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Commercial

Airbus forecasts 2015 A321 deliveries
Airbus Group released a forecast for deliveries in 2015. "By end of this year, 36% of deliveries will be A321, and it will be an even bigger proportion as we move forward," said Simon Pickup, strategic marketing director at Airbus Americas. Last year, 31% of deliveries were the A321.
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Boeing to lay off engineers in Wash. state
Boeing on Thursday updated employees about the transfer of 1,000 support engineering jobs from the Puget Sound area to Southern California, indicating only 400 of the engineers still face possible layoff this year. About half of the affected engineers have secured a job within Boeing — 150 moving to California and 350 taking a different Boeing job in the Puget Sound region, the company said.
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Airlines

Air Canada Rouge to boost service from Toronto to Dublin
Air Canada Rouge will add four weekly non-stop flights onto its Dublin to Toronto route this summer. The second service will be operated by a B767-300ER aircraft in a two-cabin configuration with 280 seats - 24 in Premium Rouge and 256 in Rouge, including 35 Rouge Plus seats with additional legroom. Between June 13 and September 16, outbound service AC1928 will depart Toronto at 1855 and arrive in Dublin at 0625 the next day, with return service AC1929 leaving Dublin at 0900 and landing in Toronto at 1120.
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Scorpion Stings Alaska Airlines Passenger
A scorpion stung a passenger on an Alaska Airlines flight to Portland, Oregon, delaying a flight that originated in Mexico. Flight 567, which originated in Los Cabos, was taxiing for takeoff on Saturday at Los Angeles Airport when the woman was stung, airline spokesman Cole Cosgrove said. The plane returned to the gate, where medics treated the woman and offered additional medical treatment, which she declined, Cosgrove said. She did not get back on the plane. Passengers stayed on board, he said.
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Delta rewards employees with $1.1 billion in profit-sharing
Delta Air Lines will pay $1.1 billion in profit-sharing to its nearly 80,000 employees worldwide. Part of the payment was disbursed in October, and the rest is slated to be distributed today. Delta CEO Richard Anderson said the profit-sharing amounts to two months' extra pay for employees like pilots, flight attendants and gate agents. "This incentive is very important," Anderson said. "Our folks work very hard."
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JetBlue to add additional charter flight to Cuba
JetBlue will expand its charter service to Cuba as a result of positive feedback and rising interest in the island country. Though only one flight was added on a 150-passenger A320 plane, Vice President for Network Planning Dave Clark said the carrier foresees more growth opportunities in the market.
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Lufthansa Union Says More Strikes An Option
German pilots union Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) said further and more widespread strikes were possible in a row with Lufthansa over early retirement benefits, as a two-day strike at the airline's Germanwings budget unit draws to a close. We will first give Lufthansa time to react," VC board member Markus Wahl said. "We are not ruling out further strikes and are considering all options, whether strikes affecting short-haul, long-haul, cargo or a combination," Wahl told Reuters, adding that calling a strike for an unspecified amount of time was also an option.
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Southwest announces new destinations from Dallas Love Field
Southwest Airlines announced the cities that will receive nonstop service from Dallas Love Field in April. The cities are Indianapolis, Ind.; Sacramento, Calif.; Seattle; Charleston, S.C.; Columbus, Ohio; Memphis, Tenn.; Milwaukee; Panama City Beach, Fla.; Portland, Ore.; and San Jose, Calif.
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United To Cut 1,150 Jobs At 16 US Airports
United Airlines will outsource about 1,150 positions at 16 airports across the US, but reached tentative agreements with a union to keep another 800 jobs in-house that also had been under scrutiny. United began a review of jobs at 28 US airports in January, working towards reducing costs by USD$2 billion annually. The airline said it needed to curtail its spending to stay in line with competitors. After weeks of negotiation with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, United agreed to keep the jobs of ramp workers and customer service employees at six of the airports in exchange for "contract modifications," the union said on its website.
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US Airways retires last Boeing 767-200 in its fleet
US Airways flew its final passenger flight with the iconic Boeing 767-200 on Thursday. The 25-year-old plane is the last of the 767 fleet to be retired by US Airways. "It's the new American, and we'll be using A330 aircraft on some of the international routes that the B767 flew, also the A321 and [Boeing] 757 on some other routes," said Michelle Mohr, a spokeswoman for American Airlines Group.
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US Airlines, Hotels Wary Of Expedia-Orbitz Merger
The US airline industry has expressed concerns about the tentative merger of Expedia and Orbitz Worldwide, saying it could hurt the travel business. Expedia's agreement on Thursday to buy Orbitz for USD$1.33 billion marked the latest in a spree of acquisitions it and the larger Priceline Group have made to become the world's dominant online travel agencies. Combined with Orbitz and Travelocity, which it acquired in January, Expedia received about 39 million unique website visitors in December 2014, according to Internet analytics company comScore.
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Airports

