Systems & interiors – Page 919
-
News
Satellite-navigation-approach first for Alaska Airlines 737-400
AN ALASKA AIRLINES Boeing 737-400 has been flown successfully on satellite-navigation (satnav)-based instrument approaches to a 300ft (90m) decision height at Juneau, Alaska without using any ground-based navigation aids. The pioneering flight was undertaken by Boeing and Smiths Industries as a proof-of-concept demonstration to the US Federal Aviation ...
-
News
Monarch to take on Alitalia leases
Gnter Endres/LONDON MONARCH AIRLINES is on the verge of taking over the contentious wet-leased Boeing 767-300ER operation, now provided by Ansett Worldwide Aviation Services on behalf of Alitalia. The new deal is an extension of a long-standing agreement between Monarch and Ansett, under which the UK ...
-
News
Collins and Dassault team up on GCAS
ROCKWELL-COLLINS has linked with Dassault Electronique of France to develop a ground-collision avoidance system (GCAS). Airbus Industrie will flight-test a "red-label" prototype of the Dassault unit in late 1995, in an A319, and the system is to enter service with Air Inter in early 1997. Rockwell's Collins Commercial ...
-
News
Clearing the cost block
Continental Airlines' president, Gordon Bethune, says the airline must focus on revenue gains rather than cost cuts, and must improve its poor reputation. Mark Odell reports from Houston.Gordon Bethune, the president and chief executive of Continental Airlines, doesn't mince his words. His energetic and hands-on management style has ripped ...
-
News
Boom conditions shift to slowdown
It was only 12 short months ago that the global financial markets were gripped by fear of overheating and inflation. Robust economic growth, particularly in the United States where output soared to 4.7 per cent in 1994, sent the yields on government bonds round the world sharply higher and the ...
-
News
Taiwan takes direct route
Conceding the inevitable, Taiwan has taken the first fateful steps that could lead to direct air links to China within two years. But Beijing's willingness to facilitate such flights will depend on whether CAAC pragmatists prevail over policy ideologues who hope to capitalise on Taipei's recognition that direct links are ...
-
News
Phone-in plan riles agents
Japan's travel agents are up in arms over a new ticketing drive by the country's major airlines which allows domestic travellers to bypass agents by ordering airline tickets directly over the telephone and paying by credit card. Initiated by the country's biggest carrier All Nippon Airways in April, ...
-
News
Qantas all set to float
With its long awaited A$2 billion (US$1.4 billion) public flotation now in sight, Qantas has taken steps to reassure prospective local investors that privatisation is not a step on the way to integration with 25 per cent stockholder British Airways, and that the company remains committed to European markets. ...
-
News
Ghosts, phantoms and funnel flights
Some airlines are manipulating schedules to get improved marketing visibility.When is a new route not a new route? Answer: When it's a codeshare, funnel flight, ghost flight, change of gauge, or yet another figment of a marketing executive's fertile imagination. The intention behind the survey of new route developments in ...
-
News
Euro pilots strike out
Continuing management efforts to cut the European majors' operating costs are resulting in clashes with pilots at KLM, SAS and Alitalia. If pilots do not concede the need to reduce costs, carriers may seek alternatives. KLM is insisting on a longterm programme to cut its aircrew costs, which ...
-
News
Rotary researches
Eurocopter believes that helicopter technology could develop dramatically over the next decade. Andrzej Jeziorski/MUNICH Although ancient toys and drawings show that the basic principle of rotary-wing aircraft dates back centuries, the history of the helicopter as a useful flying machine is generally thought to have ...
-
News
Back to break-even
The world airline industry ended 1994 close to break-even, but cost of reduction is still top of the agenda. Kevin O'Toole/LONDON At times, it seemed that it would never happen, but the world airline industry at last appears to have ended its record run of ...
-
News
Fokker reveals regional-twinjet configuration
FOKKER HAS revealed the configuration of the new 120-seat regional twinjet it is now studying with Daimler-Benz Aerospace (DASA), Aviation Industries of China and South Korea's Samsung. The Dutch manufacturer says that the aircraft would supplement the lower end of the Airbus family and the upper end of ...
-
News
FAA approves FANS-1 package
THE US FEDERAL Aviation Administration has issued a formal type certificate for Boeing's future air-navigation system (FANS-1) installation package for Rolls-Royce-powered Boeing 747-400s. The system provides for automatic position reporting and other operational communication by satellite from anywhere in the world. The FANS-1 incorporates a comprehensive flight-management-system ...
-
News
IATA forecasts record airline profits
Kevin O'Toole/GENEVA THE international airline industry could be on course to turn in the highest profits in its history if over-capacity continues to decline, according to predictions from the International Air Transport Association (IATA). IATA estimates that its members made a net profit of $1.8 ...
-
News
Spectrum
Steve Tanner has become president of Spectrum Aviation Management, of Austin, Texas, a specialist in aeromedical design and interior helicopter-completion services. In the industry for 20 years, Tanner spent five years as helicopter marketing manager of Austin Jet Helicopters. Source: Flight International
-
News
Slow progress
Progress towards achieving a US/Russian bilateral airworthiness agreement remains slow. Ramon Lopez/WASHINGTON DC THE USA AND RUSSIA will break no speed records in their marathon efforts to complete a bilateral airworthiness agreement, say US aviation officials involved in the negotiations. While some progress is reported ...
-
News
United trials ERS
For One-Step FANS UNITED AIRLINES has begun a six-month evaluation of a computer-based electronic-resource system (ERS), developed by Minnesota-based Computing Devices International, on 5 June. The ERS, fitted to a McDonnell Douglas DC-10, is "basically the pilot's interface to the FANS [Future Air Navigation System]," says ...
-
News
GE confident of fan blade answer
Graham Warwick/PARIS GENERAL ELECTRIC Aircraft Engines has developed a solution to the fan-blade failure which has grounded GE90-powered Boeing 777 flight-test aircraft (Flight International, 14-20 June, P4). GE has until mid-July to restage the 3.6kg birdstrike test successfully, if Boeing is to deliver the first GE90-powered 777 ...
-
News
Eurocopter's new EC120 under test
Andrzej Jeziorski/PARIS Franco-German helicopter manufacturer Eurocopter has successfully completed the first flight of the EC 120 light helicopter. A 20min flight was performed on 9 June from Eurocopter's Marignane site in France, with test pilot Etienne Herrenschmidt and engineer Bernard Cortain at the controls. The EC120 ...