All Systems & interiors articles – Page 886

  • News

    Why not use the safer Halon gas?

    1996-06-05T00:00:00Z

    Sir - During the 1980s, I campaigned (unsuccessfully) for the withdrawal of highly toxic Halon 1211 portable extinguishers from flightdecks and cabins, suggesting their replacement by five-times-safer Halon 1301. My fear was - and remains - that 1211, in the confined space of a flightdeck, could cause the ...

  • News

    Wilcox makes formal WAAS protest to FAA

    1996-06-05T00:00:00Z

    WILCOX ELECTRIC has issued a formal protest against the award of the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) contract to Hughes Aircraft, its former subcontractor on the $475 million programme. Wilcox says that the protest follows discovery that the US Federal Aviation Administration "-had given Hughes more time to ...

  • News

    ValuJet CVR confirms fire-in-cabin theory

    1996-06-05T00:00:00Z

    Ramon Lopez/WASHINGTON DC The existence of an intense fire in the cabin has now been confirmed by the cockpit-voice recorder (CVR) as being a likely cause of the ValuJet McDonnell Douglas DC-9 accident in Florida on 11 May. Flight- and cabin-crew exchanges indicate that the fire ...

  • News

    Jeppesen to standardise European charts

    1996-06-05T00:00:00Z

    JEPPESEN HAS enhanced its visual-flight-rules/global-positioning-system navigation charts for six European countries, as part of an initiative to create standard formats across the region and help flight planning. Charts for Austria, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Switzerland have been enhanced in the run-up to changes in border-crossing regulations. ...

  • News

    Japan's carriers make gains

    1996-06-05T00:00:00Z

    Paul Lewis/SINGAPORE Kevin O'Toole/LONDON GROWING international traffic has helped Japan Airlines (JAL) return to profitability for the first time in five years and has further strengthened the recovery at All Nippon Airways (ANA) JAL bounced back into the black for the first time since 1990, with ...

  • News

    Working to capacity

    1996-06-05T00:00:00Z

    To increase airport capacity, NASA is working to get aircraft off the runway and to the terminal faster. Graham Warwick/ATLANTA INCREASES IN airspace capacity promised by new air-traffic-management technologies such as Free Flight will challenge airports' ability to cope unless control of aircraft on the ground is similarly ...

  • News

    Ametek introduces monitor to keep track of regional-turboprop balances

    1996-06-05T00:00:00Z

    AMETEK AEROSPACE Products has introduced a system to give fast, accurate propeller balancing, allowing regional-turboprop operators to keep down damaging vibration levels throughout an aircraft's life. The Balance Monitoring System automatically stores vibration data in flight. These data are then downloaded to a ground-based lap-top computer which calculates ...

  • News

    AlliedSignal to offer Iridium service

    1996-06-05T00:00:00Z

    ALLIEDSIGNAL IS TO provide an aeronautical-telecommunications service using the Iridium satellite-based mobile-telephone system. The service is due to be available early in 1999 and is expected to undercut Inmarsat-based satellite-communications costs, rivalling those of terrestrial flight-telephone systems. The tie-up with AlliedSignal is revealed in the Flight InternationaI newsletter, ...

  • News

    AEA slams European ATC performance

    1996-06-05T00:00:00Z

    Herman de Wulf/BRUSSELS KARL-HEINZ Neumeister, secretary-general of the Association of European Airlines (AEA) has led an attack on Europe's "increasing" flight delays, "lousy" air-traffic control (ATC) and "scandalous" route charges. He complains that European airlines are being saddled with unnecessary costs, putting them at a disadvantage ...

  • News

    Airline news

    1996-06-01T10:51:00Z

    Air Canada is reducing its shareholding in Continental Airlines to 10 per cent, while retaining 4 per cent voting power, and plans to sell its remaining holding by early 1997. Continental will start a weekly New York/Newark-Dusseldorf flight in July. United Airlines will launch nonstop Chicago-Hong Kong services ...

  • News

    JAL's internet

    1996-06-01T10:05:00Z

    Japan Airlines will introduce ticketless travel in the domestic market this month, including sales through travel agents. From July, JAL will become the first Asian carrier to offer domestic bookings via the Internet.   Source: Airline Business

  • News

    Marketing a package

    1996-06-01T00:00:00Z

    Abu Dhabi, host city for Routes '97, has its own unique approach to airport marketing. Mark Blacklock reportsShortly before landing at Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates, Britannia Airways screens a video about the city, its airport and the duty free shopping complex. Provided free of charge by ...

  • News

    Mirror images

    1996-06-01T00:00:00Z

    Japan's two largest carriers are eyeing each other's traditional markets as they struggle to rectify the advantages enjoyed by their US rivals and the disadvantages of Japanese airport congestion. Successful cost-cutting remains the key. Mark Odell reports on their progress from Tokyo and then scrutinises domestic deregulation Japanese-style. Put the ...

  • News

    Euro majors sweat it out

    1996-06-01T00:00:00Z

    A block on state aid, job cuts and cash shortages. Just three big headaches that should ensure the managements of the struggling European majors endure a long, hot summer. Olympic Airways has become the first carrier to suffer the ignominy of having a tranche of its state aid ...

  • News

    Immune deficiency syndromes

    1996-06-01T00:00:00Z

    US transportation officials have long been quietly offering antitrust immunity as a gift for opening up international markets to their airlines. Now immunity is being sought on a grand scale, but the Department of Justice is wary. Mead Jennings reports.The question won't be asked officially for another year, but Elliott ...

  • News

    Lax tax rules hit at costs

    1996-06-01T00:00:00Z

    As US carriers report record earnings during the first quarter, some analysts are cautioning that the windfalls, in good measure due to the lapse of the 10 per cent ticket tax at the start of this year, are disguising a rise in unit costs. On one of the ...

  • News

    UPS closes on Taipei hub

    1996-06-01T00:00:00Z

    The decisions by United Parcel Service and DHL to launch Asian hubs commit all four of the big express cargo carriers to the Orient. The question now is which of the differing strategies will work and whether they will avoid the bloody shakedown that followed a similar scramble four years ...

  • News

    A clearer direction?

    1996-06-01T00:00:00Z

    A spring-clean of the alliance movement has taken place over the past year, with many of the majors dusting off and discarding some of their older, redundant agreements and focusing instead on developing newer ones. Meanwhile the number of alliances continues to grow as more pertinent agreements are added by ...

  • News

    BA savours American pie

    1996-06-01T00:00:00Z

    The impending alliance between American Airlines and British Airways confirms that US international aviation policy over the last two years has had a dramatic impact on the global airline industry. BA and American officials were preparing the accord at presstime. Sources say that a two-year discussion finally yielded ...

  • News

    Trust US for new allies?

    1996-06-01T00:00:00Z

    Washington's aviation scene is bubbling with potential alliance building and demolition, after the US Department of Transportation tentatively approved the application for antitrust immunity between United Airlines and Lufthansa. 'There is no question that all kinds of conversations are going nonstop and the immunity applications are the big ...