The Indian government is to sell a 60% stake in Air India, under the latest privatization plan announced last week. A global advisor responsible for formulating the debt-ridden carrier's future ownership structure is to be appointed. Foreign equity ownership will be limited to 26% through a strategic partner, and domestic airlines are not excluded from the bidding process, which is expected to be concluded within 12 months. Air India's employees are to get 10% equity in the airline through stock options.
The NASA/Boeing ``Destiny'' Laboratory Module for the International Space Station (ISS) has passed a critical vacuum test at the Kennedy Space Center (see photo). The 28-ft., 32,000-lb. module, with advanced data and life support systems, was lifted into a massive altitude chamber at Kennedy's Operations and Checkout Building (O&C) where the pressure was reduced to a vacuum. Laboratory leak rates were well below allowable specifications. ``Completing this test was a large step,'' said Tip Talone, KSC director of ISS processing.
The FAA this summer plans a second set of tests of a ground-based acoustic wake vortex detection and warning sensor that could help improve safety and increase capacity during bad weather operations at airports with closely spaced parallel runways.
Boeing is going to next week's Farnborough air show with a burgeoning order book for 322 commercial transports for the first half of the year, almost as many as it won in all of 1999. Company officials say they expect to log several more sales during the week-long aerospace exhibition outside London.
The Russian Zvezda Service Module for the International Space Station is undergoing major systems tests and propulsion firings in orbit to prepare it for a critical ISS docking July 25, but additional problems lie downstream for Russia's participation in the ISS program.
ICO-Teledesic Global Ltd. last week won more than $1 billion in new investment from major backers including Microsoft Chairman and Founder Bill Gates. The money will help the company finish development of and launch its ``Internet in the Sky'' broadband satellite communications and related wireless services. Target date for worldwide start of the wireless capability, including wireless Internet and other packet-data services, is 2003. Broadband data capability is scheduled to begin in late 2004.
The Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) last week said it would consider bidding for a stake in Sydney airport if it is privatized through airport investment company Singapore Changi Airport Enterprises Pte Ltd. (SCAE). Sydney, valued at $3 billion, is the last remaining major airport to be sold, following the privatization of Australia's airports in 1997-98. SCAE recently took a 7.1% holding in Auckland (New Zealand) International Airport.
An aviation employment ``AirFair'' held in Los Angeles in mid-June attracted nearly 1,000 applicants and about 50 potential employers, according to Fort Lauderdale-based Aviation Employee Placement Service (AEPS), which organized the event. The next AirFair, the company's fourth, is to be held near Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport next month. About 60% of the prospective employees in attendance at Los Angeles were interested in pilot or maintenance careers, according to AEPS President Jim Dent.
Since distracted crews figure prominently in air transport accidents, new research efforts are attempting to pinpoint how humans handle distractions and how performance can be improved. Accident data show that preoccupation with one task to the neglect of another played a role in nearly half of the flight crew-involved cases in a National Transportation Safety Board study, according to Key Dismukes, chief scientist for human factors at NASA's Ames Research Center here.
David Thoma (see photo) has been appointed director of operations of Litton VEAM/TEC, Enfield, England. He was manager of Litton's Winchester Electronics facility in Mexico.
Austria's civil aviation authority will seek to determine causes for the hard landing, at Vienna-Schwechat airport, of an Airbus A310-300 twinjet. About 27 passengers suffered minor injuries, but the aircraft was extensively damaged. The Hapag-Lloyd A310, which was operating a Khania, Greece-Hanover, Germany, charter flight, diverted to Vienna and reportedly landed in the grass with its engines stopped after running out of fuel.
Philippine Airlines has finally sold its maintenance and engineering operations to a joint venture company, Lufthansa Technik Philippines (LTP), owned 49% by MacroAsia Corporation and 51% by Lufthansa Technik AG (LHT). PAL has signed a 10-year technical services agreement with LTP. LTP will use the maintenance facility as the center for its operations in Southeast Asia and plans to invest $200 million over the next five years. When LTP starts operating, it will take over the maintenance of Philippine Airlines' 31 aircraft but hopes to rapidly expand the customer base.
