Aviation had its safest year on record in 2015 with one accident per five million flights, with the loss rate halving in five years, according to the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA). The association says there were four major accidents operated by commercial airlines, including Germanwings flight 9525, which the co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz flew into the French Alps, and Metrojet flight...
TAG Aviation’s Le Bourget Maintenance Service Centre has become a Rockwell Collins authorised business and regional systems (BRS) dealer. TAG Aviation Le Bourget is now authorised to promote and sell a wide range of the US manufacturer’s products including venue cabin management and entertainment solution, an interactive Airshow moving map and Tailwind airborne satellite TV. &ldq...
Airbus has declared its new Silicon Valley-based $150 million venture capital fund and innovation centre to be fully operational. The objective of the Airbus Ventures fund is identifying and investing in “visionary entrepreneurs in the global aerospace ecosystem,” says the manufacturer. It has already made an unspecified investment in an Arizona company, Local Motors, which has e...
Russian aerostructures supplier Aviastar has shipped fuselage panels for the second prototype MC-21 to the aircraft's developer Irkut. Production of the panels for the third example, and of the auxiliary power unit (APU) cover for the second, is also under way, says Aviastar. In 2016, the Ulyanovsk-based company will also produce the doors – 11 for each aircraft &nda...
Norwegian (DY, Oslo Gardermoen) founder and CEO Bjørn Kjos says Malaysian LCC brand AirAsia (AK, Kuala Lumpur Int'l) would be a "perfect match" for his airline. According to Norway's Dagens Næringsliv, Kjos said the two budget carriers could compliment each other's operations with Norwegian's European traffic feeding into AirAsia's Asian operations and vi...
Thanks largely to a revitalised and business-focused Virgin Australia, Perth Airport is now home to what is possibly the best domestic terminal in Australia; Virgin’s T1 Domestic Pier. Over 4,200 people were involved in the construction of T1 Domestic. The project took 1.8 million man-hours, resulting in a concourse that stretches 250 metres; longer than the height of WA’s largest s...
Air France told unions that it’s ready to add planes and routes to expand capacity by 2 to 3 percent annually from 2017 through 2020 in return for productivity improvements as an improved economic outlook boosts earnings prospects. Management told representatives of pilots, flight attendants and ground staff at a works council meeting Friday that Air France remains prepared to adopt...
Disgruntled travellers claim they were delayed for several hours before the shocking comment was made. This is the moment an air stewardess stunned passengers on board a Ryanair flight by telling them: "We have ice on the wing - we don't want to die!" The gob-smacking video has been shared on social network sites by one of the holiday-makers on board as they tried to fly f...
Uber is partnering with Airbus. The on-demand ride service will be offering stylish, swift, and costly helicopter rides around Utah during the Sundance Film Festival this month, and none other than European aerospace giant Airbus will be providing the choppers. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Airbus CEO Tom Enders said "It's a pilot project, we’ll see where it goes...
The Indian aviation sector, the tenth largest in the world, is looking even more curious. About 70 million domestic tickets are estimated to be sold in 2014-15 and the Centre has an ambitious aim to enable 300 million domestic ticketing by 2022 and 500 million by 2027; similarly, international ticketing is expected to touch 200 million by 2027. In contrast, our neighbouring giant, China, add...
Year after year, Airbus and Boeing seem to have been able to declare record orders, flying high on the back of an apparently never-ending boom. Reporting on their annual sales and delivery performances recently, however, the two global giants of commercial aviation appeared to signal that a hard landing is near. Seattle-based Boeing announced a net 768 orders in 2015, almost halving the...
easyJet plc has today received public credit ratings and intends to publish an Offering Circular for a Euro Medium Term Note (EMTN) Programme to facilitate access to new and cheaper sources of funding. easyJet has been assigned investment grade ratings of BBB+ (stable) by Standard & Poor’s and Baa1 (stable) by Moody’s which reflect the quality of easyJet’s business model,...