Airman who rescued a downed pilot from the sea and flew sorties at night to pick up French agents. Flight Lieutenant Bob Large, who has died aged 94, flew Spitfires on sweeps over northern France before becoming a pilot on the “Moonlight Squadron”, flying Lysander aircraft into remote fields in France to deliver and pick up agents. By late 1942, Large was one of the most experien...
Disgruntled travellers claim they were delayed for several hours before the shocking comment was made. This is the moment an air stewardess stunned passengers on board a Ryanair flight by telling them: "We have ice on the wing - we don't want to die!" The gob-smacking video has been shared on social network sites by one of the holiday-makers on board as they tried to fly f...
Nobody likes waiting at airports. But one of the only things worse than waiting beside the gate is waiting on the airplane itself, stranded on the runway, and an MIT engineering team has set out to solve that problem. Using a new queuing model, the MIT system can predict how long a plane will have to wait before takeoff so that air traffic controllers can better manage planes on the tarmac, cut do...
Uber is partnering with Airbus. The on-demand ride service will be offering stylish, swift, and costly helicopter rides around Utah during the Sundance Film Festival this month, and none other than European aerospace giant Airbus will be providing the choppers. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Airbus CEO Tom Enders said "It's a pilot project, we’ll see where it goes...
The Indian aviation sector, the tenth largest in the world, is looking even more curious. About 70 million domestic tickets are estimated to be sold in 2014-15 and the Centre has an ambitious aim to enable 300 million domestic ticketing by 2022 and 500 million by 2027; similarly, international ticketing is expected to touch 200 million by 2027. In contrast, our neighbouring giant, China, add...
Year after year, Airbus and Boeing seem to have been able to declare record orders, flying high on the back of an apparently never-ending boom. Reporting on their annual sales and delivery performances recently, however, the two global giants of commercial aviation appeared to signal that a hard landing is near. Seattle-based Boeing announced a net 768 orders in 2015, almost halving the...
easyJet plc has today received public credit ratings and intends to publish an Offering Circular for a Euro Medium Term Note (EMTN) Programme to facilitate access to new and cheaper sources of funding. easyJet has been assigned investment grade ratings of BBB+ (stable) by Standard & Poor’s and Baa1 (stable) by Moody’s which reflect the quality of easyJet’s business model,...
Goshawk Aviation Limited and Natixis announce the completion of a new USD470 million, 8-year recourse secured debt facility. The new facility will finance 17 aircraft. Natixis led the transaction as Sole Lead Arranger, Structuring Agent, and Bookrunner. Highlights New USD470 million full recourse secured facility with proceeds to be used to finance upcoming deliveries in addition to refinanc...
Passengers often joke that low-cost carriers will charge a fee for almost anything, and now an airline in Spain has been accused of illegally charging job applicants for an interview. Hopefuls who sought jobs as pilots and flight attendants with Air Europa Express were forced to pay a €60 (£45 or $65) fee to reach the final stage of the application process, unions have claimed. Th...
In order to discreetly communicate with each other professionals working on planes, the Underground or cruise ships have their own language. Their unique codes and jargon help them to deal with situations from dangerous threats like bomb scares and hijacking, to cleaning issues like vomit or glass - all without spreading panic among passengers. Here are some of the codes that the public are...
A Lebanese official on Friday acknowledged European concerns about safety regulations at the Beirut airport, saying the facility needs improvement but adding that recent reports that the airport does not meet international safety standards are "exaggerated." Mohamad Kabbani, head of Parliament's public works and transport committee, also said that Lebanon will use part of a $25 mi...
A coroner's jury has ruled that a helicopter crash which killed Tory peer Lord Ballyedmond and three others was an accident. Lord Ballyedmond, also known as Dr Edward Haughey, was killed when the AgustaWestland AW139 came down in a field in heavy fog shortly after take-off from the estate he owned in Gillingham, Norfolk, on March 13 2014. Dr Haughey's foreman, Declan Small, 42, of Ma...
It seems like the branded outstation airport lounge is having something of a renaissance. With airlines continuing to fight for lucrative business and first class passengers — not to mention the frequent flyers in economy who are often on high-value last minute fares — there’s a lot to be said for an airline having its own space to serve its own passengers rather than leaving the...
Global Eagle Entertainment Inc.,a worldwide provider of aircraft connectivity systems, operations solutions and media content to the travel industry, today announced a multi-year renewal of its strategic content services agreement with JAL Brand Communications, LTD (JBC), a JAL subsidiary managing Japan Airlines (JAL) IFE operations. As part of the agreement, GEE will provide a full range of co...
The alternative was for the airline to end its policy of discriminating against Israeli passengers. “The US Department of Transportation will not tolerate unlawful discrimination, and has mandated that the airline immediately cease that practice and allow Israeli passengers to travel between the US and London,” Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said. With the termination of servic...
A strong wind gust over Jacksonville, Fla. was blamed Friday for causing severe turbulence on board an American Airlines flight from New York’s LaGuardia Airport to Miami International that hurt five passengers and a flight attendant. Flight 1410 encountered the turbulence about 40 minutes from landing, WSVN reported. The airline said in a statement that the seatbelt light was on at the t...
A survey reveals the healthiest — and unhealthiest — airline meals. Airlines haven’t exactly developed a reputation for providing healthful in-flight foods—and even the world’s best in-flight food service serves up sinful (if not exactly healthful) dishes like creamy lobster mac and cheese, extensive wine menus, and feta cheese with figs and truffle honey. Since...
He calls himself the “Drone Slayer.” And William Merideth, who shot down a drone over his Hillview home last summer, says he’d “do it again, with a smile.” Dismissing criminal charges against him for firing a gun within city limits, a judge said Merideth was within his rights when he took out the $1,800 unmanned aircraft, which Merideth said he feared was peeping o...
Much ink has been spilled in recent years about Airbus' lead overBoeing in the enormous market for single-aisle jets. Airbus ended 2015 with 5,535 firm orders for its A320 family of jets (including the new A320neo). Meanwhile, Boeing ended the year with 4,392 firm orders for its competing 737 family (including the new 737 MAX). THE A320NEO AND 737 MAX HAVE HUGE ORDER BACK...
I hate paper, so don’t love paper boarding passes – whether printing them at home or queuing up at the airport. Since I mostly fly American Airlines domestically I use their mobile app. One catch though is that I always pull up my boarding passes when I check in for a flight, even my connecting pass, in case I don’t have great connectivity (or there’s some other glitch) whe...
German photographer Birk Mobius couldn’t have known back in 2014, as he pointed his camera around the small aerodrome he was visiting, that he was about to capture an extraordinary, once-in-a-lifetime moment. As he casually snapped some pictures of a Boeing 777 cargo plane on a tumultuous 30-minute flight from Frankfurt to Leipzig, the stormy weather positioned the airplane’s path s...
