State-owned carrier Air India has put on sale nine of its 21 Dreamliners (B787-800) to raise over 7,000 crore rupees to fund acquisition of new aircraft and also for repayment of the bridge loan availed earlier for purchasing these Boeing 787-800s. These nine planes were inducted in the national carrier's fleet between March 2014 and June this year. Air India would also lease back t...
China's startup Qingdao Airlines (QW) is to be rebranded itself as Newloong Air once its shareholding transfer is completed. According to a source familiar with the matter, the first aircraft for Newloong Air has completed its first flight in Toulouse, France, which is an Airbus A320-200 (Registration B-8283) featuring semi-finished new livery of the rebranded airline....
Europe's top aviation safety chief has warned that hackers could maliciously infiltrate an aircraft's critical systems. Speaking to French aviation journalists on Thursday, Patrick Ky, executive director of the European Aviation Safety Agency, said a consultant hired by the Cologne-based agency managed to exploit vulnerabilities in the ACARS (Aircraft Communications Addressing and Repor...
An air accident report into a crash between two Ryanair aircraft at Dublin airport has revealed difficulties with "winglets" -- the upturned end points of wings -- which are increasingly being fitted to aircraft across the world. In two separate crashes at Dublin airport, the winglets of Ryanair Boeing aircraft struck other Ryanair aircraft during taxiing on the gr...
Aiming to address the problem of pilot shortage in the country, a Chinese airline has intensified its efforts to recruit high school students for pilot training, the media reported on Friday. The Shanghai-based China Eastern Airlines plans to recruit 100 high school students for enrollment in 10-year programmes at aviation colleges, China.org reported. "We are recruiting more...
Jet fuel crisis at the Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) due to the "unofficial trade blockade" imposed by India has hit yet another China-based airline. China Eastern Airlines on Friday announced temporary suspension of its Kunming-Kathmandu flights, starting from Oct. 15 till 26. The airline has informed the travel agencies here that if the jet fuel situation did not i...
An Titan Airways Airbus A320-200 on behalf of Easyjet, registration G-POWI performing flight U2-5461 from London Gatwick, EN (UK) to Heraklion (Greece) with 170 people on board, was enroute at FL350 about 50 nm eastsoutheast of Venice (Italy) when the captain became unconscious prompting the first officer to don his oxygen mask and to divert the aircraft to Venice, where the aircraft lan...
Canada's Bombardier Inc said on Friday it is in advanced discussions to sell its new CSeries jet to airlines in North America, without identifying the prospective buyers. Montreal-based Bombardier has redoubled efforts to win a landmark order for the CSeries after failing to sell the program to rival Airbus, and is pitching the jets hard to airlines in North America, said two sources famili...
A new airline was launched in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Friday, a bid to revolutionise air transport within the vast country where flights are currently operated only by the UN and small carriers blacklisted by the EU. Two Airbus A320 jets belonging to Congo Airways left the capital Kinshasa's Ndjili international airport on the inaugural flights carrying invited guests,...
China's flag carrier Air China (CA) plans to resume its Beijing-Kuala Lumpur service from Oct. 26 this year. After Air China's suspension on this route from 2012, currently this service is operated by two foreign airlines, namely AirAsia (AK) and Malaysia Airlines (MH). Yet flight MH370, which carried 227 passengers and 12 crew members en route from Kuala Lumpur to Bei...
A Hong Kong-bound Dragonair (KA) flight from Fuzhou was diverted in Xiamen on Wednesday night 30 minutes after takeoff, due a suspected problem with air conditioner, local media reported. Flight KA663, performed by an Airbus A330-300 aircraft with 259 passengers and 14 crews, took off from Fuzhou Changle International Airport (FOC) at 8:26 p.m. on Monday. The pilo...
An easyJet aircraft flying from Gatwick airport was forced to make an emergency landing after the pilot fell unconscious mid-flight. Flight 5461, which was carrying 164 passengers, was diverted at around midday UK time after taking off at 7:25 a.m. for the Greek island of Crete. The co-pilot then took over the controls and landed the plane safety at Marco Polo airport in Venice, It...