expected by June, according to an industry analyst. An agreement with the airline's pilots would be a crucial step in helping the airline avoid filing for protection under Chapter 11 bankruptcy rules. But any concessions probably will come at a price: union leadership will demand that American management precisely define the carrier's business plan for recovery, including how it intends to compete with low-cost carriers such as Southwest Airlines.
