All air transport news – Page 2241
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News
BAe woos Denel in SAAF fighter deal
Jonathan Rosenthal/JOHANNESBURG British Aerospace is offering to consolidate the South African defence industry alongside the emerging single European defence company, as part of its bid to sell Saab/BAe JAS39 Gripen fighters and BAe Hawk lead-in fighter trainers to the South African Air Force (SAAF). Sources in the South ...
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SAir Group acquires major Air Europe stake
Marco Messalla/MILAN Swissair parent SAir Group is to grow its increasing portfolio of small European airlines by taking the maximum permitted stake in Italian long-range charter carrier Air Europe, through the purchase of 49.9% of Dutch-based holding company Tegel. The move follows the recent purchase of 44%of France's Air ...
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Calm down
A new and unsettling problem for the airlines - dubbed "air rage" by the media - has been emerging over the last few years. The problem is unsettling because it appears to be global and growing rapidly, and although the airlines can describe it, they cannot define it. This intractable ...
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Muscular Malibu
Dave Higdon/WITCHITA In developing the Meridian, a turboprop derivative of its Malibu high-performance piston single, New Piper Aircraft is counting on the fact that customers will find the transition to turbine power both attractive and manageable. To test this premise, Flight International evaluated the Malibu turboprop conversion developed by JetProp ...
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Airbus steps up its efforts to market A319 Corporate Jet
Graham Warwick/WASHINGTON DC Airbus Industrie is to dedicate up to 12 A319 delivery positions a year to its Corporate Jet, in a bid to convince customers that it is serious about the business aviation market. The European consortium has booked commitments for 12 aircraft since launching the A319CJ ...
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Lithuanian fleet boosted with Saab
Lithuanian Airlines is to boost its Saab turboprop fleet with the lease of two Saab 2000s from the manufacturer's leasing division. The two aircraft, which were previously operated by Deutsche BA and France's Regional Airlines, will arrive at the Lithuanian national carrier's Vilnius base this month, joining two Saab ...
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Gathering clouds threaten European open skies deals
Max Kingsley-Jones/LONDON Julian Moxon/PARIS Any prospects of an immediate UK-US open skies agreement have disappeared, following the confirmation by British Airways that it is postponing its plans for a full-blown strategic alliance with American Airlines. Meanwhile, France is pressing ahead with implementing its bilateral aviation agreement with the ...
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Carriers unite for airframe standard
Several leading international airlines have agreed to study the possibility of standardising aircraft configurations to cut the costs associated with customisation. Introducing the initiative in Washington DC on 5 November, United Airlines chairman Gerald Greenwald said: "Standardisation can save airlines a lot of money." Customisation adds 3-4% to aircraft ...
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Ariane breaks launch record as rival Sea Launch falters
Tim Furniss/LONDON Three Ariane boosters were launched in a record 23 days when, on 28 October, an Ariane 44L carried the first European-manufactured satellite built for a US customer. At the same time the rival Boeing-led Sea Launch has lost two more satellites from its launch manifest. The ...
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Crisis aids Air New Zealand as it swoops for Garuda 737s
Max Kingsley-Jones/LONDONAir New Zealand (ANZ) has taken advantage of the Asian crisis to conclude a deal with Boeing for the rapid delivery of six new 737-300s, which will allow it to accelerate the phase-out of its existing 737-200 ßeet. It is also believed to be in negotiations for additional 737s, ...
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Embraer gears up for the massive regionsl jet production boost
Guy Norris/Palm Springs Embraer plans to deliver more than 470 RJ-135/145s over the next five years as it rushes to boost regional jet production to 12 a month by May 2000. The company, however, is still not convinced that it wants to enter the 70-seater market. The Brazilian manufacturer revealed ...
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Cirrus prepares to clear final SR-20 certification hurdles
Cirrus Design is scurrying to find a new avionics vendor and perform tests on a final seat design before clearing the last certification hurdles for its SR-20 business aircraft. The first customer deliveries are scheduled to start in December. The Cirrus SR-20 received US Federal Aviation Administration type approval ...
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Delays put back first Lancair Columbia delivery
Lancair now plans to deliver the first Columbia 300 four-seater in February 1999 and hopes to have completed the handover of the 200th aircraft by early in 2001. The February delivery date is almost five months behind the company's original schedule, which slipped after design changes were made to improve ...
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Aerospatiale stakes claim for A3XX assembly at Toulouse
Julian Moxon/PARIS The new chief of Aerospatiale's aeronautics division, Jean-Francois Bigay, has added to the controversy over the location of the new assembly line for the Airbus A3XX by pitching strongly to set up a plant at the existing Toulouse location. Aerospatiale is responsible for the final assembly of all ...
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Bombardier refines 90-seater
Guy Norris/PALM SPRINGS Bombardier has refined its plans for the proposed BRJ-X regional jet family and says a launch decision is likely to be taken around October 1999, pending the conclusion of a solid business case. Bombardier is now outlining plans for two main family members, a 90-seater ...
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FlightSafety adds new Miami hub
FlightSafety Boeing Training International is to establish a $100 million Latin American training hub in Miami, Florida. This follows the August announcement by the Boeing/ FlightSafety joint venture of plans to build an $85 million European training hub in London. The new Miami centre is scheduled to open in ...
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MD-11 probe leads to entertainment disconnection
Swissair has voluntarily disconnected the in-flight entertainment systems on its Boeing 747 and MD-11 fleets as a precaution because some heat-damaged wiring associated with it has been found in the MD-11 which crashed off Nova Scotia, Canada, on 2 September. Both the airline and the Transportation Safety Board of Canada ...
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Marketplace
-Frontier Airlines is leasing a Boeing 737-200 from Interlease Aviation Investors, and two new 737-300s, one from Air New Zealand and another from Heller Financial. The -200 has been delivered, while the two 136-seat -300s will go into service with the Denver-based airline in December. -TransAer has introduced its tenth ...
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ATR targets January launch for regional twinjet
An ATR Jet study team has submitted its final proposals to Aerospatiale and Aeritalia, parent companies in the ATR consortium, which could pave the way for the launch of its planned regional twinjet in January 1999. ATR marketing president Antoine Bouissou, speaking at the Speednews regional and corporate aviation ...
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Routes
-Transavia will begin year-round, scheduled services from Amsterdam Schiphol to Seville and to Rhodes in its 1999 summer season. -LTU resumes weekly non-stop flights between Munich and Cape Town on 6 November with a Boeing 767-300ER. The airline temporarily suspended flights to Cape Town six months ago, quoting less demand ...