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United Arab Emirates aviation news

Volga-Dnepr Gulf signs Boeing 747 base maintenance-checks with Air Atlanta Icelandic

Volga-Dnepr Gulf (VD Gulf) based in Sharjah, UAE, has recently signed agreement for nose-to-tail inputs of Air Atlanta’s Boeing 747-400s for Base Maintenance checks including AD/SB & out of phase works. The first aircraft is due to arrive at VD Gulf’s Sharjah Hangar facility on 26th June 2016, for a twenty six day layover while subsequent aircraft will follow this first inp...

flydubai announces daily flights to Prague

Dubai-based flydubai has announced that it will begin daily operations to Prague from 01 July, an increase from four weekly flights. With this additional frequency, flydubai will operate a total of 49 flights a week to 11 points in Central and Eastern Europe. “We are delighted to offer more flights to Prague,” commented Ghaith Al Ghaith, Chief Executive Officer of flydubai. “P...

CAE awarded contracts by UAE Armed Forces valued at approximately C$145 million

CAE announced it has been awarded contracts by the General Headquarters (GHQ) of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Armed Forces valued at approximately C$145 million. The contracts are for CAE to design and develop a comprehensive Naval Training Centre (NTC) for the UAE Navy and to provide the UAE Joint Aviation Command (JAC) with a suite of helicopter simulators and training devices for the NorthSta...

Rakjet: Gulf private aircraft owners risk huge losses from poor aircraft management strategies

An international aviation expert estimated the losses of private aircraft owners in the GCC countries to be more than US$ 45 million in 2015 for opting for in-house aircraft management. "The appeal of private air travel is hard to ignore: easily accessible airports, quiet terminals, no queues or long waits, reliable departure times and an undisturbed flight," said added Zaher Deir, Ra...

Emirates announced as official airline of the New York Philharmonic

Emirates is expanding its cultural sponsorship portfolio and announced today that it has signed a new multi-year sponsorship deal as the Official Airline of the New York Philharmonic. The contract begins June 2016 and will last for a period of three years. The sponsorship includes ticket and hospitality experiences at Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall and the New York Philharmonic Concerts...

GCAA and Eurocontrol begin real time data exchange

A real time flight data exchange has been successfully implemented between the UAE's General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) and Eurocontrol. A cooperation agreement between the two organisations was signed in October 2015, on 6 June 2016 the pair implemented the real time exchange for the first time. “Real time updates of departure times and other trajectory information is now bei...

Embraer Executive Jets delivers first Phenom 100E to Etihad Flight College

Embraer Executive Jets has delivered the first Phenom 100E to Etihad Flight College, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Etihad Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates. The aircraft arrived yesterday in the city of Al Ain, base of the flight school established to train ab-initio pilots for the airline’s rapidly expanding fleet. “Designed for high utilization with a pilot-...

Drone closes busy Dubai International Airport for an hour

The busy Dubai International Airport closed for over an hour after a drone flew into its airspace. The airport says the closure disrupted flights for 69 minutes on Saturday. The airport, the world's busiest for international travel, reopened at 12:45 p.m. (0845 GMT) This is not the first time a drone has disrupted flights into the airport, which is the base of the long-haul carrier Emira...

Private Jet Charter celebrates 15th anniversary in Middle East and silver jubilee in Europe

Private Jet Charter (PJC), one of the world's largest independent private jet charter brokers, today celebrated its 15th anniversary in the Middle East at a glittering event held at the Dubai head office, attended by employees, selected clients and suppliers.  At the celebrations, the company revealed that London was the most popular destination for Gulf private jets (PJ) users in the...

Emirates repays two bonds in full totalling more than USD $1.1 billion

Emirates Airline announced today that it has repaid a bullet bond in full for the value of USD $1 billion (AED 3.673 billion) on its maturity date of 8 June 2016. The USD $1 billion bullet bond was raised in 2011 to address Emirates’ working capital requirements. Emirates will also be repaying a bond totalling SGD 150 million later this month, which was ori...

IBM Signs US$300 Million Services Agreement with Emirates Airline

IBM  announced that it has signed a ten-year technology services agreement with Emirates Airline worth approximately US$300 million. IBM will provide IT Infrastructure delivered as a service, allowing the airline to improve efficiency on its passenger support systems and functions. The agreement provides fully managed services for the IBM mainframe and storage that...

Emirates gives up on upgraded Airbus A380

Emirates, the largest operator of Airbus’s A380 superjumbo, has all but given up on getting an upgrade of the double-decker with new engines and is instead making a more modest pitch to the planemaker: please don’t drop the programme altogether. “I can’t force Toulouse to do anything," Emirates president Tim Clark told reporters at a briefing in Dublin, referring to...