Business: Good week - Bad week

Good Week

© Airbus

AUSTRALIAN ENGINEERS To cope with bringing Airbus A330 heavy maintenance work in-house, 100 apprentices will in February join the 5,700-strong engineering department at Qantas. The apprentices will be split between the carrier's Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney facilities and train in areas such as avionics, aircraft mechanical and aircraft structures. Half of Qantas's A$1.4 billion ($1.24 billion) annual maintenance budget is spent on high-tech jobs.

 

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Bad Week

© FAA

RANDY BABBITT In June the Federal Aviation Administration boss sent 105 airlines a "call to action", asking for a written commitment to participate in voluntary safety initiatives following February's fatal Colgan Air Bombardier Q400 crash. Thirty have failed to respond; Babbitt says some may be too small to run best-practice quality programmes but, he notes, smallness or non-response "will be taken into consideration when performing FAA surveillance activities".

 

 

 

Source: Flight International