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Aviation History
1992
1992 - 0010.PDF
MR TRANSPORT NEWS IN BRIEF AIROD CLEARANCE Airod, the Malaysian mainte nance company, has been cleared by the US Federal Aviation Administration to operate as an approved repair station. The company, owned jointly by Aerospace Indus tries Malayasia and Lockheed, meets the certification re quirements of Federal Avia tion Regulations Part 145 covering airframes, power- plant, accessories, instru ments and radios. IRAQI FLIGHT Iraqi Airways has received permission from the UN Secu rity Council's sanctions com mittee to resume internal flights, and plans to do so on 16 January, says the airline's director general, Nuraldin Safi. The first flight will be from Baghdad to Basra. TUNIS ORDER Tunis Air has ordered two more Airbus A320s. The deal brings the firm orders for the type from Tunis to six — all powered by CFM56-5 en gines. The Tunisian flag- carrrier already operates three A320s and one A300. EMB-145 GO-AHEAD Embraer has given the go- ahead for the rear-engined configuration on the EMB- 145 regional jet. The Brazilian company originally planned a wing-mounted engine config uration. The prgramme for the 45- to 48-seat aircraft has entered the design stage. AUSTRALIAN RADAR Hughes Aircraft and Th ompson Radar Australia have been shortlisted for negoti ations to supply the Austra lian Civil Aviation Authority's advanced air traffic system. Designed as a fully-integrated "turnkey" system, it will consolidate all en route Aus tralian air traffic control to two ATC centres, in Brisbane and Melbourne, and will re- equip terminal area control units at other major Austra lian airports. Contract signing is expected by mid-1992. Compass seeks new direction BY PAUL PHELAN IN CAIRNS Australia's sole deregulation start-up carrier, Compass Airlines, which ceased opera tions abruptly on 20 December, 1991 could be revived under strategies being examined by its provisional liquidators. The airline was shut down after the attempted seizure of two Compass Airbus A300s by bailiffs, who boarded them at Melbourne and Sydney airports, and the application of statutory liens to its aircraft by the coun try's Civil Aviation Authority for A$12 million ($9.3 million) in unpaid airways charges. The Federal Government was caught off-guard by widespread public protest that its policies had not allowed deregulation to work. A "Save Compass" fighting fund has already collected A$5million. Several state gov ernments have guaranteed a re vived Compass a share of their travel business. Compass is now in provisional liquidation, but president Bryan Grey and liquidator Ian Ferrier of Ferrier Hodgson are consult ing potential investors, creditors, former staff and major govern ment and tourist industry clients about a rescue package. Ferrier stresses there will be "no quick fix" to put Compass back in the air. Partner Andrew Love says, however: "We have Compass — heading for obscurity or revival? contacted all the major inbound international airlines, asking whether they want to put for ward expressions of interest. I can't say at this stage that there is one international airline that is going to produce the funds, but there is a group of executives scheduled to arrive in Australia next week to have further dis cussions with us." Love will not name interested carriers, but Garuda of Indonesia is believed to be among them. Ferrier will report to the Fed eral Court on the prospects for the carrier by 4 February, a date which Love sees as virtually a deadline for determining Com pass' future. Included in a num- Business Express loses Beech 1900 ABusiness Express Beech 1900 crashed at sea on a training flight on 28 December, just weeks before the US re gional airline is to hand over all pilot training to simulator opera tor FlightSafety International. The crew of three, two first officers and a training captain, are missing, believed killed. There were no passengers on the aircraft. Wreckage of the twin- turboprop airliner, including the intact right wing, was recovered from the sea close to Block Island, Rhode Island. High waves delayed a sonar search for the cockpit voice recorder. The Beech 1900 had left Br idgeport, Connecticut, on an evening training flight to up grade the two first officers to captains. The last radio contact, with Boston tower at around 20.30, reported no problems. Weather was clear, says Business Express. The crash is its first since its formation in 1984. The airline had decided, even before the accident, to stop training flights and hand over all pilot training to FlightSafety. The company will use simu lators for all initial, transition, upgrade and recurrent training for the airline's 425 pilots. • ber of options the liquidators are studying are a fresh injection of capital into the existing com pany, a winding-up followed by a relaunch under new equity funding, and liquidation. One proposal was that Qantas inject equity into the failed car rier. That, however, would re quire a reversal of Government policy to allow Qantas to enter the domestic market. Grey has also held recent negotiations with Air New Zealand, which were renewed after the at tempted seizure of the aircraft, but that carrier is not considered a likely investor. Compass was holding 120,000 bookings worth an estimated A$30 million for the Christmas holiday period. Other carriers provided capacity at special fares for Compass ticket holders; Qan tas was approved to lift compassionate cases on domestic sectors, and a Royal Australian Air Force Boeing 707 conducted a number of flights. Compass, the only new trunk- route carrier to establish itself following deregulation in No vember 1990, operated four leased Airbus A300-600s and one A310 to six major centres on routes representing an estimated 80% of the Australian domestic air travel market. In the first 12 months oi deregulation, according to fig ures released recently by the Bureau of Transport & Commu FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 8 - 14 January, 1992
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