FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1994
1994 - 0130.PDF
MR TRANSPORT NEWS IN BRIEF POWER FOR CIS Rolls-Royce engines will power a Boeing 757 being leased by Ansett Worldwide Aviation Services to the Turkmenistan Government. The country becomes the 49th RB211-535E4-powered 757 operator and the first CIS customer for the UK engine builder. USAir launches new-look short- haul service USAir has launched the first phase of a re-vamp of its short-haul services, designed to compete with Southwest Air lines and Continental Airlines' "CAL Lite" low-cost opera tions. The initial phase in volves 22 110-seat Boeing 737- 200s dedicated to fast-turna round services on routes of 800km (500 miles) or less. The first phase, to begin on 16 February, is a prelude to a new short-haul operation which will be launched in May or June. The initial phase does not offer substantial customer benefit, except increased fre quencies, the airline admits. The 15 cities chosen for this first phase, from Buffalo to Tampa and from Boston to Chicago, are almost all markets where USAir faces competition. In the "fast-turn" markets, USAir's aircraft utilisation will increase from 6.9 daily depar tures per aircraft to 8.4. This will allow the airline to use the same 22 aircraft for 17% more daily departures — 184 com pared to 152. Staff contract concessions already negotiated will allow USAir to handle the additional services with exist ing flight and ground crews. "This first phase in introduc ing a short-haul product will increase productivity through better use of existing re sources," says chairman Seth Schofield. The airline hopes to lower operating costs in short- haul markets and says it will be redesigning its long-haul and transatlantic services. D Thai and Bangkok will form domestic airline BY JOHN BAILEY IN BANGKOK Thai Airways International expects to receive Govern ment approval in February to proceed with plans to set up a second domestic and regional airline in Thailand. The country's Ministry of Transport and Communica tions has indicated initial ac ceptance. A detailed feasibility study by the airline could be completed by the end of April. The new carrier would be set up by a consortium headed by Thai and domestic competitor Bangkok Airways, and would probably lease aircraft from Thai's domestic fleet. Thai sent its proposal to the ministry's Civil Aviation Com mittee late in 1993, in response to Bangkok Airways' applica tion for extra domestic routes and to the continued losses on its own domestic network. Thai president Thamnoon Wanglee says that a joint ven ture would allow the carriers to pool resources and avoid po tentially ruinous competition. He says: "Thai is becoming too fat, and the operations are not exactly the same for do mestic and international serv ices. That's why we believe that if we set up a second airline, with the combined resources of Thai and other partners, it's better than if Thai single- handedly does international and domestic operations." Thai would take the largest shareholding, with up to 40%, and would second management and operational staff during an initial three-year start-up pe riod. The carrier would take over part of Thai's domestic network, and possibly regional services, but Thai would still operate some trunk routes, such as Bangkok-Phuket. Bangkok Airways attended a meeting of the aviation com mittee in December "...and seemed to go along with our concept", Thamnoon says, al though it is unclear whether it would continue operating inde pendently. "They could sell some of their route rights, which would give them some money to invest elsewhere." Dividing up the money- losing domestic routes is one of several cost-saving measures planned by Thamnoon, who took over as Thai president in October 1993. Others include re-financing $400 million of its debt through a bond issue in April, and setting up a leasing company to offload some of its older aircraft. The leasing venture is still in the planning stage, but a feasi bility study is expected to be completed by the end of the month. The company could be set up within three months of Government and board ap proval. This would also be a joint-venture, with Thai taking 30-40%, and shares offered to private investors and, possibly, another leasing company. Although the venture would handle aircraft phased out of Thai's fleet, it would also buy used aircraft from other carri ers. Thamnoon says that there is "great potential" for used NASA tries for supersonic vision A new optical system aimed at eliminating the need to droop the nose of a future supersonic or hypersonic trans port aircraft during take-off and landing is being tested at NASA's Dryden Flight Research site in California. The system is essentially an inverted periscope and uses lenses and mirrors, rather than any electronic or video-based technologies, to produce a view of the runway. The REVD (research exter nal-vision display) is being flight-tested on a modified Lockheed F-104. The lower part of the REVD is in a fairing beneath the cockpit. The re flected images are viewed by the pilot in the rear seat. The flight-test programme, which is planned to cover around 20 sorties, is designed to collect data on the suitability of landing an aircraft using a mirror-based visual system. Video cameras and com puter-based synthetic-vision systems are also being consid ered for the high-speed com mercial transport programme, but the REVD is being explored as a simpler alternative. It is also possible that the REVD, housed either in a fair ing beneath the fuselage or recessed into the nose as a drop-down system, could be used in combination with syn thetic-vision devices. The joint project also in volves NASA Ames Research Center, California, the National Aero-Space Plane Joint Pro gramme Office, Lockheed Fort Worth, and two California- based companies, Kaiser Opti cal Electronics and Systems Technologies. • Maiden flight for Perseus RPV The Perseus remotely pi loted high-altitude research vehicle (RPV) has made its first flight from NASA's Dryden Flight Research site in Califor nia in preparation for deploy ment to the Pacific in late 1994. The aircraft will be used to help gather information on the potential atmospheric af fects of supersonic transports. The aircraft was built for NASA by Virginia-based Aurora Flight Sciences and will be used to gather atmospheric re- FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 19 - 25 January. 1994
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
