The Estonian Civil Aviation Administration (Lennuamet) has grounded Avies (U3, Tallinn Lennart Meri) following concerns about the carrier's compliance with safety oversight regulations. While Lennuamet did not explicitly state what its concerns were, it did state the suspension of the carrier's Air Operators Certificate (AOC) was effective April 1, 2016 and would last either for a perio...
An Air China pilot who amassed legions of online followers for his on-duty broadcasts from inside the cockpit has been suspended from his job. Images and footage posted to Chinese Twitter site Weibo on Friday show the unnamed pilot in uniform and sunglasses appearing to prepare for take-off. The pictures divided social media, with thousands of online fans praising the 'handsome' pilo...
Commercial drone operators will no longer need remote pilot licences or certificates to use the unmanned aircraft on certain flights when new laws come into force later this year. The relaxed regulations, due to come into force in September, are part of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority's plans to "cut red tape" and accommodate rising popularity in the remote piloted aircraft se...
An Australian man whose wife and son were among the 150 people killed when Germanwings Flight 9525 was deliberately crashed into the French Alps is reportedly suing the US flight school that trained the individual responsible. Victorian man David Friday is suing Lufthansa’s Airline Training Centre Arizona for failing to detect any problems with Andreas Lubitz, the German co-pilot who caus...
It could be a $2 billion deal. Alaska Air has emerged as the likely winner of an auction for Virgin America , The Wall Street Journalreported on Saturday, citing people familiar with the matter. The offer was set to beat a rival bid by JetBlue Airways 0.99% , the people said, according to theJournal. Alaska Air is expected to pay upwards of $2 billion for Virgin America&nbs...
Four aerospace and security corporations will attempt to make DARPA's "gremlins program" dream a reality. The Department of Defense division has joined forces with its frequent collaborator Lockheed Martin, Dynetics of Alabama, as well as Composite Engineering and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems of California. Dan Patt, the program manager, said these four contractors are &qu...
Air France stewardesses, furious at being ordered to wear headscarves in Tehran, say they will refuse to fly to the Iranian capital when the airline resumes the service later this month. Female members of flight crews have been ordered to cover their hair once they disembark in Tehran and unions are demanding that the flights be made voluntary for women. The resumption of a thrice-weekly ser...
A few years ago a passenger on an Indian budget carrier caused an uproar on learning that the captain was a woman. “I don’t want to die. She can’t take care of the house, how will she take care of a plane?” he reportedly yelled. Rightfully, he was deplaned. While his knuckle-dragging tribe may have decreased trivially since then, one wonders what the pas...
China’s Big Three state-owned airlines combined suffered about $2.5 billion in foreign-exchange losses last year after the country unexpectedly devalued the yuan in August, squeezing passenger yields and limiting profit gains from declining oil prices. Net income at China Southern Airlines Co., Asia’s largest carrier by passengers, more than doubled to 3.7 billion yuan ($571.2...
ExecuJet is announcing an extended Line Maintenance capability for EASA registered aircraft at its base in Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, Nigeria. In partnership with Maintenance Centre Malta (MCM), ExecuJet now supports a larger fleet of different aircraft types from Bombardier, Dassault and Hawker in the West Africa region. Ettore Poggi, Vice President, ExecuJet Africa, says:...
When it comes to unmanned air vehicle airspace integration, a blame game is typically played out between industry, users and regulators on why these operations still come second to manned aviation. While users are largely at the mercy of all other parties, regulators claim the technology is not safe enough to fully open up the airspace, and industry is refraining from investing significant sums...
A $151 million contract awarded to V-22 tiltrotor manufacturer Bell-Boeing this week allows engineers to get started designing the US Navy’s future Osprey variant, the CMV-22B, which is replacing the Northrop Grumman C-2 Greyhound twin turboprop in the aircraft carrier logistics role at sea. Based on the US Marine Corps MV-22B Osprey variant, the navy’s “CMV” tiltrotor w...
