Passenger traffic through Abu Dhabi International Airport last month rose nearly 16 per cent compared to the same period last year. The increase comes on the back of Etihad Airways increasing its capacity to London. The use of the Airbus A380 aircraft has lifted capacity between Abu Dhabi and the UK capital by 53 per cent, Abu Dhabi Airports said on Sunday. Approximately 1.78 million passeng...
Tianjin Airlines has taken delivery of two Embraer 195s, the first of the type in China. The carrier took delivery of the aircraft, registered B-3100 and B-3108 on 24 December. The regional jets, equipped with General Electric CF34-10E powerplants, are configured with 122 seats in an all-economy layout. The airline plans to deploy the regional jets on the Tianjin-Qingdao-Wenzhou and Tia...
Indian low-cost carrier IndiGo has taken delivery of its 100thAirbus A320 aircraft. The company celebrated the event with a ceremony at New DelhiInternational Airport, says IndiGo in a statement. The aircraft bears registration VT-IDR. Flightglobal’s Fleet Analyzer shows that IndiGo’s fleet of 100 A320s has an average age of just 3.6 years. It has...
Germany plans legislation requiring random drug and alcohol testing of pilots, hoping to reduce the risk of a repeat of the Germanwings crash in March. The plans follow the recommendation of a task-force set up by the Transport Ministry, after a pilot barricaded himself inside the cockpit of a plane operated by Germanwings and crashed it in the Alps, killing all 150 people on board. Prosecut...
Kiwi Regional Airlines (KRL, Hamilton) shareholder 2 Cheap Cars is looking to dispose of its 10.4% stake in the airline. Eugene Williams, the CEO of the used car importer and retailer, told New Zealand's Business Desk news that the firm had "never intended to be a long-term investor" in the carrier which launched domestic operations in October this year. "When we first got in...
AtlasGlobal UA (UH, Lvov) managing director Sergei Podgorodetsky says that after a full due diligence of the type, his airline has formally abandoned plans to acquire An-148-100s from local Ukrainian manufacturer Antonov Design Bureau (Gostomel). Speaking to Russian business daily Delo, Podgorodetsky attributed the decision to the type's overinflated price. "We considered the possib...
Air Malta (KM, Malta) is close to finalizing a strategic partnership agreement with Etihad Airways (EY, Abu Dhabi Int'l) aviation sources in the Maltese capital, Valletta, have revealed. Speaking to The Times of Malta newspaper on condition of anonymity, the sources said airline chairwoman Maria Micallef and senior officials from the Office of the Prime Minister had conducted the negotiatio...
The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, has appealed to domestic airlines to liquidate all outstanding debts to the authority and other aviation agencies in the country. The NCAA made the appeal in a statement issued by its Acting General Manager, Public Relations, Sam Adurogboye, on Sunday in Lagos. “Safety is a collective responsibility and we appreciate the cooperation from all...
Russia’s emergencies ministry on Sunday opened an unmanned aviation center at the ministry’s Moscow region department. The ceremony was attended by Minister Vladimir Puchkov. "The unmanned aviation center will help improve the quality of monitoring and raise the level of crisis response," he said. The minister said drones would be used for aerial surveying to establish pre...
It’s a bit musty inside the 727 parked near a row of storage sheds at Riverside Municipal Airport. Part of the stale smell may be because the plane has been sitting dormant for more than 2½ years. Part of it may be the pigeons that have taken roost in the housings of the unused jet engines. The former Federal Express plane is the property of California Baptist University and is one...
Apple products are a big seller on China’s eBay-equivalent website Taobao, but what about actual apples? People’s Daily Online (via The Daily Mail) is reporting that there’s been a rise of listings on the website of flight attendants supposedly kissing apples and selling them to interested customers. The apples, some of which claim to have been kissed by 500 air hostesses,...
By Benjamin Zhang As Business Insider's transportation reporter, flying on planes is an integral part of my job description. Unfortunately for me, acrophobia is also a major part of life. Simply put, I don't like heights. Although I thoroughly enjoy flying on big airliners, small planes still bug me. I don't like the instability, the single engine, and I don't like the a...
Preliminary data as of December 26, 2015. Final data will be published January 1, 2016 The Aviation Safety Network today released the preliminary 2015 airliner accident statistics showing a record low total of 16 fatal airliner accidents, resulting in 560 fatalities. Despite several high profile accidents, the year 2015 turned out to be a very safe year for commercial aviatio...
China’s aviation industry is coming to the end of its most profitable year in history and is headed for a 2016 that will see more new airlines formed and new international routes added as the sector stands out as a bright spot in the mainland’s slowing economy. The industry turned in a total profit of 54.8 billion yuan (HK$65.7 billion) in the first 11 months of the year, up 76.2 pe...
Russia will supply President-S onboard defense systems to Egypt to protect aviation from antiaircraft missile systems and air-launched missiles, the first deputy head of Radioelectronic Technologies Group (KRET), part of state hi-tech corporation Rostec, said on Friday. "There is a contract and we’re working within this contract. The deliveries will start in the imminent future,&qu...
It has been just 10 years since Airbus launched its A380, the world’s largest passenger aircraft. When the super-jumbo made its first commercial flight in 2005, it was viewed as the future of air travel. The double-decker allowed airlines to carry more people without buying extra landing slots at increasingly congested airports. The Gulf’s three biggest airlines – Emirates, Et...
African airlines are facing another year in the red, with the International Air Transport Association (IATA) predicting collective losses of approximately $100 million for 2016. This follows loss estimates of some $300 million for African carriers in 2015, according to the organization’s recently revised industry outlook , in which it projected that globally the world’s airlines a...
Just 18 short months ago, most airlines were attempting to grasp how they would craft merchandising strategies in order to fully exploit exploding ancillary revenue sales. Now with year-end 2015 fast approaching, online travel agencies (OTAs) have emerged as one of the fastest growing channels for ancillary revenues. Travel services technology provider and GDS firm Amadeus recently offered some...
“The story of women’s struggle for equality belongs to no single feminist nor to any one organization but to the collective efforts of all who care about human rights.” Gloria Steinem Among those leading the shift to gender balance in air and space is the Institute for Women of Aviation Worldwide (iWOAW), whose flagship outreach program, Women of Aviation Worldwide W...
Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. was fined almost 500,000 euros ($547,000) for what a French court termed irregular pay practices concerning pilots operating European routes for the Hong Kong-based airline. The penalty was imposed after union complaints that crew stationed at Charles de Gaulle airport weren’t being recognized by Cathay as based in France, allowing it to avoid making proper pay...
Some foreign carriers pitch for more landing points as well as higher number of seats but at times allowing such requests could hurt domestic carriers, said a senior official from the Civil Aviation Ministry. Signalling a major shift in granting air traffic rights, the government is looking at restricting the number of landing points for overseas airlines irrespective of their seat entitlements...
