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(Reuters) – Following is a summary of news on commercial plane orders at the Farnborough Airshow.
This item will be updated during the July 19-25 event.
* EMIRATES
The airline is set to place a $5 billion order for 20 Boeing (BA.N) 777 jetliners on Monday, aviation sources said. [ID:nLDE66G0AJ]
July 13 (Reuters) – Loss-making airline SAS (SAS.ST) said on Tuesday that it would increase flights on some Scandinavian routes due to strong demand.
SAS was badly hit by the global downturn and has had to slash costs and raise cash via a rights issue. But the airline was upbeat about its home markets
“Apart from the fact that we have planes which are record full, we also see a positive development in our Scandinavian network…,” SAS commercial chief Robin Kamark said in a statement.
“SAS will raise the number of depatures in the autumn within Scandinavia due to strong demand,” the company added. The new flights would come on the Stockholm-Copenhagen and Stockholm-Oslo routes. (Reporting by Patrick Lannin)
July 1 (Reuters) – RAK Airways, a United Arab Emirates based national carrier, would relaunch services before the end of 2010 after halting commercial operations over a year ago, local media said on Thursday.
Tough economic conditions in the wake of the global recession made the airline suspend scheduled services in May 2009, the English daily Khaleej Times reported.
“We are now ready to make a strategic re-entry into the market”, Shaikh Omar bin Saqr Al Qassimi, chairman of RAK Airways, said in a statement to Khaleej Times.
Financial difficulties after the downturn were “now sufficiently abated,” said the chairman of the carrier, which began operating in 2007 but had limited itself to charter services last year. (Reporting by Erika Solomon; Editing by Thomas Atkins)
(Reuters) – British Airways said it had agreed a recovery plan for its 3.7 billion pound pension deficit, potentially removing a final obstacle to its planned merger with Spain’s Iberia.
BA said it had reached a deal with the trustees of its Airways Pension Scheme, which last December had a deficit of 1 billion pounds and its New Airways Pension Scheme, which had a 2.7 billion pound black hole.
The airline said on Tuesday the proposals would avoid closing the schemes and maintain BA’s annual contributions at the current level of 330 million pounds, plus agreed annual increases in line with inflation expectations averaging 3 percent.
BA will, however, make additional deficit contributions if its year-end cash balance exceeds 1.8 billion pounds and the two schemes will also be provided with 250 million pounds of additional security over the company’s assets which would become payable in the event of British Airways’ insolvency.
Iberia has the right to pull out of its planned merger with BA if doesn’t deem the pension recovery plan to be satisfactory.
“Iberia has three months to reach a decision on the pension recovery plan,” BA said in a statement.
(Reporting by Matt Scuffham; Editing by Paul Hoskins)
June 17 (Reuters) – Thai Airways International THAI.BK said on Thursday its second-quarter revenue and its cabin factor would mainly be hit by the recent political unrest and the tourist low season.
Industrials
The national carrier expected its percentage of seats sold, or cabin factor, to be 60 percent in the April-June quarter, President Piyasvasti Amranand told reporters.
The airline expected a fund-raising plan to be completed in the third quarter, said an executive who declined to be identified. ($1=32.42 baht) (Reporting by Manunphattr Dhanananphorn; Writing by Arada Kultawanich; Editing by Robert Birsel)
HELSINKI, June 10 (Reuters) -Finnish airline Finnair (FIA1S.HE) said on Thursday it will order five new A321ER aircraft from Airbus (EAD.PA) for European traffic.
Finnair said the order would be worth more than 400 million euros ($481.5 million), with the first delivery expected to take place in 2013. It will replace an earlier order for two A330 aircraft planned for 2012-2013.
“We have not changed our strategy at all. We still have a focus on Asian and European traffic and will still add capacity in these areas,” Finnair’s spokesman Christer Haglund told a news conference at Berlin Air Show.
