All air transport news – Page 2265
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American boosts 777 orders
Max Kingsley-Jones/LONDON American Airlines has placed a $2.1 billion order for 15 more Boeing 777-200ERs, boosting its total for the aircraft to 34. The carrier placed an initial order for 777s in November 1996, and selected the Rolls-Royce Trent 800 engine. At that time, the airline concluded a ...
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Air Jamaica plan for all-Airbus fleet hit by shortage of aircraft
Graham Warwick/Washington DC Air Jamaica wants to move to an all-Airbus fleet "as soon as possible", to cut costs, but is being stymied by a lack of available aircraft. The Jamaican flag carrier is looking for at least four A320s and one A340, says chief executive Christopher Zacca. ...
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IAI seeks to wrap up FedEx deal with further Airtruck investors
Israel Aircraft Industries' (IAI) Airtruck specialised cargo aircraft has been selected in principle by FedEx to meet its requirement for a Fokker F27 replace- ment. The Israeli company is struggling to meet FedEx's price demands, however, and is seeking additional customers, partners and investors to enable the programme to be ...
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Delta speeds up 727 retirement
Delta Air Lines is accelerating the retirement of its Boeing 727-200s. The last of the tri-jets are set to leave the fleet in 2005, some three years earlier than previously planned, . The 117 727-200Advs in the mainline fleet and the 14 similar aircraft allocated to Delta Shuttle operations ...
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Gill Air closes on Fokker 100 leases for franchise flights
Gill Air is finalising a deal to acquire three Fokker 100s to enable it to launch jet operations on its Air France franchise routes early next year. The UK regional airline, based in Newcastle, has selected the 100-seat Fokker for its jet requirement over the similarly sized British Aerospace ...
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Ilyushin prepares for Il-96T US approval
Paul Duffy/MOSCOW Ilyushin expects the freighter version of the Pratt & Whitney PW2337-powered Il-96, the -96T, to receive US Federal Aviation Administration certification by October, but the US engine manufacturer is less optimistic. The Il-96T recently received Russian/CIS certification for operation by CIS airlines, but deliveries cannot begin ...
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Marketplace
Embraer has delivered the first ERJ-145ER to City Airline of Sweden. The new carrier will use the 50-seater on services from Gothenburg to major European destinations. Continental Micronesia will retire its four Boeing 747-200s next April. The aircraft will be replaced with a similar number of McDonnell ...
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One Eleven Stage 3 hushkit begins flight testing
Ian Sheppard/LONDON European Aviation and Quiet Technologies have completed initial flight tests of a proof of concept BAC One-Eleven Stage 3 hushkit prototype, and are satisfied that the aircraft will meet Stage 3 noise limits. The companies are to continue with development, having also shown that the fuel ...
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Routes
British Airways has started code-sharing on Malév Hungarian Airlines' services between Budapest Ferihegy and London Gatwick. Vietnam Airlines has suspended Hanoi-Seoul services and will stop the Ho Chi Minh City-Seoul route in mid-September. Air Tahiti Nui will launch services in November with three weekly flights ...
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Kawasaki/Rolls-Royce talks given new impetus
Long-running negotiations between Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI) and Rolls-Royce on a Japanese risk sharing stake in the Trent 500 and 8140 turbofans have taken on renewed impetus, with the hope of an agreement being reached in time for the Farnborough air show to be held in early September. KHI ...
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Transaero shake-up may lead to merger
Alexander Velovich/MOSCOW A battle for control at Russian airline Transaero has seen the airline's founder, Alexander Pleshakov, ousted, with Aeroflot Russian International Airlines majority shareholder Boris Berezovsky now believed to be have taken control through a share trading deal. There is now speculation that the two airlines could be ...
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Virgin Holidays seeks A320s for new charter operation
Virgin Holidays says that it will outline its plans in the coming weeks for new UK-based charter airline Virgin Sun. The company is believed to be finalising the acquisition of its own dedicated fleet of Airbus A320s to operate alongside aircraft wet-leased from Sabre Airways. Both parties deny industry ...
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Ayres takes over Let Kunovice
Andrzej Jeziorski/MUNICH After almost a year of talks, US agricultural and utility aircraft manufacturer Ayres has completed the purchase of 93.6% of Czech regional aircraft producer Let Kunovice. The US company says that it has taken over Let's long-term debt as part of the deal, but declines to disclose the ...
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Qantas warns on competition
Paul Phelan/SYDNEY Qantas has warned that increasingly desperate competition from rivals in the region will make it difficult for the Australian airline to sustain the record profits it has just declared for the 1997/8 financial year. Operating profit was up 13.6% on the previous year at US$282 million, ...
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S Korean air force considers stopgap fighter
The South Korean air force is considering leasing interim fighter aircraft to make up for a two-year delay in its future F-X programme. Samsung Aerospace is lobbying to sell more Lockheed Martin F-16C/Ds to make up the shortfall and keep its Sachon licence production line open beyond 2000. South ...
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Slimming down
Assembly times are under attack on British Aerospace's regional airliner production line Ian Sheppard/Woodford While Boeing struggles to stay profitable producing hundreds of airliners a year, British Aerospace Regional Aircraft (BARA) faces a different challenge - how to make money producing a handful of aircraft each year. Based at Woodford, ...
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Thinking thin
Ian Sheppard/London Launched in April, the UK Lean Aerospace Initiative (LAI) is a 50:50 Government/industry-funded programme co-ordinated by the Society of British Aerospace Companies (SBAC) as part of its Competitiveness Challenge. Donald Craig, seconded from Rolls-Royce as SBAC LAI programme manager, believes that the UK is leading the ...
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Boeing burgers
Boeing is reshaping the way it produces airliners to reduce costs and speed up deliveries Guy Norris/Seattle To most, burgers and airliners do not readily mix. Yet, as Boeing fights hard to reduce costs, cycle times and defects, the fast-food production concept is exactly the sort of philosophy it is ...
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Skynet 5 goes national
European military space integration has been ditched by the UKTim Furniss/LONDON The UK is to develop a new generation of military communications satellites rather than enter the Trimilsatcom collaborative programme with France and Germany (Flight International, 19-25 August). When he announced the Ministry of Defence decision on 12 August, Lord ...
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Orenda gets OE-600A approval
Orenda Recip has received Canadian approval to begin production of its 450kW (600hp) OE-600A vee-8 piston aero engine. Certification of the first re-engineing programme using the powerplant is expected before year-end, with others pending. The Canadian company plans to produce engines at a new plant set to open at ...