Greece To Review Airports Lease Deal
Greece plans to review a EUR€1.2 billion deal for Germany's Fraport to operate 14 regional airports, the state minister said. Fraport, in partnership with Greek energy firm Copelouzos, agreed with the Greek privatization agency in 2014 to operate airports in popular tourist destinations such as Corfu. It expected to close its agreement with Athens in October.
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Texas airport handled nearly 8.4M passengers in 2014
San Antonio International Airport in Texas handled almost 8.4 million passengers in 2014, a 1.4% increase from the prior year. The airport also saw a boost in air cargo, handling more than 233 million pounds of cargo in 2014, a 0.7% increase from the prior year.
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Military

Air Force considering A-10 replacement for future close air support
Even as the US Air Force is still banking on saving billions by retiring the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II, the service is considering building a brand new aircraft to take over the close air support (CAS) role. Speaking at the Air Force Association’s annual conference in Orlando, Florida, air force Gen Hawk Carlisle, chief of Air Combat Command (ACC), says a follow-on weapon system for the A-10 is on the table.
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​Irkut to conclude shipment of Su-30MKI kits to India
Russia’s Irkut will complete deliveries of Sukhoi Su-30MKI assembly kits to India in 2015, with the firm stating that a “complete transfer of technology” has taken place in the program. When deliveries are completed, the Russian firm will have delivered a total of 222 kits, it says in a statement. Hindustan Aernautics (HAL) builds the Su-30MKI under license at its Nashik factory.
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Jakarta hints at interest in CH-47F
Jakarta and Boeing have held discussions in regard to the company’s CH-47F Chinook transport helicopter. In a brief statement on its web site, the Indonesian defense ministry said that Boeing is exploring “Chinook cooperation with Indonesia.” The statement includes a photo of a Boeing executive handing a model Chinook to Indonesian defense minister Ryamizard Ryacudu.
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Egypt picks Rafale for fighter deal
Dassault has announced the selection of its Rafale multirole fighter to meet the operational needs of Egypt. "Dassault Aviation is greatly honored by the Arab Republic of Egypt’s decision to equip its air force with the Rafale," the French manufacturer says, adding: "This decision is a continuation of our cooperation that dates back to the 1970s." The Egyptian air force currently operates the company's Alpha Jet, Mirage 5 and Mirage 2000 models in strike roles.
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Aviation Quote

As you pass from sunlight into darkness and back again every hour and a half, you become startlingly aware how artificial are thousands of boundaries we've created to separate and define. And for the first time in your life you feel in your gut the precious unity of the Earth and all the living things it supports.

— Russell 'Rusty' Schweikart, returning from Apollo 9

On This Date

---In 374 AD... 9th recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet.

---In 1903... Traian Vuia presents to the Academy of the Sciences of Paris the possibility of flying with a heavier-than-air mechanical machine, but it was rejected for being impossible, receiving the response, “The problem of flight with a machine which weighs more than air cannot be solved and it is only a dream.” Traian Vuia would later take his first flight on a very short, 12-meter flight, on March 18, 1906.

---In 1912... Frank Coffyn takes aerial views of New York City with a cinema camera while controlling his airplane with his feet and knees.

---In 1949…British Midland International begins operations as Derby Aviation Limited.

---In 1960... The Vought F8U-2N Crusader interceptor makes its maiden flight in Dallas, Texas.

---In 1961…U.S. satellite Explorer 9 is launched.

---In 1965…Pegasus 1 launched to detect micro-meteors.

---In 1982... The first production Airbus Industries A310 is rolled out at the factory in Toulouse, France, destined for Swissair as the launch customer.

---In 1982…Assembled STS-3 vehicle moves from Vandenberg AFB to launch pad.

---In 1998…China Airlines Flight 676, an Airbus A300-622R (B-1814), crashes after a failed go-around on approach to Chiang Kai Shek International Airport in Taiwan in light rain and fog. Trying to climb again at a pitch of over 40 degrees, the plane stalled at an altitude of 2,750ft, crashing just off airport property. All 196 on the plane and six people on the ground were killed.

---In 1998…Gulfstream II carrying film director Barry Sonnenfeld (Men in Black, Men in Black II, and Wild, Wild West), slid off runway at Van Nuys, California; Sonnenfeld was uninjured.

---In 2006…Kobe Airport (UKB), built on a man-made island near Kobe, Japan, opens for airline service.

---In 2009…An entire South African Airways crew is arrested at London Heathrow Airport after five kilos of cocaine are allegedly discovered in a bag. It is the second drug arrest of an entire SAA crew for drug smuggling within three weeks.

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