All Ops & safety articles – Page 1384
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News
Private Qantas delivers on performance promise
QANTAS IS HOLDING its own, despite competition in international and domestic markets, says chairman Gary Pemberton, revealing the group's first financial figures, since it completed privatisation in mid-1995. Pemberton reports that Qantas pushed up profits by more than 15%, to A$148 million ($110 million) in the first half ...
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Inertial platform fault to blame for Chinese Long March crash
CHINA GREAT WALL Industry (CGWIC) says that telemetry data from its failed Long March 3B booster indicates that the control system's inertial-guidance platform failed T+2s after lift-off from Xichang on 14 February. The maiden flight of the LM3B carried the Intelsat 708, which was lost in the crash ...
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'Bitter' union conflicts force Sabena chairman to resign
SABENA CHAIRMAN and chief executive, Pierre Godfroid has resigned, to be replaced by Swissair executive Paul Reutlinger. Godfroid ran into a bitter dogfight between the management and the airline unions over a controversial restructuring plan involving a pay freeze and longer working hours. Two other senior Sabena managers have been ...
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Japan gears up for US bilateral battle
Kevin O'Toole/TOKYO BATTLE LINES are being drawn up in Japan and the USA as pressure mounts on both sides of the Pacific for a renegotiation of the controversial passenger bilateral between the two countries. Although talks are now under way over a revised cargo agreement, ...
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Lufthansa and United apply for anti-trust immunity in USA
LUFTHANSA AND United Airlines have applied for US anti-trust immunity to expand their strategic alliance. The move came just hours, after a new open-skies bilateral air accord was initialed, by US and German transport officials. Final signature on the bilateral is expected by the third quarter. German transport ...
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ANZ optimistic of Ansett deal
Kevin O'Toole/LONDON AIR NEW ZEALAND (ANZ) remains optimistic that it can go ahead with the proposed deal with TNT to acquire up to half of Ansett Australia. The agreement with TNT, which owns half of Ansett together with News Corporation, is still under negotiation, but ...
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BAe calls for Airbus restructuring
Kevin O'Toole/LONDON AIRBUS INDUSTRIE must start to rework its consortium structure and finances, before going ahead with the launch of a new A3XX large-aircraft project, says British Aerospace chief executive Dick Evans. There is little prospect of BAe approving a new Airbus programme "...unless there ...
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Second Trent 777 returns to Seattle after testing
THE SECOND Rolls-Royce Trent 800-powered Boeing 777 was expected to return to Seattle on 1 March after undergoing 91 route sectors with Cathay Pacific Airways. Boeing is striving to achieve early extended-range twin-operations (ETOPS) clearance for the aircraft. By the end of February, the Trent 777 had undergone ...
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Recorder reveals clue to 757 crash
A FAULTY AIR-SPEED indicator has emerged as a possible factor in the 6 February crash of a Boeing 757-200 in the Caribbean, which claimed 189 lives. Dominican Republic accident investigators, aided by the US National Transportation Safety Board, say that data from the recently retrieved cockpit-voice recorder ...
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THE GE 747 testbed
THE SHEER SIZE AND extra capacity of General Electric's Boeing 747 test-bed gives it an obvious advantage over its smaller predecessors. "It is five, or even ten times, as efficient as the 707," comments Phil Schultz, GE flight-test organisation (FTO) chief pilot. "We can run five or six objectives in ...
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Northwest takes A320s and defers A330 deliveries
Ramon Lopez/WASHINGTON DC NORTHWEST AIRLINES has postponed and may eventually cancel delivery of 16 Airbus A330s in favour of acquiring 20 more A320s and hushkits for its 32 Boeing 727-200s and McDonnell Douglas DC-9-30s. The decision puts in doubt the US carrier's intentions of ever ...
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Combi Saab 2000 nears certification
SAAB AIRCRAFT is hoping to complete development and certification of a passenger/cargo combi version of its Saab 2000 turboprop by the end of 1996, in an effort to boost flagging sales. The Swedish manufacturer is proposing two different basic combi configurations. The aircraft can be configured typically for ...
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World accidents and incidents fell in 1995
PRELIMINARY statistics from the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) show that airline fatal accidents and security-related incidents declined in 1995. The scheduled airlines of the 184 contracting states of ICAO experienced 26 accidents involving passenger fatalities, compared with 28 fatal accidents in 1994. The number of fatalities came ...
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EMB-145 'exceeds expectations'
EMBRAER'S EMB-145 regional jet is performing better than predicted, the Brazilian manufacturer says. One prototype and two pre-series aircraft are now in flight-test and a fourth EMB-145, is scheduled to have been flown, by 20 March. Engineering director Luis Affonso says that the performance is exceeding specification because ...
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A weighty premium
No one seems sure how much the interbank premium, which has been imposed on Japanese banks, accounts for their pull-back from aircraft finance, but it seems to be a likely cause. David Knibb reports.Financiers disagree over how much of Japan's fading dominance in aircraft finance is due to its banking ...
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Strike threat looms in US
A surprise deal between United Airlines and its flight attendants contrasts sharply with pilot-management talks at Delta Air Lines and American Airlines. As of mid-February, those two carriers were locked in federally mediated negotiations as pilots turned up the heat with strike preparations. The most notable points that ...
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Indians hit by tax threat
A liquidity crunch among India's private operators has forced them into a showdown with the country's tax authorities, which are threatening to ground the fleet of any defaulter for the second year running. At presstime, two carriers - Modiluft and feeder airline Jagson Airways - were still facing ...
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No haste, just speed
Having sealed its partnership with KLM, Kenya Airways is wasting no time in completing its privatisation and entering the next phase of its development. Jackie Gallacher reports.Kenya Airways is in a hurry. It aims to complete its privatisation by the end of March, and to outline the main priorities for ...
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A few home truths
Full liberalisation of the domestic markets of all the third package signatory states is just over a year away but Europe's leading economy is already in its third year of fully-fledged domestic competition. Mark Odell reports. The prospects for new competitors in the German internal market appear bleak after liberalisation ...
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Never green enough
Airlines may have escaped a global increase in noise and possibly on emission stringencies, but does this open the door for individual airports to impose surcharges at will? Sara Guild reports on the ongoing debate on the environment.Aeroengine emissions and noise have been the subject of countless meetings and reviews ...