All Ops & safety articles – Page 1202
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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. ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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News
Clearing the air
With its Beyond Open Skies ministerial meeting in Chicago, the USA has finally brought the debate about bilaterals out into the open. From now on, the issue will not be easy to force back into the shadows. It is all too easy to be cynical about what happened at ...
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Airports and airlines join forces over ATC delays
GÜNTER ENDRES LONDON The Airports Council International Europe (ACI Europe) and the Association of European Airlines (AEA) have agreed to fight the growing problem of flight delays in Europe, targeting air traffic control (ATC) in particular. The joint resolution comes after the International Air Transport Association (IATA) put forward its ...
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News
Investors emerge for Ansett New Zealand
News Corporation's efforts to sell Ansett New Zealand may have better luck with a new group of New Zealand investors than it has had over the past 12 years with Qantas Airways. News Corp and Qantas were unable to agree on a price, and there is no assurance the ...
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News
A sense of balance
CHRIS TARRY COMMERZBANK IN LONDON The traffic forecasting model developed by Commerzbank and Airline Business highlights the extent to which capacity ran ahead of demand in 1999. But the coming year could bring markets back to balance. If further evidence was needed over the pain that excess seat capacity can ...
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News
Star wins battle over Canadian future
DAVID KNIBB SEATTLE Star Alliance has won the battle with oneworld for control of Canadian Airlines. Under a deal hammered out between American Airlines parent AMR and Air Canada, American will retain certain codeshare rights, but Canadian will effectively withdraw from oneworld. This ends a five-month see-saw battle in ...
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Free flight and beyond
Increased automation of air traffic management, on the ground and in the air, will be a driving force for future change Like a colossus, the controller walks around her sector, keeping watch on arrivals and departures in the terminal area. Around her a myriad of miniaturised aircraft, holographically replicated ...
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EC rethink on safety body
ALAN GEORGE BRUSSELS Further delays in the establishment of the proposed European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) seem inevitable following an intervention by the new Transport Commissioner Loyola De Palacio. She now wants the EASA to be established as part of the European Commission (EC), reversing the previous compromise by which ...
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In Brief
Asiana offer Asiana Airlines expects to raise 375 billion won ($325 million) through an initial public offering of 50 million shares. Shares were made available early in December ahead of a listing on South Korea's secondary Kosdaq share market at the end of the month. Public and institutional investors ...