NEWS
Flybe posts FY loss of $9.9 million
UK-based Flybe (BE) has reported a £6.4 million ($9.9 million) post-tax loss for the year ending March 31, compared to a £3.8 million profit for the preceding year, but expressed confidence for the future.
Link
Qantas’ Joyce takes up IATA chairman post
IATA announced Qantas Airways (QF) CEO and managing director Alan Joyce has succeeded KLM president and CEO Peter Hartman as chairman of the board of directors. The leadership change took place at the conclusion of IATA’s 68th Annual General Meeting (AGM) and World Air Transport Summit in Beijing. Joyce’s term expires at the conclusion of next year’s AGM, to be held in Cape Town, South Africa.
Link
Turkish to double African destinations by 2013
Turkish Airlines (TK) will double its African destinations by 2013 as it continues to develop the African market. Speaking on the sidelines of the IATA Annual General Meeting in Beijing, TK CEO Temel Kotil told ATW the carrier now serves 20 cities in Africa. “By the end of this year we [will] go to 30 destinations in Africa … we [would] like to have 40 next year,” Kotil said, adding that the carrier will operate mainly Boeing 737-800s and -900ERs to the African continent.
Link
HP unveils ‘intelligent’ cloud services with three-tiered delivery approach
HP Enterprise Services unveiled HP Converged Cloud Services for Airlines, which is describes as the airline industry’s first hybrid delivery approach to “an intelligent airline cloud.” Brian Cook, vice president and general manager of HP Enterprise Services’ Transportation Industry Group, said HP’s goal is to “move toward exposing more services as cloud-based services to help airlines get additional revenue into the pipeline and to take costs out of their infrastructure.”
The package of services takes a tiered approach:
HP Passenger Service Solution, which combines core HP Travel and Transportation industry solutions into a single integrated airline inventory, reservation and travel platform. HP Airline Service Oriented Architecture Platform, which offers a library of web services for rapid development of new airline products. Standalone applications and data can be enhanced and updated as market changes occur. HP Enterprise Cloud Services A Virtual Private Cloud that combines server, storage and network resources into a prebuilt off-premise cloud based on HP Converged Infrastructure.
Link
Qantas Appoints Macquarie After Shares Dive
Qantas Airways has tapped Macquarie Group to defend the Australian airline against a possible takeover and find ways to shore up its share price, a source with knowledge of the matter said, after the carrier lost a third of its value last week because of a profit warning.
Link
IAG's Walsh Says Qantas Taking Right Steps
Willie Walsh, the head of British Airways' owner IAG, threw his backing behind Qantas chief Alan Joyce and said he was taking the right action to address the oneworld alliance partner's international losses.
Link
NetJets To Buy 425 New Business Jets
NetJets, a private jet-sharing company owned by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, said it would buy up to 425 new business jets from Bombardier and Cessna in a deal worth USD$9.6 billion to expand its North American and European fleet.
Link
Dornier Seawings earmarks 2015 for first Seastar amphibian delivery
Dornier Seawings plans to select the final assembly base for its Seastar CD 2 twin-engined amphibious turboprop in the third quarter of this year and will deliver the first of the 12-passenger aircraft 33 months later, the company says. "We have got a shortlist of three candidates with whom we are in an advanced stage of discussion," says Dornier Seawings chairman Conrado Dornier.
Link
Boeing postpones 787 surge line activation until 4Q
Boeing has quietly postponed activating an already constructed surge line set up for building more new 787s in Everett, Washington, until at least late September. The surge line inside Building 40-26 has figured large in discussions about Boeing's plan to ramp up 787 production from about 3.5 per month to 10 by the end of next year. Boeing says construction of the surge line is complete, but the airframer will not use the space for production of new 787s for several months.
Link
Other News
JetBlue Airways (B6) and Beijing-based Air China (CA) have announced a interline partnership connecting their networks at New York JFK and Los Angeles (LAX), Calif., and a carrier based in the rapidly expanding Chinese market.
South African Airways (SAA) is dropping its nonstop services between Cape Town (CPT) and London (LHR) from Aug. 15, routing all passenger traffic between the two points through its Johannesburg (JNB) hub. SAA operates two flights a day between JNB and LHR, and will increase capacity by 13% by using larger aircraft to accommodate CPT traffic. The airline operates up to 44 flights a day between CPT and JNB.
Lufthansa’ (LH) said its passengers on Germany-Russia routes grew by 5% in the first quarter, LH board member Jens Bischof said. The carrier has launched several new routes in Russia and the CIS this year. At the end of March, LH launched service from Hamburg to St. Petersburg, and at the beginning of May it launched the Ukrainian route of Munich-Odessa. Despite the delay of Berlin Brandenburg International airport’s opening, the carrier from June 3 doubled the number of weekly flights between Berlin and Moscow to 12 per week.
Etihad Airways (EY) placed an order with Airbus to equip 17 A320s on order with 2.5 m-tall sharklets. The aircraft are part of an order for 20, with deliveries that began in the fourth-quarter 2011. EY expects delivery of the sharklet-equipped A320s to begin in the third-quarter 2013.
