News
American Airlines, US Airways to merge
The merger of American Airlines and US Airways, to be formally announced Thursday, caps a turbulent half-decade of bankruptcies and consolidation for the U.S. airline industry and leaves travelers four big carriers to choose from. The boards of American parent AMR Corp. and US Airways approved the deal late Wednesday, according to four people close to the situation. The merged carrier will be the world's biggest and will keep the American Airlines name, but it will be run by US Airways CEO Doug Parker. American's CEO, Tom Horton, will serve as chairman of the new company until mid-2014, these people said. They requested anonymity because the merger negotiations were private. The deal has been in the works since August, when creditors pushed for merger talks so they could decide which earned them a better return: a merger or Horton's plan for an independent airline. American has been restructuring under bankruptcy protection since late 2011. AMR creditors and possibly its shareholders will own 72 percent of the stock, and US Airways Group Inc. shareholders will get the rest, three of the people said. A formal announcement is expected Thursday morning.
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US Airways Watched American Flounder, Then Pounced
US Airways has spent years looking for a merger partner only to be turned away and labeled the "ugly girl" amid a wave of US airline industry consolidation. It finally saw an opportunity late in 2011, when rumors swirled that American Airlines was in trouble. Still, US Airways was caught off guard when American's parent AMR filed for bankruptcy in November that year. US Airways executives had estimated that American had enough cash to sustain operations at least until May of 2012, according to people familiar with the situation.
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American-US Air Merger Would Boost Oneworld
US Airways’ expected move to the oneworld alliance as part of its proposed merger with American Airlines would be part of a comeback by oneworld, which has lost members and fallen behind rivals Star Alliance and SkyTeam in recent years.
Global airline alliances emerged in the late 1990s as a way for carriers to profitably extend their networks through mutually operated flights and marketing. Sources said last week that US Airways would leave the Star Alliance and join oneworld as part of the merger with American. The move would come at time when oneworld is in the midst of a recruitment drive to plug holes in its worldwide network. Securing a Chinese member is still the main priority of the alliance, which is led by American and British Airways.
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Icelandair increases 737 Max order
Icelandair has increased its commitment to the Boeing 737 Max by firming an order for 16 aircraft, up from its initial indication that it would take a dozen. The airline has effectively converted four of the 12 purchase rights it had negotiated as part of a tentative agreement signed last December, adding three more 737-9s and another 737-8.
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Light at the end of United's fleet redeployment tunnel
United Airlines faced quite the juggling act during the past year. Network planners at the Chicago-based Star Alliance member took the bulk of the former United and former Continental Airlines fleets - totalling 702 mainline and 551 regional aircraft at the end of 2012 - and integrated them so that the right aircraft were flying the right routes at the right times. Optimisation was the name of the game. "[You] interweave the right aircraft at those hubs so that you optimise the number seats at a specific time," says Brian Znotins, vice-president of network at United. As an example, he points out the gap in the pre-merger United's narrowbody fleet between its 138-144 seat Airbus A320s and about 180-seat Boeing 757-200s, and in the pre-merger Continental Airlines narrowbody fleet between its 124-seat Boeing 737-700s and its 160-seat 737-800s.
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F-35B returns to flight
The Lockheed Martin F-35B short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) variant of the Joint Strike Fighter has returned to flight after a 25-day grounding. "F-35B flight clearance was restored February 12, rescinding a cautionary suspension issued January 18 after a fueldraulic hose failure," the F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO) says. "Government and industry engineering teams conducted a root cause investigation and determined the hose was improperly crimped."
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Crash Landing Kills At Least Five In Ukraine
At least five people were killed when a plane carrying supporters to a European soccer match in eastern Ukraine overshot the runway and broke up when it attempted an emergency landing late on Wednesday, officials said. The twin-engined Antonov turboprop was bringing 45 passengers and crew on a charter flight from the Black Sea coastal city of Odessa to Donetsk - most of them fans looking forward to attending a Champions League clash between the Ukrainian home team Shakhtar and Germany's Borussia Dortmund.
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Which airplane business seats are worth the price?
Worth magazine has unveiled its "Top 10 Seats in Business Class." Emirates, Cathay Pacific Airways, Air France, Delta Air Lines and Virgin Atlantic Airways are some of the carriers with business-class seats that made the list.
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Other News
Russia’s aviation authorities have announced they will permit 200 foreign captains and instructors to work for local airlines over the next five years. Russia’s Ministry of Transport has prepared amendments for its air code that will allow Russian airlines to hire foreign pilots. Those changes are being discussed by other ministries and government departments that would be involved or affected by the change, Mikhail Gubanov, a representative of Federal Air Transport Agency Rosaviatsia told an aviation conference in Moscow.
Aeroméxico announced 20.19% of its business has been acquired by a group of Mexican investors. The shares were previously owned by an affiliate of Banco Nacional de Mexico (Banamex). The group of investors, led by Eduardo Tricio and Valentín Díez-Morodo, “is comprised of Aeroméxico’s shareholders who had participated in the 2007 initial purchase of the airline and that have since remained invested in the company,” Aeroméxico said. Tricio, currently chairman of Grupo LALA’s board of directors, was appointed chairman of Aeroméxico, replacing José Luis Barraza González after a term of more than five years. Tricio is now the only board member to hold more than 10% of the company’s outstanding shares. Diez-Morodo was named vice-chairman and Andrés Conesa will remain as company CEO.
