Air Baltic (BT, Riga) has attracted attention from Chinese investors Latvia's State Secretary to the Ministry of Transport, Kaspars Ozoliņš, has disclosed. In an interview with Latvian Radio this week, Ozoliņš described the investors simply as owners of a variety of aircraft manufacturing firms. He added that talks took place last month during the finalization of details for a...
Chinese airlines are rolling out services to allow passengers to access the Internet, but concerns remain over pricing and network speeds. Are you bored with long flight without access to the Internet? This may soon be history as Chinese airlines take steps to boost their inflight Wi-Fi networks. Now passengers on some Chinese airlines' flights can send e-mail, book hotels, wat...
Indonesian authorities have resumed searching for an Aviastar airline Twin Otter turboprop aircraft with 10 people on board that went missing on Friday during a flight on Sulawesi island. The aircraft lost contact with airport authorities on a flight from the town of Masamba about 30 minutes before it was scheduled to land in Makassar city. The incident is in yet another blow to th...
An aircraft belonging to a Dubai skydiving company ran off a runway Friday while trying to land, though no one was injured, authorities said. The Dubai Media Office said the Skydive Dubai twin propeller plane had just a pilot on board when it tried to land at the company's landing strip near the Dubai Marina and the Gulf city's famous man-made Palm Jumeirah island. It said the...
Bombardier Inc is in discussions with the Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec, which manages Quebec's public pension plans, on a deal that could inject more cash into the troubled plane and train maker, according to two sources familiar with the matter. It was not immediately clear how a potential deal would be structured. One source familiar with the company's thinking said th...
Lockheed Martin Corp is exploring merging some of its information technology and services businesses, with a value of about $4 billion, with another government services contractor, people familiar with the matter said on Friday. The contemplated transaction would create the largest government services contractor in the United States and would generate an estimated $2 billion windfall for L...
Okinawa-based Ryukyu Air Commuter Co. has been identified as the launch customer for the Bombardier Q400 combi aircraft. Ryukyu Air Commuter, a subsidiary of Japan Airlines Group, has been revealed by Bombardier as the previously unidentified customer that ordered five Q400s in July 2014, when the Canadian manufacturer also launched the Q400 combi turboprop at the Farnborough Airshow. The...
Three people have been seriously injured and sent to hospital after a light aircraft crashed in a scenic spot in Xinxiang, Central China's Henan Province on Friday morning, CCTV News reported. The crash happened at around 9:20 a.m. when the glider was performing a trail flight at Xiangshui River Water Park in Wulong Mountain in Huixian City, the source said via its official S...
A Delta Airlines Boeing 737-800, registration N3748Y performing flight DL-1490 from Detroit,MI to Las Vegas,NV (USA) with 161 people on board, was enroute at FL340 about 60nm west of Omaha,NE (USA) when the crew reported a fire in a lavatory and decided to divert to Omaha. On approach to Omaha the crew advised that the fire was confirmed out. The aircraft landed safely on Eppley Airfield...
Air France plans to cut 2,900 jobs after the failure of talks with pilots to boost productivity, a union source told Reuters on Friday. The figure was announced by the head of Air France at a board meeting this morning, the source said. Some 300 job cuts would involve pilots, 700 stewards and hostesses and 1,900 ground staff. The head of parent Air France-KLM had told Europe 1 radio earli...
Indonesian authorities have launched a search for an Aviastar Twin Otter turboprop aircraft with 10 people on board that went missing on a domestic flight on Sulawesi island. The Transport Ministry said a search has begun for the aircraft that lost contact on a flight from the town of Masamba, about 30 minutes before its was scheduled to land in Makassar city. "It was around 60 nautical...
Ethiopia’s Government is planning to give the country a massive new international airport. To be located in or somewhere around Addis Ababa, the airport would have the capacity to handle 120 million passengers a year. In comparison, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport – currently the world’s-busiest – handled just over 96 million passengers in 2014. Accor...
PRELIMINARY REPORTS King Air Damaged in Landing Accident Beechcraft King Air 300, Rotterdam/The Hague Airport, Sept. 1, 2015–Neither of the two people aboard the aircraft was injured when the King Air landed gear-up on Runway 24. All the blades of both propellers were significantly damaged in the incident. The weather at the time of the landing was not reported. Dauphin Dest...
As a leading player in the Nigerian business-jet sector, aircraft manager Triton Aviation is one of a number of West African companies bringing a measure of maturity to the business aviation market. The company has seen growth stall as the nation’s economy has slowed but nonetheless is looking to expand its capabilities so it is better positioned for an expected rebound. The business...
The US House of Representatives will hold an Oct. 7 hearing on unmainned aerial vehicle (UAV) safety issues. The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s aviation subcommittee said in a statement that increasing UAV sightings by pilots and air traffic controllers “have raised safety questions among stakeholders and the public. This hearing will enable the s...
While the light jet market remains depressed, business turboprops are holding their own and development of new models continues, albeit unevenly. According to the General Aviation Manufacturers Association, 603 new business turboprops were sold last year compared with 722 new business jets. That’s down slightly from the recent record 645 new turboprops shipped in 2013, but given the global e...
The first OEM customer for the Rockwell Collins HGS-3500 compact head-up display (HUD) is Embraer, which selected the new HUD for the Legacy 450 and 500 midsize jets. The HUD is optional, as is the Rockwell CollinsEVS-3000 enhanced vision system, and they can be installed either individually or together. The best installation is the combination of the&nbs...
As the US East Coast bunkers down for a hurricane hammering, we look at aircraft used by US Air Force Special Operations and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration to fly directly into hurricanes to take the critical measurements that help predict where a storm is heading. The first time the US Army Air Corps flew an aircraft into a hurricane was in 1943. U-boat activity had...
American Airlines (AA,Dallas/Fort Worth) has filed a USD1 million breach-of-contract suit against the US subsidiary of French seat manufacturer Zodiac Aerospace following lengthy delays in the delivery of business class seats for American's Dreamliner and B777-200ER fleets, the latter of which is being refurbished. The Dallas-based carrier is seeking a court order stating that it...
SWISS’s new fleet flagship, the Boeing 777-300ER, will enter revenue service in the course of the coming 2015/16 winter schedules. The new long-haul twinjet will be deployed on services between Zurich and New York from early 2016. The start of the winter schedules also sees more frequencies added to the Zurich-São Paulo and Zurich-Miami routes. And SWISS will be further expa...
Fitch Ratings has affirmed Ryanair Holdings plc’s (RYA) Long-term Issuer Default Ratings (IDR) and Ryanair Limited’s senior unsecured rating at ‘BBB+’. The Outlook on the IDR is Stable. The unsecured rating covers EUR1.7bn of debt, and it is aligned with RYA’s IDR of ‘BBB+’ despite potential subordination to RYA’s approximately...
