News from FlightGlobal – Page 2322
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Shugrue is eased out as Pan Am chief
Pan American World Airways has eased out its co-founder and chief executive, Martin Shugrue, to be replaced by airline veteran David Banmiller, who is charged with turning around the start-up's heavy losses and seeing through the merger of operations with Carnival Air Lines. Pan Am confirms that Shugrue has ...
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Frontier bids for WestPac
Graham Warwick/WASHINGTON DC A US bankruptcy-court judge will make a decision on 3 December between rival bids for Western Pacific Airlines. Frontier Airlines, which called off plans to merge with WestPac earlier this year, has switched tack and is bidding to take over its bankrupt would-be partner. WestPac ...
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Safe and sound
Once in a while, a proposal emerges that has so many clear benefits and so few potential dangers, that the only question is why it is still just a proposal. Within a few weeks, Europe's transport ministers will be faced with just such a compelling idea when they are asked ...
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Boeing's long stretch
Guy Norris/SEATTLE BOEING'S stretched 777-300 carries a list of superlatives almost as long as the aircraft itself. The latest member of the Boeing family is the largest twin-engined aircraft ever built, the world's fastest widebody twin, the longest airliner ever made and the first transport big enough to replace the ...
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Asia's economic haze
Brent Hannon/KUALA LUMPUR Concerns over the state of the once-unstoppable Asia-Pacific airline market were underlined again as the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA) met in Kuala Lumpur in mid-November for the 41st assembly of presidents. The latest figures show a 25% drop in collective operating profits over ...
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Boeing slows 777-200X/300X product-development work
Boeing has switched the emphasis of product-development work on the proposed 777-200X/300X ultra-long-haul and stretch derivatives for at least three months. The 300 staff working on the two planned variants are understood to have been switched from new-product development to focusing on reducing programme costs. Sources in Seattle say ...
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CASA joins in negotiations on European regional restructure
Julian Moxon/PARIS CASA of Spain has joined the negotiations on the future of Europe's regional-aircraft industry as a launch decision on the planned Aero International (Regional) (AI(R))Airjet regional jet seems likely to be delayed beyond the original end-of-year deadline. Talks between AI(R) president Patrick Gavin and new CASA ...
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BA prepares for massive tender
Max Kingsley-Jones/LONDON British Airways is preparing to issue a tender to Airbus and Boeing early in the new year for up to 160 narrow- and widebodied aircraft as it gears up for its long-term fleet-renewal programme. The airline is understood to be finalising an outline of its requirements ...
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Air France 'must spend more money' on new aircraft
Julian Moxon/PARIS Air France must invest at least Fr40 billion ($6 billion) on new aircraft over the next five years if it is to remain competitive, the airline's new president Jean-Cyril Spinetta told a French Senate committee on 20 November. Aircraft-renewal plans centre on the need to replace ...
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Third MD-95 comes together
Boeing has begun final assembly of the third MD-95 test airframe, called the T-3, with the fuselage barrel mated to the wing on 24 November. The first MD-95 is scheduled to be completed by the end of this year, with a first flight due to take place in early 1998. ...
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SAS Commuter looks to Dash 8-300X to replace Saab 2000s
Ramon Lopez/TORONTO SAS Commuter underlined plans to standardise on the Bombardier de Havilland Dash 8 family for its regional-fleet needs at the unveiling ceremony of the new 70-seat Series 400, when it revealed that it will dispose of its 50-seat Saab 2000s when their leases expire early in the ...
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SIA is set to become star in the East
The Star Alliance looks set to gain a seventh member as Singapore Airlines (SIA) officially broke away from its long-standing alliance with Swissair and Delta Air Lines on 25 November in favour of a wide-ranging partnership with Star-founder Lufthansa. Lufthansa chairman Jurgen Weber, speaking after the signing in Singapore ...
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Sabena optimistic
Sabena president Paul Reutlinger believes that the airline's 1997 financial results will be better than the predicted BFr1.5 billion ($43 million) loss after a strong traffic performance during the first ten months of the year. Passenger numbers have grown by one-third and load factors on the core European network are ...
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Air China to go for IPO
Air China is pressing ahead with plans for its own initial public offering despite the postponement of the listing by the CAAC's commercial arm, China National Aviation Corporation. Air China aims to shrug off its state control and partially privatise within two years. 'We'll float by 1999 at the ...
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The wall comes tumbling down?
Lois Jones The Great Wall of China runs slap bang through Air China's offices. Or so it seems to the uninformed outsider. Over the years, the state-controlled Civil Aviation Administration of China has constructed a wall of resistance designed to keep outside influences and potential friends and foes away ...
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Hub fever
In many industries, concentration forces have led to a few large mass producers with a global reach, each striving to achieve the lowest unit costs through increased efficiencies and higher production volumes. In the airline industry, global alliances are being created to achieve similar goals. However, the individual airline operators ...
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Hitch for BA and Qantas
Alliance partners planning extended codesharing between Europe and Australia have had their strategies thrown into disarray by the Australian government's route rights authority. In a draft ruling the Canberra-based International Air Services Commission (IASC) shocked Qantas and British Airways by saying it will refuse them permission for a wide-ranging ...
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Boeing hits bottleneck
Boeing is trying hard to swallow a bitter pill of late delivery charges and costs linked to production delays and to get back on top of its aircraft production rate buildup. Boeing's decision to shut down its B747 and B737 production lines for a month follows a frenzy of ...
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Hangover cure
Karen Walker 'Swire prince' are words often whispered in the wake of David Turnbull, an acknowledgement of his rapid rise through the management strata of the Swire Group. His 21 years of experience at Swire have been tested severely over the last 12 months, however, since he inherited one ...
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Taiwanese ties that bind
China Airlines may have replaced the national flag on its aircraft tail with a plum blossom, but it is still struggling to disentangle itself from government interference. The reins of power controlling China Airlines are firmly back in the grip of Taiwan's ministry of transport and communications, after the ...