All Systems & interiors articles – Page 907
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News
Voyage into cyberspace
Airlines are already taking their first tentative steps onto the Internet but remain uncertain over what type of product they should make available. By Carlos de Pommes, Steve Geller and Jens F Meyer.As the Internet continues its global expansion, cyberspace is becoming as big as outer space and the travel ...
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Blanc rejigs his top team
Air France chairman Christian Blanc is putting pressure on flight attendants to accept a two-tier pay structure. The latest bid to cut costs follows a management reshuffle at the end of August. Blanc has commissioned a study by Munich-based consultants Roland, Berger and Partner which shows that cabin ...
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A breath of fresh air
After several wrong turnings on the bumpy alliance road, Sabena and Swissair are finally travelling together. In Brussels, Sabena chief executive Pierre Godfroid and alliance supremo Patrick du Bois discuss the prospects for the carrier with Trevor French.The irony is probably lost on Sabena chief executive Pierre Godfroid that almost ...
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Team tactics
International joint ventures pave the way for an expansion of the maintenance market in China. Paul Lewis/BEIJING/GUANGZHOU/XIAMEN A WORLDWIDE OVERCAPACITY in aircraft maintenance and overhaul has left many companies struggling under the weight of intense competition and uneconomical work rates. This gloomy global picture, however, has not ...
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Ranging wider
Canadair has gradually improved its Challenger corporate jet over the past decade. Harry Hopkins/WICHITA THE CANADAIR CHALLENGER series of corporate jets has evolved over 15 years in a series of small steps which have not detracted from the success of the original formula - to marry the ...
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United kicks off transpacific FANS flights
UNITED AIRLINES has inaugurated transpacific operations using Boeing 747-400s equipped with Honeywell's FANS-1 satellite-based communication/ navigation system. The first FANS-1 flight was made on 2 September, from Chicago to Tokyo, over Russia. United Flight 881 was the first over Siberian airspace to communicate with a new FANS controller-workstation ...
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Greenwald blames bilaterals for strangling industry
Kevin O'Toole/LONDON UNITED AIRLINES (UAL) chairman Gerald Greenwald has launched one of the most scathing attacks yet on the system of bilateral air agreements, including among his main targets the slow progress being made on UK-US liberalisation. "What we have now is a kind of ...
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BA beds in for class battle
Kevin O'Toole/LONDON BRITISH AIRWAYS SAYS that the highly publicised launch of its new long-haul first-class "cabin" concept is just part of a broader £500 million ($776 million) programme to redesign all cabin services over the next three years. The new first-class offering, which was officially ...
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Arinc/China in datalink deal
ARINC HAS SIGNED a multi-year contract with the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) to implement air-to-ground digital datalink systems in the country. The CAAC development, consistent with International Civil Aviation Organisation-approved communications, navigation, surveillance and air-traffic-management system, will enable datalink-equipped aircraft to transmit and receive air-traffic-control and ...
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Airbus closes in on ValuJet deal
Kevin O'Toole/LONDON AIRBUS IS CLOSE to winning the hard-fought battle to sell ValuJet its first new aircraft. The deal, which is expected to involve around 25 A319s, with an option for a further 25, would be a major coup for Airbus, coming in the face of fierce competition ...
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Airbus
Ray Wilson has been appointed director for product operations at British Aerospace Airbus, of Filton, Bristol UK. He will be supported by director of engineering Jeff Jupp and David Waring, who has joined BAe Airbus from Dowty Aerospace Landing Gear to become director of manufacturing, based at Broughton. Three new ...
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MD-95 powerplant will be a customer choice
Guy Norris/LOS ANGELES McDONNELL DOUGLAS (MDC) says that the final selection of the engine for its MD-95 twinjet will depend on which power plant the launch customer selects. The BMW Rolls-Royce BR715 and the Pratt & Whitney mid-thrust family of engines are offered on the ...
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Flying firefighters
The London fire service has been conducting an extensive trial in the use of helicopter air support. Brian Walters/LONDON EVERY WORKING DAY, about 2.5 million motor vehicles enter London, resulting in acute traffic jams at peak hours. In those conditions, it is hard for emergency services to ...
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Ringing the Earth
TEN HUGHES HS-601 Inmarsat P satellites will ring the Earth with worldwide blanket-coverage mobile-communications services in 1999. The HS-601s are being built under a $1.3 billion contract, with a first launch due for 1998. The operational system requires two planes of five satellites, each in intermediate circular 10,400km orbits. Each ...
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Peril of departing from standards
Sir - As more aircraft are in competition for slots in increasingly crowded routes, air-traffic control (ATC) has resorted to assigning aircraft non-standard levels to facilitate traffic flow. I witnessed recently a competent controller in a non-radar environment having to berate the crew of a European flag carrier ...
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Datalink deal
Universal Avionics Systems and Teledyne Controls have teamed to develop a low-cost datalink service, which will be able to communicate via VHF, satellite, Mode S and airphone systems. Universal's two-way datalink will provide the basis for the new unit. Source: Flight International
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Weak dollar ravages DASA
Kevin O'Toole/LONDON DAIMLER-BENZ Aerospace (DASA) racked up massive losses in the first half of the year as the weakness of the US dollar against the deutsche mark ravaged its civil-aircraft sales. The German group posted a loss of DM1.6 billion ($1 billion) for the period, ...
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Medical cost-cutter
LUFTHANSA Technik has developed a device for moving seriously ill patients on board airliners, which it claims is up to 60% cheaper to use, than a private-ambulance aircraft. The patient-transport compartment (PTC), includes breathing apparatus and a 13,000litre oxygen supply. Until recently, the carriage of such a large amount of ...
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Associate membership
THE EUROPEAN UNION (EU) is having trouble managing its relations with neighbors near and far. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the case of air services. Partly, this is because the European Commission (EC) does not have the authority to control member states' air-services agreements. Partly, also, the EU ...
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BMA asks for EC help in Swiss row
BRITISH MIDLAND (BMA) has asked the European Commission (EC) to protest to the Swiss Government over its refusal to allow Swiss passengers to purchase BMA's new low-fare tickets in Switzerland. Because Switzerland is not a member of the European Union (EU), the EC is virtually powerless to ...