CommercialMH370 search to shift south along “southern arc”Australia, Malaysia, and China have established the priority search area for MH370, the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200ER aircraft that disappeared on 8 March. The revised undersea search area is south of where an aerial and accoustic search took place in March and April, but is still along the “seventh arc”, where the aircraft transmitted its final communication, says Australian Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development Warren Truss. The total area is 60,000 square kilimoters, and it is expected to take 12 months to search it throughly. This element of the search will commence in August, following a bathymetric (seafloor mapping) survey that is now underway.
LinkMitsubishi mounts engines on first MRJ flight test aircraftMitsubishi Aircraft has mounted the Pratt & Whitney PW1200G engines onto its first MRJ regional jet flight test aircraft. This comes shortly after the Japanese airframer completed the wing-body join of the regional jet.
LinkAzul receives first A330Brazil's Azul has received its first Airbus A330-200, which landed at Belo Horizonte Confins International airport today. The aircraft, registered PR-AIZ, had departed from Lake Charles, Louisiana, where MRO provider AAR had repainted the aircraft in Azul's livery. Named "America Azul", the aircraft will enable the airline to launch its first international flights to the USA from as early as December 2014.
LinkAir France to extend cabin upgrade to A330s and A380sAir France will extend a cabin revamp to its long-haul Airbus A330s and A380s, as part of a €1 billion ($1.36 billion) investment in upgrading the carrier's product. The SkyTeam airline had earlier announced the revamp for its Boeing 777s, and is in the midst of retrofitting 44 777s in a project to be completed by mid-2016. Air France executives announced in an event in New York today that the carrier will spend €300 million to retrofit 15 A330s and 10 A380s with the refurbished cabin as well.
LinkWhat do new bribery laws mean for hospitality?Depending on who you are and what your principal interest is in the Farnborough air show, you might adopt any number of euphemisms to describe the chalets and exhibition halls of the world’s foremost aerospace event. You might hear the sound of cash registers ringing up sales if your focus is on breaking the record $72 billion in orders and commitments signed at Farnborough 2012. Your ear might be more attuned to the pop of the 3,500 or so champagne and wine corks, or the sizzle of choice cuts of beef if you are a caterer – or indeed a guest in one of these cocoons of warmth and welcome.
LinkEtihad Agrees Terms For 49 Pct Of AlitaliaEtihad Airways said on Wednesday it had agreed principal terms and conditions to buy a 49 percent stake in Alitalia in a last-ditch attempt to save the loss-making Italian carrier. The two airlines will now finalize the deal as soon as possible, subject to regulatory approvals, they said in a joint statement without elaborating on the terms of the deal. Alitalia has made an annual profit only a few times in its 68-year history and received numerous state handouts before being privatized in 2008. It was kept afloat by a government-engineered EUR€500 million (USD$680 million) rescue package last year but risks having to ground its planes unless a deal can be struck with Etihad to allow it to revamp its flight network.
LinkWizz Air To Maintain Passenger Growth Without IPOWizz Air will maintain its current passenger growth rate, chief executive Jozsef Varadi said, despite scrapping plans to raise EUR€200 million (USD$272 million) on the London stock market this month. Varadi said the airline, central eastern Europe's largest, will fund expansion with its own cash but declined to say how much the business generates. A decade after Varadi started Wizz, it made a net profit of EUR€89 million last year on EUR€1 billion of revenue, carrying nearly 14 million passengers while national airlines in the region have struggled.
LinkVirgin America Flight Attendants To Hold Union VoteFlight attendants at Virgin America are due to begin voting next month on whether to join a union, which would be the first at the California-based airline. The balloting by about 850 eligible flight attendants on whether to be represented by the Transport Workers Union (TWU) will be between July 16 and August 16, the union and the National Mediation Board said. Virgin America remains the last non-union airline among US carriers after JetBlue pilots voted in April to organize.
LinkNTSB Proposes Review Of 777 Flight ControlsThe US NTSB said Boeing should consider modifying flight controls on the 777 in response to an Asiana crash in San Francisco last July that killed three people and injured more than 180. The National Transportation Safety Board accepted 30 findings following an 11-month investigation into the July 6, 2013 crash and made more than two dozen recommendations to the FAA, Asiana, Boeing, firefighters and San Francisco city and county. The NTSB said its investigation did not find any failures in the auto-throttle system or any other flight control or warning system. The pilots committed 20 or 30 errors in the final 14 miles of approach, the NTSB said, and it cited "mismanagement" by the pilots as the probable cause of the crash. The pilots, though experienced, didn't understand exactly how the auto throttle functioned and that it would not maintain minimum air speed in all circumstances. That complexity, and flight training manuals that did not clearly describe how the controls would operate, contributed to the crash of flight 214, the NTSB investigation found.
LinkEmirates president: We could still order Airbus A350sTim Clark, the president of Emirates, plans to reconsider ordering Airbus A350 aircraft. Earlier this month, Emirates had said the carrier would cancel an order for 70 A350s. "At the end of this year, beginning of next year, we will re-engage with Airbus on this airplane [the A350]. We will also engage with Boeing [on the Dreamliner]," he said.
LinkSources comment on Boeing 787 production line Last Thursday, Boeing Co. paid out big bonuses to its South Carolina workforce for meeting an early May deadline to significantly reduce the amount of unfinished 787 Dreamliner work traveling to Everett, Wash. But an unusual production mishap on the 787 assembly line in Everett, two days earlier reveals a continued problem with incomplete fuselage sections from South Carolina, according to employees with knowledge of what happened. And a day after that incident, production of the jet suffered another blow. In an accident unrelated to the South Carolina work, an Everett mechanic on the same 787 assembly line was seriously injured. The first mishap was traced to work done inside the Everett factory by a team from Boeing's plant in South Carolina.
LinkFAA bars model planes within 5 miles of airportsThe Federal Aviation Administration is restricting model planes, which it defines as aircraft that weigh 55 pounds or less, from flying within five miles of airports without permission from air traffic controllers. The FAA also says unmanned aircraft must fly below 400 feet and can't be used for commercial purposes.
LinkFAA: Amazon's drone scheme is a no-goThe Federal Aviation Administration has published a drone policy document for public comment and among the drone uses it's banning for now are delivery of goods -- the plan proposed by Amazon Prime Air. "If an individual offers free shipping in association with a purchase or other offer, FAA would construe the shipping to be in furtherance of a business purpose," the FAA document says, "and thus, the operation would not fall within the statutory requirement of recreation or hobby purpose."
LinkJudge rules on no-fly listA federal judge has ruled that the U.S. government's management of the no-fly list is unconstitutional because people on the list don't have access to a fair appeals process.
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