The first Engine Alliance GP7200-powered A380 completed its initial test flight Friday, returning to Toulouse after flying over southern France for 4 hr. 10 min. Engine Alliance, the GE/Pratt & Whitney joint venture, delivered the GP7200s in autumn 2005 but production delays not associated with the engines pushed back the first test flight several months. It becomes the fifth A380 in Airbus's test fleet following four Trent 900-powered aircraft.
Shanghai Airlines on Friday chose GEnx engines to power nine 787s to be delivered beginning in June 2008. Value of the order is estimated at $220 million.
Air New Zealand described its full-year result as "solid" in a "challenging environment," with a net profit decline of 48% to NZ$97 million ($61.7 million) for the year ended June 30 from NZ$180 million in the prior year. Chairman John Palmer said, "We clearly acknowledge this is not the result we would have liked to have achieved at the end of the financial year. But given the extraordinarily challenging business environment the airline is operating in, this is a respectable result."
Ryanair followed through on its threat Friday and submitted a claim for compensation worth just over £3 million ($5.7 million) to the UK Dept. for Transport.
ABX Air, which was Innovative Solutions & Support's first customer for its Flat Panel Display System retrofit on the 767, announced Friday that the two companies will partner in developing and installing a system on a 767-200ER belonging to an unidentified third party. ABX holds a supplemental type certificate for the work, which is scheduled to be completed in the first quarter of 2007. IS&S announced development of an FPDS for the 737-300/-400/-500 at the Farnborough Air Show ( ATWOnline, July 20).
Sterling Airlines will launch six-times-weekly London Gatwick-Aalborg service on Sept. 18 with 737-500s/-700s. Air Baltic will start thrice-weekly Riga-Zurich flights from Oct. 29 aboard 737-500s. It will be the 34th destination it serves directly from Riga.
Saudi Arabia's General Authority for Civil Aviation confirmed that six companies are pursuing licenses to operate as commercial air carriers as part of the drive to liberalize air transport in the kingdom. Two are low-fare startup Sama and business and corporate transport specialist National Air Services. GACA identified the remaining four as travel group Al-Tayar, the Al-Mamlaka company operating as Burj Airlines, Petrogal operating as Al-Watan Airlines and the Saudi Ikhwan trading company. Application evaluation will continue until Sept. 30 with a decision scheduled by year end.
Delta Air Lines said it received US Dept. of Transportation permission to begin selling seats on its daily New York JFK-London Gatwick service scheduled to begin Nov. 15. Delta purchased the route authority from United Airlines last month ( ATWOnline, July 31). Final government approval is expected "within the next few weeks," DL said. It plans to add a second daily flight May 1.
US Transportation Security Administration said there has been a 20% increase in checked baggage since it banned liquids and gels from carry-on bags on Aug. 10, but insisted there is "no negative impact" and "no flight delays" as a result of the higher volume. TSA head Kip Hawley said the agency is "paying close attention so the system doesn't become overwhelmed."
Bmi faces pilot strikes following a vote by British Airline Pilots Assn. members who fly for the mainline, bmi regional and bmibaby units. Mainline pilots approved strike action by an 89%-11% margin while 86% of regional pilots voted to strike, according to results released yesterday. Bmibaby pilots were balloted last week, with 73% voting to strike. The airline had said that just 47% of bmibaby pilots favored a work stoppage, but the union contradicted that figure yesterday.
Regional Express of Australia pulled the plug on its previously announced plans to acquire Brisbane-based Sunshine Express ( ATWOnline, Aug. 16). Rex MD Geoff Breust said that Sunshine came up with new, last-minute conditions that were "not acceptable" to the company or its shareholders. "We extend our best wishes to Sunshine Express and hope that its management and owners are able to overcome its current difficulties," Breust said.
Oasis Hong Kong Airlines, a startup slated to launch in October, yesterday selected PAM (Oasis) Ltd. to establish, operate and maintain its Hong Kong-based call center.
Sun-Air of Scandinavia, a Danish British Airways franchise carrier, reached an agreement to acquire three previously owned Dornier 328JETs. Two will be configured with 32 seats and the third will be fitted with a VIP layout. The first will be delivered in October, with the others expected to enter service in December and January.
Taiwan's China Airlines lost TWD257.1 million ($7.8 million) in the second quarter, double its TWD124.1 million loss in the year-ago quarter, according to a filing with the Taiwan stock exchange cited by the Associated Press in Taipei. Revenues climbed 12% to TWD28.86 billion, but "oil remained our main problem in the second quarter, with fuel accounting for over 40% of costs," a spokesperson said.
SITA and SIIC Shanghai International Trade Co. were awarded a four-year, $8 million contract to equip Shanghai Pudong's new Terminal 2, scheduled to open next year, with integrated airport management systems including SITA's Common Use Terminal Equipment passenger check-in system and BagManager baggage system.
Delta Air Lines said it is using a new decision support tool called Attila that allows it to manage landings in Atlanta better during congested periods. The program sends information from Delta's operations control center to cockpits to provide pilots with coordinated speed adjustments so landings are more evenly spaced.
Lufthansa will launch services from Hamburg to Moscow Sheremetyevo (four-times-weekly from Oct. 30), Geneva (daily from Oct. 29), Innsbruck (twice-weekly from Dec. 21) and Palma (thrice-weekly from Feb. 17). Frontier Airlines will launch Saturday Kansas City-Cabo San Lucas service on Dec. 16. Germanwings will add a fourth daily Cologne-Berlin Schoenefeld flight on Oct. 30. Qantas and Air China reached a codeshare agreement effective Sept. 15 that will see Air China place its code on Qantas's thrice-weekly Sydney-Beijing flights.
Sabre Airline Solutions signed a five-year contract with Russian airline KDAvia to upgrade the carrier's operational and decision-support technology. Separately, Eos Airlines signed a deal to implement a suite of Sabre software solutions.
Yemenia Yemen Airways secured European Aviation Safety Agency Part 145 certification for services provided by its maintenance and engineering division. The airline will offer heavy MRO and checks on A330-200s, A310-300s, 737-200s, 737-800s and 727-200s in its own fleet as well for third parties.
EasyJet is launching a base at Madrid Barajas, its 17th, and said operations will start Feb. 16 with several new routes, details of which will be announced next month and will include domestic services. "Spain has been a key market for easyJet for the past 10 years and the new base will take our commitment to a completely new level. While Madrid is one of Europe's largest and most important capital cities, it is still underserved by low-fares airlines," CEO Andy Harrison said.
Dutch authorities yesterday released all 12 passengers detained Wednesday after a Northwest Airlines DC-10-30 bound for Mumbai abruptly returned to Amsterdam ( ATWOnline, Aug. 24). US air marshals onboard the flight thought the 12 male Indian citizens aged 25-35, reportedly dressed in traditional South Asian clothing, were acting in a suspicious manner. The plane returned to Schiphol accompanied by Dutch fighter jets shortly after departure.
