All articles by David Kaminski-Morrow – Page 81
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NewsLondon Southend parent edges towards selling airport
London Southend airport in the UK is to be assessed for potential disposal by its parent company, Esken, as part of a strategic review initiated last year. The airport is located about 50km east of the UK capital. Esken says it has been reviewing options for its various businesses with ...
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NewsSmartLynx parent Avia Solutions establishes Irish headquarters
Wet-lease operator SmartLynx’s parent company, Avia Solutions Group, has taken the strategic step of shifting its headquarters to Ireland. The company, previously based in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, says it selected Dublin as its new site owing to Ireland’s close associations with aviation firms. “Ireland is known as the hub ...
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NewsSichuan’s SAID to take Precision Conversions A321 freighter for Chinese service
Chinese operator Sichuan Aviation Industry Development is committing to converted Airbus A321 freighters, with the first to be inducted this month. The company is to introduce aircraft modified under the scheme of US-based 321 Precision Conversions. This conversion work will be undertaken in the Chinese city of Chengdu, by Sichuan ...
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NewsIraqi Airways takes delivery of first 737 Max
Iraqi Airways has taken delivery of a Boeing 737 Max 8, the first of the re-engined variant in the flag-carrier’s fleet. The twinjet (YI-ASL) departed Seattle for Reykjavik before arriving in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, on 26 February. Iraqi Airways says it held a ceremony marking the aircraft’s introduction, attended ...
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NewsSouth African start-up Suid Cargo ties up with Kenya’s Astral for fleet capacity
South African start-up Suid Cargo Airlines is intending to commence services in the second quarter of this year, initially leasing a Boeing 727-200 freighter. The airline says it will lease the trijet from Kenyan company Astral Aviation, but also use other freighters in its fleet – including a Boeing 757, ...
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NewsRussian airspace condition attached to Virgin’s entry on Korean route
Virgin Atlantic’s entry on the London Heathrow-Seoul route, a remedy for the Korean Air-Asiana merger, is itself conditional on the opening of Russian airspace. The carrier is being granted access to the route, with support from Korean Air, as part of a framework agreement to obtain UK competition clearance for ...
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NewsUK advertising regulator raps Lufthansa over environmental promotion
German flag-carrier Lufthansa has been rapped by UK advertising regulators after a single complaint was lodged against a promotion referring to the airline’s environmental credentials. The complaint centred on a poster, seen in June last year, which showed an aircraft’s cockpit nose-on with the lower fuselage represented by an image ...
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NewsProfitable Flydubai cites fuel-cost benefits as 737 Max fleet expands
Middle Eastern carrier Flydubai expanded its fleet to 74 aircraft last year, with Boeing 737 Max variants accounting for more than half. The airline has turned in a full-year profit of Dhs1.2 billion ($327 million) for 2022, during which it took delivery of 17 more 737 Max 8s – the ...
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NewsUK authority clears Korean Air-Asiana merger based on Virgin access to Seoul
Korean Air has secured UK competition approval for its proposed merger with fellow Korean operator Asiana, based on its supporting Virgin Atlantic’s access to the London-Seoul route. The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority says that undertakings given by Korean Air are “appropriate” to remedy or mitigate a lessening of competition ...
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NewsCroatia Airlines remains loss-making despite progress in recovery
Croatia Airlines has turned in a full-year net loss of Kn137 million ($19 million) as its performance, while recovering, still lagged pre-crisis levels. The carrier transported 1.45 million passengers but this figure remained one-third down on that achieved in 2019. Croatia Airlines says passenger load factor reached an average of ...
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NewsIsrair completes sale of ATR 72-500s
Israeli leisure operator Israir Group has completed the sale of a pair of ATR 72-500 turboprops whose phase-out was part of the company’s fleet-simplification plans. The company had previously disclosed, at the end of last year, that it had reached a binding agreement with a buyer for the aircraft. It ...
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NewsIrish specialist to dismantle two early-build 787s for spares
Two Boeing 787-8s, both just 10 years of age, are shortly to undergo disassembly, overseen by the Irish-based asset-management company EirTrade Aviation. EirTrade says the identity of the airframes to be dismantled is currently confidential. But the aircraft will simultaneously be disassembled off-site and EirTrade expects parts to start becoming ...
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NewsEgyptAir claims Africa’s first A321neo introduction
EgyptAir is has received the first Airbus A321neo for the African continent, following delivery of its latest twinjet at the airframer’s Hamburg Finkenwerder plant. The airline is introducing the variant with a two-class configuration comprising 16 business-class and 166 economy-class seats. Airbus has identified the airframe as SU-GFR, with MSN11164, ...
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NewsViva Air dismayed as merger hold-up forces it to suspend operations
Colombian budget carrier Viva Air has suspended operations, citing regulatory hold-ups regarding its efforts to form a tie-up with Avianca.
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NewsMadrid reconfigures airspace to simplify arrivals and departures
Spanish air navigation service Enaire has started implementing an air traffic optimisation project at Madrid Barajas airport, including independent approaches to its parallel runways. The project aims to modernise instrument arrival and departure procedures by adapting them to area navigation and performance-based navigation requirements. Enaire says the scheme – known ...
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NewsEl Al 787 cuts flight time to Thailand with Saudi-Omani transit
El Al has conducted its first flight through Saudi Arabian and Omani airspace since recent agreements lifted restrictions on transit by Israeli carriers. The airline operated its LY083 service from Tel Aviv to Bangkok on 26 February, using a Boeing 787-9 – a flight which took about 7h 30min. Its ...
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NewsPratt-powered A321XLR undergoes cold-weather testing in Canada
Airbus has carried out several days of cold-weather testing of the A321XLR, having flown one of the prototype twinjets to northern Canada. The test aircraft – MSN11058, also known as FTV2 – departed Toulouse on 20 February for the airport at Iqaluit. It undertook a number of flights, conducting circuits ...
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NewsSmartLynx lands Australian approval for A330 operations
Latvian wet-lease specialist SmartLynx has secured authorisation to conduct operations from Australia, where is intends initially to use Airbus A330s. The company says it has received an Australian foreign air transport operator certificate. SmartLynx says operating flights to Australia has been “integral” to its strategic effort to extend its network ...
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NewsRolls-Royce presents opportunity for cost-cutting through synergies: new chief
Rolls-Royce chief executive Tufan Erginbilgic argues that the company can still afford to undertake further cost-reduction measures despite the extensive restructuring carried out during the pandemic. Speaking during the company’s full-year briefing on 23 February, Erginbilgic said the previous cost-cutting efforts had focused primarily on civil aerospace and had been ...
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NewsBluebird 737 freighter destabilised by ballast shift during Paris approach
Investigators are probing an apparent ballast shift on board a Bluebird Nordic Boeing 737-400SF during its descent towards Paris Charles de Gaulle. The incident involving the Icelandic-registered freighter occurred on 10 February, according to French investigation authority BEA, which is citing preliminary information from its Icelandic counterpart. BEA says the ...