German airports Hamburg and Dusseldorf are facing more flight disruptions and cancellations Thursday as security staff announce a strike over pay. Trade union Verdi has called for a 33% increase in pay for around 1,000 security personnel employed by private firms at the two airports. It said talks with the Federal Association of Security Industry (BDSW) have not reached agreement. German airports were impacted in January by strike action. The strike is set to start early Thursday morning and to continue through the day, Verdi said.
ICAO Air Navigation Bureau (ANB) Director Nancy Graham has suggested that aviation industry stakeholders should insist on a new partnership status in ICAO rather than the observer status they currently have. Graham told the World ATM Congress in Madrid that IATA, the Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation (CANSO) and the Airports Council International (ACI) already played a partnership role within the organization so should insist on partnership status. Graham acknowledged this would require a process within ICAO to move stakeholders from observer to partnership status, but stressed there was already a willingness to create a new context for that partnership. She pointed out that a precedent had already been set with the creation of the safety partnership and said the ANB was working on a wider strategy. "There has to be rigorous on-going dialogue," she said.
Airborne Maintenance and Engineering Services (AMES) completed the replacement of the aft pressure bulkhead on one ABX Air Boeing 767-200 freighter.
MTU Maintenance won a $400 million contract from GOL Linhas Aéreas for engine overhaul and on-wing support services covering its CFM International CFM56-7B engines for five years.
ATR signed a five-year global maintenance agreement with InterSky covering the supply of spare parts and maintenance services for two new ATR 72-600s.
TAECO was selected by Virgin Atlantic Airways to provide heavy maintenance service (D Check) for its fleet of 13 Boeing 747-400s under a four-year contract.
EGAT signed a five-year Boeing 767-300 and 737-800 HMV airframe maintenance and repainting agreement with TUI Jetairfly.
Global Aerospace Design Corp. and Icelandair Technical Services expanded an existing partnership. Global will now provide engineering services for the Air Niugini Boeing 737NG interior reconfiguration program.
AJW Technique received approved maintenance organization status from the Transport Canada Civil Aviation. The company said it will be able to start receiving multiple part number types midway through February.
Aviation Quote
Three things kill young pilots in Alaska - weather, weather, and weather.
Anonymous
On This Date
---In 1894... Venus is both a morning star and evening star.
---In 1914... An official American nonstop duration and distance record is made when Lt. Townsend Dodd and Sgt. Herbert Marcus fly the U.S. Signal Corps Burgess H tractor biplane. (S.C. No. 26) 244.8 mi. in 4 hours 43 minutes. Although it established a record for two people in one airplane, it also exceeded the previous single-seat record.
---In 1932... Ruth Nichols flies her Lockheed Vega from Floyd Bennett Field, New York to an altitude of 19,928 feet, a new world record for diesel-engined airplanes.
---In 1946…Philippine Airlines resumes service after a 5-year hiatus during World War II.
---In 1955…First flight of the Mikoyan-Gurevich Ye-2, prototype of the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21
---In 1963…The Indian Air Force receives its first batch of Soviet fighters, Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21s.
---In 1963…U.S. launches communications satellite Syncom 1.
---In 1972…Luna 20 - USSR Lunar Lander launched. Landed on the moon and returned samples to the Earth. Landed on February 21, 1972 at Apollonius highlands located at latitude 3°32' N and longitude 56°33' E. 30 grams of lunar samples were returned to the Earth.
---In 1978…First flight of the Cessna 303.
---In 1980... Japan Air Lines begins commercial operations with the highest-capacity airliner ever put into scheduled service, conducting the inaugural flight of eight Boeing 747SR. The aircraft has seating for 550 passengers, 45 in the upper deck.
---In 1980…U.S. launches Solar Maximum Mission Observatory to study solar flares.
---In 1984…First flight of the Cessna Citation S/II.
---In 1989…The first of 24 Global Positioning System satellites is placed into orbit.
---In 1990…Space probe Voyager 1 takes photograph of entire solar system.
---In 1996…China launches a Long March 3 rocket, carrying the Intelsat 708 satellite. The rocket flies off course 3 seconds after liftoff and crashes into a rural village due to an engineering defect. The number of fatalities is unconfirmed.
---In 2001…Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft becomes first vehicle to land on an asteroid (433 Eros)
---In 2008... Belavia Flight 1834, a Bombardier CRJ-100ER (EW-101PJ), crashes on takeoff in Yerevan, Armenia. The left winghad accumulated frost on the wing due to difference in temperature between the air and fuel inside the wing’s tanks, resulting in immediately stall as the aircraft became airborne. All 21 on-board survived, mostly as a result of the 50-second response time of the rescue team.
Daily Video
Editor’s Choice
Humor
Why Must I Speak English?
A Pan Am 727 flight waiting for start clearance in Munich overheard the following:
Lufthansa (in German): "Ground, what is our start clearance time?"
Ground (in English): "If you want an answer you must speak in English."
Lufthansa (in English): "I am a German, flying a German airplane, in Germany. Why must I speak English?"
Unknown voice from another plane (in a beautiful British accent): "Because you lost the bloody war."
Trivia
General Trivia
1. How was milkweed used to save pilots and crewmembers during World War II?
2. While in the traffic pattern, you overhear a pilot "requesting the option." The controller tells this pilot that he is "cleared for the option." This means that the pilot may execute his choice of five maneuvers. What are they?
3. What was so unusual about the first fighter aircraft used by the Israeli Air Force?
4. To what does the north pole of a magnetic compass point?
1. The north magnetic pole
2. The south magnetic pole
3. The geographic South Pole
4. None of the above
5. The world's first man-carrying airplane powered by jet propulsion flew in
1. October 1910.
2. November 1920.
3. December 1930.
4. January 1940.
