All Systems & interiors articles – Page 792
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News
Safety in numbers?
Until now, Air Namibia's future looked limited and its finances precarious. But hopes are pinned on a new managing director, a restructuring programme and an alliance with South African Airways. Jaafar Ahmad freely admits that his first reaction when asked to head up struggling carrier Air Namibia was: "What ...
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Malev restructures and hunts for partners
Hungarian flag carrier Malev is gearing up to join one of the global alliance groupings while pushing ahead with a restructuring programme. New chief Antal Pongracz is keeping its options open, but re-opening talks with British Airways, which broke off last May, will be high on his agenda. ...
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Food for thought
Most airlines are contracting out in-flight catering and are increasingly looking for suppliers with a global presence. When casting around for ways to reduce costs and strip out non-core businesses, airline chief executives did not take long to focus on the opportunities to be had from outsourcing their in-flight ...
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The size equation
Airbus forcasts show that demand for the A3XX rests partly on the shifting balance between high and low yield traffic. Few new airliner births can have had such an agonisingly slow and controversial labour as that which has accompanied the launch of a new large aircraft. After almost a ...
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The environment starts to hot up
The environmental debate, it seems, is back with a vengeance. Europe's decision to call a halt to hushkitting has already sparked an acrimonious transatlantic row and there is every indication that this is only for starters. A discussion paper is due from the European Commission (EC) within weeks and, if ...
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Iberia gets down to business
With the BA equity deal all but sealed, membership of oneworld under its belt and full privatisation slated by year end, Iberia has much to be cheerful about. But while the Spanish flag carrier reinvents itself as a serious international business airline, it will need to keep a close eye ...
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News in Brief
BA's pilot deal - BA has sealed a comprehensive agreement with pilots union BALPA, which provides pilots flying for its controversial long-haul charter arm AML and short-haul routes out of Gatwick with the same terms and conditions as BA mainline pilots. In return pilots have agreed to relax some flying ...
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Zurich Airport put on notice over capacity
Two years ago, as he made his debut as SAirGroup chief executive, Philippe Bruggisser raised a local political storm by pulling back the bulk of Swissair's intercontinental flights from Geneva to the main Zürich hub. Now he has issued a blunt warning that Zürich "is in danger of losing its ...
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Get your aircraft economics right
Operating ageing aircraft can be an expensive business, as cost figures for the US majors clearly demonstrate. But how great is the cost difference between old and new? There has always been a trade-off between the cheap acquisition cost of older aircraft and the slick operating economics of modern types. ...
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Swissair resists Air France deal
Any remaining speculation that Swissair could be headed for an alliance with Air France has been brought to an abrupt end, with group chief executive Philippe Bruggisser taking the opportunity of the SAirGroup annual results round to kill the possibility stone dead. Speculation had rested on the alliance ...
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Proposed US-EU dialogue may ease tensions
Alan George/BRUSSELS The European Union and the US Government have discussed the establishment of a 'structured dialogue' aimed at defusing aviation tensions between the two sides. The talks, between EC Transport Commissioner Neil Kinnock and US Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater, took place in Brussels last week. Slater went to ...
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Insurers counting on a rise in premiums by end of year
Chris Jasper/LONDON The aviation insurance industry is becoming convinced that the headlong fall in premiums may be poised to hit bottom or even begin a slow recovery, with the market's massive over-capacity also set to be reduced as part of the same process. Since premiums last hit a peak ...
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Europe and USA start Galileo connection talks
Europe and the USA have started discussions to ensure Europe's Galileo global navigation satellite system (GNSS) is interoperable with the US global positioning system (GPS). In February, the European Commission (EC) announced plans to develop Galileo as an open, global satellite navigation system independent from the GPS. Although the USA ...
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SIA buys into Ansett Australia
Paul Phelan/MELBOURNE Singapore Airlines (SIA) is to share ownership of Melbourne-based domestic carrier Ansett Australia with Air New Zealand after agreeing to buy out the 50% stake in Ansett Holdings held by the News Limited media group. The deal means that the two flag carriers will also hold equal stakes ...
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Honeywell ready to sign LAAS development agreement
Honeywell will sign an agreement in early April with the US Federal Aviation Administration to begin development of the local area augmentation system (LAAS), which will allow the global positioning system (GPS) to be used as the sole source of navigation information. Honeywell has assembled a team which includes ...
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Airbus and Messier-Dowty test fix for A330/A340 landing gear
Airbus Industrie and Messier Dowty are testing a fix for the main landing gear of the A340 long-range airliner, which, if successful, will enable the removal of operating restrictions on all A330s and A340s. The work follows the incident involving a Sabena A340 in August in which the right ...
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Meet the family
Herman De Wulf/BRUSSELS Sabena of Belgium has begun its transition to an all-Airbus fleet, and is coming to grips with new procedures With the delivery of its first Airbus Industrie A321 on 2 March, Sabena began its conversion to an all-Airbus airline - the biggest re-equipment programme in ...
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Loran-C reprieved as USA sets timetable for move to sole GPS
Ramon Lopez/WASHINGTON DC It will take at least 10 years for the USA to complete its transition from ground-based navigation aids to the satellite-based global positioning system (GPS) for "sole means" navigation, according to US aviation officials. Meanwhile, Loran-C, which is operated by the US Coast Guard for en ...
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UPS contract leads Thomson to Windows NT
Thomson Training &Simulation (TTS) has launched a Windows NT-based full flight simulator with an order from United Parcel Service. TTS says the simulator, for the Airbus A300-600R, will be the world's first to feature a PC-based real-time computing architecture using the Windows NT operating system. Presently, the company uses ...