All Safety News – Page 1310
-
News
ACI feels out of pocket
Karen Walker Girding itself for a battle with the airlines and with Congress, the Airports Council International, North America, will raise its profile in 1998 with hopes of increasing pressure on those who control its members' funding sources. The ACI is sticking to its controversial claim that US ...
-
News
No more red China blues?
Tom Ballantyne China's airlines are getting their first taste of capitalism as the country's carriers drastically slash their air fares and liberalisation hits the region. The Civil Aviation Administration of China has given its 27 CAAC-approved airlines the go-ahead to cut prices by up to 40 per cent ...
-
News
Deflation alarm bells ring again
Deflation is not an economic term which has tripped off the tongue in the last three decades. Far from it. A series of political crises in the Middle East, starting with the six-day war in 1967, triggered 30 years of almost continuous inflation, fuelled by surging oil and commodity prices ...
-
News
Asia's crisis: a rude awakening
Asia's financial crisis is now threatening to start another global airline recession. What goes up must come down. Of all people, participants in the aviation business should understand this most basic phenomenon. After all, the one certainty of every flight is that gravity will bring it down eventually. All that ...
-
News
Higher US fares are hitting home
As US domestic fares continue to rise, more business travellers are making concessions in order to obtain lower fares, or are switching to low-cost carriers. Report by Karen Walker. The New Year had barely been rung in when both American Express and the US Department of Transportation confirmed what most ...
-
News
Asia's new era
Asia's economic turmoil is going to accelerate long-term structural change as the carriers in the region respond to the challenges. Doug Cameron looks at the impact on aircraft renewal, funding, alliances and liberalisation. Asian executives must be wondering what other calamities fate can possibly have in store for them. ...
-
News
Garuda in dire straits
Tom Ballantyne Reeling from a freefall in its local currency which has blown up debt, Jakarta's state-owned flag carrier Garuda Indonesia may face bankruptcy unless it auctions off assets. The country's economic collapse, coupled with a string of accidents including a major crash last September in which 300 ...
-
News
India airlines in doldrums
T Ballantyne/R Prasad India's hard pressed domestics are facing a double challenge to their shaky balance sheets: the renewed threat of a Tata Industries local startup and massive hikes in airport landing charges. The Tata group had earlier plans for a joint venture with Singapore Airlines, backed by ...
-
News
Born free?
While government regulations were the downfall of most of India's first batch of startups, it appears that a second cycle - involving new players as well as the return of some old contenders - is underway. Like large tracts of Asia, cloaked in the fog from forest fires, India's ...
-
News
Arranged marriage
Indian Airlines is destined to wed Air-India, but first the government must accept some responsibility for its financial troubles. Its proposed 'dowry' would be made up of compensation for the enforced grounding of its entire A320 fleet back in 1990, a subordinated loan, and the injection of new capital. By ...
-
News
Tamed by politics
Report by Tom Ballantyne It seems that every time a new Indian aviation policy ship gently eases itself into port, an election storm rears its head and dashes it onto the rocks. As India's two state-owned airlines, Air-India and Indian Airlines, prepared for the New Year after a ...
-
News
Red ink rains over Korea
Tom Ballantyne South Korea's airlines are scrambling to downsize and slash costs as the region staggers from the blow of Asia's worsening economic crisis. Flag carrier Korean Airlines faces more than US$900 million in foreign exchange losses after the local currency, the won, dived 40 per cent against ...
-
News
US lusts after Latins
Karen Walker US majors are looking southwards as American Airlines receives its long-awaited go-ahead for a codeshare with the Taca group and jockeys with its competitors for other prized Latin American alliances and routes. After 18 months, and a storm of protest from other US and central American ...
-
News
Greek dance for chairmen
Doug Cameron The lure of leading Olympic Airways out of trouble is proving too strong for some to resist; the Greek flag carrier will have been through two new chairmen before the end of January. Unsatisfied with the many applicants for the chief executive's post, Olympic has combined ...
-
News
Cheap thrills with no frills
Lois Jones Low-cost startups are beginning to looking extremely vulnerable as more majors launch low-cost subsidiaries, ignoring the argument that the independent players should instead be left to satisfy the demand for low fares in underserved markets. By Lois Jones. To your corners, please. To the left of the ring ...
-
News
US hubs need to be consolidated
Karen Walker Driven as they are by the shareholder, the major US carriers will no doubt sit up and take notice of a new report from a Wall Street analyst that assesses their growth potential, and therefore investment worth, based on the relative strengths and weaknesses of their hubs. ...
-
News
Fairchild Dornier flies 328JET
Andrzej Jeziorski/MUNICH Fairchild Dornier flew its prototype 328JET for the first time on 20 January, bringing it a step closer to entering the emerging 30-seat regional-jet market. The aircraft took off at 11:16 local time from the company's Oberpfaffenhofen site near Munich, and was flown for nearly 2h over the ...
-
News
Boeing 737-600 takes off
Guy Norris/LOS ANGELES The Boeing 737-600 had a successful 2h 28min first flight from Renton on 22 January on a day when firm orders for Next Generation aircraft climbed to 811, with the sale of 59 more to launch-customer Southwest Airlines. The -600's take-off weight was a relatively light 50,395kg, ...
-
News
NTSB calls for software rethink after A300 lost speed in descent
Software redesign following investigation of an in-flight upset to an American Airlines Airbus Industrie A300-600R has been recommended by the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). The aircraft's airspeed was allowed to decrease dangerously when it levelled out at 16,000ft (4,900m) during descent, before the stall-warning sounded and the aircraft ...
-
News
Boeing perseveres as EVA discusses A340 order
EVA Airways has opened contractual negotiations with Airbus Industrie on ordering six A340-500s, plus six options, but has not ruled out placing orders with Boeing. It holds an unsigned letter-of-intent (LoI) for a similar number of proposed 747-200ERXs. Despite EVA having earlier signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with ...