Air Transport

Fourth-quarter and full-year 2015 results, which most carriers begin reporting in the coming days, should reveal that the U.S. airline industry will once again lead the world in terms of revenues and profits, Wall Street analysts and a credit-ratings agency believe.

Embraer ended 2015 with firm orders from 13 customers for 185 commercial-aviation jets, a 24.2% increase over 2014.

LATAM Airlines Group is seeking to form separate joint ventures (JVs) with American Airlines and International Airlines Group (IAG) for travel between North and South America and between South America and Europe, respectively.

The EC should finally address delayed approval of Norwegian Air International in the joint committee as defined by the EU/U.S. open skies pact.

Although the geared turbofan (GTF) is certified and meets all performance requirements, originally scheduled A320neo launch operator Qatar Airways flagged the start issue as a reason for not taking delivery of the aircraft as planned in December.

Air travel could not have grown without getting safer, and some safety innovations were more important than others.

Debate swirls around the right way forward for air safety. But the history of air safety shows that debates and mysteries are part of the process.

Aviation is, by and large, an incredibly safe mode of transportation. But it wasn’t always so, and there are challenges coming soon. Join Editors Jim Asker, John Croft and Bill Sweetman as they discuss the history and future of aviation safety and read the special report.

The two leading aircraft manufacturers remain upbeat about their prospects and appear to be undeterred by warnings of overcapacity.

Considering defense budget changes; A-10 evades retirement; United Airlines fined for treatment of disabled passengers.

Members of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (Speea) will vote by Feb. 10 on whether to accept the terms of a new six-year contract extension tentatively agreed with Boeing during secret negotiations.

The administrative court of Lower Saxony, Germany, has approved most of the contentious codesharing services between Air Berlin and Etihad Airways.

Rosaviatsia, Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency, has written to the Dutch Safety Board (DSB), claiming that the final report into the downing of Malaysian Airlines MH17 over Eastern Ukraine contained a number of what it calls “unsubstantiated and inaccurate” conclusions.

A new ultra-low-cost carrier (ULCC), NewLeaf Travel Company, plans to hit the Canadian market on Feb. 12.

Rockwell Collins and Thompson Aerospace are among the innovators working to meet new European tracking rules, with cost-effectiveness in mind.

The big consumer electronics show in Las Vegas recently drew A&D eyeballs with chatter over autonomous cars, UAVs and the technology tie-in with the Pentagon’s Third Offset.

The aircraft has changed the competitive dynamics not only between Airbus and Boeing but among international airlines.

The labor groups’ request for information is “unprecedented, unwarranted, and unsupportable,” NUK said in a regulatory filing this week.

Winter has been running Fastjet for the past four years during what turned out an extremely difficult start-up phase. Efforts to expand the airline’s network were hampered by slow bureaucracy, legal fights and political interference in many of the key markets the airline once wanted to serve.

The groups are IAM District 141, covering clerical, office, stores fleet and passenger services, and District 142, covering mechanics and inspectors, line servicemen, cleaners and contract services workers.

The Malaysian carrier will end its daily Airbus A330-300 Dubai service on Feb. 15, and will instead codeshare on Emirates’ four daily flights on this route.

The flag carrier can operate services to the U.S. with its own metal; however, it is first required to compete the Part 129 certification process.

These special flights, with flight numbers AF744 and AF747, will take off at 9 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. Central European Time respectively from Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport and fly over legendary landmarks in the country.

Under the new deal, Aeromexico passengers will be able to connect via WestJet through Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver to a range of Canadian cities, including Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Ottawa, Halifax, and Deer Lake and St. John’s, Newfoundland.

The FAA will develop by February 2017 guidance for airlines to use in training and evaluating pilots to better monitor their aircraft but will not create metrics which airlines could use to rate pilots during the training. Poor monitoring has been a key factor in recent high-profile crashes.