American Airlines is thinking about how many new narrow-body aircraft to buy soon and how many to leave to later, to take advantage of new designs from Airbus and Boeing that are expected to enter service around 2015. CEO Gerard Arpey says that if replacements for the current 737 and A320 models offer the same type of cost improvements as promised for the 787, "then obviously that is something that you want to pay a lot of attention to." American is looking for replacements for its MD-80s.
Qantas has handed General Electric an engine deal that may be the biggest of 2007, specifying the company's GEnx for 115 Boeing 787s that it has on order or option. Qantas Chief Financial Officer Peter Gregg says, "The GEnx was chosen because of its superior performance and environmental impact for the type of operation the Group aircraft will perform." CEO Geoff Dixon says the choice between the GEnx and Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 was unusually difficult.
Saudi Arabian low-fare airline SAMA expects to start service this month. The company late last year received its license from Saudi authorities. The carrier will operate Boeing 737-300s.
Russell (Chip) Childs (see photo) has been named president/chief operating officer of SkyWest Airlines, effective Apr. 2. He will succeed Ron Reber, who will remain on the staff. Childs has been vice president/controller. He will be succeeded by Eric Woodward, who has been director of financial planning and analysis.
William Vantine has been appointed president of the Risk and Technology Solutions Div. of the ARES Corp., Burlingame, Calif. He was senior vice president of the Software and Information Technology Solutions Div.
The tempo of the mid-March visit of the Airbus A380 to the U.S. has been doubled by the persistence of Los Angeles officials and Qantas Senior Executive Vice President Wally Mariani, who want to see the big double-decker land at Los Angeles Inter-national, where Qantas will operate it. As a result, two A380s will be dispatch- ed from Toulouse: one from Lufthansa destined for New York's JFK Interna- tional and the other from Qantas for LAX. Both will land Mar. 19.
Airbus will spend the next 18 months or so evaluating technology options before it locks in its A350XWB inflight connectivity offering, but the company has already decided to stick with an evolutionary approach, rather than pursue an aggressive technology leap like the one that caused its rival Boeing to falter.
Joseph J. Ensor (see photos) has been named vice president-surveillance and remote sensing, Douglas J. Norton chief information officer and Teri G. Marconi vice president-combat avionics, all for the Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Baltimore-based Electronic Systems Sector. Ensor was vice president-combat avionics systems, while Norton was director of operations for electronic systems in the Information Technology Sector. Marconi was director of airborne warning systems.
The F-22 fighter's debut in a Red Flag aerial combat training exercise resulted in the first simulated Raptor loss as well-prepared Red Air and international pilots battled high-flying, stealth opponents. The stealth fighters, flown by the least experienced Raptor pilots, used only rudimentary variations on standard tactics, although they should know all the basic attributes of the stealthy jet. The demonstration did not include trials of its most exotic electronic attack capabilities.
The FAA has adopted an airworthiness directive requiring Embraer 170 and 190 operators to inspect pitot drain holes of certain air data smart probes for blockage and remove accumulated moisture from the probes' pneumatic passages. The move is a result of reports of incorrect airspeed indications caused by frozen moisture in the passages that blocked the pitot sensors. An erroneous reading could reduce a crew's ability to control the aircraft.
The Navy still is undecided how to divide its buy of Joint Strike Fighters between the F-35B short-takeoff and F-35C carrier-catapult versions. "Every year we do a balancing act," says Delores Etter, assistant secretary for research, development and acquisition. "Stovl [short-takeoff/vertical landing] on carriers--that's certainly the plan the Marine Corps has at this point. There's a lot of discussion trying to determine the mix . . . and how Stovl is going to be used." Despite the uncertainty, aircraft recapitalization is not being stripped for shipbuilding, she says.
The FAA's financial bind comes as no surprise to this line pilot (AW&ST Feb. 12, p. 28). The featherbedding programs such as dysfunctional ramp controls such as were instituted in Las Vegas a couple of years back show cost is no object.
Loral Space & Communications has raised $300 million through the sale of convertible perpetual preferred stock to affiliates of its largest shareholder, MHR Fund Management. The agreement allows MHR to nominate a new member to Loral's board.
The Pentagon has corralled the last of its F-35 Joint Strike Fighter partner nations--Denmark--into joining the production and support phase of the program, less than three months after the intended target date.
If initial flight tests scheduled this month for the Civil Aircraft Missile Protection System are successful, they could herald a technology to protect aircraft against terrorist-launched infrared guided missiles, according to developers.
Bill Reznicek has become chief financial officer of First Aviation Services Inc., Westport, Conn. He was vice president-finance and information technology for the Lancaster Colony Automotive Products Div. of the Rubber Queen Corp.
The upcoming Fiscal 2009 budget will emphasize sizing the U.S. Navy's future aviation force, according to the new chief of Naval Air Systems Command. This could allow the service to begin recovering from deep cuts to aircraft programs included in the Fiscal 2008 budget now under consideration by Congress. The Navy chose in this year's budget proposal to stabilize its shipbuilding program, which drove the reduction of planned airframe purchases to 188 from 199 in Fiscal 2008. Out-year spending plans predict even further cuts through Fiscal 2011.
USAF Col. (ret.) Eileen Collins, former NASA space shuttle commander, has been named to receive the Douglas S. Morrow Public Outreach Award from the Colorado Springs-based Space Foundation. She will be cited for using her achievements to help promote "greater interest in the space program and encourage students to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math."
Schweizer Aircraft Corp. has delivered its 6,000th aircraft--a Model 300CBi helicopter--to a commercial customer. Of the aircraft produced since the company began 70 years ago, more than 1,000 have been rotorcraft. The balance includes sailplanes, special mission, fixed-wing (manned and unmanned) and agricultural aircraft. Schweizer became a subsidiary of Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. in 2004. It now sells three commercial helicopters--the 300CTM, 300 CBi and the turbine-powered 333TM.
In July, the FAA is expected to award one of three vendors--ITT, Raytheon or Lockheed Martin--the contract to build ground infrastructure and provide broadcast services for the Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) system. The FAA Joint Resources Council on Feb. 21 approved funding for this second phase of ADS-B implementation, from 2009 to 2014, and named the trio of qualified vendors. The FAA considers ADS-B the foundation of the Next-Generation Air Transportation System, which will transition from ground-based radars to the satellite-based system.
Airline insurance premiums have continued to fall and will likely remain low for the foreseeable months, according to risk management service provider AON. For 2006, the airline insurance market dropped below $2 billion for the first time since 2000. The last quarter accelerated the decline. The hull and liability insurance market was on track to fall 7% compared to 2005 through September, but came in 17% lower as increased insurance capacity and industry safety performance drove premium prices down.
The Iceland-based FL Group investment company has boosted its stake in American Airlines parent AMR to 8.63%. The group said in December it had bought shares totaling almost 6%. The company last year disposed of its holdings in Icelandair, EasyJet and Sterling. At the end of last year, the group had about 21.5% of its roughly $4 billion investments in aviation.
The U.S. Air Force expects to finish two upgrades to its Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (Joint Stars) this month to improve operations with ground troops in Iraq. The first improvements will allow E-8C operators to communicate with others on a secret network while in flight via e-mail and through classified chat rooms, according to Col. Michael Graham, Joint Stars program manager at Hanscom AFB, Mass.
