Silvano Cassano has been appointed CEO and Ariodante Valeri chief commercial officer of Alitalia. Cassano has been chairman/CEO of shipping company Grandi Navi Veloci, CEO of Benetton Group and CEO of Fiat Auto Financial and Consumer Services. Valeri has been general manager at Grandi Navi Veloci and president/CEO of Targa Services at Gruppo Fiat Auto.
Chin Feng (see photo) has been named CEO of the Hong Kong branch of Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty, effective Nov. 1. He has been regional manager for financial lines in Asia at the Singapore branch and succeeds Mark Mitchell, who has been appointed regional CEO in Singapore.
A ndreas Otto (see photo) has been appointed chief commercial officer of Austrian Airlines, effective Oct. 1. He has been executive board member for product and sales at Lufthansa Cargo. Otto succeeds Karsten Benz, who will become group infrastructure officer for Austrian parent Lufthansa Group.
Jeffrey D. MacLauchlan (see photo) has been appointed senior vice president-corporate development for Rockwell Collins, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He succeeds Barry Abzug, who plans to retire in December. MacLauchlan held the same position at the Lockheed Martin Corp.
John Riggir (see photo) has become vice president/general manager of Jet Aviation Singapore. Riggir was executive vice president-corporate business development for the Hawker Pacific Group in Singapore.
Kristyna Smith (see photo) has been elected president of the Boston Professional Chapter of the Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers. She is an aerospace and mechanical engineer at the Draper Laboratory, Cambridge, Masschusetts, working on inertial navigation technology and an airdrop system that autonomously delivers supplies such as fuel, food and water from cargo aircraft to soldiers on the ground.
U.S. Rep. Harold Rogers (R-Ky.) has received the Arlington, Virginia-based Aerospace Industries Association’s annual Wings of Liberty Award “in recognition of his longtime support of the aerospace and defense industry.” He is chairman and a 30-year member of the House Appropriations Committee. Rogers also has served on its Defense subcommittee, and chaired the Transportation, Commerce, Science, Justice and the Homeland Security subcommittees.
Harry Lee (see photo), vice president-corporate contracts, pricing and supply chain for the Falls Church, Virginia-based Northrop Grumman Corp., has received the National Association of Asian American Professionals’ 100 Award. It is given annually to individuals who have made substantial contributions to their profession and the Asian community.
NetJets is to begin providing charter services within China following receipt of an air operator’s certificate from the Civil Aviation Administration of China. The Chinese equivalent of FAA Part 135 approval allows NetJets Business Aviation Ltd. to provide ad-hoc charter service with its initial fleet of two Hawker 800s based in Zhuhai. NetJets’ Chinese arm plans to offer aircraft management and block charter as the next steps.
Goal is to form an overarching network of data, each platform a node contributing information to the cloud and downloading from it, even in the heat of battle.
Final assembly of the first Comac C919 narrowbody airliner has begun, with the joining of the forward and center fuselage sections at the Chinese state manufacturer’s new plant at Shanghai. While assembling the aircraft, due to fly next year, Comac says it is also working on the development of onboard systems. The exact time planned for next year’s first flight has not been disclosed, but it is probably late in the year.
Sierra Nevada Corp. is not happy about its loss to Boeing and SpaceX in the competition for federal funds to complete commercial human vehicles to take crews to the International Space Station (ISS), but it plans to keep building its reusable lifting-body spaceplane and use it to compete for the next round of ISS commercial cargo-delivery contracts NASA awards.
"LED Astray" ( AW&ST Sept. 22, p. 28) is timely. I’ve found the green taxi lights at Denver International Airport to be too bright. After landing, we asked ground control if they could dim them and were told that they were as dim as they could be. We were also told that many such complaints are lodged.
A temporarily reduced crew of three on the International Space Station—pending arrival on a Soyuz capsule late Sept. 25 EDT of three new crewmates that was launched earlier that day—grappled the fourth SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule to reach the orbiting outpost under the company’s $1.6 billion, 12-flight contract with NASA. Astronauts used the station’s robotic arm early Sept. 23 to catch the vehicle with its 4,885-lb. cargo as it rendezvoused with the orbiting science laboratory, and berthed it to the U.S.-segment Harmony module.
South Korea and the U.S. government have completed negotiations on South Korea’s order for 40 Lockheed Martin F-35A Joint Strike Fighters, according to the South Korean government. The negotiations covered price, offsets and technical details, and opened the way for South Korea to sign a letter of offer and acceptance for the new aircraft. Deliveries are expected between 2018 and 2021.
Avic expects to wrap up supplier selection for the MA700 by the middle of October, following its choice of the Rockwell Collins Pro Line Fusion avionics suite for the cockpit of the 78-seat turboprop. Pratt & Whitney Canada and GE’s Dowty will supply the MA700’s engines and propellers, respectively.
Financial analysts at RBC Capital Markets expect Lockheed Martin to soon announce a 15% increase in its planned dividend payment to shareholders to $6.12 a share, as well as increased stock buyback plans. Share buybacks and dividend payouts are at record highs for aerospace and defense companies, as well as across Western stock markets.
