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Ireland Not Yet Convinced By IAG's Aer Lingus Offer
The Irish government is not yet convinced by a bid from IAG for its 25 percent stake in former state airline Aer Lingus, the country's transport minister was quoted as saying on Friday. The Aer Lingus board last week recommended a EUR€1.36 billion (USD$1.5 billion) offer from British Airways owner IAG, subject to the agreement of its two largest shareholders, Ryanair and the Irish state. The government has previously said it is looking for guarantees that the airline will not reduce services to Irish airports or significantly cut staff numbers.
LinkAirlines
Air France Chief Responds To Dutch Complaints
Air France chief executive Frederic Gagey made an unusual direct approach to the Dutch public on Friday, wading into a reported clash between the airline's two main brands with an open letter in the largest Dutch business daily. The letter by Gagey comes after Dutch newspapers reported opposition within KLM to Air France-KLM's wish to use KLM's approximately EUR€1 billion in annual operating profit for group purposes, rather than reinvesting it. In his letter, Gagey said Air France's costs had been reduced since 2012 and noted 7,000 jobs had been cut.
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Polish regional carrier EuroLOT to halt operations
Polish regional carrier EuroLOT is suspending operations from the beginning of April. The airline, affiliated to flag-carrier LOT, has not indicated the reason for the decision. But its management board says it is committed to keeping its schedule intact until 31 March.
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Jet Airways Edges To Q3 Operating Profit
Jet Airways reported its first operating profit since the last three months of 2012, after benefiting from a drop in fuel costs and a rise in revenue. Operating profit reached INR30 million rupees (USD$486,000) for the three months ended December 31. That compared with a loss of INR2.84 billion rupees a year earlier. The halving of oil prices since June has provided financial relief to Indian carriers, most of which have lost money for the last two years because of low-fare competition as well as being subject to some of the world's highest operating and fuel costs.
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JetBlue's streaming entertainment service off to good start
JetBlue is off to a good start with its Fly-Fi Hub, and is poised to offer a fantastic complement to its LiveTV system, writes reviewer Jason Rabinowitz.
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Lufthansa Tells Staff More Savings Needed
More savings need to be made at Lufthansa's main airline business to prevent tough competition on fares and rising external costs from driving it into "a dangerous red zone," according to the airline's management. Average yields fell by more than 3 percent in 2014 and cost cuts within the group were nowhere near enough to compensate, Lufthansa board members Karl Ulrich Garnadt and Bettina Volkens said in a February 5 letter to staff. In addition, staffing costs look set to increase, and the group is facing other rising costs beyond its control such as airport fees and air traffic control charges.
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TransAsia GE235: Shutting down the wrong engine
Taiwan's accident investigators have taken the unusual step of publishing part of the flight data recorder printout for the crashed ATR 72-600 almost as soon as it was available to them. There are no rules or protocols saying they must do so, and none saying they should not. The printout they released concerns only the data for the engines. It is a series of graphical lines describing the state of 12 different engine parameters against a timeline, with barometric altitude also displayed. The graphs provide numerical values for some of those parameters; others just show whether a switch is on or off – like the fuel shut-off valve for example.
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United aims to offer Wi-Fi on Australian flights by July
This July, travelers on United Airlines' Australian flights will have access to in-flight Internet service, the airline said. Meanwhile, the airline already offers Wi-Fi on flights from Australia to Guam, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
LinkAirports
CLT breaks record for passengers served in 2014
Charlotte Douglas International Airport served more than 44.3 million travelers in 2014, setting a new record for the airport. "The growth of Charlotte Douglas is a testament to our strength as a premier airport hub," said Brent Cagle, interim aviation director, in a statement.
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N.C. airport to unveil expansion plan for additional runway
Charlotte Douglas International Airport is planning to add a fourth runway and dozens of new gates, according to expansion plans that the airport will present to the City Council on Monday. The airport has long considered adding a new parallel runway to allow more simultaneous takeoffs and landings. The new gates would accommodate forecasts for continued passenger growth.
LinkMilitary
Israeli paratroops make first jump from C-130J
Lockheed Martin's C-130J tactical transport is being further integrated in the Israeli defence forces' new Depth Command capabilities, with one of the service's examples having conducted a first paratroop drop during an exercise on 4 February. The parachute training was conducted near Palmachim air base in central Israel. Thirty cadets from the parachuting instruction course of the Flight and Special Training Center (FSTC) jumped from the C-130J "Samson".
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Northrop to design clean-sheet T-X trainer for USAF
Northrop Grumman has opted to design a brand new aircraft for the US Air Force’s T-X trainer program]Link[/url] rather than a modified version of the BAE Systems Hawk it had planned to pitch. Northrop has delegated the design work to Scaled Composites subsidiary, which is responsible for revolutionary aerospace innovations like the SpaceShipOne commercial space ship. Development of the new aircraft is apparently well along. Northrop says it will fly by the end of 2015. “The Hawk is a tremendous airplane,” says Northrop spokesman Bryce McDevitt. “However we decided as a team to offer a new design as the US Air Force continued to mature their requirements.”
