All Ops & safety articles – Page 1189
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News
US majors fight for new China routes
KAREN WALKER WASHINGTON DC The availability of rights for 10 new weekly non-stop flights between the USA and China has pitched US passenger airlines into an unusual battle against cargo carriers. Under an updated US-China aviation agreement, China is granting the US Government the 10 new flights as well ...
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EU fuel tax proposal criticised
A proposal by the European Commission that individual member states take steps to levy tax on aviation fuel has been criticised as "confused and confusing" by the Association of European Airlines. The proposal, a follow-up to the wide-ranging Communication issued at the end of last year, calls for member states ...
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Vietnam-USA seal deal
NICHOLAS IONIDES ATI SINGAPORE Vietnam and the USA have finally signed a bilateral to allow codesharing. That could be the prelude to a full air-services accord when talks resume in June. The codeshare agreement was signed early in March in Hanoi and is described as a "memorandum of discussions", although ...
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EASA delayed by debate over powers
ALAN GEORGE BRUSSELS The protracted project to create a European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) now seems unlikely to come to fruition until 2002 at the earliest. It still remains uncertain whether the new body will be an agency of the European Commission (EC), or, as originally envisaged, an international agency ...
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KLM gives profit plan details
COLIN BAKER LONDON KLM has detailed its plans to bring the airline back to profitability next year. The measures include a cost-cutting programme and a change in fleet deployment to bring total savings of DFl700 million ($307 million). The airline says the measures, aimed to tackle rising fuel costs, ...
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Plan set to solve dispute over Italian flight transfer
BARRY CROSS LONDON A new plan may have solved the long-running saga over the transfer of flights from Milan's Linate Airport to the new hub at Malpensa. The so-called Plan B is to be implemented on 20 April, even though the airlines involved are still far from happy. The ...
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Struggling VASP looks to domestic market
BRIAN HOMEWOOD RIO DE JANEIRO VASP, Brazil's third-biggest airline, is struggling to maintain its credibility after a run of embarrassing problems caused by an apparent lack of cash. The beleaguered airline, which has cut several international routes and returned four Boeing MD-11s, nearly had its landing rights suspended at Brazilian ...
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Soft Landing
Tom Gill and Colin Baker LONDON There are all the classic signs of a downturn in the cycle, with aircraft prices weakening and deliveries slowing, but this time it looks more like a gentle decline rather than bust When the airline industry cycle last turned down a decade ago, it ...
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Lawyers question trend to prosecute over safety
DAVID KNIBB WASHINGTON DC US lawyers are raising concerns over a growing tension between air safety and criminal law. An 80% rise in US airline fines in 1999 and a jury's conviction of SabreTech for its role in a ValuJet crash have drawn attention to a trend by prosecutors to ...
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Life at the top
KAREN WALKER SINGAPORE Airbus is right to feel proud of its 1999 performance, as it overtook Boeing on new orders. But the fight to stay on top will be fierce. If Airbus Industrie's managers find the heights to which they climbed in 1999 overwhelming, they show no signs of vertigo ...
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Play by the rules
David Knibb WASHINGTON DC As momentum grows to liberalise the skies, the rules for fair and open competition become more important. But few agree on what they should be. When Grupo TACA accused Continental Airlines last November of predatory pricing and capacity dumping, a charge the latter denied, it ...
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Investigators throw light on MD-11 crash cause
Canadian accident investigators are again sifting the wreckage of the Swissair Boeing MD-11 Flight No SR111 to check whether cockpit map reading lights could have been the ignition source for the fire which brought down the aircraft, flying from New York to Geneva off Nova Scotia in September 1998. ...
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Maintainers record mixed 1999 results
Graham Warwick/WASHINGTON DC Troubled US maintenance and parts specialist Aviation Sales will take a charge of $72 million against yet-to-be-announced 1999 results, relating to a reduction in the value of inventory in its parts redistribution operations, plus four Airbus A300s which it is trying to sell or lease. The ...
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Traffic fall defeats Russian airlines' restructuring plan
Paul Duffy/MOSCOW New figures on the state of the Russian airline industry make sobering reading - although the improved performance of a handful of carriers, achieved in a harsh economic climate, suggests there may be grounds for cautious optimism. Russian passenger traffic fell 3.7% last year compared with 1998, ...
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US Airways gets set to form international partnership
Ramon Lopez/TOULOUSE US Airways will become a partner in an international airline alliance in the next few months, says chairman Stephen Wolf. At the same time, the airline is gearing up for long-haul expansion with the delivery of the first of up to 30 Airbus A330-300s. Until now, ...
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WAAS guides FAA to new approach
The US Federal Aviation Administration plans new categories of approach guidance based on the expected performance of the wide area augmentation system (WAAS). Details revealed at the WAAS users' summit in mid-March suggest the new levels will provide increased operational benefit earlier than expected. The FAA told users that ...
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EC holds up EADS approval over inadequate documents
Alan George/LONDON The European Commission's (EC) competition authorities have extended by a month their first-phase investigation of the proposed merger of DaimlerChrysler Aerospace, Aerospatiale Matra and CASA to form the European Aeronautic, Defense and Space (EADS) company. Brussels acted after some documents from EADS were found to be deficient. ...
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BAE approves regional launch
Emma Kelly/LONDON BAE Systems hopes to announce the launch airline for its RJX regional jet family in the next three weeks following the formal launch of the Avro RJ derivative on 21 March. Peter Connolly, BAE Systems senior vice-president for sales and marketing, says an order for the ...
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Spain set for regional battle
Andrew Doyle/GERONA Boeing is close to securing a second European airline customer for its 717 following Spanish regional start-up AB Bluestar's announcement that it intends to order six of the twinjets and take nine options. Spanish rival Air Nostrum, meanwhile, has concluded a major deal with Canada's Bombardier ...
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Carriers queue for La Guardia
Paul Lewis/WASHINGTON DC Continental Airlines and Delta Air Lines are moving quickly to claim additional slots promised for regional services at New York's La Guardia Airport as the result of newly approved Congressional legislation. Contained in the US Federal Aviation Administration reauthorisation Bill is a provision to grant ...