Some airports are giving their retail concessionaires a break on payments and virtually all some flexibility on items like business hours to account for recent traffic declines. But a key executive at concession industry leader HMS Host sees airport retailers retrenching after years of expansion that probably went too far.
Grant T. Hollett, Jr., has been appointed chairman and interim president/CEO and Bert Iedema interim senior vice president/chief financial officer of Eagle-Picher Technologies of Cincinnati. Hollett succeeds William E. Long, who is retiring. Hollett has been vice president/general manager of Siemens Motion Controls Systems. Iedema succeeds Philip F. Schultz, who has resigned. Iedema is also CFO of Granaria Holdings, the controlling shareholder of Eagle-Picher.
The war in Afghanistan is entering a new phase that may expose U.S. neglect of its reconnaissance and surveillance technologies. It could also point out a continuing inability to meld the products of intelligence-gathering into a single product that can be used easily in combat.
Premier Farnell, a small-order, high-service distributor of electronic component and industrial products that operates in 22 countries, has created a customized catalog on the Exostar exchange for BAE Systems, one of Exostar's five founding industrial partners. Building on a global supplier agreement that the two signed last year, BAE Systems approached Premier Farnell early this year about creating catalogs tailored by country, that sit behind BAE Systems' firewall. This allows authorized BAE Systems employees to buy directly from the catalog anywhere in the world.
Although the economic downturn affecting the airline industry has been aggravated by the terrorist attacks and the Nov. 12 crash in New York, European aviation officials believe that in the long term, robust traffic growth will be restored and the commercial transport market will bounce back.
This aviation software developer has developed a bird/wildlife safety control program for use by airport authorities/operations as a management safety tool to track wildlife numbers in and around airspace. Called ``clickairport BIRDS,'' the system records details of sightings within airspace area using a pocket PDA computer that graphically captures the full airport layout. All information is uploaded to a master database automatically. The information held within the database provides a series of management reports via a Web browser connected to the airport intranet.
Astronaut Frank Culbertson and cosmonaut Vladimir Dezhurov performed a 5-hr. extravehicular activity outside the International Space Station on Nov. 12 to connect wiring between the new Russian docking module and Zvezda service module. They also checked out the Russian Strela crane.
The Denali headset from Flightcom is available in helicopter configurations. The headsets, in both passive and ANR versions, are designed for the excessive noise and vibration found on helicopters, and provide comfort and performance similar to fixed-wing headsets, according to the company. The units are configured with four-conductor coiled communication cables, and range from $165-605. Patents are pending on the product's ear seal, headband and elliptical microphone housing. The headsets have a 30-day guarantee. Flightcom, 7340 SW Durham Road, Portland, Ore. 97224.
The FAA was poised to order inspections of the entire U.S. fleet of Airbus A300-600s as U.S. and French investigators late last week focused on wake turbulence and composite material structures as major factors in the Nov. 12 crash of American Airlines Flight 587.
John-Gary Hewitt has been named to the board of directors of the Nimbus Group, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He is a former president of Knight Securities Inc.
Russian flag carrier Aeroflot Russian Airlines plans to develop its European operations by establishing a regional airline registered in Ireland. Earlier this year, Aeroflot flirted with the acquisition of Virgin Express' Irish subsidiary, but the initiative failed (AW&ST Aug. 6, p. 53). Recently, the airline began negotiations with a group of international investors to set up a new airline in Ireland, and those talks are apparently close to completion.
David Levi has been appointed chairman of Avcorp Industries Inc. of Vancouver. He was vice chairman and is president/CEO of GrowthWorks Capital Ltd. John Sandford has resigned from the board.
NASA faces some sharp belt-tightening under Administrator-designate Sean O'Keefe, who oversaw development of the Bush Administration's get-tough policy toward the agency as the No. 2 ``bean counter'' at the White House and signaled his intent to enforce that policy as word of his pending nomination was leaking.
