An American Airlines jet was forced to land in Brazil after a mystery illness struck for second time in a week, leaving four passengers and crew light-headed. The American Airlines flight was travelling from Brazil to the United States when three members of staff became ill, the Mirror reported. It was the second time this week American Airlines was forced to ground a plane after a mystery i...
Renewing a passport and border checks are not the easiest of tasks for Shona Owen thanks to the unusual location of her birth. About 36,000 feet in the air. To the constant bemusement of immigration officials, her passport reads: "Holder born on an aeroplane." Owen is one of a small community of people who made their entrance into the world in this most dramatic of ways. In 1...
Airbus said on Friday it had accepted the resignation of chief technical officer Jean Botti who will leave the planemaker in April after almost 10 years in the company. The planemaker said that Botti's succession is "subject to the outcome of a comprehensive review on the future set-up and structure for innovation and research and technology at Airbus Group". Botti joined Airbu...
Israel’s Channel 2 news reported that a passenger who was traveling from Eilat to Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport today attempted to open the door of the aircraft while it was in the air. According to the news reports, the flight crew stated that the passenger had mistakenly believed that the exit row door was actually the entrance to the bathroom! According to a passenger o...
An EgyptAir mechanic whose cousin joined Islamic State in Syria is suspected of planting a bomb on a Russian passenger plane that was blown out of Egypt's skies in late October, according to sources familiar with the matter. So far Egypt has publicly said it has found no evidence that the MetroJet flight, which crashed in the Sinai Peninsula after takeoff from Sharm el-Sheikh airport,...
A passenger on board an Air Canada flight from New Jersey to Vancouver captured the terrifying moment when the plane suddenly dropped in altitude and its oxygen masks were deployed. The emergency was prompted by a loss in pressure. Graphs from online flight monitoring software showed AC549 plummeting from more than 35,000 feet (10,000 meters) to just above 10,000 feet (3,000 meters). Busines...
“Meet Our Eskimo!” What could go wrong? Alaska Airlines didn’t get the reception it expected for its new brand update. Alaska Air Group CEO Brad Tilden reportedly apologized for the company’s invitation to “Meet our Eskimo” in the unveiling of the revamp. The tweaked brand, which was released this week, included a “modernized” Eskimo mascot....
Honeywell International Inc. posted profit that matched analysts’ estimates as aerospace sales increased, bolstered by deliveries of jet engines, and overall margins expanded amid cost cuts. Earnings excluding pension adjustments increased to $1.58 a share, the maker of thermostats and factory-automation software said in a statement Friday. Sales, hurt by lower demand for oil-and-gas equi...
Air Malta is planning an enhanced summer 2016 flight schedule that will see improved flight timings on Manchester, Catania, Vienna, Lyon and Marseille and increased frequency on Berlin. The Maltese airline will continue being the largest operator to London and the UK by offering a selection of 30 weekly flights to seven airports. With this schedule, running from the 27th March till 29th October, A...
Arctic Aviation Assets Ltd (AAA), a wholly owned subsidiary of Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA(Norwegian), has arranged for pre-delivery payment financing (PDP) of fifty Airbus 320 Neo aircraft scheduled for delivery in 2016 to 2019. The facility that covers PDP financing for deliveries until the end of 2019 is structured as a revolving credit facility. ‘These deliveries in the n...
Air Astana has signed a codeshare agreement with Hong Kong Airlines, making it the Kazakh carrier’s seventh codeshare partner. Air Astana customers now have the opportunity to book tickets of both airlines to reach Hong Kong Airlines’ destinations in China, Indonesia, Japan, Taiwan and Vietnam. Air Astana operates services to Hong Kong twice weekly (Tuesdays and Fridays) with a Boei...
After 10 years of presence in Portugal (Aigle Azur’s second most important destination after Algeria), as well as an increasing number of flights to Lisbon and direct services to Porto, Faro and Funchal all year-round from Paris-Orly, the company is now proposing a new airlink between Lyons and Porto on a thrice-weekly basis, every Thursday, Friday and Sunday, from 27 March. The company a...
The Boeing 737 MAX 8 took to the skies for the first time today. The 737 MAX program achieved the milestone on schedule which begins a comprehensive flight-test program leading to certification and delivery. With the latest technology LEAP-1B engines from CFM International and Boeing-designed Advanced Technology winglets, the first member of the efficient 737 MAX family completed a tw...
Civil helicopter deliveries at Bell Helicopter Textron won’t really take off until next year, after the new Bell 505 Jet Ranger X light single enters service late this year and the super-medium 525 Relentless is certified early next year. Thus, shipments this year will be mostly flat, just as they were last year, Textron chairman and CEO Scott Donnelly said yesterday during a...
Textron Aviation has completed an expansion of its certifications to enable each of its U.S. company-owned service centers to support Beechcraft, Cessna and Hawker aircraft. This marks another milestone toward the integration of all three brands under the Textron Aviation umbrella. The company had announced plans for the integrated service center network shortly after Textron acquired Be...
France will decide next year whether to advance the timeline for a wide-ranging procurement that seeks to replace hundreds of light and medium helicopters operated by all three branches of its armed forces. Under the nascent hélicoptère interarmées léger (HIL) programme, Paris intends to begin the acquisition process in 2020. However, with a number of aged types r...
On 21 January, Boeing dealt another blow to the 747-8 programme, announcing that from September 2016 it will cut production from the current 1.3 aircraft per month to 0.5 per month. It is the fourth reduction in less than two years – output was already scheduled to drop in March to one aircraft per month – and shows how far, and how quickly, the 747's star has fallen. It is...
All Nippon Airways (ANA) has confirmed that it has ordered three Airbus A380s that will be used on its Tokyo-Honolulu route. Parent company ANA Holdings says in a statement that the aircraft will be used to strengthen its position in the leisure and resort markets. “The A380 allows us to efficiently expand seating capacity at a lower cost per seat while offering a flexible range o...
Bombardier shares were reduced to penny-stock status for the first time since 1991 on Wednesday as the plane and train maker continues to have trouble selling its next generation of aircraft. Bombardier shares were trading hands at 92 cents on the TSX on Thursday, a day after closing below the $1 level for the first time in 25 years. If a company falls below $1 per share on some major exchan...
Not yet tossed the boarding pass from your last flight on Dragonair? Hold fire — you could be clutching a collector's item. Cathay Pacific, Dragonair's owners, have just announced that as of this month, the medium-haul carrier's name will vanish from Asia's airspace. In a repackaging exercise seen as an attempt to bolster the identity of both airlines, Dragonair plan...
China has built a potent military machine over the past 30 years but is struggling to develop advanced engines that would allow its warplanes to match Western fighters in combat, foreign and Chinese industry sources said. The country's engine technology lags that of United Technologies unit Pratt & Whitney, General Electric and Rolls-Royce, said Douglas Barrie, senior fellow for militar...
