All Ops & safety articles – Page 1174
-
News
Late boom lifts 1999 simulator figures
A flurry of orders in the final months of the year boosted commercial flight simulator sales for 1999 beyond 50 machines. Thomson Training & Simulation (TTS) ended the year with its largest order ever, from Saudi Arabian Airlines to build or upgrade nine full-flight simulators. The long-expected order included ...
-
News
Unhappy month
December 1999 was an unhappy month for airline safety in a year which has been better than most. In the last four weeks of 1999 there were eight fatal accidents involving airlines as diverse as small regional operators flying twin turboprops to majors flying widebodies. With Korean Air's Boeing ...
-
News
Young will head Mars inquiry
Former Lockheed Martin executive Thomas Young has been appointed by NASA to lead the Mars Program Independent Assessment team. It will review the failures of the Mars Climate Orbiter (MCO), Mars Polar Lander (MPL) and the space agency's approach to robotic exploration. The MCO was lost on 23 September and ...
-
News
Instrument failure suspected in crash
David Learmount/LONDON A faulty attitude director indicator (ADI) on the captain's side appears to have been a major factor in the Korean Air (KAL) Boeing 747-200 freighter crash on 22 December near London Stansted Airport, UK, according to details in a UK Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) interim bulletin. ...
-
News
BA studies CityFlyer transfer in Gatwick route shake-up
Chris Jasper/LONDON Andrew Doyle/MUNICH British Airways is considering a radical restructuring of its London Gatwick-based operations that would see all routes of less than 800km (430nm) - or around 35% of services - transferred to its CityFlyer subsidiary. The move, among several under consideration, aims to exploit the lower ...
-
News
Late rash mars safer than average year
Despite the rash of serious airline accidents in December which made 1999 appear a bad year for safety, initial figures indicate that last year was safer than average for the 1990s. The number of crew and passenger deaths in all categories of airliner worldwide was 730, compared with a decade ...
-
News
Airports
The Netherlands Government has decided that the construction of an international airport on an offshore island to serve Amsterdam is not feasible. It will instead allow Schiphol Airport to be expanded. Aircraft movements will increase from 420,000 to 600,000 in 10 years, while a sixth runway will be constructed by ...
-
News
Clear air ahead for turbulence detector
Honeywell aims to develop a system within three years that will be able to detect clear air turbulence (CAT), for which there are no predictive warning systems available. The company plans to certificate a combined microwave and infrared radar to detect all types of turbulence, including CAT. It has ...
-
News
Two Cubana crashes add to sad year-end toll
David Learmount/LONDON A series of airline accidents has cast a shadow over the year-end holiday period, with Korean Air suffering its third hull loss in 1999 and Cubana having two fatal crashes within five days. The main accidents in the last days of 1999 include: 21 ...
-
News
TWA looks at stretched 757s to replace ageing 767 fleet
Guy Norris/LONG BEACH TWA is "in discussion" over the possible acquisition of Boeing 757-300s as part of a fleetwide modernisation plan aimed at settling the composition of its narrowbodies for the next 10 years. The airline is considering the 240-seat twinjet as a replacement for its ageing 767-200 ...
-
News
Urgent GE90 removal starts on worldwide 777-200 fleet
Guy Norris/LOS ANGELES Paul Lewis/WASHINGTON DC General Electric has begun removing the first of 90 GE90 engines from the worldwide Boeing 777-200 fleet after turbine blade separations caused two in-flight shutdowns and one turnback. The problems, all of which afflicted 777-200ERs operated by Saudi Arabian Airlines, were caused by ...
-
News
Aerospace beats the Y2K bug
Airline, air traffic control and airport reports from around the globe show that the millennium bug has not caused any computer glitches. The exceptions have been with the control of some ageing satellites (see P17). International Air Transport Association (IATA) director general Pierre Jeanniot says: "No Y2K-related incidents were ...
-
News
777-100X revived to counter A330 at Singapore Airlines
Paul Lewis/WASHINGTON DC Guy Norris/LOS ANGELES Boeing is looking at reviving the shelved 777-100X shrink derivative as a counter to Airbus Industrie's A330-200 and its proposed -100 variant ahead of an expected Singapore Airlines (SIA) request for proposals (RFP) for an A310 replacement. SIA is expected to release ...
-
News
Ramp Up
TOM GILL LONDON Deregulation in Europe's ground handling market is improving prices - but not necessarily service levels This year will be a busy one for European ground handling. By January 2001, most of the region's airports must have opened their doors to competition, ushering in a new era of ...
-
News
Satcoms progress
Back in the 20th century, they said people would not want telephones on airliners; that they did not wish to be contactable while they dozed in comfort or ate a fine meal. How times have changed. In the 21st century, passengers slip on virtual reality glasses and join the crew ...
-
News
Olympic Lynchpin
GÜNTER ENDRES ATHENS Rod Lynch has been brought in to Olympic Airways to avert a Greek tragedy. The sight of a Scotsman sitting behind the desk once occupied by Aristotle Onassis, whose picture still dominates the chief executive's office, is striking. Yet the contrast between the Greek billionaire shipping magnate, ...
-
News
Japan to redistribute slots
NICHOLAS IONIDES ATI/TOKYO Japan's "big three" carriers could be in for a further wave of competition, as the Japanese Ministry of Transport (MoT) studies a controversial plan that would see slots stripped from them at congested airports and handed over to new operators. A senior member of the MoT's strategic ...
-
News
Flight of fantasy
Airline operations in the 21st century will be conducted in an integrated information environment, linking passengers, cabin and cockpit crew with the ground The airliner passenger cabin and the flightdeck are getting closer technologically. No longer are capabilities exclusively designed for the cockpit, with applications increasingly being found in ...
-
News
Germany shapes engine of the future
Germany is easing the way forward for its aero-engine companies to design cleaner, quieter, more efficient powerplants over the next decade Germany's Engine 3E (E3E) programme was launched to ensure that the country's aeroengine companies, BMW Rolls-Royce (now R-R GmbH) and MTU, are prepared for the demands that will ...
-
News
In the year of the dragon
Asia-Pacific's airline presidents were in more relaxed mood as they gathered for their annual assembly. Kevin O'Toole looks at the brighter figures which are fuelling their optimism. What a difference a year can make. When Asia-Pacific airline presidents met for their annual assembly a year ago in Manila, most were ...