All aerospace news – Page 1893
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News
Future avionics architecture is proven
A group of major European avionics manufacturers has designed an avionics architecture for future aircraft which will vastly reduce development and support costs and improve interoperability between aircraft and systems. The Industrial Avionics Working Group (IAWG) has completed a risk-reduction study into software techniques for integrated modular avionics (IMA) ...
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Dasa plans commercial Eureca
Andrzej Jeziorski/MUNICH Daimler-Benz Aerospace (Dasa) is planning to launch a commercially funded industrial-applications mission using the free-flying, retrievable Eureca space platform from the US Space Shuttle in 2000. A European Space Agency-funded flight of the German-built Eureca, equipped with 71 different experiments, was conducted in 1992-3 after deployment ...
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X-38 orbital and re-entry test planned for 2001
Tim Furniss/LONDON NASA's X-38 crew-emergency-return vehicle (CERV) for the International Space Station (ISS) will have its first orbital and re-entry flight test in 2001. The vehicle prototype is undergoing atmospheric flight tests from a NASA Boeing B-52 operating from Edwards AFB, California, (Flight International, 18-24 June). Glide flights ...
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Ariane roll
The European Space Agency says that the cause of the "roll torque" experienced by the Ariane 502 launcher on 30 October, resulting in it reaching a lower-than-planned orbit, was an unexpected reaction to the separation of the solid-rocket boosters. The attempt to recover the boosters in the sea, as planned, ...
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On the ball
NASA has selected Ball Aerospace, of Colorado, to build the first spacecraft in its rapid-delivery satellite programme, in which eight companies were awarded initial contracts to prepare for work on "catalogue" craft (Flight International, 22-28 October). The Quick Scatterometer, QuickScat ,will be launched by a Titan 2 from Vandenberg AFB, ...
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Air China to go for IPO
Air China is pressing ahead with plans for its own initial public offering despite the postponement of the listing by the CAAC's commercial arm, China National Aviation Corporation. Air China aims to shrug off its state control and partially privatise within two years. 'We'll float by 1999 at the ...
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Hub fever
In many industries, concentration forces have led to a few large mass producers with a global reach, each striving to achieve the lowest unit costs through increased efficiencies and higher production volumes. In the airline industry, global alliances are being created to achieve similar goals. However, the individual airline operators ...
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Hitch for BA and Qantas
Alliance partners planning extended codesharing between Europe and Australia have had their strategies thrown into disarray by the Australian government's route rights authority. In a draft ruling the Canberra-based International Air Services Commission (IASC) shocked Qantas and British Airways by saying it will refuse them permission for a wide-ranging ...
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BA in pursuit of leisure
British Airways' much-hyped plans to launch a low-cost point-to-point carrier may herald a larger push into the European leisure market, including a standalone charter operation. BA has already come under fire for considering its own no-frills carrier to limit the advance in the UK market of low-cost players like ...
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Hangover cure
Karen Walker 'Swire prince' are words often whispered in the wake of David Turnbull, an acknowledgement of his rapid rise through the management strata of the Swire Group. His 21 years of experience at Swire have been tested severely over the last 12 months, however, since he inherited one ...
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Shanghai shangrila
Lois Jones Any visitor to Shanghai is easily charmed by its bewildering mix of old and new. Neon lights bejewel 1920s façades, and rickshaws vie for space with resplendent new Volkswagens in the city's ever-widening roads. It's fitting that as the main carrier serving China's eastern gateway, China ...
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Chinese revolution?
What gets bigger must get smaller. An unlikely paradox? Not for the Civil Aviation Administration of China. In its eyes, domestic traffic growth makes only one conclusion possible - the number of airlines must fall. Most airline CEOs would be positively drooling. A population of 1.224 billion is set ...
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Southern belle
Lois Jones Chairman Mao would not have approved. If, as Mao alleged, western-style commercialism and capitalism are corrupt, then China Southern Airlines is rotten to the core. As China closes the book on socialist economic dogma and emancipates its state-owned enterprises, China Southern is one of the first ...
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Sabena lures City Bird
Sabena has stepped up the defence of its Brussels base by taking an option to buy up to 25 per cent of City Bird, the low-cost Belgian long-haul start-up. However, the deal threatens to send out confusing signals to Sabena's alliance partners and passengers who are already struggling with ...
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Autumn break is big turning point
The severe turbulence seen in global equity markets this autumn will have a lasting impact on the climate in which publicly-quoted corporations operate. In purely economic terms it almost certainly signals an end to the exceptional growth seen around the world over the last few years. But its financial impact ...
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Garvey/Slater: great team work
In her first major public speech as the US Federal Aviation Administrator, Jane Garvey may not have set the industry on fire, but the underlying message - coupled with recent announcements made by the Department of Transportation - was unmistakeable. Garvey is putting the FAA back on the straight and ...
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Alliances: decision time approaches
There can be few more important commercial issues for airlines than the future shape of their alliances. A series of regulatory decisions about major alliances is about to be made. The outcome will determine the shape of the airline business, for the next several years at least. At the ...
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Nine cry foul over Milan
The complaint by nine major operators at Milan/Linate airport to the European Commission about next year's transfer to the new Malpensa airport reflects their concern over the threat that Malpensa poses to their own hubs. While Alitalia could not develop Malpensa into a hub alone, the Italian flag carrier ...
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A pan-European hubbing pioneer
As its chairman and chief executive officer, Franco Mancassola makes no apology for his personification of Debonair's brand image. And with a penchant for designer clothes, expensive cars and the more upmarket passenger, nor does he make any attempt to disguise his disdain for some more downmarket, no-frills rivals. ...
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Easy does it
Easy come, easy go. Hopefully EasyJet's use of this slogan to depict its ticketless booking and rapid check-in and boarding procedures will never apply to its presence in the European airline industry. Few think it will. The airline's charismatic chairman, Stelios Haji-Ioannou, has made sure his startup uses technology ...