With new and potential orders, Embraer sees bright future for KC-390 airlifter. Emphasizing its multirole capability along with the speed performance offered by its IAE V2500 turbofan—as well as the reliability and low-cost operational experience of its regional jet family—the Brazilian aerospace company hopes to take a major share of the airlifter market over the next 10-15 years. .
A quiet battle likely will simmer at Chicago Midway as a startup provider of anti-overrun technology takes on the heretofore uncontested ruler of engineered materials arresting systems.
Greg Psihas has become vice president-corporate development for the Lockheed Martin Corp., Bethesda, Maryland. He was corporate vice president-mergers and acquisitions at Applied Materials. Guy Hachey, retired president/chief operating officer of Bombardier Aerospace, has been appointed to the board of directors of the Hexcel Corp., Stamford, Connecticut.
NASA’s commercial crew program is in court now, so the lawyers will get a say in deciding how the U.S. and its space-exploration partners will fly astronauts to orbit.
More than two years after Delta Air Lines became the first U.S. carrier to announce it would substantially reduce its 50-seat regional jet fleet, its transformation is nearly complete. Although Delta Connection soon will operate a fraction of the Embraer ERJ 145s and Bombardier CRJ200s it once flew, Delta does not expect any cities to lose service.
Though India and Russia are nearing a deal on a “joint effort” to develop a fifth-generation fighter, Indian air force officials remain exasperated by the service’s shrinking contribution and slipping schedules.
The official unveiling of Pratt & Whitney Canada’s PW800 turbofan at this year’s National Business Aviation Association convention marked a sea change in the provision of engines for the world’s long-range business jets.
In contrast to Tokyo’s Narita and Haneda airports, Kansai has been able to use its greater available capacity to draw new flights from Japanese and foreign airlines. It is positioning itself well to take advantage of an increase in overseas visitor numbers. This has been particularly evident with LCCs, as Japan’s new budget airlines establish bases and grow their networks at Kansai. In addition, several foreign LCCs have launched service to Osaka, and more plan to follow.
Many of Europe’s legacy airlines, Austrian Airlines among them, are experiencing bitter disputes with employees about cost cuts. But now that Austrian seems to have found a compromise with labor, management attention is shifting to fleet renewal and a sustainable model.
Indian LCC IndiGo has given Airbus its largest single order to date, for 250 new A320neos. A successful IPO in a still tumultuous air transport market will be key to fund the order—and it would cement IndiGo’s position as India’s leading domestic airline.
A spacecraft designed to test reentry techniques for a future lunar-sample return mission lifted off from the Xichang launch facility on a Long March 3C Oct. 23 (Oct. 24 local time) on a week-long mission that will take it around the Moon. Citing a spokesman for the China National Space Administration, China Daily’s English-language edition says the testbed will return to Earth after a swing around the Moon to test a “skip” reentry technique to bleed off velocity before a parachute touchdown in the Gobi Desert.
The strong pipeline of new products, many announced but some still to come, provided a boost in Honeywell’s latest forecast for the delivery of 9,450 business jets valued at $280 billion through 2024.
Airbus is close to launching an increased maximum-takeoff and long-range version of the A321neo that it seeks to position as a Boeing 757 replacement. The manufacturer is briefing potential customers, but has not yet made a decision to proceed. An Airbus official says the new version is still in a project study.
Moody’s Investors Service believes the European transport infrastructure industry will remain stable over the next 12-18 months on growth in traffic volume. “We expect EU airport passenger levels to grow by 2-6% in 2014 and 1-4% in 2015, mainly driven by an increase in airline capacity,” says senior Moody’s analyst Joanna Fic.
The steady drop in oil prices is not yet raising concerns at Boeing or on Wall Street that airlines will alter their emerging pattern of lining up a historically high percentage of new deliveries as replacements for less efficient, older-generation aircraft. “The price of oil still could fall a long way before our planes are anything but compelling,” Boeing Chairman and CEO Jim McNerney said last week.
Mergers and acquisitions activity in the U.S. aerospace and defense industry slowed in the third quarter, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. Total deal volume slipped to the lowest level in 11 quarters, and was the weakest since the second quarter of 2005. The trend, reported by Aviation Week last month, comes as many A&D participants had once thought this year would mark the beginning of a wave of strategic M&A in Western industry. Divestitures continue to remain favorite business-shaping tools as companies divide or slice off divisions deemed non-core, slow-growth or worse.
Moody’s Investors Service has downgraded Kremlin-controlled aircraft maker Irkut, a subsidiary of United Aircraft Corp., based on Russia’s worsening economic situation. The U.S.-based credit rating agency says it still believes Irkut and other state-backed companies will enjoy state support if they encounter “financial distress.” Not every state-backed Russian company will see ratings downgraded, albeit because they were lower already. For instance, Moody’s reaffirmed outlooks on Russian Helicopters.
Lockheed Martin and Turkey-based Roketsan are to codevelop a medium-range cruise missile for internal carriage on the F-35. Final integration of the 1,000 lb.-class SOM-J weapon is planned for 2023 as part of the Block 4 capability upgrade. Designed to meet a Turkish air force requirement, SOM-J is based on the larger SOM stand-off cruise missile developed indigenously in Turkey and in production at Roketsan.
