News from FlightGlobal – Page 2509
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LF507 reliability levels 'not acceptable' says Crossair
Julian Moxon/HANOVER LOWER-THAN-expected despatch reliability of the AlliedSignal Engines LF507 turbofan powering Aero International Regional (AI(R)) RJ100 Avroliners has forced the engine manufacturer to spend $30 million on developing solutions. Crossair president Moritz Suter criticised the engine's 99.3% dispatch reliability during the recent European Regional Airlines ...
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Low Alitalia prices anger low-cost carriers
THE ARRIVAL OF several new low-cost carriers in Italy has prompted flag carrier Alitalia to join the fares war on domestic routes by offering ultra-low prices on some flights. The move, which cuts one-way weekend fares to all destinations to just L99,000 ($66), and to L65,000 on several ...
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Asian service
Thai Airways International is planning to launch a new route from Bangkok to the Portuguese enclave of Macau. The service will operate three times a week. Emirates Airlines, in the meantime, will begin a thrice-weekly service between Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Saana, in the Yemen, from 27 October. ...
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US Court threatens GAIN safety system
Ramon Lopez/WASHINGTON DC David Learmount/LONDON A COURT DECISION ordering USAir to provide lawyers with internal safety-audit data which the airline thought was protected from compulsory public release by the Federal Aviation Administration could seriously damage US efforts to set up an international safety programme. The Supreme ...
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Iberia cuts
Iberia has cut fares on major domestic trunk routes by 20-25% from 1 October. Rival Spanair matched the new fares almost immediately and Air Europa is planning a similar move. The European Comunity independent airline organisation ACE says that it is considering complaining to the European Commission on the grounds ...
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Boeing takes lead in order race
Max Kingsley-Jones/LONDON BOEING HAS edged ahead of Airbus Industrie in turbofan-aircraft sales at the end of the third quarter of 1996, the two manufacturers having effectively matched each other's performance in net-order terms during the first half-year. The US manufacturer, which had around 50% of the ...
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Sabena places new long-haul fleet
Herman De Wulf/BRUSSELS THE RATIONALISATION of Sabena's long-haul-aircraft types is the priority item on the carrier's fleet-planning agenda, with a decision expected soon on standardising on a single type. The long-haul decision is seen as a more urgent than the replacement of its older Boeing 737-200s, ...
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USAir investigates new 'no-frills' division
DISCUSSIONS BETWEEN USAir and its pilots could lead the way towards the creation of a low-cost service designed to counter operations such as those of the newly created Delta Express, Southwest and ValuJet. Successful negotiations between management and members of the Air Line Pilots Association over the start-up ...
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Aeronavali converts
Aeronavali, a division of Alenia, has received a contract from United Airlines for the conversion of four McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30CFs to full cargo configuration for the airline's new all-cargo services to Asia. The first two aircraft will be redelivered in March 1997, with the second batch following in September. The ...
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Sun seeks strategic overseas partner
Andrew Doyle/JOHANNESBURG THE SOUTH AFRICAN Government's plans for privatising domestic carrier Sun Air could get the go-ahead later this month, clearing the way for a sale by mid-1997. Trade-union representatives on the Government's transport sectoral task team, which is charged with evaluating restructuring options for the ...
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Airbus Industrie creates freight airline for Belugas
AIRBUS INDUSTRIE has set up a subsidiary to operate its A300-600ST (Super Transporter) "Beluga" outsized transports on commercial cargo charters. It is estimated that the new division, Airbus Transport International (ATI), could earn the consortium up to $15 million-worth of revenue each year using spare capacity on the Beluga fleet. ...
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Germany to lead free-flight trials in Europe
GERMANY'S civil-aviation authority, the DFS, is working with Lufthansa to carry out trials of free-flight technologies in Europe. "We're looking at how to implement free flight in Germany as soon as possible," says Dr Klaus Dieter Ehrhardt, responsible for CNS/ATM planning in the DFS. "We will look at ...
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SAS to begin using ADS-B system in 1997
Scandinavian carrier SAS is to equip "at least" ten commercial aircraft, and ground vehicles, with automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) systems in 1997, and plans to equip its new Boeing 737-600s in 1998. The trials are part of the European-Commission-funded North European ADS-B Network programme, which has established a ...
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Airlines are 'confused' over European free-flight issues
Julian Moxon/AMSTERDAM A MAJOR INITIATIVE to prove the cost benefits of flying in a "free-flight" air-traffic-management (ATM) environment must be mounted if the system is ever to become reality, say leading industry officials speaking at the Flight International Airline Navigation '96 conference in Amsterdam on 9 -11 October. ...
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Continental order provides further fillip to new 737s
THE RECORD-BREAKING sales pace of Boeing's next-generation 737 continues to accelerate, with an order for 30 -600s from Continental Airlines, taking total firm orders of the new family to 423. The Continental order also includes 30 current-generation 737-500s and takes total -300/ 400/500 series sales to around 1,916, ...
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Fan-blade snag delays 737 engine approval
Guy Norris/LOS ANGELES CERTIFICATION of the CFM International (CFMI) CFM56-7B2 for Boeing's next-generation 737 family is expected to be delayed by almost two months, to give the engine maker more time to validate modifications to the troublesome fan-blade retention system. CFMI says that the delay "-will ...
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Merpati concludes BAe 146 lease agreement with NJS
NATIONAL JET Systems (NJS), of Australia, has signed an agreement to sublease up to ten BAe 146s to Merpati Nusantara Airlines. The aircraft will partially replace the Indonesian domestic carrier's ageing Fokker fleet of 15 F27s and 25 F28s on regional routes, beginning in November. Adelaide-based NJS, which ...
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Deutsche BA will sell turboprops to French carrier
Andrzej Jeziorski/MUNICH DEUTSCHE BA IS TO sell its loss-making turboprop activities to French carrier Regional Airlines, leaving the German British Airways daughter to focus on its jet-airliner operations. The sale comes just a month after BA announced that it was to restructure its European operation as part of ...
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Suitors consider Air Liberte bids as deadline approaches
BIDS FOR STRUGGLING French independent airline Air Liberté, were due to be deposited with legal administrators at a Paris court on 14 October. British Airways, Virgin Express and Corsair owner Nouvelle Frontiéres were all considering whether to make offers. Foreign airline interest centres mainly on the valuable slots ...
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No-gain pain
AIRCRAFT ACCIDENTS ARE effective, if often tragic, teachers, and the aviation community always learns greatly from them. Incidents - the accidents which didn't quite happen -- can be just as effective teachers, but the aviation community learns far less from them. The reason is fear of disclosure- a fear which ...