US FAA yesterday issued its expected Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to require that airlines equip all aircraft operating in controlled airspace with ADS-B compatible avionics by 2020. "The proposal would require all aircraft flying in the nation's busiest airspace to have satellite-based avionics by 2020, enabling air traffic controllers to track aircraft by satellites using [ADS-B], which is 10 times more accurate than current radar technology," the agency said. The proposal is open to public comment for 90 days.
SAS Scandinavian Airlines announced enhancements to its long-haul business class product including a last-minute fare, new comfort kit including a see-through 1 liter bag, upgraded audio/video-on-demand and a "breakfast on the go" for deplaning passengers. The late fare is available up until departure, guarantees a business class seat and is available on flights between Copenhagen/Stockholm and Bangkok, Beijing, Chicago O'Hare, Dubai, New York JFK, Seattle, Tokyo Narita and Washington Dulles.
American Eagle Airlines will invest $10 million in its maintenance facility at Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport in Highfill. The carrier has operated an MRO facility at the airport since 2004 and said the investment will facilitate a move to a larger hangar and add 100 employees to a workforce that currently numbers 120. The expansion "will enable the airline to maintain more aircraft every night and to take on additional maintenance responsibilities," it said.
Sensis Corp. said its Airport Surface Detection Equipment, Model X system at Charlotte Douglas International is operational. ASDE-X uses a combination of surface movement radar, transponder multilateration and ADS-B sensors to provide controllers with an accurate picture of the location and identity of aircraft and vehicles on the airport surface.
Assn. of European Airlines once again condemned the Dutch government's decision to impose a travel tax on passengers departing from the country's airports from July 1, 2008. The new duty is, according to the Finance Ministry, "part of a 'greening' of taxation" with a shift from taxes on labor and profits to environmental pollution. But revenue from what AEA called a "money-raising measure masquerading as an environmental tax" will not be used for environmental purposes or for infrastructure that could reduce aviation's environmental impact, the organization claimed.
Unisys said Hahn Air Systems of Germany successfully implemented the initial phase of its eTops "next-generation" airline booking system based on the Unisys Airline Core Systems Solutions.
Megadata announced that Kansas City International purchased a subscription to PASSUR Pulse, which will help increase its capture of landing fee revenue.
THE NUMBER OF NEW COMPANIES vying to supply airlines with inflight broadband connectivity would suggest that the specter of Connexion by Boeing has been laid to rest (ATW, 10/06, p. 24). But one of the critics of the Boeing experiment cautions that carriers are better off when they look at connectivity as a differentiator rather than a profit center.
THOUGH OPERATING IN ONE OF the fastest-growing airline markets in the world, Air India and Indian have for some years now been in terminal decline. The former is a classic example of a flag carrier plagued by the ills of a bloated workforce and an aging fleet, the latter a largely domestic operation that has ceded market steadily to nimbler privately owned rivals for the past decade.
The founder of Hotwire is back with a new venture: an application that will create a sort of "super PNR" for consumers, dramatically simplifying the management of a trip. "The simple description is that we replace the old-fashioned manila folder," Gregg Brockway, chief executive officer of TripIt, said. "Consumers are increasingly booking with suppliers, and they end up with 20 pages of printouts," he said. "We've made it easy to bring it all together in one place. We are going to drag the itinerary into the 21st century."
COORDINATING THE PURCHASING activities of seven airlines within a group is no simple task, but it is one that David Rowell, head of purchasing-Aviation Flight & Ground Operations with TUI Travel PLC, believes is crucial for any large airline assemblage dealing with a complex supply chain.
THE ICE HAS LONG SINCE MELTED, the late-night comedians have found new targets and the scrutiny from both the 24-hr. news channels and the traveling public has proven to be ephemeral. But the beneficiary of those developments, JetBlue Airways, remains reluctant to let go of the past.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF AFTERMARKET parts specialist AirLiance Materials could be compared to that of a child. For the first years, parents watch the child carefully. But as it grows, the more-confident offspring seeks out others to broaden its horizons.
"WE'RE GLAD WE WAITED FOR THE DC-8." THAT WAS how legendary United Airlines President William (Pat) Patterson dismissed the carrier's agonizing and costly nine-month delay in entering the jet age when he accepted its first DC-8 in September 1959 from longtime friend Donald Douglas Sr. Indeed, Patterson was all smiles when he was able to order the far more capable Super 60 series DC-8 just a few years later, and United was able to re-engine those DC-8s and sell them for a handsome price for conversion to freighters with most still flying today40 years on.
REGIONAL CARRIERS LONG HAVE been the entry point for a career as an airline pilot in the US. But there have been some noticeable, and perhaps unexpected, changes over the past year. There are fewer pilot applicants, attrition rates are up and carriers now are recruiting experienced flight instructors aggressively to staff their cockpitsa step that could have serious repercussions down the road.
SITA plans to develop a new passenger reservations system based on service-oriented architecture that will offer a complete suite of reservations, inventory, ticketing and departure control systems. The new, as-yet unnamed system will be the "final installment" of SITA's Horizon portfolio of passenger management solutions. SITA said it will result in "the retirement of today's mainframe technology following a well-managed migration to new applications."
There was a time, in the not-so-distant past, when airlines were very intentionally in complete control of almost every aspect of their processes and products. Aircraft were customized and manufacturers, followed by outfitters, made certain that models of a similar type were actually quite nonstandard. Similarly, computer systems, each doing essentially the same tasks, were unique to each major carrier and enabling them to interact was an undertaking involving considerable complexity and expense.
Messier Services Asia completed a S$10 million ($6.7 million) expansion of its facility in Singapore that provides additional capacity for overhauling landing gears on 777, 737NG, A330, A340 and A320 aircraft and also "establishes the infrastructure" for future MRO of A380, 787 and A350 landing gears.
ICAO delegates supported a resolution at the organization's 36th Assembly last week stating that "emissions trading schemes should not be applied [by states and governing bodies such as the European Union] to aircraft of foreign countries without mutual consent," effectively rejecting non-EU airlines' participation in the EU's emissions trading scheme.
US air traffic congestion was given considerable attention last week in Washington, where lawmakers and Bush Administration officials are under increasing pressure to alleviate what Air Transport Assn. President and CEO James May called "an increasingly serious national crisis of flight delays."
Munich and Frankfurt airports will introduce a charge of €3 ($4.24) per kg. of nitrous oxide emissions for all airlines landing there effective Jan. 1. The airports noted that the fee will not generate additional airport revenue as it will be offset by "an equivalent reduction in the weight-based component of the airport charge." Munich Airport CEO Michael Kerkloh said the program "will achieve two effects.
Mesa Air Group was dealt a setback Friday by a US federal judge who ruled that it had misused confidential information obtained from Hawaiian Airlines when it was considering investing in the financially ailing carrier. The pre-trial ruling affirms the basic thrust of Hawaiian's lawsuit against Mesa and pushes the sides to a trial slated to begin in a US Bankruptcy Court in Honolulu tomorrow. Hawaiian is seeking $173 million in damages and wants the court to ban Mesa subsidiary go! from operating for a full year.
The legal dispute between Hawaiian Airlines and Mesa Air Group took an unexpected turn this week when Mesa attorneys told a US Bankruptcy Court in Honolulu that CFO Peter Murnane mistakenly deleted files related to the case as he attempted to purge pornography from his computer.
