Safety, Ops & Regulation

Virgin Atlantic's 2018 saw highly publicized issues with its Boeing 787 fleet. Phil Wardlaw, vice president of engineering and maintenance services at the UK airline, talks to James Pozzi about how it has addressed these problems while updating on plans to grow its day-to-day operation.

Smart retirement aircraft policy must take many factors into account.

Most, if not all of the CF6-powered aircraft will likely be converted to freighters with acquisitions set to begin next year.

The order announced on Dec. 12 includes an aftermarket agreement with Rolls-Royce for the aircraft's Trent 7000 engines.

The maintenance and engineering division of All Nippon Airways is the driver of the new venture, which is supposed to begin operating in January 2019 performing airframe heavy maintenance in Okinawa.

Airbus finishes painting an All Nippon Airways A380 that included 520% more stencils that typical designs.

The Portuguese airline maintenance business has entered into a general support license agreement with LEAP engine maker CFM International.

The U.S. carrier is planning to implement further software enhancements and upgraded hardware early next year.

Spare-part logistics is cited as a major challenge by Flybondi.com, an airline operating a fleet of five Boeing 737 aircraft.

Air New Zealand engineers have scheduled a strike Dec. 21 that threatens to disrupt the carrier’s operations on one of its busiest travel days, although further negotiations are planned in an effort to resolve the contract dispute.

The cabin interior specialist has created custom front row monuments for the airline’s new 787 aircraft.

Fleet scale remains primary driver of insourcing versus outsourcing decisions for MRO.

Already well-established as a leading MRO provider in Africa, Ethiopian has bold plans for expansion.

The U.S. midterm elections are putting new leaders into key congressional aviation committees—including some of whom have criticized foreign repair stations in the past.

Wolfgang Mayrhuber led the rehabilitation team charged with engineering Lufthansa’s recovery in the early 1990s. Subsequently, he was elected chairman of the Executive Board of Lufthansa Technik when it became an independent entity in 1994. He is credited evolving LHT into a global supplier of MRO services.

Transportation Safety Board of Canada calls for fatigue regulation and improved Safety Management Systems.

Passenger-door seal damage caused by a catering truck created an unnerving onboard noise that led a Qantas AirbusA380 to return to Sydney 2 hr. into a scheduled flight to the U.S., an Australian Transport Safety Board (ATSB) report found.

The deal with U.S. low-cost carrier Frontier will run for five years and includes up to 10 years of salary raises.

Etihad Airway Engineering’s long-term vision is to use additive manufacturing for most cabin interior parts.

Aviation Week speaks with Air New Zealand CEO Christopher Luxon to find out more about how the new Auckland to Chicago route will be serviced and what the airline’s expansion plans entail.

Agency seeks to alleviate bottlenecks for students taking the mechanic certification exam.

Changes already implemented at Lion Air MRO subsidiary Bantam Aero Technic after gaps were identified in some of the airline's maintenance operations.

The MRO provider will provide on-site engineering, maintenance and component support for the airline’s modernizing fleet.

From the exhibition floor at MRO Europe 2018, David Lefebvre, mechanical engineer for Gastops, demonstrates the company's ChipCHECK analyzer. Through the same technology the Mars rover uses to analyze rocks, ChipCHECK allows rapid on-site identification of turbine particles to monitor equipment degradation.

From the exhibition floor at ap&m Europe 2018, Phil Edwards, senior instructor and engineer for NDT at Testia demonstrates two of the company’s Smart NDT tools. The ThicknessTool is used for post-blend scanning and the Smart UE1 can perform ultrasonic and eddy current tests.