More than 160 passengers and crew slid down emergency chutes in swirling snow Tuesday after engine smoke forced a Japan Airlines domestic flight to abort takeoff and smoke entered the cabin, Japanese media reported. National broadcaster NHK showed video of the passengers evacuating and then gathering on the snow-covered tarmac at New Chitose Airport, which serves the city of Sapporo in Hokkaido...
Ryanair has announced a number of new international destinations from Scotland in its 2016 winter schedule. The budget airline will launch six new twice-weekly services from Edinburgh later this year. Destinations from the capital will include Bologna, Bordeaux, Bratislava, Gran Canaria, Palma and Poznan. There will also be more flights in the winter schedule to Alicante, Barcelona, Copen...
Regional Express (Rex) has swung to a rare first half loss due to impairment charges relating to the end of a Defence contract. The company reported a statutory net loss of $11.4 million for the six months to December 31 2015, compared with net profit of $3.9 million in the prior corresponding period. Rex said in a statement on Wednesday it was the airline group’s first statutory net loss...
Emirates Airline's first non-stop service between Auckland and Dubai will be one of the longest air routes in the world by distance, but with the assistance of clever technology and good planning, passengers will get to their destination in the shortest possible time. According to a press release issued today, Emirates said it will be using flexible routes, which can vary by day, taking adv...
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was a popular book in the ’70s, and though I’ve tried several times, I’ve never been able to penetrate more than a few dozen pages. That said, I’ve always been a proponent of keeping my rolling stock (on the ground and in the air) in good working order. Maybe it is the Zen part I had trouble with. Maintenance has been u...
The FAA says it’s receiving more than 100 reports a month from pilots and others who spot unmanned aircraft flying close to airports or airplanes. The agency has partnered with CACI International to explore how the company’s prototype detection technology could help detect UAS in the vicinity of airports. CACI’s proof-of-concept system uses radio frequency sensors at strategic...
FlightSimCon, an annual flight simulation and aviation conference for pilots and aviation enthusiasts, will take off June 11-12 at the New England Air Museum, which is on the grounds of Bradley International Airport near Hartford, Conn. In 2015, the conference welcomed more than 320 people, with organizers saying they expect many more this year. Registration for the 2016 event is now availab...
You don’t often get the opportunity to sample business class in three of the world’s top airlines in the space of a few days, but my recent trip to Venezuela (three days in the air for two on the ground) gave me the perfect chance to assess standards of comfort, service and entertainment in Emirates, Lufthansa and United Airlines. The result was a close-run thing between Dubai and G...
Ashli MCclure, who celebrated her 20th birthday in January, has reached another milestone in her aviation career after successfully achieving her commercial pilot’s license on February 19, 2016. Initially, the former Charlemont High School student she said wanted to become a doctor, but after experiencing flying for the first time as a little girl, she knew what she wanted to be...
The National University of Singapore will soon be seeing unmanned air vehicles flying over its campus, as Airbus Helicopters and the nation’s aviation authority team up to trial parcel delivery at the site. A memorandum of understanding has been signed between the aircraft manufacturer and the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS), which will result in trials under the Skyways...
Domestic flights and services to Finland have been cancelled by the airline as union representatives seek a new agreement with bosses. Passengers travelling between some Swedish cities and to Finland have so far been affected by the strike, which got under way at Monday 7am. Flights to and from Stockholm and Kalmar, Visby, Åbo and Vasa were called off in the Monday morning. Later...
More than 300,000 passengers carried Two years have passed since the signing of the partnership agreement between Air France-KLM and GOL Linhas Aéreas Inteligentes. This agreement has enabled both airlines to optimize and expand their networks to new destinations between Brazil and Europe, with more than 300,000 passengers carried. With more than 215,000 flights operated since the...
The largest airline in the Philippines, Cebu Pacific Air , today launched an exclusive seat sale for Hong Kong travellers looking to visit the Philippines in 2016.The special fares start from just HKD398 for one-way flights from Hong Kong to Manila, Cebu, Kalibo , Clark and Iloilo. Quoted fares are exclusive of travel products such as baggage allowance and meals, and inclusive of air fare, country...
Killing time in an airport is rarely the best part of a trip. But with art, unique amenities and a dedication to doing things the “Dutch way,” Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport makes time before or between flights desirable — especially for the 40% of passengers who transfer here and never get a chance to go into town. Here’s a taste of what makes Schiphol so darn sp...
Airbus Helicopters, says chief executive Guillaume Faury, is on a “journey” of transformation, as it attempts to go from being the “biggest to the best” rotorcraft manufacturer in the world. Faury, who in 2013 was handed the reins of what was then Eurocopter, has wrought impressive change since kicking off its transformation early the following year, but clearly that pro...
At first glance, watchmaking and aviation would seem to occupy opposite ends of the manufacturing spectrum. And yet the watchmaker Richard Mille, whose Swiss brand is best known for fashioning avant-garde timepieces from space-age materials, found enough similarities between the two worlds to co-design a watch with Airbus Corporate Jets, or ACJ. As the ACJ managing director, Benoit Defforge, pu...
Toluca International Airport-based Across was tapped as Embraer Executive Jets’ authorized sales representative for Mexico, the Brazilian aircraft manufacturer announced today. Under the partnership, seven-year-old Across will add Embraer business jet sales and fractional ownership offerings to its existing aircraft charter/management and FBO services. “Embraer has establi...
When will we finally pilot our own flying cars? It’s a question that’s haunted anyone who grew up watching sci-fi classics, and one American company claims they’re coming sooner than you’d think. Terrafugia is building the first-ever unmanned prototype of its TF-X flying car. They claim the vehicle will be ready for testing in 2018 and available for purchase by 2025. The...
The recent decision by the U.S. government to re-establish scheduled air service between the U.S. and Cuba is fueling optimism that the remaining travel restrictions will be eased in upcoming months. U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx last week signed an agreement with senior Cuban transportation officials that paves the way for renewal of scheduled air servic...
The newest Flagship of SWISS Airlines has arrived to New York, the first revenue transatlantic flight of the airliner. The aircraft touched down at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport at 16:01 local time (21:01 GMT), operating flight LX14 from Zurich. Interestingly, the first triple seven of the airline wears a special “Faces of Swiss” scheme, in which are depicted the faces of...
Israel Aerospace Industries has taken the quadcopter to its logical conclusion: They built a man-hunting flying suicide drone. The ROTEM-L unmanned aerial vehicle is designed to hunt down targets in urban environments and execute a suicide attack, blowing them up with hand grenades. ROTEM-L weighs 9 pounds, carries infrared cameras, and has a flying time of 30 minutes. An op...