Reflecting the industry trend in Europe--except for no-frills carriers--Iberia says year-on-year earnings are down 41%. Nor does that nosedive show the true impact of the airline industry crisis, the carrier warns. Seat demand in October was off 8%, but as with other airlines, Iberia took a pounding in business class, which fell 25% from October a year ago. Wall Street economists are convinced a revival of U.S.
With its mainstay international routes hurting, Japan Airlines is looking for an insurance policy at home by acquiring Japan Air System, the nation's third largest carrier.
The second annual Harry Kolcum Memorial News and Communications Awards, which honor the late Aviation Week&Space Technology managing editor and senior editor at Cape Canaveral, were presented Nov. 15 by the National Space Club's Florida Committee before about 150 aerospace managers at the Cape. Hugh Harris, who had a 35-year NASA career and served as the ``voice of shuttle launch control,'' received the public affairs award, while Dan Billow of WESH-TV, the NBC affiliate in Orlando, Fla., received the journalism award.
China is developing a more powerful and flexible rocket fleet to gain competitive launchers for the global market and a heavier military satellite capability. The launch of a 25-ton Chinese space station is also part of the long-term booster plan that will use a concept similar to the U.S. Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program.
BECAUSE AAQ-24 DIRCMs REQUIRE very high-speed pointer/trackers using radio frequencies from 10 MHz. to more than 100 MHz., cables connecting the sensors and processors must be suitably shielded and bonded. This warning was sounded by Northrop Grumman's Robert Broton at the recent annual Assn. of Old Crows conference in Washington.
Japan's National Space Development Agency, which plans to test whether energy can be transmitted between spacecraft or from space to Earth using microwaves, has awarded systems design contracts to a team composed of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, NEC and Toshiba and a second team of Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Mitsubishi Electric, IHI Aerospace, Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries and Shimizu Construction. NASDA's current thinking is that the satellite will be launched in 2005-07 by an H-2A or a similar size vehicle.
Increased use of predictive terrain warning systems worldwide is reducing the risk of accidents during non-precision approach procedures, but airlines and business aircraft operators need to link that data with head-up displays and autoland systems to create a more comprehensive safety shield.
At least some members of Parliament expect air travel to bounce back next year, and they want Whitehall to stanch the loss of regional air services in the expectation of a return to normal demand.
Maj. Timothy J. Lawrence, assistant professor of astronautics at the U.S. Air Force Academy, has been selected as one of the Outstanding Young Persons of the World for 2001 by the Jaycees International. He was cited for his international expertise in space technology and contributions to the field of astronautics.
TECHNOLOGY VISIONARY VICE ADM. (RET.) JERRY O. TUTTLE offered predictions on the use of cyberspace by the military at a recent SGI Defense Summit in Washington. To better utilize the scarce communications spectrum, he foresees modulation techniques that will increase the effective bandwidth by placing parasite riders on existing radio-frequency carriers, with or without the host's permission. The computational grid will expand with 100-gigabit arteries in laboratories within a year.
Lockheed Martin Space Systems plans to cut about 360 jobs in Sunnyvale, Calif., and Denver to save another $30 million a year as part of a two-year-old streamlining effort. The company is trying to cut indirect costs in satellite and launch business, and has already trimmed about $40 million a year. The company plans to spread the cuts evenly among layoffs, attrition and transfers to other Lockheed Martin Corp. units, with support functions like business operations, legal, human resources and information technology bearing the brunt.
THE MARKET FOR NEW AND USED turbine-powered helicopters decreased slightly in the first half of this year compared with the first six months of 2000, but the shortfall still represents an increase of about 6% compared with the past five years, according to the Helicopter Assn. International. In the first six months of this year, manufacturers delivered 64 new turbine single-engine aircraft and 20 twin-engine units. Sales of piston-powered helicopters are on the rise with 111 aircraft delivered as of June and another 100-plus are projected to be delivered by year's end.
