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Lufthansa Cabin Crew Delay Strike Decision
Lufthansa cabin crew will decide next week whether to strike over pay, a move that could cause widespread flight disruption at Germany's leading airline.
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AMR Renews Push To Void Pilot Contracts
The parent of American Airlines on Friday renewed its push to void its collective bargaining agreement with its pilots' union, two days after a federal bankruptcy judge rejected an earlier effort.
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AMR creditors’ committee to American unionized workers: It’s time to deal
The creditors’ committee of American Airlines (AA) parent AMR Corp. issued a stark warning to AA pilots and other unionized employees of the carrier and regional affiliate American Eagle to “promptly” reach consensual agreements with management on new labor contracts. The creditors’ committee, in a lengthy statement issued after its labor subcommittee met Thursday, said AA and Eagle workers “should not misinterpret” the decision by a US bankruptcy judge to deny AA’s request to terminate its labor contract with its pilots.
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Ferrovial Sells BAA Stake To Qatar
Spanish infrastructure firm Ferrovial said on Friday it had sold part of its stake in British airport operator BAA to Qatar to finance its bid to push further into faster growing markets such as Latin America.
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Air France-KLM Pilots Back Restructuring Plan
Pilots at Air France-KLM have backed proposals to alter their contracts and working conditions as part of the airline's three-year restructuring plan, aimed at reducing operating costs and debt.
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Finnair Looks To Offload More European Routes
Finland's struggling airline Finnair is still trying to find other airlines to partner with on its less profitable European routes, its chief executive was quoted as saying on Friday.
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Ethiopian's first 787 arrives at Addis Ababa
Ethiopian Airlines' first Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner landed today at Addis Ababa Bole international airport after its first revenue flight from Washington Dulles. The aircraft, registration ET-AOQ and operating flight 2501, touched down in rainy weather at 09:04 local time as hundreds of staff members from the airline stood waiting on the airport's tarmac. More than 60 passengers, including the airline's chief executive Tewolde Gebremariam, were on board.
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Japan Airlines to revamp 777-300ER and 767-300ER cabins
Japan Airlines (JAL) will retrofit its Boeing 777-300ER fleet and some of its Boeing 767-300ERs with a new cabin product. The Oneworld alliance member's 13 Boeing 777-300ERs will be retrofitted with eight first class seats, 49 business seats, 40 premium economy seats and 135 economy seats, says JAL's spokeswoman. It hopes to commence the retrofitting works "soon", she adds.
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AviancaTaca triples 2Q net profit to $4.8 million
AviancaTaca Holdings reported a second-quarter net profit of COP$8.8 billion ($4.9 million), more than triple its year-ago profit. The company said the second-quarter results “reflect the impact of adjustments in maintenance cost estimates and changes in the valuation methodology applied to frequent flyer miles.” Second-quarter operating revenue was COP$1.8 trillion ($1 billion), up 12.9%.
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Lufthansa Cargo 777F delivery to begin in fall 2013
Lufthansa Cargo (LHC) will take delivery of the first of five GE 90-powered Boeing 777 freighters in the fall of 2013, followed by two in 2014 and two in 2015. LHC will decide if it will convert the five options over the next several weeks. “To have [aircraft] options gives us flexibility,” LHC executive board member-operations Karl-Rudolf Rupprecht said in Frankfurt. It is unclear if LHC will use the 777s for fleet expansion or replacement of its 19 MD-11 aircraft.
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Other News

United Airlines (UA) subsidiary Continental Micronesia (CMI) flight attendants on Friday ratified a new labor agreement, extending the previous collective bargaining agreement through December 2014. The flight attendants are represented by the Assn. of Flight Attendants (AFA). UA reached a tentative agreement with AFA last month

Rockwell Collins, which announced a retrofit update to the Boeing 757/767 flight deck at the Farnborough Airshow in July, has revealed that it is planning to add synthetic vision capability by around 2016. The 757/767 flight deck upgrade, which is due for certification in the second quarter of 2014, will include elements of the Boeing 787 cockpit, including large displays and the option of an integrated head-up guidance system. “We’re also going to add, in the future, a synthetic vision capability on the HUD. Synthetic vision is a database-driven situational awareness system,” Rockwell Collins VP and GM-air transport systems Jeff Standerski said.

