Editorial opinion – Page 19

  • Opinion

    OPINION: Hard Brexit carries risk for aviation

    2016-11-18T17:08:09Z

    ​The UK government is talking up Brexit opportunities around the globe but at the moment it is the great unknowns that are causing concern. Among them is what happens to the UK’s participation in the EU’s open-skies arrangement, under which any European airline can fly between two points in the ...

  • Opinion

    OPINION: Recovering Bombardier needs four more good years

    2016-11-14T10:58:29Z

    ​Bombardier is now nearly a year into a five-year recovery plan outlined by chief executive Alain Bellemare last December, and, so far, so (mostly) good.

  • Opinion

    OPINION: President Trump should make aerospace nervous

    2016-11-11T08:40:27Z

    ​To put it mildly, the year 2016 will not be remembered fondly by proponents of globalisation. A protectionist tide spills over borders in the West and East, placing the present structure of the aerospace industry in a rather awkward position.

  • Opinion

    OPINION: Why business aviation must innovate to drive recovery

    2016-11-07T09:09:04Z

    ​In business aviation, sales slumps are usually broken by the arrival of new products, which explains why most forecasts predict any recovery will occur after 2017. That aligns with the arrival of several impressive models, such as the Bombardier Global 7000, Cessna Citation Longitude, Gulfstream G500 and Pilatus PC-24.

  • J-20 Zhuhai - Xinhua/REX/Shutterstock
    Opinion

    OPINION: Beijing puts firepower on show with J-20

    2016-11-04T09:36:33Z

    ​Terrorists and Western defence equipment had a bad time at this year’s Airshow China in Zhuhai. Hardened bunkers, speeding trucks and warships were no match for the barrage of missiles and bombs launched by Chinese-built fighters and unmanned air vehicles – all seemingly co-ordinated by emotionless men in sterile control ...

  • B-2
    Opinion

    OPINION: Contractors must recognise new US procurement rules

    2016-10-28T07:36:54Z

    ​There is a new era in military aircraft procurement with new rules and customs, which contractors will ignore only at grave peril.

  • Opinion

    OPINION: Why $8bn gamble should pay off for Rockwell Collins

    2016-10-28T07:33:09Z

    ​Rockwell Collins’s planned “transformational” acquisition of aircraft cabin equipment manufacturer B/E Aerospace is an indication that size matters when competing for supplier contracts in an increasingly cut-throat market.

  • Opinion

    OPINION: Why America still needs business aviation

    2016-10-24T08:29:22Z

    ​As the industry prepares to gather for the annual ­National Business Aviation Association convention in Orlando, the US economy is seven years into a post-2008 upswing – but facing the uncertainty of a presidential election in which there is a chance that the most maverick and unpredictable candidate of modern ...

  • MH370 Debris
    Opinion

    OPINION: Should the search for missing MH370 be extended?

    2016-10-21T11:58:15Z

    ​The shock disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in March 2014 is one of the most keenly ­debated and puzzling aviation mysteries of our time.

  • Opinion

    OPINION: How the World has changed with Airbus

    2016-10-14T14:55:44Z

    ​Forty-two years ago, as Airbus was handing over its first A300 to Air France, much of Asia was a mess. War raged in Cambodia and Vietnam and, at the end of Chairman Mao’s calamitous rule, China’s economy lay in tatters. While Japan, Malaysia and South Korea had embarked on industrial ...

  • Qatar fleet - Boeing
    Opinion

    OPINION: Qatar's Boeing commitment sends clear message

    2016-10-14T14:55:12Z

    ​As the Qatar Airways spotlight swings pendulum-like around its supply chain, OEMs can breathe a sigh of relief when it is not their turn to be in the laser focus of its notoriously demanding chief Akbar Al Baker.

  • Opinion

    OPINION: Why Europe's independent airframers matter

    2016-10-07T12:02:16Z

    Sixteen years after its creation as EADS, and as it goes through yet another revamp to make it stronger and more integrated, Airbus dominates European aerospace – alongside BAE Systems, Dassault and Leonardo, the other three giants this side of the ­Atlantic still making aircraft in the 21st century.

  • Opinion

    OPINION: Will Airbus rebrand end divisions?

    2016-10-07T09:53:22Z

    Airbus’s latest corporate iteration appears to mark something of an endgame in its battle against a ­perennial pandering to compromise during its evolution from consortium to company.

  • Opinion

    OPINION: MRJ has certification hurdles ahead

    2016-10-03T08:54:49Z

    ​For a while it almost felt like the Mitsubishi Regional Jet would never make it to the USA. It is not often that a flight-test prototype aborts its mission twice in two days, but that was just what happened when Mitsubishi Aircraft attempted to ferry its first flight-test article to ...

  • Opinion

    OPINION: Russian response to MH17 treats public like idiots

    2016-09-29T16:01:03Z

    ​You can only imagine investigators’ exasperation at Russia’s schoolyard-level protesting at the probe into the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.

  • Opinion

    OPINION: ​The risk of complacency over Brexit

    2016-09-28T14:04:05Z

    When the UK voted to leave the European Union in a 23 June referendum, predictions for the country's airlines and airports were not good.

  • Opinion

    OPINION: US pilot shortage is fixable, but it will cost

    2016-09-23T14:56:17Z

    ​US airlines think they have a problem. Assuming air travel demand remains steady, the number of fare-paying passengers could soon vastly outnumber the supply of pilots required to carry them.

  • Opinion

    OPINION: Aerospace investment could help South Africa fly

    2016-09-19T07:44:00Z

    The dilemma is not unique, but for a country that teeters maddeningly between advanced economy and developing world, South Africa’s is particularly poignant. Under apartheid, an isolated and threatened white regime poured resources into training engineers and developing its own military technologies.

  • Boeing T-X - Boeing
    Opinion

    OPINION: T-X trainer bidders ready for dogfight

    2016-09-16T07:59:49Z

    With the unveiling on 13 September in St Louis of the Boeing/Saab trainer, the four-way competition to claim the $10 billion contract to replace the US Air Force’s Northrop T-38C Talon fleet is now set.

  • Emirates 777 crash - Reuters
    Opinion

    OPINION: Why go-arounds may need simplifying post-EK521

    2016-09-09T09:12:03Z

    Go-arounds are considered an unexceptional part of day-to-day airline operations, to the point where tabloids treating them as newsworthy dramas can expect to attract a measure of scorn.