BAE SYSTEMS WILL DELIVER a comprehensive suite of training equipment for the new A340-600 aircraft including the world's first A340-500/600 full-flight simulator to Airbus Industrie. Delivery to the Airbus Training Center in Toulouse, France, is slated for March 2002.
Anthony D. Piazza (see photo) has become vice president-business management for Northrop Grumman Airborne Early Warning and Electronic Warfare Systems, Bethpage, N.Y. He was deputy to the vice president-business management. John Young has been named vice president/integrated product team leader for electronic warfare programs. He succeeds Tom Zehner, who will be staff assistant to Lou Carrier, the sector vice president. Young was vice president-business management for Northrop Grumman Surveillance&Battle Management.
Dan P. Huffman has been appointed senior vice president-maintenance and engineering for American Airlines. He was vice president-engineering and quality assurance and succeeds David L. Kruse, who will retire in October. Randall H. Phillips has succeeded Huffman and has been managing director for aircraft engineering. William C. Culhane has been named vice president-maintenance and engineering negotiations. He was vice president-line maintenance and has been succeeded by Gregory F. Hall, who was vice president-Tulsa base maintenance. Succeeding Hall is Carmine J.
The SAirGroup's plan to combine Air Liberte, Air Littoral and AOM would create France's second-largest airline, with main hubs at Paris-Orly and Nice. The Swiss-controlled airline would carry more than 10 million passengers annually and have an estimated $1.4 billion in revenues, according to SAirGroup Chairman/CEO Philippe Bruggisser. Employee and flight crew unions, however, fearing the consolidation will lead to major job cuts, staged a two-day walkout late last week. No layoffs are planned, although some company restructuring will be necessary.
The profit motive among management is alive and well in the aerospace industry--to the point of rivaling customer satisfaction and superseding market share gains. That's according to Ladish Co. Inc.'s fourth annual survey of 132 purchasing managers at 60 different airframe and engine manufacturers and major suppliers worldwide. The study also turned up other noteworthy findings, including the following:
The Clinton Administration's effort to reform the licensing process for U.S. weapons exports, the Defense Trade Security Initiative (DTSI), has hit a snag in Congress, but backroom negotiations have narrowed the scope of the changes lawmakers are seeking.
Egypt has reimbursed the U.S. for $5 million of the $10.6 million it cost the National Transportation Safety Board and others involved in the search and recovery effort following the crash of EgyptAir Flight 990 last November. The partial payment came despite Cairo's irritation with what it sees as U.S. investigators' rush to judgment that the crash resulted from ``deliberate actions'' by the copilot. No wonder. Reps.
With all the promise of electronic business applications, airlines are still sorting out just how they can use the Internet to engage in ``intelligent purchasing.'' For major carriers, especially, the promise of online auctions are only part of this purchasing equation, although they have received much of the attention as one after another aerospace business-to-business (B2B) announcement has been made this year.
Former astronaut Loren J. Shriver has been named deputy program manager of operations for the United Space Alliance in Houston. He was deputy director for launch and payload processing at the Kennedy Space Center.
French Transport Minister Jean-Claude Gayssot plans to revive Paris' long-standing quest for a third major airport. His predecessor's tentative plan for a facility located in Beauvilliers about 100 mi. southwest of the capital may be abandoned in favor of a new list of candidate sites. Locations could include existing secondary airports (if free of environmental constraints), and Europort Vatry, a former air force base that has evolved into an intermodal hub (AW&ST July 3, p. 44).
Mark Thum (see photo) has become vice president-international business development at Lockheed Martin's Sanders, Nashua, N.H. He will continue as head of Sanders' Threat Warning and Defense Systems, Yonkers, N.Y.