AirAsia Group’s low-cost carrier, AirAsia X (D7), said it carried 0.58 million passengers, up 29%, in the second quarter. Second-quarter ASKs were 3.8 billion and RPKs were 3.1 billion. Load factor was 82%, an increase of four percentage points year-over-year. In the first half, D7 carried 1.1 million passengers, up 16.6% over the same period last year. This excludes discontinued routes to London, Paris, Mumbai, Delhi and Christchurch.

Frontier Airlines will launch 3X-weekly Denver-Fargo Airbus A319 service Nov. 16.

Air Berlin (AB) and Finnair (AY) have extended a codeshare under which AB will place its code on AY flights from Helsinki to Tallinn, Turku, Tampere and Oulu. AY will place its code on AB flights from Oslo Gardermoen, Gothenburg, Stockholm and Copenhagen to Berlin (BER) and from CPH to Dusseldorf (DUS) Oct. 28. AY is also adding its code to AB-operated daily flights from DUS and BER to Abu Dhabi.

Thai Smile will launch daily Bangkok-Hyderabad Airbus A320 service next month.

Singapore Airlines Cargo launched weekly Singapore (SIN)-Hong Kong-Anchorage-Dallas (DFW)-Sao Paulo-DFW-Brussels-Sharjah-SIN cargo service, increasing to 2X-weekly this fall.

Spirit Airlines will launch daily Los Cabos-San Diego-Dallas (DFW) service Nov. 8, increasing to 4X-weekly June 13, 2013. It will also launch 3X-weekly Cancun-DFW service April 25, increasing to daily June 13, 2013.

Aviation Quote

The most important thing in fighting was shooting, next the various tactics in coming into a fight and last of all flying ability itself.

— Lt. Colonel W. A. 'Billy' Bishop, RCAF.

On This Date

--- In 1901... The Wright brothers leave Kitty Hawk, N.C., at the end of their second season of testing gliders and return to Dayton, Ohio.

--- In 1908... The Wright Flyer built for flight trials before the U.S. Army arrives at Fort Meyer, near Washington, D.C., eight days ahead of schedule. Before trials begin, tests to check transportability, another stipulation, start.

--- In 1910... The first U.S. Army experiments with firing a rifle from an airplane takes place when Lt. Jacob Earl Fickel conducts firing trials from a Curtiss biplane piloted by Curtiss himself.

---In 1913... French aviator Adolphe Pégoud carries out the first parachute descent ever made whereby the parachute is deployed before the pilot leaves the airplane.

---In 1919... The first regularly scheduled passenger service by airship begins in Berlin with a Zeppelin LX 120 Bodenese.

---In 1963…First flight of the BAC 1-11.

---In 1970…First flight of the Sikorsky S-67 Blackhawk.

---In 1978…British Aerospace Sea Harrier XZ450.

---In 1986…The General Electric GE-36 propfan engine makes its first test flight. A hybrid between a turbofan and a turboprop, also known as an unducted fan, a number of factors from noise issues to falling fuel prices eventually lead to the abandonment of the program before ever being delivered, despite impressive gains in fuel economy.

---In 1977…he Voyager 2 unmanned interplanetary spacecraft is launched aboard a Titan IIIE/Centaur rocket from Cape Canaveral, tasked mainly with photographing Venus, Neptune and Saturn. As of today, Voyager 2 is still beaming messages back to Earth from 12 hrs 47 mins 58 secs of light-travel time from Earth.

---In 1986…first test-flight of a propfan engine, the General Electric GE-36.

---In 2008… A Spanair McDonnell Douglas MD-82 aircraft, flight number JK 5022, crashed with 165 passengers and nine crew members on board moments after takeoff at Madrid's Barajas Airport on a scheduled flight to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. 18 of the 172 on board survived. Initially 19 people survived, but one person died in hospital three days after the crash.

Daily Video

Humor

An Englishman, a Frenchman and an American

Three guys, an Englishman, a Frenchman and an American are out walking along the beach together one day. They come across a lantern and a genie pops out of it.

"I will give you each one wish," says the genie.

The American says, "I am a farmer, my dad was a farmer, and my son will also farm. I want the land to be forever fertile in America."

With a blink of the genie's eye, 'FOOM' - the land in America was forever made fertile for farming.

The Frenchman was amazed, so he said, "I want a wall around France, so that no one can come into our precious country."

Again, with a blink of the Genie's eye, 'POOF' - there was a huge wall around France.

The Englishman asks, "I'm very curious. Please tell me more about this wall.

The Genie explains, "Well, it's about 150 feet high, 50 feet thick and nothing can get in or out."

The Englishman says, "Right, fill it up with water."

Trivia

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