NewsCommercial
Boeing 1Q net profit down 9% to $1.22 billion
Boeing posted a first-quarter net profit of $1.22 billion, down 9% from net income of $1.34 billion in the prior-year period, and reaffirmed guidance that full-year 2016 revenue and commercial aircraft deliveries will be slightly down from 2015. The manufacturer’s first-quarter revenue rose 2% year-over-year to $22.63 billion and operating profit was $1.79 billion, down 11% from operating income of $2.02 billion in the 2015 March quarter.
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Fuji Heavy completes construction of 777X wing box plant
Fuji Heavy Industries (FHI) has completed the construction of a facility to manufacture centre wing boxes for the Boeing 777X at its Handa plant. The new facility, which has a floor area of 11,600m2, will be equipped with assembly lines featuring automatic riveters, as well as transfer and painting machines. It is scheduled to start operations in early 2017.
LinkAirlines
Air Canada to launch Vancouver-Delhi 787 flights
Air Canada will launch seasonal Vancouver-Delhi flights with a Boeing 787-9 starting in October. The flights, which will operate 3X-weekly, come on the heels of Air Canada’s entry into the Indian market in November 2015 with 4X-weekly 787-9 flights between Toronto and Delhi.
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Alaska exec expects single operating certificate by 2018
John Kirby, vice president of capacity planning at Alaska Airlines, said the merger with Virgin America should be completed in around two years. He said "sometime in 2018 is a good guess on the single operating certificate, and likely 2019 is when you would see a full annual efficiency benefit."
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Etihad Reports USD$103 Million Profit For 2015
Etihad Airways has reported a consolidated net profit of USD$103 million for 2015 on the back of strong passenger growth. Etihad, which owns stakes in Alitalia and AirBerlin, said profit was USD$73 million in 2014. Revenue last year was USD$9.02 billion after USD$7.55 billion the previous year.
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Flynas Rules Out Bombardier For Order
Saudi Arabia's Flynas is in talks with Boeing and Airbus for a potential 100-aircraft order, chief executive Paul Byrne said, adding it had ruled out Bombardier from its considerations. The kingdom's low-cost airline had requested proposals from the two rival aerospace giants to buy 60 planes with an option for 40 more, he said.
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JetBlue predicts growth in Mint premium service
JetBlue Airways said demand for its Mint premium service has exceeded expectations, including the expansion of Mint to Boston. "I think there's a lot of runway ahead for the growth of Mint," said Marty St. George, executive vice president for commercial and planning.
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LAM crash inquiry lends support to flight-tracking case
Controllers failed to notice the disappearance of a LAM Embraer 190 lost over Namibia and damage to its emergency locator transmitter contributed to a long delay in reaching the crash site. Circumstances of the 29 November 2013 accident – the result of the captain’s deliberately piloting the jet into the ground – are likely to underpin the case for improvements to aircraft tracking.
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Lufthansa working to bring Brussels Airlines into Eurowings
The Executive Board of Deutsche Lufthansa is working to bring 45%-owned Brussels Airlines into its low-cost carrier (LCC) Eurowings and will decide by the end of August whether to exercise a call option to allow for a full takeover. Lufthansa had said it would decide on whether to exercise the option to acquire the remaining 55% of Brussels Airlines’ owner SN Airholding by the beginning of June, but will extend the deadline to the end of August while Brussels Airlines restores operations following the deadly terrorist attacks at Brussels Airport in Zaventem in March.
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Qatar Airways Raises IAG Stake
Qatar Airways has raised its stake in International Airlines Group to under 12 percent from 9.99 percent, chief executive Akbar al-Baker said. al-Baker did not specify the exact size of its holding or when it had increased.
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Turkish Airlines Looking At 450-Aircraft Fleet
Turkish Airlines expects to receive 35 new aircraft this year, including 10 wide-body planes, as part of a drive to increase the size of its fleet and lower the average age of its aircraft. Ahmet Olmustur, Turkish Airlines' chief marketing officer, told reporters in Dubai that the airline aimed to have almost 450 aircraft by 2020, from 311 now.
LinkAirports
Delays, Cancellations As German Airport Workers Strike
German air travel is set for a day of disruption after public sector workers at airports started strikes in a push for higher wages. Lufthansa said it was cancelling almost 900 flights at airports including Frankfurt and Munich, equivalent to around 60 percent of its usual daily traffic.
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French ATCs to strike again April 28
French air traffic controllers (ATCs) will strike again Thursday, April 28, the 44th strike day in France since 2009. Hundreds of flights will be cancelled, creating disruption and extensive delays across the continent, Airlines for Europe (A4E) said in a statement. Just two weeks after the last walkout in Belgium, French ATCs will strike for the third time in a month.
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Military
F-35 office has 2,590 staff and $70 million annual budget
It takes 2,590 military personnel, government civilians and full-time equivalent contractors and $70 million per year to run the world’s largest and most expensive military aircraft programme, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. That’s according to the US Defense Department's F-35 chief Lt Gen Christopher Bogdan, who disclosed the staff count and annual budget of the F-35 Joint Programme Office (JPO) at a congressional hearing about the $379 billion fighter procurement this week.
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Congress appears ready to let the Lockheed F-117A Nighthawk go
The House Armed Services Committee (HASC) is considering a legislative provision that would allow the US Air Force to finally junk the famed Lockheed Martin F-117A Nighthawk. The aircraft was officially retired from service in April 2008, but Congress demanded that all aircraft mothballed from 30 September 2006 onward be maintained “in a condition that would allow recall of that aircraft to future service”.
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Aviation Quote
Prepare for the unknown, unexpected and inconceivable . . . after 50 years of flying I'm still learning every time I fly.
— Gene Cernan
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Editor’s Choice
Trivia
1. Which company built the ill-fated Comet?
Hawker Siddeley
De Havilland
Handley Page
Vickers
2. Which of the following does not belong?
DC-5
DC-6
DC-4
DC-7
3. Who was primarily responsible for the design and development of the Constellation?
Juan Trippe
Malcolm Loughhead (Lockheed)
Howard Hughes
Glenn Martin
4. Which Convair model was the company's last entry in the commercial airliner market?
990
240
880
340
5. Which passenger plane was never used as Air Force One?
Douglas DC-7
Lockheed Constellation
Douglas DC-6
Boeing 707
6. Which of the following is not a jumbo jet?
Boeing 747
McDonnell Douglas MD-82
Lockheed L-1011
Douglas DC-10
7. What was the designation of the four-engine jet airliner being produced by Airbus prior to the A380?
A350
A321
A320
A340
8. Before Boeing introduced its long-haul 747-400 series, a smaller version of the 747 was built that had a range of almost 7,000 miles. What was the designation of this popular 'mini-jumbo'?
747-250
747-SB
747-SP
747-200
9. During the 1950s turboprop aircraft made up a large portion of the commercial airliner fleet. Which of the following was not a turboprop?
Lockheed Electra II
Bristol Britannia
Vickers Viscount
Martin 404
10. In the romantic era of the Clippers, Pan Am bought flying boats from Martin, Sikorsky and Boeing. What was the designation of the airplane built by Boeing for service in the fabled Clipper fleet?
307
247
377
314
