All air transport news – Page 2174
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Airlines check out from Galileo ties
Jane Levere NEW YORK Ties between Galileo and its major airline owners have unravelled further, as four carriers have reduced or entirely eliminated their ownership in the global distribution system (GDS). United Airlines, its largest shareholder, began a search for a new vendor to act as its host and potentially ...
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SIA inspires Airbus wrath with A340 sale to Boeing
Singapore Airlines (SIA) sparked a storm of controversy in late June with the surprise announcement that it was not only firming up options on 10 Boeing 777-200IGWs, but trading in its Airbus widebody fleet to do so. While the 777 order was straightforward enough, SIA revealed that Boeing had ...
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Cool head in a hot seat
The glass must always look half full to Fernando Pinto. The first thing that Varig's president and chief executive officer wants to point out is that his airline is in a better position today than it was three years ago. It would be easy to overlook this piece of ...
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Virgin truce puts Irish operation on hold
Simon Montlake ATI LONDON Virgin boss Richard Branson has brokered a truce between disgruntled pilots and managers at Virgin Express, the Brussels-based low-cost carrier. But the agreement, signed by Branson and staff representatives, has only put off the day of reckoning for Virgin Express Ireland, the new subsidiary at ...
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Arkia move sparks Arab backlash
Peter Bennett VIENNA Israeli group Arkia says it will invest up to $100 million in loss-making flag carrier Balkan Bulgarian after it won the rights to buy a majority stake. But problems with some of Balkan's Arab routes have set in, with some countries objecting to dealing with an Israeli-owned ...
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Qualiflying seamless service
With its new joint sales initiatives, the Qualiflyer grouping could be stealing a march in the alliance stakes. The promise of seamless customer service from the global alliances may seem a little distant, but progress appears to be under way. At the forefront has been a series of announcements from ...
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Playing it safe at KAL
Nicholas Ionides SEOUL A big management shake-up at Korean Air has produced a new president and chief executive, Shim Yi-taek. His main task is to improve KAL's safety. Each day at noon, thousands of Korean Air (KAL) employees working at the carrier's Kimpo Airport headquarters building in Seoul make ...
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50 years ago...
As Airbus fine tunes its A3XX design, the world celebrates a half century of jet travel On Wednesday 27 July, 1949, the world's first jet airliner, the de Havilland (DH) 106 Comet, made its first flight from Hatfield airfield, just north of London. That historic half an hour trip marked ...
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Back to the future
Capacity is driving Airbus' future large airliner plans but cost will decide how and where it will be built Julian Moxon/TOULOUSEAirbus will know only after a six-month commercial marketing campaign that begins in January whether it has predicted correctly the demand for its A3XX. If enough airlines, with enough geographical ...
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Light and powerful
It may be slower than its competitors, but the power of Bell's 427 light twin turbine, simplicity of operation and overall comfort impressed Flight International's test pilot Peter Gray/MIRABEL Beginning with a clean sheet of paper, a list of desired design criteria and a rigid purchase price goal, Bell Helicopter ...
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Israelis settle for F-16I, despite new F-15I offer
Arie Egozi/TEL AVIV Paul Lewis/WASHINGTON DCIsrael's air force has settled its long-running fighter competition by ordering 50 Lockheed Martin F-16Is for $2.5 billion, and taking options on up to a further 60. The announcement follows a last-ditch attempt by Boeing to clinch the contest, offering an F-15L version of its ...
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Pan Pacific plans for Let L-420 flights to small US communities
Graham Warwick/WASHINGTON DC Pan Pacific Airways' plans to serve small communities in the north-western USA are back on track after the company agreed to acquire Czech-built Let L-420s. An aircraft arrived in mid-July to enable training to begin. Burlington, Washington-based Pan Pacific hopes to begin operations by year-end. Chairman and ...
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DHL poised to take British Airways 757s
Max Kingsley-Jones/LONDON British Airways is in final negotiations with express package specialist DHL for the sale of almost half of the UK airline's Boeing 757s, with a deal expected to be concluded in the coming months. The transaction, valued at around $500 million (including conversions), would give Boeing a launch ...
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Spoiling tactics
When Boeing concluded its recent trade-in deal with Singapore Airlines (SIA) for 10 more 777s in exchange for a guarantee to buy and remarket its entire A340 fleet, the move seemed as capricious as it was masterful. But, with arch rival Airbus Industrie putting the finishing touches to a ...
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All systems go for Transpac Express Pacific services
Paul Phelan/CAIRNS Australian cargo start-up Transpac Express has received outline approval to launch cargo services to Pacific islands, using widebody freighters. The draft approval from Australia's International Air Services Commission will allow the Brisbane-based company to operate separate weekly freight services from Brisbane to Nauru, New Caledonia, the ...
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Cathay Pacific mulls over larger widebody options
Chris Jasper/HONG KONG Cathay Pacific is studying all of the larger widebody types, including the planned Airbus A3XX, as potential replacements for its 19 Boeing 747-400s. Tony Tyler, corporate development director at Hong Kong based Cathay, says it is evaluating long range Boeing 777s, including the planned General ...
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MD-10 speeds up as passenger version is studied
Boeing is talking to potential customers about developing a passenger version of the MD-10, as it considers accelerating the cargo-led programme by up to three months. US express carrier FedEx is so far the only customer for the MD-10 conversion of the DC-10, with orders and options for 120. ...
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Airbus plans to thwart Boeing's SIA deal
Andrew Doyle/MUNICH Airbus Industrie has drawn up a confidential business plan aimed at frustrating Boeing's efforts to remarket 17 A340-300s it is to acquire from Singapore Airlines (SIA)as part of a recent 777 deal. The consortium declines to comment on the plan, but a source familiar with its contents says: ...
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Boeing soft pedals on programme cutting
Chris Jasper/LONDON Boeing is playing down the possibility of cutting programmes in its get-tough approach to what it had labelled "value destroying" product lines. The US giant's chief financial officer, Debby Hopkins, says several programmes previously in doubt are "operating above the line", and are off the at-risk list. ...
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NASA Messenger mission will map Mercury
NASA plans to return to Mercury, after an absence of more than 30 years, when its Messenger spacecraft reaches the innermost planet in 2008. The Messenger mission to map Mercury is one of two new projects selected for NASA's "quicker, cheaper" Discovery programme (Flight International, 21-27 July). The other ...