Finnair Chief Executive Mika Vehvilainen told Reuters in late May the firm was looking to Airbus to replace four Boeing (BA.N) 757 aircraft used on leisure flights. [ID:nLDE64O0PN]
The firm said on Wednesday its second-quarter loss would be narrower than expected thanks to improving demand. [ID:nLDE6581AJ]
Finnair shares were up 1.5 percent at 4.16 euros at 0955 GMT. ($1=.8307 Euro)
New Delhi, May 28 — If you are among the thousands trying to grab a seat at the Delhi University this year, your journey to the form centres from the metro stations could be smooth. Wondering how? Sample this, the moment you de-board at the Vishwavidyalaya station a voice greets you, “Ma’am our AC cab is waiting to take you to your form centre.
” With temperatures hovering around 45 degrees Celsius, it is definitely a relief to the students. And that’s how Grewal Academy of Accounting Professionals (GAAP), an educational institute is trying to catch the attention of the students.
Puzzled? Well that’s a new marketing gimmick that the companies are trying to advertise themselves. From giving free card rides to 100 per cent job assurance, it’s an advertising haven for various companies who are every attempt to lure students who went to collect the Delhi University admission forms on day one.
“Not all students get through to the university, so we are asking them to register with us. Once the admission process is over we call them to know if they are still interested in our offer,” said Anita Sharma (name changed) who is registering students for Kingfisher Airlines.
The airline is offering a nine-month training course for ground staff, retail and hospitality at Rs 1.45 lakh.
British Airways is set to resume talks with the Unite union later on Wednesday in an attempt to avert further strike action, the airline said.
Cabin crew are currently in their third day of a five-day strike, protesting over job and pay conditions.
The Unite union representing the bulk of the crew has threatened another 10 days of strikes if the dispute is not resolved.
No further details on the talks were available.
(Writing by Avril Ormsby; Editing by Kylie MacLellan)
British Airways will not be grounded if the first of three five-day cabin crew strikes goes ahead on Monday, chief executive Willie Walsh said on Sunday.
Walsh said he was hopeful a deal with the Unite union could be reached on Sunday in a long-running dispute over the airline’s cost-cutting drive but said the company had contingency plans in place to keep services running.
“We have resolved all of the substantive issues,” Walsh told BBC television. “I think we can work through it.”
“BA will survive and we will be stronger because we are tackling the core issues. We will not allow Unite, the union, to ground BA.”
Talks between the union and BA were broken up on Saturday when protestors gatecrashed negotiations at the premises of the industrial dispute mediator ACAS in London.
(Reporting by Matt Falloon; Editing by Elizabeth Fullerton)
Every elite athlete entered in Sunday’s London marathon is expected to compete despite the airline disruptions created by ash from the Iceland volcano this week, race director Dave Bedford said on Thursday.
“We expect everyone to be here,” Bedford told a news conference. “Overall it’s been an incredibly challenging week but that’s what we do.
“I believe on race day we will have the best fields we have ever had in challenging circumstances.
Bedford said 150,000 pounds ($230,700) had been spent on emergency travel arrangements, including 110,000 pounds on a jet to transport runners from Kenya and Eritrea to Spain.
He said organisers had decided that Madrid and Barcelona would be the best place for runners to gather. If the airways had not been opened this week, they would have been taken to London by coach.
“We would have got them here one way or the other,” Bedford said. “They would have been tired but they would have been here.”
Race officials said the pollution levels as a result of the volcano were being constantly monitored but no problems were anticipated.
(Editing by Pritha Sarkar;
The Australian pilots of a Cathay Pacific flight who managed to steer an Airbus A330 plane to safety at Hong Kong’s airport after both its engines malfunctioned have been hailed as heroes.
Cathay Pacific said in a statement that the plane’s left engine had shut down as the aircraft made its landing approach at Hong Kong’s international airport on Tuesday with 309 passengers on a flight from Surabaya in Indonesia.
