United and American Airlines are complaining that the London Heathrow fuel depot fire in December is costing them up to $20,000 a day because of the need to carry extra fuel en route to the UK. The carriers have accused UK airport operator BAA of being “blatantly discriminatory” in favour of UK long-haul carriers after it imposed a fuel-rationing policy following the fire. They say UK carriers obtain 82% of their fuel needs while others only receive 70%.
Source: Flight International
Investigators are probing an in-flight oscillation at cruise altitude which affected a South African Airways Airbus A330-300 operating a domestic service. The aircraft – flying from Cape Town to Johannesburg on 27 October – had been cruising at 41,000ft when it started to oscillate in pitch, between nose-up and nose-down. ...
Pilots of a Boeing 737-800 did not notice that the aircraft’s bleed-air system was not active before the jet took off from Manchester, triggering a cabin-altitude warning that remained active for over 40min. UK investigators found that the bleed-air switches had incorrectly been left off during air-conditioning pack maintenance, and ...
GE Aerospace is partnering with NASA to carry out a series of flight tests designed to improve the industry’s understanding of contrails.
