The city of Santa Monica, Calif., is urging a U.S. District Court to reject FAA’s motion to dismiss the city’s lawsuit over control of Santa Monica Airport (SMO), saying the agency should not be allowed to hold the airport hostage over an unfounded assertion that the city acted too late.
The Comac ARJ21 regional jet project has been delayed again, with the aircraft now due to go into service in April or May 2015, eight years later than scheduled early in the program and 13 years after development began. The first operator, Comac subsidiary Chengdu Airlines, will receive its first aircraft late this year or early next year, says the carrier's deputy general manager, Luo Ning. Further preparations will be made before operations begin in April or May, Luo tells local media.
Patrick Ky was appointed executive director of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) in September 2013. He is the second person to head this organization, which was formed in 2003 to develop a single civil aviation regulatory system for the European Union's member states.
Singapore is synonymous with MRO in the Asia-Pacific region, but the fast-paced growth of Asia-Pacific airlines is drawing local and global companies to establish aftermarket support entities in Indonesia and Malaysia as well.
Jet card sales continue to strengthen, reaching their highest point since the economic downturn began, both Sentient Jet and its new affiliate company Flexjet report. Key metrics in 2013 rose to levels “not seen since 2008,” Sentient says. The company, which has more than 4,000 clients, sold more than 32,000 jet card hours in 2013, which amounts to the equivalent of more than 1,300 25-Hour Jet Cards. This pushed the company’s revenue to more than $150 million on the year. Sentient sold more than 1,200 25-Hour Jet Cards in 2012.
TAP Portugal is to add two Airbus A330s and four A320 family aircraft in 2014, and is evaluating further fleet growth for 2015 and beyond. “We are just re-evaluating our current [2012-2016] business plan and hope to have that completed within two to three weeks. Basically, our goal for 2016 will remain the same; we are just adjusting how we will get there,” TAP Portugal CEO Fernando Pinto told Aviation Week during a one-to-one phone interview.
French air accident authority BEA has launched an investigation after a Saab 2000 operated by Swiss regional Darwin Airline lost its nose wheel on landing at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport. Darwin Airline, which recently rebranded as Etihad Regional, confirmed that the aircraft’s nose wheel “detached from the main nose wheel strut upon landing on runway 27” at around 0740 on Jan. 28.
Lufthansa Cargo is close to converting options for five more Boeing 777Fs after the airline has seen a significant improvement in demand in some of its key markets. “We plan to replace our MD-11s with Boeing 777s and not only with five or 10,” Executive Vice President Sales Andreas Otto said at a Lufthansa Cargo event near Frankfurt.
Sabreliner Corporation’s business leaned heavily on military contracts that disappeared during sequestration, forcing the company into default on its bank loan and leading to the bank’s sale of the company to an investment firm. Sabreliner announced last week that its primary debt holder sold the company after it lost half of its business during last year’s sequestration budget cutting and was unable to make its debt payment.
This month, the FAA will begin a series of “contaminated” runway tests with a retired Boeing 727 at its William J. Hughes technical center in Atlantic City, N.J. Taxiing on 230-300-ft.-long “test strips” of 2-in.-deep “manufactured snow,” created by feeding ice blocks into a gasoline-powered chipping machine, the 727 will test a variety of new technologies aimed at providing pilots more information and training to deal with compromised surfaces.
Continued solid airline financial returns could keep the current boom in cabin retrofit demand going, feedback from interiors specialist B/E Aerospace (BEA) suggests. “We had really strong retrofit sales in the quarter,” BEA CEO Amin Khoury told analysts on a Jan. 30 earnings call, adding that the recent uptick hasn’t slowed the pace of new inquiries. “We are having significant ongoing discussions with our customers about retrofit programs in the future,” Khoury says. “I would say there is a step-up in activity.”
Sabreliner Corporation’s business leaned heavily on military contracts that disappeared during sequestration, forcing the company into default on its bank loan and leading to the bank’s sale of the company to an investment firm.
Rather than anticipating, the U.S. is “merely reacting to the challenge” of a growing influx of international air travelers and is in danger of turning off future tourists and businesspeople from visiting the U.S., Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) President and CEO Jack Potter said.
It is no coincidence that the first official statement of any of the affected companies came from Toulouse: Airbus “welcomed“ the decision of the Indian government to allow scheduled A380 flights into the country. But the change may have less significance than it appears at first sight.
India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) is adding inspectors and other technical personnel to address year-old and still-unresolved audit findings that led the FAA to downgrade the country’s International Aviation Safety Assessment (IASA) rating to Category 2. The downgrade, announced Jan. 31, means that Air India and Jet Airways cannot expand service to the U.S., nor can they add U.S. code-share deals to existing flights. The carriers currently combine for 28 weekly flights between the two countries, including 21 by Air India.
The number of used business jets available for sale has dipped to the lowest levels since the business aircraft market downturn began and finished well below the 20-year average last year, according to business aviation market analyst Amstat.
The price of carbon dioxide allowances (EUAs) under the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) rallied to a four-month high in January, as the European Commission's short-term market intervention proposal drew nearer to final agreement. The price of EUAs for delivery in December 2014 rallied to €5.61 per metric ton ($7.66) on Jan. 28—the highest price since Sept. 26, according to Platts data. Prices took support last month from proposed short- and long-term reforms of the ETS.
