All news – Page 6517

  • News

    Argentina and USA talk again

    1999-05-01T00:00:00Z

    Argentinian and US negotiators will meet again after failing to agree on a new bilateral. Earlier this year, presidents Bill Clinton and Carlos Menem asked their negotiators to wrap up an accord by March, which they hoped would result in an open skies agreement. A main sticking point is ...

  • News

    Micronesia faces change

    1999-05-01T00:00:00Z

    Aviation ministers from four island nations in Micronesia are considering the launch of a joint regional airline to safeguard air transport in the region, now apparently heading toward less certain times. Ministers from the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru and Kiribati have retained an Australian-based ...

  • News

    Pilots hamper TAP privatisation

    1999-05-01T00:00:00Z

    SAirGroup has agreed to take a stake in Tap Air Portugal, but a dispute over pilots' pay may jeopardise the Portuguese carrier's fragile profitability and remaining privatisation plans. As expected, Swissair's parent is to cement its relationship with the Portuguese flag carrier by taking a 20% stake, pending ...

  • News

    Iberia sues pilots for strike damages

    1999-05-01T00:00:00Z

    Iberia is the second major airline in less than two months to sue its pilots, but American Airlines pilots have jumped to their help. Spanish pilots' union Sepla, which has announced a halt in months of escalating industrial action, is facing a possible fine of Ptas4.3 billion ($29 ...

  • News

    Alitalia defends Italy

    1999-05-01T00:00:00Z

    Alitalia is considering setting up a southern Italian regional operation which observers believe may be a defensive action against similar plans by British Airways. Alitalia is carrying out a feasibility study, to be completed in June, into setting up a regional operation connecting southern Italy with other destinations ...

  • News

    Hushkit friction continues to rub on EC/USA

    1999-05-01T00:00:00Z

    A readiness by the European Commission (EC) to consider possible US amendments to its new hushkit regulations does not mean that the issue will cease to cause friction between the two sides. "The Americans may suggest amendments which we find unacceptable," warns a well-placed official in Brussels. The ...

  • News

    News in Brief

    1999-05-01T00:00:00Z

    Slot exchange - A UK high court has ruled that the former Air UK, now KLM uk, did not illegally sell its Guernsey slots at London Heathrow to British Airways. According to the presiding judge in the case brought by Guernsey, the fact that the exchange was unequal - Air ...

  • News

    LOT sell-off revived

    1999-05-01T00:00:00Z

    The Polish Government has revived plans to privatise its national carrier LOT, six years after the sell-off was first announced. It aims to raise capital for the carrier and get it into a global alliance. According to Treasury Minister Alicja Kornasiewicz, a search for a partner is to ...

  • News

    Time to talk about the scope clause

    1999-05-01T00:00:00Z

    Union limits on the scale and scope of regional flying are due to be brought out into the open as US regional carriers prepare to meet in Phoenix. How times have changed. In the not too distant past, regional airlines were the minnows of the aviation world, flying on "hometown" ...

  • News

    Link to the future

    1999-04-28T00:00:00Z

    Europe's air traffic control datalink work is forging on Kieran Daly/COPENHAGEN and STOCKHOLM Processing in loose line astern up the east Swedish coast through the broken cloud of a winter Sunday morning, our four-strong formation is something of an oddity: a light twin turboprop flat out at 240kt (440km/h), tailed ...

  • News

    A safer place

    1999-04-28T00:00:00Z

    Aviation will benefit from automobile air bag research Ramon Lopez/WASHINGTON DC After a decade's research, the US Army will soon begin installing newly developed cockpit air bags in some of its helicopters, to improve the chances of survival in a crash. It recently placed an initial $7.1 million order with ...

  • News

    Pole position

    1999-04-28T00:00:00Z

    Poland is the most strategically placed of the new NATO members Andrew Doyle/WARSAW Poland occupies the most strategically important geographical position of the three former Eastern Bloc countries recently admitted to NATO's ranks, buffering as it does northern Europe and the CIS countries of Belarus and Ukraine. In other ...

  • News

    Long wait

    1999-04-28T00:00:00Z

    Hungary is struggling to perk up its air force in the face of a hostile economic climate Rene VanWoezik/BUDAPEST Poor economic conditions have forced Hungary's politicians to repeatedly delay the tough long term decisions necessary to revive the country's air force. The flying units form one of two ...

  • News

    Indian delay

    1999-04-28T00:00:00Z

    The Indian Space Research Organisation has delayed first flight of its new Geostationary Satellite Launch Vehicle until next year. The project is over a year behind schedule. The launcher will be powered by a solid propellant first stage with strap-on motors, a liquid propellant second stage, based on the operational ...

  • News

    Singapore joins Joint Strike Fighter programme

    1999-04-28T00:00:00Z

    Paul Lewis/WASHINGTON DC Singapore has become the latest country to join the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) programme, with Turkey and Israel expected to follow shortly. According to local defence sources, Singapore signed a letter of acceptance on 23 March to join the JSF's ongoing demonstration phase as a ...

  • News

    Storm Shadow wins Italian contest

    1999-04-28T00:00:00Z

    Andrew Doyle/MUNICH Andrea Nativi/GENOA Italy has selected the Matra BAe Dynamics Storm Shadow for its modular stand-off missile requirement, dealing a blow to the rival German-Swedish Taurus KEPD 350 programme. The Italian air force decision, approved by the defence ministry, has sparked a last-ditch lobbying effort by Germany, ...

  • News

    Air China joins prospective A318 launchers

    1999-04-28T00:00:00Z

    Air China has signed a tentative agreement with Airbus Industrie and Pratt & Whitney to order eight PW6000-powered A318 twinjets as a trade-in for four Boeing 747SPs. A second potential launch customer, Air France, has asked CFM International to offer the CFM56-5A as an alternative powerplant (Flight International, 21-27 ...

  • News

    Shorts boss takes on NATS privatisation task

    1999-04-28T00:00:00Z

    Sir Roy McNulty, chairman of aerospace manufacturer Short Brothers, has been appointed by the UK Government to steer the country's state-owned National Air Traffic Services (NATS) through its impending partial privatisation. McNulty becomes chairman of NATS on 1 May on a contract running for two-and-a-half years and has been ...

  • News

    Old pals act

    1999-04-28T00:00:00Z

    Just when it seemed that Philippine Airlines was on a plausible road to recovery, the road has been spiked by the carrier's major shareholder. Controversial beer and tobacco mogul Lucio Tan is one of the wealthiest men in the Philippines. He already owns about 70% of the Philippines national ...

  • News

    Herculean task

    1999-04-28T00:00:00Z

    The European Commission's air transport liberalisation programme can justly claim to have succeeded with its legal framework to allow airline competition. To critical observers, the results can be clearly seen through improved attitudes to the passenger and to quality of service, aircraft condition and operational efficiency. The architects ...