The right engine also began to “cut out inexplicably, leaving the [pilots] to cope with dips and surges in power and the prospect of the plane plunging into the sea short of [the airport],” the South China Morning Post reported.
The emergency landing caused all four tyres on the left hand side of the plane to deflate, while two on the right side also deflated, the airline said.
Passengers were evacuated on emergency inflatable slides. There were eight injuries.
“It was an amazing piece of piloting in extremely testing circumstances,” one colleague of the two Australian pilots was quoted as saying by the South China Morning Post.
“One engine was shut down completely and the other was going on and off. They effectively landed the plane on half an engine.
“Their stories will come out in due course when the investigation is complete but what they did was nothing short of heroic. It’s a miracle they managed to get the plane down safely,” the paper quoted another Cathay Pacific staff member as saying.
Hong Kong’s Civil Aviation department said it would investigate the “serious aircraft incident” and release a report in a month’s time.
The airline that is soon to begin services to the New South Wales Snowy Mountains will fly Olympian Torah Bright to the area tomorrow for a big celebration.
Aeropelican has taken over the daily Sydney to Cooma flight after Regional Express pulled out of the service two years ago.
The airline will fly the winter gold-medallist and her family to Snowy Mountains Airport tomorrow morning, in time for a parade at Cooma.
The newly-elected Mayor of the Cooma-Monaro Shire, Dean Lynch, says he encourages the community to attend the event.
“If they get there to cheer on the athletes, it should be a sight to be seen so if everyone, the whole town and anyone that wants to be here can be there then, I’m sure they’re going to get a treat,” he said.
For more, go to the South East News blog at http://bit.ly/dgL1SN
A major airline is showing confidence in the Coffs coast as a premier tourist destination.
Virgin Blue will introduce larger planes on peak days for the Coffs Harbour-to-Sydney route from May.
Direct flights to Melbourne will also be introduced in June, encouraging southern tourists to make weekend visits to the Coffs coast.
Virgin spokeswoman Amanda Bolger says the upgrade is demand driven.
“We’ve been watching the amount of people who have been connecting through Sydney on to Melbourne and that’s given us a bit of confidence to say obviously the demand is there, particularly on weekends,” she said.
“What it will do is allow people from Melbourne to come up to Coffs Harbour for a weekend visit, which will be terrific for tourism.
“That’s what they’ve been doing via the Sydney flight and we’re just going to make it a little bit more convenient to go direct.”
Ms Bolger says direct flights are also a sign of the strengthened economy.
“We’ve been watching quite closely and we’re obviously demand-driven, so the demand is there in particular on weekends,” she said.
A man detained on a United Airlines flight from Washington to Denver was possibly smoking in the lavatory and not trying to set off explosives in his shoes as initially reported, a U.S. official said.
“It looks like the individual in question was perhaps smoking in the lavatory and might have made an unfortunate remark once confronted by airline personnel,” a U.S. official said.
Initial media reports said a Qatari man was subdued by U.S. air marshals after trying to “light his shoes on fire.”
United flight 663 landed safely in Denver and the man was taken into custody, the Transportation Security Administration said.
(Reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky; Editing by John O’Callaghan)
A Qantas plane has encountered problems during a flight between Sydney and Canberra, in the latest in a series of problems with the airline’s planes in the past fortnight.
Flight QF779 was preparing to land at Canberra Airport this afternoon when an indicator in the cockpit showed a defect with one of the plane’s wing flaps.
The pilot aborted the landing and circled the city before landing without incident half an hour behind schedule.
Qantas says engineers have checked the plane and it is now back in the air.
Another six Qantas planes have encountered problems over the past two weeks.
In one incident, a brake problem caused two tyres on a Qantas jet to burst during landing at Sydney Airport last week and a plane was grounded earlier this week because of a cracked windscreen.
The Civil Aviation Safety Authority is conducting a review of the airline’s work practices in response to complaints by the union representing Qantas engineers.
The union representing Qantas engineers claims details of recent incidents have not been shared with senior engineers.
