All Safety News – Page 1432

  • News

    Rivals in a state

    1996-08-01T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • News

    Extra lift

    1996-08-01T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • News

    Arabs set to close ranks

    1996-08-01T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • News

    Canada's hair of the dog?

    1996-08-01T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • News

    The whole holy grail by halves

    1996-08-01T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • News

    Privates feel legal pinch

    1996-08-01T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • News

    Contrary Mary in eye of the storm

    1996-08-01T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • News

    Alliance: is it a beauty or beast?

    1996-08-01T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • News

    ValuJet aims to limp back

    1996-08-01T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • News

    Can Blanc do it BA's way?

    1996-08-01T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • News

    Latin tie-ups for American

    1996-08-01T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • News

    Computers must be kept in their place

    1996-07-31T00:00:00Z

    Sir - Charles Manning says that British Airways pilots were "petulant" in threatening strike action (Letters, Flight International, 17-23 July, P38). In the event, a compromise agreement was reached with their employer, which sounds like healthy industrial relations to me. As for replacing pilots entirely with automatic systems, ...

  • News

    Untested software is blamed for failure of Ariane 5 launch

    1996-07-31T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • News

    The Top Fifty Airlines

    1996-07-31T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • News

    Aviastar builds the first 'Westernised' An-124

    1996-07-31T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • News

    Pilatus improves PC-12 range

    1996-07-31T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • News

    Antonov's second An-70 nears completion despite lack of funding

    1996-07-31T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • News

    ARIA looks to PW2000s to improve Il-96-300s

    1996-07-31T00:00:00Z

    ILYUSHIN IS TO DEVELOP modifications to the Il-96-300 to allow Aeroflot - Russian International Airlines (ARIA) to re-engine its Il-96 fleet with Pratt & Whitney PW2037 turbofans, and improve reliability. A formal agreement on the design work, which was signed recently by ARIA's general director Marshal Evgeni ...

  • News

    Boeing 747-X flies by wire

    1996-07-31T00:00:00Z

    Guy Norris/LOS ANGELES BOEING HAS AGREED to airline demands to offer a full fly-by-wire (FBW) flight-control system and other advanced-technology features on its new 747-500X and -600X. The US manufacturer has also told its airline working group that, despite the move to FBW and other ...

  • News

    NTSB analyses 'sound' on TWA recorder

    1996-07-31T00:00:00Z

    INVESTIGATORS ARE analysing a brief sound on the cockpit-voice-recorder (CVR) tape recovered from the wreckage of Trans World Airlines Flight 800, looking for clues as to why the Boeing 747-100 exploded soon after take-off from New York Kennedy on 17 July, killing all 230 on board. Initial ...