A high-profile aviation dispute has invaded French politics and its timing is unprecedented. Several days before Francois Hollande officially succeeded Nicolas Sarkozy as president of the republic, a regional airport project upstaged the new leader. Hollande, who had begun to form his government, was preparing to appoint Jean-Marc Ayrault to a top position. Ayrault—who was named prime minister last week—is the mayor of Nantes and has been for many years a respected member of the National Assembly.
In recent years, it has been fairly easy to paint the regional airline industry with a broad brush: it is dominated by North America and perpetually struggling. But while U.S. regionals continue to be battered by bankruptcies and squeezed by major carriers, there is a bright side to the industry. In other parts of the world, regionals such as Wideroe and Rex are growing and even prospering. In this package of articles, Aviation Week's global team looks at carriers in four different markets to see why they are succeeding—or not succeeding, in the case of the U.S.
Indonesian authorities have begun extracting information from the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) of the Sukhoi Superjet 100 that crashed during a demonstration flight on May 9, killing all 45 onboard. Late last week, the search for the flight data recorder at the crash site on Mount Salak was still continuing. Extraction of CVR information will be performed by Indonesia's national transportation safety agency, KNKT. Aircraft maker Sukhoi Civil Aircraft Corp.
SpaceX will get an early opportunity to show what it can do to help scientists and engineers use the International Space Station by flying a powerful thruster testbed up in the unpressurized section of its Dragon cargo capsule.
The International Space Station has a crew of six again, following launch and docking of Russia's Soyuz TMA-04M capsule with two cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut on board. The May 17 linkup restored the station to six-person operations for the first time since April 27, when a crew of three U.S. and Russian fliers descended to Earth after 5.5 months in orbit. Cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin and NASA's Joseph Acaba (seen in this photo taken in the Russian space agency control room) lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on May 15.
International Airlines Group (IAG) finally got a grip on its most important takeover target, acquiring BMI in April. Now the task of integration begins. IAG unit British Airways has been pursuing BMI literally for years, since gaining control of its smaller competitor appeared to be the only way to access more slots at its London Heathrow Airport home base.
Melanie Wolf (see photo) has been named head of press and public relations for Munich-based MTU Aero Engines, effective June 1. She succeeds Odilo Muehling, who will retire this month. Wolf was the spokeswoman for Eurocopter.
The Mexican navy has taken delivery of its fourth and final Airbus Military CN235-300 maritime patrol aircraft from EADS North America under a U.S. Coast Guard-managed foreign military sales (FMS) agreement. Mexico was the first FMS customer for the CN235. EADS is also supplying spares provisioning, ground support equipment and training for the Mexican navy.
USAF Maj. Gen. Frederick H. Martin has been appointed deputy director of operations for the Office of Security Cooperation-Iraq, U.S. Central Command, Baghdad. He has been director of operations, Headquarters Air Mobility Command, Scott AFB, Ill. He will be succeeded by Brig. Gen. Scott P. Goodwin, who has been commandant of the U.S. Air Force Expeditionary Center of Air Mobility Command, Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J. Taking his place will be Col. Martha A. Meeker, who has been selected for promotion to brigadier general.
U.S. Navy Vice Adm. (ret.) Daniel P. Holloway (see photo) has been named VP-customer relations for Huntington Ingalls Industries shipbuilding division, Pascagoula, Miss. He was director of military personnel plans and policy on the staff of the chief of naval operations.
John M. Stone, (see photo) has been promoted to institute engineer in the Space Science and Engineering Div. at Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. He was the instrument suite electrical system engineering lead for its magnetospheric multiscale mission.
USAF Brig. Gen. Donald S. George has been tapped to become special assistant to the deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) at USAF Headquarters at the Pentagon. He has been director of intelligence at U.S. Strategic Command, Headquarters Offutt AFB, Neb. George will be succeeded by Brig. Gen. Mark W. Westergren, who has been director of ISR strategy, plans, doctrine and force development/deputy chief of staff for ISR at USAF Headquarters. Col. Timothy T.
The threat of deep automatic budget cuts due to hit the Pentagon next January is undermining the defense industry and causing executives to consider whether to buy long-lead items for projects that could be at risk, warn Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert. And those decisions could affect the success and shape of new AirSea Battle plans. The pair joined forces May 16 at a Brookings Institution-sponsored exposition on the future of the AirSea strategy.
The financial cost to Airbus of fixing cracks in A380 wing components may be coming into focus, but it is harder to define the reputational cost the aircraft maker faces among customers that have suffered service disruptions with their flagship aircraft.
Wing Yee “Winnie” Lam is the winner of the Paris and Leipzig, Germany-based International Transport Forum's 2012 Young Researcher of the Year Award. She is a researcher in the geography department at the University of Hong Kong.
DTI Editor Nicholas Fiorenza writes about the C-27J Down Under—Australia's selection of the C-27J over the C295 as its battlefield airlifter—on the Ares Defense Technology Blog. Opinions about this decision are all over the map. Warrant 9 says:
At least one member of the presidential panel that recommended using commercial vehicles to transport astronauts to low Earth orbit does not buy a military-style “leader-follower” procurement approach to save money. Jeff Greason, president of XCOR Aerospace, argues that maximum competition in government-supported vehicle development will avoid “monopoly-pricing” later on. And House appropriators' leader-follower idea for NASA's Commercial Crew Integrated Capability competition is no better.
The V-22 is finally proving the value of marrying the vertical lift of a helicopter with the speed of a fixed-wing aircraft after a tumultuous and prolonged development phase.
Christoph Mueller (see photo) has been appointed head of communications for Eurocopter Germany. He was head of communications and strategy for Krauss-Maffei Wegman and a member of the Concepts and Studies team within the former defense division of EADS.
The key to a positive future for the largest U.S. regional carriers, albeit an uncomfortable one for many of them, may have surfaced near the end of the SkyWest conference call on its first-quarter 2012 earnings: first survive, and then potentially thrive.
Bruce Whitman, president and CEO of New York-based FlightSafety International, has been named to the board of directors of the Corporate Angel Network.