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US army seeks upgrades for Hellfire missile guidance system
The US Army has launched the bidding phase of a decade-old program to replace the Lockheed Martin AGM-114 Hellfire missile with a new weapon featuring a dual-mode guidance system. A request for proposals released on 2 February for the joint air-to-ground missile (JAGM) contract gives potential competitors Lockheed and Raytheon up to 60 days to submit bids to the army. The navy also plans to integrate JAGM onto the Marine Corps' Bell AH-1Z attack helicopters. The programme seeks an upgrade to the guidance section of the Lockheed Martin AGM-114 Hellfire missile’s backend, which is comprised of the motor, warhead and associated electronics. Lockheed has committed to offering a dual-mode seeker, while Raytheon has not yet committed to competing for the contract.
LinkCorporate
"Smooth" sortie opens Falcon 8X test campaign
Dassault Aviation has kicked off the flight test campaign for its Falcon 8X ultra-long-range business jet less than nine months after unveiling the 19-seater at the European Business Aviation Convention and Exhibition in Geneva. The aircraft - serial number one – lifted off for its maiden flight from Dassault’s plant at Bordeaux Merignac airport at 14:00 local time on 6 February with test pilots Eric Gérard and Hervé Laverne at the controls.
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Aviation Quote
Flying makes me feel like a sex maniac in a whorehouse with a stack of $20 bills.
— Pancho Barnes
On This Date
---In 1497…Nicolaus Copernicus observed the Moon eclipse the star Aldebaran.
---In 1923…Aeroflit Airlines is formed.
---In 1936... Tommy Rose lands at Wingfield Aerodrome in Cape Town, South Africa, after a record flight from England of 3 days 17 hours 38 minutes.
---In 1939... British flyer Alex Henshaw lands his Percival Mew Gull at Gravesend in Kent, England, after a record flight to Cape Town and back in 4 days 10 hours and 20 minutes.
---In 1945…In an event that would later be known as “Black Friday,” a large force of 46 Allied Bristol Beaufighter, North American P-51 Mustang and Warwick aircraft suffers heavy casualties over the coast of Norway during an unsuccessful attack on German destroyer Z33 and its escorting vessels. Only 37 planes would return to base, with 14 airmen killed in action and four taken as POWs, while four Luftwaffe Focke-Wulf Fw 190s would be shot down, killing only two pilots and seven sailors.
---In 1959…The USSR’s R-7 Semyorka (NATO name SS-6 Sapwood) becomes the world’s first operational ICBM.
---In 1963…First flight of the Boeing 727.
---In 1969... First flight of the Boeing 747 “Jumbo Jet” airliner takes place in Seattle, Washington. The wide-bodied, long-range transport is capable of carrying 347 passengers, and is the largest aircraft in commercial airline service in the world.
---In 1971…Apollo 14 returns to earth following the third manned Moon mission.
---In 1975…Soyuz 17 returns to earth after setting a Soviet mission-duration record of 29 days on a trip to the Salyut 4 space station.
---In 1982…Japan Airlines Flight 350, a Douglas DC-8 (JA8061) crashes on approach to Tokyo’s Haneda Airport, killing 24 of the 174 passengers on board. Captain Seiji Katagiri is believed to have suffered a mental breakdown, deliberately causing the crash by deploying the thrust reversers on engines number two and three. Katagiri survived and was prosecuted, but was found not guilty by reason of insanity. He had previously taken a year off from flying due to psychological illness.
---In 1983…British Airways becomes the second airline to fly the Boeing 757, about five weeks after Eastern Air Lines pushed the new jet into service.
---In 1986…Halley's Comet reaches 30th perihelion (closest approach to Sun).
---In 1990…Galileo flies by Venus.
---In 1995…During Space Shuttle Columbia mission STS-55, astronaut Bernard A. Harris, Jr. becomes the first African American to perform a spacewalk while Michael Foale becomes the first Briton to do the same.
---In 1996…Adolf “Dolfo” Galland passes away. He was a German Luftwaffe General and flying ace who served throughout World War II in Europe. He flew 705 combat missions, and fought on the Western and the Defence of the Reich fronts. On four occasions he survived being shot down, and he was credited with 104 aerial victories, all of them against the Western Allies.
---In 1989… Boeing 747-400 enters service with Northwest Airlines.
---In 1997…First Flight of the Boeing 737-700.
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Northrop to design clean-sheet T-X trainer for USAF
Northrop Grumman has opted to design a brand new aircraft for the US Air Force’s T-X trainer program
