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Aviation History
1997
1997 - 0012.PDF
M9R TRANSPORT NEWS IN BRIEF M EVA ORDERS EVA Airways of Taiwan has ordered two more Boeing 747-400 passenger aircraft and has announced plans to buy another two McDonnell Douglas MD-11 freighters. Deliveries will begin at the end of 1997 and increase EVA's fleet to 34 aircraft in total, including 14 747s and eight MD-1 Is. The Taiwan ese airline will also take deliv ery of a second and third MD-90 in April and May. • AIROD SUBCONTRACT Malaysia's Airod has signed a subcontract agreement with ShinMayma of Japan to pro duce composite airframe parts for the Boeing 777, Mc Donnell Douglas MD-11 and the Gulfstream IV and V • RYANAIRADDS737S Ryanair has acquired six ex- Lufthansa Boeing 737-200s from US lessor JETZ Ven tures. The first will be deliv ered this month, with the remainder arriving in 1997. • FRONTIER LEASES Denver-based Frontier Air lines is to lease two new 737- 300s from Boullioun Aviation Services, of Belleview, Wash ington. The aircraft will be delivered in August 1997 and January 1998. • USA EXERCISES JUDGEMENT The US Federal Aviation Ad ministration has given Mon tenegro, Serbia and Turkey passing marks for monitor ing aviation safety, but Cote d'lvoire and Thailand earned conditional ratings, given after a nation's civil-aviation authority fails an FAA-con- ducted audit of its safety- oversight organisation and practices. Under these cir cumstances, only limited op erations to the USA are permitted under heightened FAA surveillance. Turkey's rating was upgraded after improvements had been car ried out. Philippine cargo airline aims to start up services in April PHILIPPINE Aeronautics De velopment (PADC) and a Japanese ground-handling com pany have reached an initial agree ment to establish a new Filipino cargo airline to operate between the two countries, in competition widi FedEx. State-owned PADC has signed a memorandum of understanding with International Airline System Service (LASS) to launch the new carrier early this year. The as-yet- unnamed company will be estab lished in Manila this month as a 51:49 Philippine-Japanese joint- venture concern. "We're now in the process of finalising details to set up the cor poration," says IASS president Soen Chiyokawa. "We're in a hurry to get this project going and want to be airborne by April." The Philippine Government has approached the Japanese au thorities to revise die bilateral air- services agreement, to allow the new carrier to start up. Apart from FedEx's overnight Tokyo-Subic Bay service, only Nippon Cargo Airlines operates a once-weekly service to the Philippines. According to Chiyokawa, there is more than enough room for an additional operator. He claims that the air-cargo market between Japan and the Philippines grew by 150% in 1996. He acknowledges, however, that the new company is likely to face opposition from flag carrier Philippine Airlines, which is also to develop a cargo service. The new carrier plans to fly thrice weekly between Manila and Tokyo's Narita Airport, via Mac- tan, and will operate a direct service once or twice a week. It is negotiat ing a one-year wet-lease for a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30. Japan Airlines (JAL) is to provide sales, marketing and maintenance support, says Chiyokawa. JAL, in the meantime, will launch a joint freighter service with Malaysia Airlines from Penang to Tokyo's Narita Airport and Osaka's Kansai from 14 January. • Malaysia Airlines gears up for overhaul on 777 service-entry MALAYSIA AIRLINES (MAS) plans to begin imple menting an overhaul of its opera tions, to coincide with the entry into service of the Boeing 777-200IGW this year. The sweeping changes will in clude a rationalisation of MAS air craft and engine types, with the phasing out of some of its Boeing 747-4O0/300s, 737s and Airbus A330-3(X)s. The airline also intends to increase frequencies on its European routes and expand capac ity on shorter-range regional routes. MAS has ordered 11 777-200s and four stretched -300s, plus ten new Pratt & Whitney PW4056- powered 747-400s. It will take delivery of its first 278-seat 777- 200 in April, followed by a further three aircraft in May, June and July. Four more will enter service in 1998, and the first -300 in 1999. According to MAS commercial director Bashir Ahmad, the 777s will initially be used to expand European services from 11 to 16 weekly frequencies. The aircraft will replace 747s now used on routes to Frankfurt, Munich, Rome, Vienna and Zurich. The 747 will be retained for flights to Paris and Amsterdam, but supplemented on the latter route by the new twinjet. Further 777-200s and -300s will replace some 747s on routes to Hong Kong, Nagoya and Osaka in Japan and in place of A3 30s to Brisbane and Perth. MAS will dispose of its four General Electric CF6-80-powered 747-400s, including two combi air craft, and single P& WJT9D-pow- ered -300 combi. Its -400 fleet will be standardised in future around the PW4056 powerplant. Two A330-300s on lease from Inter national Lease Finance will also be returned, along with two Mc Donnell Douglas MD-1 Is, to World Airways, once the tri-jet is replaced by 747-400s on MAS' Cape Town/Buenos Aires route. The ten MAS A3 30s will be retained to replace 737s on short er-range high-density routes, such as tojakarta and Manila. The carri er plans to sell up to ten of its 737- 300/400s over the next four years. It now has 45 aircraft in service or leased out and is to take delivery of a final two-400s by April. 3 Ziegler bows out of Airbus Industrie BERNARD ZIEGLER, one of the original forces behind the development of Airbus Industrie, has retired after a 26-year career with the con sortium. He will be replaced as senior vice-president, en gineering, by Alain Garcia. Ziegler joined Airbus during the development of its initial aircraft — the A3 00 — as head of the flight-test de partment and chief test pilot. He was a primary force in the development of the fly-by- wire flight-control system, introduced on the A3 20 and now standard on all Airbuses. 10 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 1 - 7 January 1997
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