All Systems & interiors articles – Page 758
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News
SIA/Virgin work out fine print
Chris Jasper/LONDON Singapore Airlines (SIA) and Virgin Atlantic are hammering out the details of their recently agreed deal. Under it, the Asian giant takes a 49% stake in the UK holding company, which owns Virgin Atlantic Airways, Virgin Holidays, Virgin Sun and cargo operation Virgin Aviation Services. The £600 ...
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KLM uk's no-frills buzz gets off the ground
Buzz, the new low-cost subsidiary of KLM uk, began operations on 4 January with promises of "strong market growth" in the European low-cost sector over the next five years. Based at London Stansted, UK, the carrier competes with the existing UK-based low-cost airlines Ryanair, easyJet and British Airways subsidiary Go. ...
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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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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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Spinning a Web
KAREN WALKER WASHINGTON DC A smart and easy-to-use web site may become an airline's most powerful tool for retaining control over the customer. But most carriers have a lot of work ahead of them before their sites meet passenger expectations. Airline managers might want to try an experiment: log on ...
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A satnav world
The early years of the 21st century will see the start of advanced satellite navigation systems mapping the world. From the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) in North America, the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay System (EGNOS) and later, Galileo, and the Multi-function Transport Satellite (MTSAT) system in the Asia-Pacific ...
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Sabre rattling
TOM GILL LONDON Sabre is moving ahead with its bid to be the leading single-source supplier of IT services to the airline industry. Completely out-of-control is how John "Bo" Boedecker describes the state of the information technology budgets of some its prospective client airlines. According to Boedecker, Sabre's president, worldwide ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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Intelligent hope
Intelligent spacecraft are still a few years away, but robots and automated systems can meanwhile play a large part in extending space exploration The spaceflight industry has just one year year left to emulate Arthur C Clarke's HAL, the spacecraft computer that became too intelligent in 2001: A Space Odyssey. ...
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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 ...
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End of an era?
The traditional look for commercial aircraft may be ending. This century's airliners could look radically different Airbus Industrie's planned A3XX will be the ultimate expression of the classic airliner configuration, representing the end of the road for the layout of cylindrical fuselage, swept wing and podded engines so familiar ...
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Mexico's smaller players struggle to compete
DAVID KNIBB SEATTLE Mexico's third and fourth largest airlines have both experienced problems that harm their ability to compete against the duopoly of Aeromexico and Mexicana. Taesa, Mexico's number three carrier, remains grounded for safety reasons following a fatal crash on 9 November. Mexico's communications and transport ministry says inspectors ...
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Clean and lean
Environmental issues and the demands of safety and reliability drive airliner design as much as technology Ever since the first powered machines flew at the start of the 20th century, aviation has been driven by the quest to improve aircraft efficiency. With extraordinary persistence, often surmounting seemingly impossible technical barriers, ...
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Catering - serving in the fast lane
Fast food may not be on the in-flight menu, but as consolidation takes hold of the airline catering business, speed appears to be of the essence. Last year saw a flurry of activity in the in-flight catering industry, including a host of joint ventures and two major acquisition deals. ...
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Cargo shapes up for rapid shake up
PETER CONWAY LONDON The year ahead looks likely to see dramatic changes in air cargo, with more and more carriers offering time-definite services, and the old wholesale-retail relationships between airline and forwarder becoming more flexible. Wilhelm Althen, retiring chairman of Lufthansa Cargo, which introduced time-definite services and a programme of ...
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Canberra considers Sydney public float
DAVID KNIBB SEATTLE The Australian Government is considering a public float of Sydney Airports Corporation (SACL), departing from its previous privatisation policy. Australia's finance minister, John Fahey, says the government is considering offering SACL shares publicly rather than through trade sales as it did with the country's 17 other airports. ...
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Buying Power
KEVIN O'TOOLE & TOM GILL LONDON The global alliances are only just starting to use their combined buying power. Airline analysts are not alone in anxiously awaiting signs of how the global alliances may change the industry's landscape. There are hopes and fears among service providers too over how the ...
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Brazil's carriers do battle over frequent flier plans
BRIAN HOMEWOOD RIO DE JANEIRO Last year's deep recession forced Brazil's carriers to abandon their cut throat fares war but BTAM, VASP, Varig and Transbrasil have now all turned to heavy promotion of their frequent flier programmes. Varig says 2.5 million passengers are registered on its Smiles scheme, up from ...
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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 ...