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United States aviation news

Boeing rolls out first 737 MAX

Boeing has marked the on-schedule roll out of the first 737 MAX with a low-key ceremony at its Renton manufacturing facility just outside Seattle. The 737 MAX 8, named Sprit of Renton, emerged from the factory and went into the paint hangar on November 30, which Boeing said was “the precise date determined when the MAX development schedule was defined more than four years ago”....

United Airlines to Stop Flying to Dubai

United Airlines on Wednesday said it will cancel flight service between Washington and Dubai starting in late January, meaning no U.S. passenger carrier will fly direct to the Gulf states. The move comes after the U.S. government awarded a government contract for travel on the route in 2016 to rival JetBlue Airways Corp and its codeshare partner Emirates, which will operate the Washington-...

GAMA/Build A Plane Aviation Design Competition Registration Now Open

The General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) and Build A Plane announced today that they are sponsoring the fourth Aviation Design Challenge. Registration for the competition to promote Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) education among U.S. high school students is open to the first 100 schools that enter. In three years, the STEM curriculum upon which the competition is...

Huntsville council approves GE Aviation development deal

GE Aviation's nearly $200 million silicon carbide materials project in Huntswville will begin taking shape by spring of next year. A map showing where GE Aviation will build two new factories in Huntsville-annexed Limestone County. (Courtesy) The Huntsville City Council unanimously approved a development agreement last week for two adjacent factories on a 100-acre site on the so...

U.S. Challenges China's Tax Exemptions for Aircraft at WTO

The United States on Tuesday launched a challenge to Chinese tax exemptions for locally produced aircraft, saying they discriminated against imported planes. The request for consultations with China at the World Trade Organization over a value-added tax of 17 percent on small to medium-sized planes is the first step in a process that could lead to trade sanctions. The U.S. Trade Representati...

U.S. Says Pilot Data-Entry Errors Led to Runway Crash

An aborted takeoff last year on a US Airways plane in Philadelphia, which smashed down so hard it broke the landing gear, was triggered by the crew's failure to enter the proper runway into a flight computer, among other errors, according to a preliminary investigation. "What did you do?" the captain told the copilot as the Airbus Group SE A320 carrying 154 people raced down...

Boeing Debuts First 737 MAX 8

Yesterday, thousands of Boeing employees in Renton, Wash., celebrated the completion of final assembly of the first 737 MAX 8. “Today marks another in a long series of milestones that our team has achieved on time, per plan, together,” said Keith Leverkuhn, vice president and general manager, 737 MAX, Boeing Commercial Airplanes. “With the rollout of the ne...

Khanh T. Tran Named As Next CEO of Aviation Capital Group

Aviation Capital Group (“ACG”), the commercial aircraft leasing subsidiary of Pacific Life Insurance Company, today announced that Khanh T. Tran, 59, has been named as ACG’s next Chief Executive Officer effective January 1, 2016. Mr. Tran will assume theCEO role from Denis Kalscheur, who will become Vice Chairman of ACG until the end of 2016 when he is scheduled to...

Bizav Groups Voice Opposition to Privatized U.S. ATC

Business aviation groups are stepping up their opposition to a proposal to create a user-funded independent organization to run the U.S. air traffic control system. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chairman Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) intends to make such a proposal the centerpiece of his comprehensive FAAreauthorization bill that is expected to be released early...

Burst tyre and hydraulic problem blamed for emergency landing of Morgan Freeman’s SJ30

A SyberJet SJ30-2 owned by actor and pilot Morgan Freeman was forced to make an emergency landing at Tunica Municipal airport in Mississippi on 5 December while en route to Sugar Land regional airport in Houston. According to a US Federal Aviation Administration accident and incident notification the light business jet – registration N30GZ – diverted to Tunica at 17:15 local tim...

Unattended Bag Leads to Aberdeen S.D. Airport Evacuation

An unattended bag led to the evacuation of the Aberdeen Regional Airport and delayed arrival of passengers to the terminal Thursday night. Police responded to the security threat at the airport shortly after 10 p.m., according to a news release from the Aberdeen Police Department. Earlier in the evening, a male arrived at the airport, stowed a suitcase in a corner of the terminal and immediatel...

Nobody wins when premium economy isn’t Premium Economy

“In the 1980s,” Canada’s Financial Post newspaper predicted in late 1978, “business travelers will look back at air travel in this decade with a certain amount of trauma.” The logic, essentially, was that passengers paying full economy fares (usually, those on business) were frustrated by how full economy cabins were getting. How times don’t ch...