APESMA is calling for a full investigation by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority of recent safety incidents.
The union is currently involved in a pay dispute with Qantas.
This week a plane heading to London was forced to return to Bangkok with engine trouble, while a flight from Melbourne to Los Angeles was delayed by a cracked windscreen.
And Qantas passengers on a flight from Los Angeles were 17 hours late arriving in Brisbane on Monday night after two of the airline’s jumbo jets reported technical problems.
Senior industrial officer at APESMA, Alison Rose, says Qantas should share all information on these and other incidents.
“This would normally be the case that our members would have access to all the information, documentation, et cetera, on each aircraft that they do any work on,” she said.
“So our members are concerned that due to this practice of not providing information, they are effectively working in the dark.”
Qantas spokesman David Epstein says the union’s claims are outrageous and nothing more than opportunism to disguise the industrial action the union is taking in regards to engineers’ wages.
Thu, Apr 1 02:32 PM
Australian carrier Qantas Airways Ltd said on Thursday it was investigating why an A380 superjumbo aircraft burst two tyres while landing at Sydney Airport on Wednesday.
The aircraft from Singapore with 244 people aboard blew two tyres when it landed about 8.20 p.m. (0920 GMT), sending showers of sparks and flames flying from its undercarriage.
No passengers were at risk at any point, Qantas said.
“It was not an emergency landing,” said a spokeswoman.
It was the first time a Qantas A380 suffered a tyre blowout since the airline first took delivery of the aircraft in 2008. Qantas has six A380s, which are used on routes to London, Singapore and the United States.
The incident was the second mechanical mishap on a Qantas aircraft in two days. A Qantas Boeing 747 bound for Singapore on Tuesday returned to Sydney shortly after takeoff when the pilot discovered a problem with an engine.
(Reporting by Michael Perry; Editing by Ron Popeski)
PHOENIX — An American Airlines passenger jet headed from San Francisco to Miami made a precautionary landing at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport because of a generator problem.
Airline spokeswoman Andrea Huguely says the pilot of the twin-engine Boeing 767 decided to divert the plane on Tuesday afternoon because of a problem with one of two generators. Without the second generator, the pilot would have to run an auxiliary power unit.
Flight 476 was carrying 225 passengers and a crew of nine. Huguely says no injuries were reported and that passengers would be placed on a later flight.
Two pilots have died after their plane crashed at the RAAF base in Darwin just after 10am (CST) today.
Police say the 30-seater Airnorth Embraer 120 had just taken off when it banked sharply to the left and crashed onto the RAAF runway.
It immediately burst into flames.
Airnorth spokesman David Gooch says the pilots’ families are being informed of the tragedy.
Mr Gooch says both were experienced pilots and he does not know why the plane crashed or whether a mayday was issued.
He says the accident has devastated the airline.
“It’s a tragedy to advise that during a routine training flight this morning one our Embraer Brazilias had an accident at the end of the runway,” he said.
“It has crashed onto RAAF ground in this accident and unfortunately two pilots have lost their lives.”
The cause of the crash is still unknown.
Assistant Commissioner, Mark Payne, says police will begin investigating the crash as soon as they can get near the site.
Fire crews have been working to put out the flames but witnesses say the wreckage keeps re-igniting.
The crash scene is some distance from the Darwin International Airport terminal and all flights are running normally.
Flights into and out of Newcastle Airport could be delayed this week due to military exercises at the Williamtown RAAF Base.
Airport CEO Paul Hughes says the runway will be shortened for most of the week to allow for the exercises which involve loading live ordnance onto defence aircraft.
Mr Hughes is urging passengers to check with their airlines regarding any flight disruptions.
“The runway’s shortened but the aircraft can still come in from one direction only, so unless they have a significant tail wind which would affect their operations they will be able to land safely but if we do get winds which are not favourable there’ll need to be some adjustments to the schedule,” he said.
“We’ll be asking people just to check with their airline to make sure there have been no significant changes.”
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