All Systems & Interiors news – Page 759
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Ramp Up
TOM GILL LONDON Deregulation in Europe's ground handling market is improving prices - but not necessarily service levels This year will be a busy one for European ground handling. By January 2001, most of the region's airports must have opened their doors to competition, ushering in a new era of ...
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Sabre rattling
TOM GILL LONDON Sabre is moving ahead with its bid to be the leading single-source supplier of IT services to the airline industry. Completely out-of-control is how John "Bo" Boedecker describes the state of the information technology budgets of some its prospective client airlines. According to Boedecker, Sabre's president, worldwide ...
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Spinning a Web
KAREN WALKER WASHINGTON DC A smart and easy-to-use web site may become an airline's most powerful tool for retaining control over the customer. But most carriers have a lot of work ahead of them before their sites meet passenger expectations. Airline managers might want to try an experiment: log on ...
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Satcoms progress
Back in the 20th century, they said people would not want telephones on airliners; that they did not wish to be contactable while they dozed in comfort or ate a fine meal. How times have changed. In the 21st century, passengers slip on virtual reality glasses and join the crew ...
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A satnav world
The early years of the 21st century will see the start of advanced satellite navigation systems mapping the world. From the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) in North America, the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay System (EGNOS) and later, Galileo, and the Multi-function Transport Satellite (MTSAT) system in the Asia-Pacific ...
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Flight of fantasy
Airline operations in the 21st century will be conducted in an integrated information environment, linking passengers, cabin and cockpit crew with the ground The airliner passenger cabin and the flightdeck are getting closer technologically. No longer are capabilities exclusively designed for the cockpit, with applications increasingly being found in ...
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Brazil's carriers do battle over frequent flier plans
BRIAN HOMEWOOD RIO DE JANEIRO Last year's deep recession forced Brazil's carriers to abandon their cut throat fares war but BTAM, VASP, Varig and Transbrasil have now all turned to heavy promotion of their frequent flier programmes. Varig says 2.5 million passengers are registered on its Smiles scheme, up from ...
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Buying Power
KEVIN O'TOOLE & TOM GILL LONDON The global alliances are only just starting to use their combined buying power. Airline analysts are not alone in anxiously awaiting signs of how the global alliances may change the industry's landscape. There are hopes and fears among service providers too over how the ...
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Intelligent hope
Intelligent spacecraft are still a few years away, but robots and automated systems can meanwhile play a large part in extending space exploration The spaceflight industry has just one year year left to emulate Arthur C Clarke's HAL, the spacecraft computer that became too intelligent in 2001: A Space Odyssey. ...
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Clean and lean
Environmental issues and the demands of safety and reliability drive airliner design as much as technology Ever since the first powered machines flew at the start of the 20th century, aviation has been driven by the quest to improve aircraft efficiency. With extraordinary persistence, often surmounting seemingly impossible technical barriers, ...
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End of an era?
The traditional look for commercial aircraft may be ending. This century's airliners could look radically different Airbus Industrie's planned A3XX will be the ultimate expression of the classic airliner configuration, representing the end of the road for the layout of cylindrical fuselage, swept wing and podded engines so familiar ...
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First Hughes 702 will be largest in orbit
Hughes Space and Communications' first HS-702 satellite was due to be launched on 21 December aboard an Ariane 4. The HS-702, which will be PanAmSat's Galaxy XI satellite, will be the largest commercial communications satellite deployed in orbit - equipped with 64 transponders (40 Ku-band and 24 C-band) and ...
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'Real estate in space' for ISS
Spacehab and Russia's Energia plan to build the first privatised commercial module for the International Space Station (ISS). Called Enterprise, the module will be used for commercial microgravity experiments and to host a studio for television and Internet broadcasts. The latter is expected to be in conjunction with an established ...
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Forecasts for 2000 - Safety
Global pressures will force airlines to improve David Learmount/LONDON During 1999, new global forces for aviation safety kicked in for the first time in the form of sanctions. Where carrots failed, the stick was applied, and Korean Air felt the effect. Powerful global safety forces have recently come into ...
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Forecasts for 2000 - Environment
Green issues pose biggest industrial challenge David Learmount/LONDON Glimpses of how environmental issues will be handled in the future are visible in the Euro-US row about hushkits. Ostensibly, environmental concerns embrace purely the control of noise, emissions, and safety for those who live near airports. However, this debate ...
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In the front seat
Flight International samples Airbus' new flight desk technology for the A3XX Peter Henley/TOULOUSEAirbus Industrie has built up vast experience in the design and production of fly-by-wire commercial aircraft. A bedrock philosophy behind the consortium's ever-expanding family has been to achieve maximum commonality between cockpits. This means pilots can fly ...
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Forecasts for 2000 - Airframers
Ultra-large aircraft and regional jets to move ahead, but production to slow Max Kingsley-Jones/LONDON Although 1999 promised some dramatic airliner developments, few came to fruition. But the stage has been set for key activities over the next 12 months - most notably in the ultra-large aircraft and regional-jet sectors. ...
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Reims analyses demand for Western version of An-140
Francois Legros/PARIS French light aircraft manufacturer Reims Aviation is evaluating the market for a possible Westernised version of the Antonov An-140 turboprop. Reims Aviation sales manager François Billet says the company's relationship with the Ukrainian design bureau Antonov is "very close" and that it is "undertaking a market ...
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SAS board approves A330/A340 purchase
The SAS board has finally approved the Scandinavian flag carrier's long-awaited purchase of four A330-300s and six A340-300s to replace Boeing 767-300ERs on long-haul routes. The airline's selection of the Airbus types over the rival 777-200ER was revealed by Flight International in January, although the order was delayed until internal ...
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Forecasts for 2000 - Aerospace
The shape of the industry is changing radically Chris Jasper/LONDON The face of aerospace manufacturing has been transformed over the past few years by rampant merger activity, but in 2000, the industry may at last be prepared to take a breather as companies concentrate on extracting value from the ...