Elon Musk has successfully launched another Space X rocket into space, but failed to land this latest one on its target barge. Tesla, Musk's company, launched the unmanned Falcon 9 at sunset on Friday. It carried a broadcasting satellite for SES, a company based in Luxembourg. This was Tesla's fifth launch for the past one and a half weeks. Another launch was tried on Sunday, but with t...
DC Aviation Al-Futtaim (DCAF) has expanded its management fleet with two new business jets. DCAF will operate a Bombardier Challenger 604 and a Gulfstream G200 on behalf of the private owners. The company also manages a Bombardier Global XRS and another Challenger 604. “We are extremely pleased with the continued interest from aircraft owners and operators seeking our expertise to mana...
Finmeccania Helicopters has successfully performed the first flight of the AgustaWestland AW109 Trekker – a skid-equipped variant of its popular light twin. Flown from the manufacturer’s Cascina Costa facility in northern Italy on 2 March, the maiden sortie included an assessment of the Pratt & Whitney Canada PW207-powered Trekker’s handling and systems. Two prototypes...
A global aviation safety initiative is holding a two-day workshop in Sydney later in March to discuss the best ways to collect and analyse aviation safety data. The Global Safety Information Project (GSIP), which is being led by Flight Safety Foundation, is holding 12 workshops around the world to develop toolkits for collecting and analysing safety data. The first workshop is being held in...
Qatar Executive is exhibiting at the Abu Dhabi Air Expo this week. Qatar Executive will be participating with an exclusive, dedicated chalet and will be showcasing its brand new Gulfstream G650ER on static display, giving visitors the opportunity to see the luxurious interior of the world’s fastest ultra-long range business jet, which is highly sought-after among the global travelling eli...
Lucky passengers on Alaska Airlines Flight 870 will get a special sight when they look out the window: a total solar eclipse. The flight from Anchorage to Honolulu purposefully adjusted its departure time so that the plane's passengers could see the eclipse's totality — the period when the entire solar disc is covered and only the outer edges are visible. The plot to change the fl...
When it comes to airplane cabins, many airlines and manufacturers have been rolling out designs that seem to perpetually squeeze passengers into oblivion. But not all aircraft designers want flyers to feel like a canned sardine. At the Crystal Cabin Awards, an annual showcase of airplane interior designs presented by the Hamburg Aviation Cluster at the Aircraft Interiors Expo, inventors pres...
GE Aviation announced the creation of a digital organization that brings all of the digital expertise from across Aviation into one business. This new Digital business will be led by Jim Daily as president and chief digital officer, Engineering and Technology for GE Aviation. “Over the past two years, we have shown the significant benefit that GE Aviation can provide customers by combinin...
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) released data for global air freight markets in January showing a rise in freight tonne kilometers (FTK) of 2.7% compared to January 2015. This continues the improving trend witnessed toward the end of 2015, and is the fastest pace since April of last year. The freight load factor (FLF) fell 1.8 percentage points, however, indicating that yields a...
Iberia has taken delivery of its second new Airbus A330-200, called “Buenos Aires” in honour of the first destination reached by Iberia when it first launched Spain-Latin America services just 70 years ago. Flying to Latin America since 1946 In 1946, Iberia became the first European airline to link Europe and Latin America with a flight from Madrid to the Argentine capital, stopp...
"There doesn’t seem to be a strategy to expand the industry. We’ve been suckling too long on the oil and gas teat.” However provocative, that stray comment from one of the organising team at the HAI Heli-Expo show neatly captures the state of the rotorcraft sector. Hamstrung by a plunging oil price and allied to global economic uncertainty and shrinking government budgets...
VistaJet, the global leader in business aviation, today announced its flight and passenger statistics for 2015. In the 2015 calendar year, both the number of passengers flying with VistaJet and its overall flight traffic increased in all of its core markets, making 2015 the company’s strongest year to date. Worldwide flight traffic increased more than 21 per cent year-on-year when compared t...
