For successful young MRO providers, economy is essential and growth is a constant goal. “Effective energy- consumption management is one of our main priorities,” says CEO Zilvinas Lapinskas of FL Technics, based in Lithuania. All FL hangars and repair shops have integrated energy-control systems that monitor and automatically change electricity and heating.
Aeronautical Radio of Thailand Ltd., known as Aerothai, is a state enterprise with about 90% owned by the government and 10% by the airlines. It is operated on a cost-recovery basis as a non-profit organization. Any annual surplus is returned to airlines, and they are also charged for any deficit. The organization was founded by airlines in 1948, and the government acquired a majority stake in 1963. It now has about 2,800 employees.
Unlike the 1987 movie “Trains, Planes and Automobiles,” low-cost Latin American airlines Azul Linhas Aereas and VivaAerobus.com are connected by buses and aircraft. They also are based in countries with growing middle classes that are first and second in terms of potential market size.
Nav Canada is undertaking major new oceanic air traffic management initiatives that will further increase the efficiency of the busiest North Atlantic air routes. The company is looking to establish a new area of controlled airspace off Canada’s northeast coast that will make the transition into North American domestic sectors much more seamless, and is also working on a way to reduce the lateral separation between trans-Atlantic tracks.
Cirrus, coming off its best year since 2008, is optimistic that momentum will continue into 2014 with its piston lines while it prepares for first flight of its SF50 Vision Jet in the next few weeks.
The maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) industry is gearing up to service an increasing number of airliners employing a much higher share of composite materials. The introduction of the Boeing 787, the Airbus A350 and—less expectedly—the A320neo and the 737 MAX is causing MRO service providers to invest in new equipment and technician training. The changes, however, remain evolutionary rather than revolutionary, as many MROs have developed a high level of expertise since the 1970s.
Landmark Aviation has moved into a new maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facility at Smith Reynolds Airport (INT) in Winston-Salem, N.C., a relocation that will enable it to expand its activities there and better coordinate its MRO activities with the fixed-base operation.
While Democratic leaders have been quiet about business aircraft depreciation during the most recent budget talks, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee on Feb. 26 proposed “eliminating special depreciation benefits related to corporate jets” as part of a larger tax overhaul package.
BRUSSELS — East Africa’s regional airline service is set to change, with Kenya Airways’ long-anticipated, low-cost subsidiary Jambojet.com beginning commercial operations on April 1 with two Boeing 737-300 aircraft. Ticket sales opened on Thursday, Feb. 27, and the start-up targets carrying 650,000 passengers in its first year, CEO Willem Hondius tells Aviation Week.
For Southwest Airlines, there are no replacement plans—at least for now—for the electromechanical cockpits on the 130 Boeing 737-300s and -500s it still flies. “We are always evaluating the future of our 737-300s and -500s, which includes possible cockpit modifications as fleet planning warrants,” says Kent Horton, Southwest's director of engineering.
The price of carbon dioxide allowances (EUAs) under the EU Emissions Trading System rallied to a 14-month high in February as the European Commission's short-term market intervention proposal gained final agreement and became law.
Eight months after the end of the highly publicized grounding of its EC225 heavy helicopter, Airbus has renewed its faith in the Super Puma design. The company hopes that the EC225e—e for enhanced—due to fly in 2015 will finally put the type's troubles to bed after the nine-month-long grounding caused by the failure of the bevel gear vertical shaft on two North Sea-based aircraft during 2012.
FAA will order upgrades to Boeing 737NG autothrottle computers to correct what Dutch investigators concluded is a design anomaly that played a significant role in the February 2009 crash of a Turkish Airlines 737-800. FAA’s proposed mandate, set for publication March 3, would give operators 36 months to modify or replace certain 737NG autothrottle computers. A final directive would apply to 497 U.S.-registered aircraft, but is a sure bet to be adopted globally.
SINGAPORE — With continuing political unrest in Thailand adversely affecting the tourism and aviation industries, and poor results released earlier this week, AirAsia is likely to push back delivery of new Airbus aircraft for its Thai AirAsiaX (TAX) operation.
As more European airlines add Boeing 787s and more foreign carriers deploy them to European airports, small- and medium-sized maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) companies are seeking to profit by expanding their capabilities to include Dreamliner services.
As composite structures become larger, more integrated and more critical, guaranteeing the integrity of a major repair when the aircraft returns to service is a growing imperative. Research into methods of checking repairs in situ could pave the way for wider structural health monitoring.
A European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) draft rule tackles several ambiguities around aircraft technical records, including how long certain records should be kept, and how new technology—such as digitized records—should be accommodated.
The pilots of UPS Flight 1354 set up for a non-precision “profile” instrument approach that is rarely used in practice as their Airbus A300-600 freighter approached Birmingham, Ala., in the pre-dawn hours of Aug. 13, 2013. For reasons that are still not clear, the captain later switched to a more rudimentary “vertical speed” non-precision approach, used even more infrequently in operations, before the aircraft struck trees and then a hill less than 1 mi. short of the airport's Runway 18.
