All Ops & safety articles – Page 1283
-
News
P&W plans for hybrid PW4000
Guy Norris/EAST HARTFORD Pratt & Whitney is planning a new family of hybrid PW4000 engines to meet the thrust requirements of widebodies under study by Airbus Industrie and Boeing. News of the development emerged as the company gave its long-awaited commitment to develop a 454kN (102,000lb)- thrust engine for ...
-
News
Tarom A310 crash pilot was 'incapacitated'
Pilot incapacitation, combined with a mechanical fault, caused the Tarom Romanian Airlines Airbus Industrie A310-300 crash which killed all 60 people on board, according to investigators in Bucharest. Lack of aircrew response to an extreme nose-down attitude, which developed during the climb shortly after take-off from Bucharest, has led ...
-
News
Garuda stands by DC-10 pilot
Paul Lewis/SINGAPORE Garuda Indonesia Airlines has indicated that it will contest any charges of criminal manslaughter which may be brought against one of its pilots, who is blamed by a recent Japanese report for the 1996 fatal crash of a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30 at Fukuoka Airport. Three Japanese passengers were ...
-
News
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 ...
-
News
Routes
++ United Parcel Service (UPS) has launched a service to Penang six times a week as an en route extension to its existing operation from the carrier's Taipei hub to Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. ++ New Zealand has signed an open-skies agreement with Malaysia, permitting each national carrier the right ...
-
News
Lycoming inspection
The US National Transportation Safety Board has requested that all Textron Lycoming IO-320-B1A engines with older-style, thinner, propeller-mounting flanges be inspected for cracks after aerobatic manoeuvres, following the 1996 fatal crash of a Lancair 320. Source: Flight International
-
News
Kitty Hawk refinances
Fresh from its merger with the Kallita air-freight grouping, UScargo carrier Kitty Hawk has completed its refinancing, netting $39.5 million from a share offering and another $340 million through a bond issue. The cash will be used to fund the merger, which the carrier says makes it the world's seventh-largest ...
-
News
Europe's FAA?
Alan George/BRUSSELS The European Commission (EC) is preparing to push radical new proposals to set up a European AviationSafety Authority (EASA) at a meeting of transport ministers later this month. The new agency, which will have sweeping powers, could be operational by 2000 according to well-placed sources in Brussels. ...
-
News
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 ...
-
News
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 ...
-
News
BAe wins Boeing work
British Aerospace has confirmed a contract from Boeing to supply "machined components" for the Next Generation 737. The deal marks a coup for BAe's aerostructures business, which has be pushing hard for more work from Boeing, although the group points out that its Airbus agreements prevent it taking any major ...
-
News
Unleaded avgas 'more expensive'
Fuel supplier Phillips 66 has warned that environmental pressure to switch to unleaded aviation gasoline could increase US avgas prices by up to 50%. The Oklahoma-based firm expects today's 100-octane low-lead (100LL) avgas to be available for the next five years, but admits that pressure to eliminate this last ...
-
News
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 ...
-
News
Asia-Pacific economic crisis hits South Korea
South Korea's carriers have become the latest of Asia-Pacific's airlines to be marked down by financial analysts as economic problems continue to reverberate throughout the region. Analysts warn that flag carrier Korean Air (KAL) and its competitor, Asiana, are facing hefty end-of year losses, as the South Korean economy ...
-
News
Future avionics architecture is proven
A group of major European avionics manufacturers has designed an avionics architecture for future aircraft which will vastly reduce development and support costs and improve interoperability between aircraft and systems. The Industrial Avionics Working Group (IAWG) has completed a risk-reduction study into software techniques for integrated modular avionics (IMA) ...
-
News
Braathens settles into KLM alliance
Ian Sheppard/OSLO Braathens SAFE has entered into a co-operation agreement with Northwest Airlines, strengthening its alliance with KLM and allowing it to link its Scandinavian routes to the US carrier's Detroit and Minneapolis hubs through Amsterdam's Schiphol and London Gatwick. Anders Fougli, Braathens director of planning, says that ...
-
News
Alitalia on path to privatisation as state and IRI cut back stake
Kevin O'Toole/LONDON Italy's giant state-holding company, IRI, has agreed to cut its stake in Alitalia to 60% in what is being billed as the first step towards the flag carrier's privatisation, which could now come in 1998. The deal, agreed at a meeting of the IRI board on ...
-
News
EC moves closer to setting up new air safety authority
The European Commission (EC) will present plans to a meeting of European Union (EU) transport ministers this month aimed at creating a European aviation-safety authority. The new agency could be operational as early as 2000, says a well-placed EC official. Detailed work on pulling together recommendations on the role ...
-
News
Regionals add CRJs
Two major US regionals have boosted their Bombardier Canadair Regional Jet (CRJ) orderbooks. Atlantic Coast Airlines has converted 12 of its 36 options to fuel growth at Washington's Dulles Airport, for delivery between late 1998 and mid-1999. Comair's CRJ fleet will grow to 80 with the firming-up of 12 conditional ...
-
News
FAA orders changes to 747 tanks
Ramon Lopez/WASHINGTON DC The US Federal Aviation Administration has issued two airworthiness directives (ADs) aimed at removing potential ignition sources in or near the centre-wing fuel tank of older Boeing 747s. It says that it is best to eliminate ignition sources because it is not possible to purge ...