This week at Aviation Festival in London, Arkefly Managing Director Hans van de Velde gave a keynote outlining the success of the TUI Cloud streaming IFE pilot program (using passenger’s own devices) which was fully deployed across the Arkefly fleet in an astonishing 12 weeks. At the conference he also hinted that the entire TUI family of 140 active aircraft (comprising the fleets of Thom...
Air India's entire fleet of aircraft, over 100 in all, is undergoing an emergency engineering audit. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), which began the audit on September 11, has told its officers to submit the audit report to it within 15 days. The audit was ordered following safety concerns that surfaced after two cases of safety scares that involved AI aircraft. On Septemb...
The first A350 XWB for TAM Airlines rolled out of the Airbus paint shop in Toulouse, revealing the aircraft in its signature red, white and blue livery. The aircraft will continue through the next stages of production, including the installation of engines, completion of cabin furnishing and cockpit fitting, before starting ground and flight tests. The aircraft is scheduled for...
Earnings review The 2015 financial year provided a basket of challenging variables, with a very strong profit in the first half followed by a more mundane second half. The first half started with an unprecedented collapse in the oil price, resulting in a drop in the price of jet fuel from a high of R9.50 per litre to R7.30 by December and R6.50 by year end. This decline granted relief to the dram...
On September 15, 2015, Vietjet and Mitsubishi UFJ Lease & Finance Company Limited (MUL), a member of Japan’s leading finance group Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) in Tokyo on the sidelines of the official visit of His ExcellencyNguyen Phu Trong, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, to Japan. Japan&rsquo...
Thomas Klühr is to succeed Harry Hohmeister as CEO of SWISS in February 2016, as part of a broader realignment of the Lufthansa Group. The new group organization is designed to provide a more functional alignment and thrust, along with flatter hierarchies. Harry Hohmeister, who is already a member of the Lufthansa Group Executive Board, will take charge of the newly-create...
AirBridgeCargo Airlines (ABC), part of Volga-Dnepr Group and Russia’s largest all-cargo carrier, is heading into the final quarter of 2015 with sustained growth after reporting a 17% year-on-year rise in tonnage for the opening eight months of the year. In the period to the end of August, ABC transported 300,000 tonnes of cargo across its global network linking the largest trade...
Supervisory Board gives green light to new group alignment and new division of business on Executive Board / Harry Hohmeister and Dr. Bettina Volkens reappointed as Executive Board members for five further years / product enhancements reap rewards: group airlines report record load factors and very positive business trends for the summer months. Reorganization details: commercial management of...
The new Beluga programme, christened Beluga XL, has successfully passed the latest maturity gate milestone – marking the end of the ‘concept phase’ or design freeze ‘at aircraft level’ which is a key step in any development programme. The maturity gate review demonstrated that the Beluga XL programme is robust and mature enough to move to the next phase of developm...
What will the private jet of the future be like? Ian Dryburgh, CEO of Acumen Design Associates, a leading aviation and transport design company, that created ‘The Residence’ for Etihad and the first flat-bed in the sky for British Airways, believes that the potential for customizing the luxury travel experience is more needed than ever. Last year, Forbes Magazine identified cus...
NH Industries (NHI) must continue its effort to rein in the scope of its NH90 helicopter programme “towards a more manageable number of versions” for the rotorcraft to be “truly a success”. That was the blunt message delivered by Rear Adm Terry Dalton, head of helicopters with the Australian Defence Organisation. Although several NH90 customers bear the scars from a p...
AgustaWestland will fly the third prototype of its AW609 tiltrotor late this year as the manufacturer accelerates testing activity ahead of planned certification in 2017. Two flight-test articles dating from the early days of the programme, then a joint development with Bell, have been used for the validation campaign so far and have amassed 1,300h, alongside 300h of ground runs. But with th...
Bell Helicopter has continued its sales push for the developmental 505 Jet Ranger X, displaying a mock-up of the light single-engined rotorcraft at the MSPO defence show held in Kielce, Poland between 1-4 September. Bell says it exhibited the four-seat, civil rotorcraft at a military exhibition "to promote its capabilities as a training platform" for the region's air forces....
Investors were rushing to pick up shares of Bombardier Inc. last week, as rumours swirled about a takeover offer for its transportation division and another report marked steady progress on its CSeries aircraft. Bombardier has now made several announcements regarding its long-range business jet program. Bombardier Business Aircraft has mounted the engines on its first flight test vehicle for th...
Pastor Temitope Joshua, the leader of the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN), has joined Nigeria’s big league of miracle and prosperity priests who own private jets, reporters has learned authoritatively. Widely-known as TB Joshua, the church leader took possession of the nearly brand-new Gulfstream G550 aircraft in April 2015, a few months after a building collapse at the premises o...
Clay Lacy Aviation has received FAA STC approval for a FANS-1/A+ solution that enables Bombardier Challenger 601-3A/R owners to meet worldwide mandates for preferential routing in the North Atlantic Track region and other oceanic airspace. FANS-1/A+ improves communication between pilots and air traffic controllers by automatically transmitting position reports in text rather...
U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff General Mark Welsh on Tuesday warned that short-term moves to revise downward the Air Force's planned purchase of 1,763 Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 stealth fighters could damage the program and scare off foreign buyers. "Let’s delay this discussion for a little while until we see what happens in the world," Welsh told reporters at the annual Air F...
Airbus Defence and Space today welcomed the decision of the UK Ministry of Defence to declare that the key contractual milestone known as In-Service Delivery (ISD) has been met following the handing-over of its seventh Airbus A400M new-generation airlifter. The transfer of the aircraft, known as Atlas in UK service, means that the Royal Air Force now has four A400Ms in day-to-day...
U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx today announced that the Department of Transportation would provide $5.5 million to help 11 small communities in 11 states develop solutions to improve their local air service needs under the Small Community Air Service Development Program (SCASDP). “Local air service is vital for connecting our smaller communities to the national aviation system...
Boeing Co's first fully equipped KC-46A refueling plane is scheduled to complete its first flight on Sept. 25, the Air Force general in charge of tanker programs said Tuesday. Brigadier General Duke Richardson, executive officer for Air Force tanker programs, said the tanker program was doing well overall, despite earlier schedule delays. "We are definitely struggling with sche...
Trade union members will implement an extensive work stoppage on Friday, 18 September. The strike will also affect flights. Air traffic stoppages on 18 September Cabin crew members of the Finnish Cabin Crew Union have announced that they will be on strike for two hours from 11am to 1pm. This mainly applies to Finnair flights. Air traffic controllers (Finnish Air Traffic Controllers' A...
