Reed Aerospace, publisher of Flight International and Airline Business, is to launch the world's first round-the-clock air transport-dedicated newswire as part of a major new electronic information service.
An initial team of eight journalists worldwide is being recruited to provide the first-hand news that will make up the primary content of the news package.
The news-gathering operation will sit alongside those of its sister publications and an aviation database as an integrated information resource called Air Transport Intelligence (ATI).
Subscribers will access ATI via the Internet using a combination of the World Wide Web, electronic-mail and company intranets.
ATI editor Kieran Daly, says: "The Internet is awash in second-hand, tainted, unreliable, unstructured information. Air Transport Intelligence will cut through all that and, for the first time, provide the aerospace community with a heavyweight, independent news and data source tailored for Internet users. For now at least this will be the world's only global, real-time, specialist news service in the air transport field."
ATI is one of the biggest elements of a multi-million pound electronic publishing drive by Reed Aerospace's Anglo-Dutch parent Reed Elsevier.
As well as providing its first-hand output, it promises subscribers a convenient gateway into the massive publishing archives of sister company Lexis-Nexis. The contents of Flight International, Airline Business, Air Navigation International, In-Flight Entertainment International and Flight Daily News will also be accessible.
By the start of the Paris air show, ATI had hired six of its journalists, including Daly, London-based reporters Andrew Doyle and Stewart Penney; regional editor (Americas), Chris Kjelgaard; regional reporter (Americas), Paul Richfield; and regional editor (Asia), Nicholas Ionides.
Companies or individuals can contact ATI in the Reed Aerospace chalet (A39) at the Paris air show, or as follows: tel: +44 181 652 3859; fax: +44 181 652 3898; e-mail: atisubs@rbi.co.uk
ATI is interested in signing up site licences and multi-user agreements when it launches the live service in the third quarter of this year. It will begin working with a small group of potential customers soon after the Paris show.
Source: Flight International
