All Safety News – Page 1432
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Rivals in a state
What should airlines do when their competitors benefit from state aid? Gerrit Schohe argues that the current system for approving state aids requires an overhaul, but suggests that Commission decisions can be challenged successfully. One of the biggest controversies in the European aviation industry arose when the European Commission ...
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Extra lift
Atlas Air has found a winning formula: acquire used Boeing 747-200 freighters and operate them profitably on behalf of major airlines. Jane Levere reports. Some people say Atlas Air, the Golden, Colorado-based cargo carrier, is really in the taxi business rather than the air freight business. However you describe the ...
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Arabs set to close ranks
Attempts to boost aviation cooperation in the Arab world are gathering pace. Ten carriers are considering a consultants' study recommending a pan-Arab airline alliance, while the birth of the long-awaited Arab Civil Aviation Commis- sion promises to strengthen ties further. A nine-month study on behalf of 10 of ...
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Canada's hair of the dog?
Canada's federal cabinet has overruled a National Transportation Agency decision and allowed coach operator Greyhound to launch a low-cost, no-frills airline that became Canada's fourth scheduled trans-continental carrier in early July. The NTA had previously blocked Greyhound's plans by ruling that the company could not obtain its own ...
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The whole holy grail by halves
What a difference a year makes. Just 12 months previously transport commissioner Neil Kinnock was faced with a majority of member states opposed to granting Brussels its holy grail - the external negotiating mandate for bilateral air service agreements. In mid-June, he won over enough support to start negotiations with ...
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Privates feel legal pinch
India's private operators appear to spend more of their time defending themselves against litigation, pursuing their own legal claims, or running into trouble with the regulators, than they do flying. The latest player to join the now familiar scene of foreign lessors resorting to court action over unpaid ...
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Contrary Mary in eye of the storm
Mary Schiavo, the erstwhile US Department of Transportation investigator general who has become nationally known for her high-profile criticism of the Federal Aviation Administration since the 11 May crash of ValuJet 592, has been good for the US airline industry. Such a statement could be considered heretical, especially amongst ...
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Alliance: is it a beauty or beast?
The proposed American/BA alliance poses the latest big challenge for the regulators.Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, says the old saying. In other words, it all depends on your perspective. Take the proposed American Airlines- British Airways link, where the truth is obscured by a maelstrom of claims ...
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ValuJet aims to limp back
ValuJet, which was grounded by the US Federal Aviation Administration in mid-June, is attempting an August comeback with a significantly smaller fleet and in the face of a highly circumspect public. ValuJet filed a plan of operational and management reorganisation to the FAA in mid-July, hoping to convince ...
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Can Blanc do it BA's way?
Christian Blanc must have cast an envious glance across the water to his counterpart at British Airways after the UK carrier stopped a strike by its pilots at the eleventh hour. Still the Air France chairman may yet have divided the disgruntled pilots at Air France enough to push through ...
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Latin tie-ups for American
American Airlines is heating up the Latin American market, forcing its agenda in Colombia while signing up the El Salvador-based Taca consortium of airlines to an extensive codesharing pact that the new partners hope will end with antitrust immunity and US-Central America open skies. This may be the first of ...
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CAA/BAA's 'rosy relationship'
Sir - The comments made by The Times newspaper of the UK on 17 July, responding to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission inquiry on behalf of the UK Civil Aviation Authority into airports authority BAA, are timely, uncannily accurate, and sum up with commendable clarity the relationship between BAA (a ...
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Swanwick delays cost CAA dearly
Max Kingsley-Jones/LONDON THE UK CIVIL AVIATION Authority has confirmed that delays to the UK's new Swanwick en route air-traffic-control centre will leave it with a bill of around £10 million ($15.6 million), but says that it hopes to avoid raising user charges to meet the costs. ...
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Aaxico Industries flushes out BA's DC-10 blue-ice blues
BRITISH AIRWAYS hopes to slash the cost of implementing US Federal Aviation Administration airworthiness directives (ADs) concerning the formation of "blue ice" on aircraft, with the introduction of a testing device developed by Aaxico Industries of the UK. The FAA ADs, which initially apply to the McDonnell ...
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P&WC tests Calcor nozzle
Graham Warwick/ATLANTA PRATT & WHITNEY Canada has completed initial tests of Calcor Aero Systems' thrust-reverser/variable-exhaust-nozzle (REVEN) on a PW306. Calcor says that the engine runs, in a Toronto test cell, give it confidence that the nozzle will reduce specific fuel consumption (SFC) and increase thrust in altitude ...
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Untested software is blamed for failure of Ariane 5 launch
Tim Furniss/LONDON THE FAILURE of the maiden launch of the European Space Agency's (ESA) Ariane 5 on 4 June resulted from the booster flying with an Ariane 4 dual-inertial reference system (IRS) untested for use in a new launch environment. The system also had "specification and design ...
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The Top Fifty Airlines
The world airline industry made record profits in 1995, but will the boom last? The signs are mixed from this year's ranking of the world's top 50passenger-airline groups. Kevin O'Toole/LONDON IT HAS TAKEN a long time to arrive, but recovery in the world airline industry appears to ...
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Aviastar builds the first 'Westernised' An-124
AVIASTAR IS nearing completion of the first "Westernised" Antonov An-124 at its Ulyanovsk factory, although the Russian manufacturer's claims that the aircraft is being fitted with General Electric CF6-80 engines are being disputed by GE and Antonov. "The aircraft, line number 08-03 and designated An-124-130, will be ...
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Pilatus improves PC-12 range
Julian Moxon/PARIS SWISS general-aviation manufacturer Pilatus is introducing a range of factory options to improve the payload and range performance of the PC-12 business and utility aircraft. The first option in the Pilatus Power Products range became available on new production aircraft in July, with ...
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Antonov's second An-70 nears completion despite lack of funding
THE SECOND Antonov An-70 propfan-powered medium transport is nearing completion at the design bureau's prototype plant in Kiev. The programme has been stalled since the first aircraft crashed in early 1995. Antonov deputy general designer Oleg Bogdanov says that the airframe and wiring has been completed, and ...