ExecuJet Aviation Group is celebrating victory as 'Best Private Aviation Operator' in the fourth annual Business Traveller Africa Conference & Awards, held this week in Johannesburg, South Africa. ExecuJet was one of five businesses nominated in the private aviation category and emerged triumphant through a survey of 1,700 travel agents and 500 corporate travel buyers in South Afric...
The slip-sliding, aisle-widening Side-Slip seat is back, and one step closer to launch. Denver-based Molon Labe Designs LLC, developers of the Side-Slip Seat, which would ease aircraft boarding, took some time to go back to the drawing board after the product’s debut at the Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg in 2013. But the independent seat manufacturer has now released a...
Gategroup Holding AG, vying with Deutsche Lufthansa AG to be the biggest airline caterer, posted a wider loss and said it will cut 300 jobs as it adopts a new strategy, sending the stock to the steepest drop in three years. Gategroup slumped 15 percent to 28 Swiss francs Thursday, the most since Nov. 23, 2011, after it said posts would be cut at its Zurich base and offices in London and Reston,...
China's sixth largest private company CEFC added to a weeklong buying spree in the Czech Republic on Saturday, announcing deals to buy a majority stake in a top brewery group and a share in an airline company in the central European country. The Czechs have sought more investment ties with the world's second largest economy. This week President Milos Zeman was the only Western leader to...
Aeroflot Russian Airlines (Moscow) has agreed to acquire 75 percent of the shares of failingTransaero Airlines (Moscow). Aeroflot is buying out its main competitor (and its $1.6 billion debt) for the symbolic price of one ruble. Transaero Airlines is the second largest airline in Russia and has lately been failing and building up a large debt. According to Reuters, “Transae...
Donald Trump's presidential campaign has a big advantage hidden in plain sight: Trump Air. Mr. Trump's fleet of private aircraft, which includes a Boeing 757, a Cessna Citation X and three Sikorsky helicopters, whisks the billionaire executive to Republican primary events in far-flung locales, some of them difficult to reach by commercial planes. The fleet also allows Mr. Trump...
Cathay Pacific Airways operated its first flight to Düsseldorf on 1 September 2015, with CX379 departing Hong Kong shortly after midnight and arriving in Düsseldorf at 07:12 on the same day. Prior to the departure of CX376, the first Cathay Pacific flight from Düsseldorf to Hong Kong, a gate ceremony was organized at the boarding gate in Düsseldorf Airport to celebrate the s...
What does longhaul business class mean to you? Is it a flat (or nearly flat) bed? Lounge access? Better food and drinks? The diversification of both hard and soft product, together with the increase in ancillary options in recent years — even in premium cabins — is a benefit for consumers who want to pick and mix their perfect flight, but a headache for travel planners, corporate bo...
The passenger benefits of inflight connectivity, particularly over broader bands like the Panasonic Avionics Ku-band system that Lufthansa brands as FlyNet, are plain. Yet the operational benefits are equally clear. Rather than just the ACARS or VHF narrowband pipes dribbling information back, the entire aircraft can be connected — “e-enabled”, as some call it — and can fee...
As from 1 of September Guillaume Steuer is reporting to Vice President of Corporate Communications Yves Barillé and is managing all external communications activities for Airbus Helicopters. Since June 2014, Guillaume Steuer has held the position of Media & Communication Officer with the European Defence Agency in Brussels - Belgium. After obtaining a European diploma of Higher Studie...
A passenger has been tackled by cabin crew after starting two small fires on board a holiday jet. Police have launched an investigation after the incidents on a Monarch service from Birmingham Airport to Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt. Staff quickly contained and extinguished the fires during Thursday's flight, and no-one was hurt. However the plane was left unserviceable, leaving...
The first two Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) F-35A Lightning IIs assigned to the 388th Fighter Wing were officially delivered to the base today. The two F-35A Conventional Takeoff and Landing variants, known as AF-77 and AF-78, are the first of 72 F-35As scheduled for delivery to the base. "The F-35A Lightning II represents the future of tactical aviation for the United States and our allies,...
To celebrate the Next Generation of Aircraft Maintenance Professionals, AMT is proud to announce its Next-Gen Awards Program. This year we will celebrate 40 aircraft maintenance professionals less than 40 years of age who clearly demonstrate the talent, ambition, and characteristics of the Next-Generation Aircraft Maintenance Professional. It is not a ranking, but rather a listing of ind...
Seaborne Airlines (BB, St. Thomas SPB) and other carriers serving the Caribbean island of Dominica have suspended their respective operations there until further notice. The move comes after the island's principal gateway - Dominica Douglas-Charles - sustained severe damage during Tropical Storm Erika's transit last week. While the airfield has been temporarily close...
Alaska Airlines (AS, Seattle Tacoma Int'l) is on track to take early delivery of its first B737 MAX aircraft. Alaska's VP - Capacity Planning, John Kirby, told FlightGlobal that unlike previous forecasts, the airline's maiden B737 MAX 8 aircraft is now likely to arrive in late 2017 as opposed to early 2018. Alaska Airlines ordered twenty -8s and seventeen -9s from Boe...
Ryanair (FR, Dublin Int'l) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Michael O'Leary has denied reports his airline is planning to establish a 'virtual' base at Copenhagen Kastrup to cope with a surge in demand expected during the summer 2016 season. The Irish LCC was forced to close both its Copenhagen and Billund bases during the previous quarter after...
Germania Flug (GM, Zurich) has announced it will add a third aircraft - an A321-200 (sl) - to its fleet of two A319-100s with effect from October 25. The jet - D-ASTD (cn 5843) - will be used, inter alia, to operate flights to Pristina, Kosovo and Skopje, Macedonia for and on behalf of tour operator, Air Prishtina. This year, flights to Kosovo will operate not on...
Los Angeles has dropped a lawsuit accusing JPMorgan Chase (JPM.N), the largest U.S. bank, of discriminatory mortgage lending, ending the first of the city's four lawsuits accusing major banks of driving up foreclosures among minority borrowers. Disclosed in a filing on Tuesday in a California federal court, the agreement ends a lawsuit attempting to hold the bank liable for lost property ta...
Boeing Co (BA.N) said on Friday it is sticking to current production plans for its 747 jumbo jet despite a canceled order that left no net new orders for the plane in 20 months. Nippon Cargo Airlines Ltd, a unit of Nippon Yusen (9101.T), canceled orders for four 747 freighters on Sept. 1, Boeing said, leaving no net new orders from this year or last. Boeing now has just 25 firm 747 orders, equa...
Irish aircraft leasing firm Avolon Holdings Ltd (AVOL.N) said it agreed to be acquired for about $2.5 billion by Bohai Leasing Co Ltd (000415.SZ), a unit of Chinese aviation and shipping conglomerate HNA Group. Avolon shareholders will receive $31 per share in cash, which is lower than the $32 per share the companies were discussing in exclusive talks in August. Avolon said the lower price was...
Boeing Co (BA.N) took the wraps off an assembly plant on Friday for its first line of commercial spaceships, which NASA plans to use to fly crews to the International Space Station, officials said. "This is a point in history that reflects a new era in human spaceflight," Boeing Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg said at a grand opening ceremony at the Kennedy Space Center. Boeing&#...
