All Systems & interiors articles – Page 912
-
News
Mesa-backed airline to start UK service
NEW UK CARRIER Community Express Airlines is awaiting the delivery of the first of two Shorts 360-300s from Liberty Express in the USA, to inaugurate a domestic schedule. Community Express will initially link Birmingham with London Gatwick, most probably from early October. Expansion to connect Bristol, ...
-
News
All American airline dream
What is it about the airline industry that makes an entrepreneur's heart go of a flutter? Few people outside Houston ever grow up dreaming that they will one day start an oil company - though take note if your kid asks what the per-barrel price of East Texas crude will ...
-
News
Technology tradeoffs
As the taxi pulls into the airport, the passenger's personal digital assistant (PDA) flashes the message that his flight is delayed for an hour, and asks him to confirm his inflight meal selection. He swipes his SmartCredit card through the taximeter, enters his personal authorisation code, adds a tip for ...
-
News
A fourfold future
How will airline passengers acquire travel products in the future? Can the airline industry retain control of the distribution pipeline through which carriers sell their products and get information on their customers, or will the large travel agencies take over? By Jay Rein, Michael Gelhausen and Scot Hornick. Ten years ...
-
News
Tomorrow's flight plan
They call it the autonomous aeroplane. An aircraft which can be navigated around the world independently of any ground navigation aid and which, rather less easily, can return to earth anywhere in any weather. Technically the concept is a practicable one. Whether it will be coming to an airport near ...
-
News
LAX land fee row rolls on
US airlines continue their landing-fee battle with Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), but so far all they have made is a small dent in the increases, as new fees are imposed and the validity of the old ones is largely upheld by the Department of Transportation. In late ...
-
News
Superjumbo or white elephant?
Mrs Akido is flying from Sapporo to Fukuoka to visit her mother. While the aircraft is taxiing to the runway, she goes through the safety procedure on her virtual reality screen. In the noise-proofed cabin she cannot hear the roar of the engines, nestling under the 80 metre wingspan, as ...
-
News
Japan cool on codesharing
Judging from attitudes recently expressed in Tokyo, codesharing is not the key to solving the Japan-US dispute. It may have provided the way out of the US-Germany bilateral impasse, but with Japan trying to instill pan-Asian unity on aeropolitical issues, Tokyo believes extensive codesharing rights for US carriers would upset ...
-
News
Germans win out on codes
A recent report on codesharing for the German ministry of transport has pushed Bonn to the centre of the debate in Europe, as Brussels prepares to launch its own long-awaited study. The report by the quasi-independent state research institute, DLR, is the first of its kind in Europe, following the ...
-
News
A changing game plan
In coach class passengers are contentedly gazing at seatback video screens, absorbed in a broad range of quality in-flight entertainment. Live television and radio vie for passengers' attention with the latest movie releases of 2005. Adults while away the hours making purchases of questionable wisdom or slowly gambling away their ...
-
News
A new breed?
The US airline industry has produced several waves of startup carriers at various points in its history. The latest such surge, centred on low-cost entrants, started in 1992 with the recession in full swing and is now slowing in the swell of an economic upturn. Mead Jennings examines the new ...
-
News
Blanc brings Inter change
With sleight of hand and a change of name, Christian Blanc, now heading up both Air Inter and Air France, has dissipated the social unrest brewing around him. Air Inter's unions were against being merged into Air France Europe, wanting instead independence and the ability to develop freely. ...
-
News
The digital age: A virtual reality?
Second-guessing future developments will help airlines in key areas like distribution.Good morning. It's 0800 local time on 1 August 2005. This synthesised, virtual reality, digital Airline Business newscast is brought to you, wherever you are, by satellite from London. The top stories this morning: * United Lufthansa buys final tranche ...
-
News
Equity links act as lifeline
The chances of an airline alliance surviving are increased threefold if there are equity links between the partners, according to an analysis of all airline alliances undertaken by Boston Consulting Group. The same analysis, presented at a recent IIR/Airline Business conference, shows that the survival rate of intercontinental alliances is ...
-
News
Slots to grumble about
Virgin seems to have it all, well almost. Improving profitability, strong international codeshare partners and a highly successful brand name. But further expansion is hampered by the independent UK carrier's old bogey: slot restrictions at London/Heathrow. Sara Guild examines Virgin's dilemma.Washington, none; Philadelphia, none; Chicago, none; Boston, none; Bombay, none; ...
-
News
2005: An airline odyssey
In ten years time, what will have become of the conventional wisdom of the airline industry? In looking ahead 10 years, this survey concentrates on how the electronic revolution will reshape the airline business. But first, Mead Jennings balances the projected technological advances against less quantifiable developments in labour ...
-
News
Renaissance transport
Is the choice of military transport now between, the Lockheed C-130 Hercules or the Future Large Aircraft? Or can a fleet of small transports, integrated with larger ones, provide an alternative approach? Harry Hopkins/NAPLES THE ALENIA G222 is among the few 5-10t-payload loading-ramp-equipped transports, which are still ...
-
News
Russian regrets?
The initial enthusiasm for East-West joint projects appears to be waning. Alexander Velovich/MOSCOW AT THE END OF THE 1980s, political and economical changes in the Soviet Union opened the way for a series of co-operative agreements between Western and Soviet aerospace companies. Now, five years ...
-
News
Lockheed Martin turns TriStar into flying hospital
LOCKHEED MARTIN Aircraft Services is to convert a Lockheed L-1011 TriStar into a flying hospital under a $14.5 million contract from Operation Blessing International Relief and Development, a Virginia Beach-based relief organisation. Lockheed Martin says that the converted L-1011 will be the largest self-contained hospital aircraft ever built. ...
-
News
FAA Fits Trimble GPS
The US Federal Aviation Administration will install Trimble Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers throughout its flight-inspection fleet. Trimble 8100s will be used to provide standard GPS reference data for the FAA's Beechcraft 300s, enabling the Administration to evaluate navigational aids and flight procedures as accurately as possible. Source: ...