JetBlue Airways (B6) today was awarded highest honors in airline customer satisfaction among low-cost carriers by J.D. Power and Associates 2012 North America Airline Satisfaction Study(SM), an estimable recognition the carrier has earned every year from 2006 to 2011. The value airline also ranked highest in customer satisfaction among all U.S. major airlines in 2005, when low-cost and traditional network carriers were combined in a single category, making this year's achievement its eighth consecutive J.D. Power and Associates award.
Air Lease Corporation (AL) announced today its acquisition of one 2009 Boeing 777-300ER on lease through 2022 to Cathay Pacific Airways, a new customer for ALC.
US Airways Group is hoping to file paperwork with U.S. antitrust regulators as early as July for a proposed merger with AMR Corp, the bankrupt parent of American Airlines, according to five sources familiar with the matter. US Airways believes securing regulatory approval for its proposed deal would remove one key element of uncertainty from the picture, bolstering its case as AMR's creditors compare the merits of a merger with the carrier's standalone restructuring plan, said the sources, who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.
Delta Airlines (DL) is set to close its landmark deal to buy the Trainer, Pennsylvania, refinery on time later this month, allowing it to begin a long-delayed maintenance overhaul in early July, sources said on Tuesday. Delta will take possession of the 185,000 refinery from Phillips 66 on June 22, according to sources familiar with the situation. Workers are expected to return to work the week of June 25, after the transfer of assets.
AVIATION QUOTE
A fierce and monkish art; a castigation of the flesh. You must cut out your imagination and not fly an airplane but regulate a half-dozen instruments . . . .At first, the conflicts between animal sense and engineering brain are irresistibly strong.
— Wolfgang Langewiesche, describing flying on instruments, 'A Flier's world,' 1943.
ON THIS DATE
--In 1916... The Zeppelin-Lindau Dornier Rs II hydroplane, piloted by Schröter and Schulte, succeeds in taking off from Lake Constance, Germany, and makes a four-minute flight.
---In 1942... The U.S. Navy makes its first operational test with Loran (long-range navigation) equipment with a receiver mounted in a K-2 airship on a flight from the Lakehurst, N.J. Naval Air Station.
---In 1962... Capt. Richard H. Coan, USAF, sets a new closed-circuit distance record for helicopters when he flies a Kaman H-43B Huskie a distance of 656.258 mi. This beats the previous record of 625.464 mi. set by a Soviet Mil Mi-1.
---In 1965...First flight of the Britten-Norman Islander.
---In 1980... The last produced Concorde (number 16) is delivered to British Airways.
---In 1983…Pioneer 10 crossed the orbit boundary of Pluto. Launched March 3, 1972, Pioneer 10 flew by Jupiter on December 1, 1973. It passed 132,250 kilometers from Jupiter's cloud tops. It returned over 500 images of Jupiter and its moons. Pioneer 10's greatest achievement was the data collected on Jupiter's magnetic field, trapped charged particles, and solar wind interactions. It has now left the solar system.
DAILY VIDEO
EDITOR’S CHOICE
HUMOR
Destroyer In Port
A destroyer pulled into Borneo for liberty. Cut down to a skeleton watch, most of the ship was empty for the night. A few piers down, a ship was loading local cargo for export. Among the crates was an orangutan, who broke out of his cage. The ape traveled the waterfront in the dark, and finally reached the destroyer. He climbed the mooring lines, boarded, and climbed up the smokestack. Inside the stack, the confused animal made it down to the engine room, and started wandering around. He came to an electrical panel, opened for maintenance, ignored the safety ropes, and managed to make contact with an extremely high voltage contact. Bright blue spark and the ship is suddenly dark throughout.
A few minutes later, two hull techs are searching with their flashlights for the problem. They come on the dark burnt hairy body. They shine the flashlight on his long, long arms. They look at each other. They look at his short stubby legs. They look at each other. They look at his face for a long time.
Finally, the third class tells the seaman: 'Okay, his legs are too short for a machinist mate, his arms are too long for a boiler tech, and he's too hairy for an electrician. Call the wardroom, see if any of the junior officers are missing.'
TRIVIA
General Trivia
1. What unusual side effect did the astronauts of NASA’s Apollo missions experience when drinking water produced by the fuel cells?
2. Ten gallons of avgas plus four quarts of oil cost $60.20. Fifteen gallons of avgas plus 10 quarts of oil cost $109.50. What is the cost of one gallon of avgas plus one quart of oil?
3. What is the primary difference between a Piper Comanche 400 and a Comanche 600?
4. “Keep ‘em flying” is the motto of what well-known aviation organization?
5. What was the first business jet available for purchase and delivery?
6. True or false; No woman has ever flown at Mach 2.0, twice the speed of sound.
Zak wrote:6. False. Jacqueline “Jackie” Cochran was the first woman to exceed Mach 1.0 and Mach 2.0. She also was the first woman to land on and take off from an aircraft carrier.
ShanwickOceanic wrote:Zak wrote:6. False. Jacqueline “Jackie” Cochran was the first woman to exceed Mach 1.0 and Mach 2.0. She also was the first woman to land on and take off from an aircraft carrier.
Not to mention a small number of Concorde pilots - and, depending on your definition of "flown", a good many Concorde passengers...
Zak wrote:1. The water contained gas (hydrogen), lots of it. Apollo astronaut John Young remarked that it contained so much gas that he could use it to power himself across the capsule.
HT-ETNW wrote:Were there any female pilot of Concorde ?
