The Italian government needs to find out in the next few weeks who is really interested in buying Alitalia, after a total of 11 bidders signed up in the first round of the airline's sale.
Lars Persson has been appointed president/CEO of the Swedish Space Corp., effective Feb. 16. He has been CEO of Marratech AB and will succeed Claes-Goran Borg, who will be retiring.
The recent article entitled "Flight 5191's Legacy" (AW&ST Jan. 22, p. 38) highlights a simple but profound improvement to the airfield Notam system. Human factors theory concerning pilot situational awareness identifies three fundamental processes: perception (information input), cognition (thinking) and projection (staying ahead of the situation). The Jan. 9 advisory issued by the FAA Airport Safety and Operations Div., AAS-300, offers the means for an effective perceptual improvement for pilots by simply updating the format of an airfield Notam:
The U.S. Army has ordered five additional Aviation Combined Arms Tactical Trainers to supplement 15 in service. Initial delivery is scheduled for December of this year, with the remainder occurring every two months. Four of the units will be delivered to U.S. Army Reserve Component training sites, while a fifth will be installed at a joint-use active Army Reserve location, according to Link Simulation and Training. The simulators represent AH-64A/D, OH-58D, UH-60A/L and CH-47D helicopters.
If you liked the partisan bickering that marked the 109th Congress, you'll love what's coming this year, says Stanley Collender, a former Budget Committee staffer in both the House and Senate. Even though the Democrats have taken control of both houses, their majority is razor-thin, especially in the Senate. And that's likely to lead to more partisanship--not less--going into a presidential and congressional election cycle, says Collender, now managing director of Qorvis Communications. He says there's no consensus in Congress or the administration about the budget.
Sea Launch reports "limited" damage to its Odyssey Launch Platform after a Zenit-3SL booster exploded seconds after ignition as it was trying to lift the SES New Skies NSS-8 satellite into orbit.
Baby boomers are retiring, the professional pilot pool is rapidly draining, and world traffic growth is increasing. What to do? Industry has launched fast-track programs to meet world demand for pilots and maintenance technicians.
Investigators working for NASA's inspector general have confiscated computers and interviewed political appointees in the agency's public affairs shop as a congressionally requested probe into political spinning of government-funded climate-change research results comes to a head. Among those who have had to turn over their laptops to the IG's gumshoes is Dean Acosta, Administrator Michael Griffin's former press secretary, who has since left the agency.
Bombardier still can't attract a launch customer for its proposed C-Series, despite updating its design for the 110-130-seat aircraft with composites and new engine technology. The Canadian aircraft builder last week again postponed a launch decision for at least two months. JPMorgan analyst Joseph B.
Senior Editor Craig Covault (right) interviews Peter Harvey, the Themis project manager from the University of California at Berkeley, in the Astrotech commercial space processing clean room at Cape Canaveral. The five NASA/Swales Aerospace Themis spacecraft are in the background, being prepared for launch on a United Launch Alliance Delta II on Feb. 15 on one of the most complex smallsat missions ever flown (see story, p. 26). A control center at Berkeley will maneuver Themis into a line stretching halfway to the Moon to obtain data on Earth's auroras.
Resurgent EADS/Socata is predicting strong growth again this year, driven by the popularity of its new TBM 850 turboprop single and high demand for aerostructures.
Cathay Pacific Airways is adding 11 weekly flights to its European freight services. They will begin this month and operate from Hong Kong to Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Manchester.
Lexington (Ky.) Blue Grass Airport, among the first in the U.S. to install an in-line baggage screening system, next month will add the capability to conduct 100% inspection of cargo. The airport is procuring a vertical sorting unit that will allow cargo to be fed onto a conveyor belt linked to the existing in-line system. The $200,000 price will include the cost of the sorting unit, facility modifications and installation.
The South Korean government has suspended two Asiana Airlines pilots for deliberately flying into a hailstorm that broke their aircraft's windshield and nose cone. Other pilots who detected the June 9 storm returned to their origin airports. The government also plans to add domestic airlines to a safety watch list originally intended to cover only foreign carriers with a history of dangerous flying.
Michael Moore has been appointed vice president-operations and program management at Landmark Aviation's Associated Air Center, Dallas Love Field, James Wilson general manager of Landmark's operation at Dulles, Va., and Kerry Trosper general manager of the fixed-base operation at Wichita Falls, Tex. Moore was vice president/general manager of Timco Aviation Services. Wilson was a regional sales manager for Landmark's aircraft charter and management business, while Trosper was line service manager at Kerrville (Tex.) Aviation.
Singapore's Changi Airports International is branching out into China by buying a 29% stake in Nanjing Lukou International Airport. The private-equity investment is the first in China by a foreign airport operator, says Changi, a government-owned company that runs Singapore's airport. Nanjing Lukou handled 6.27 million passengers last year, 16.4% more than in 2005. Changi has stakes in airports in Costa Rica, Peru and Netherlands Antilles.
Dire warnings of an aerospace brain drain have been issued for so many years that it's easy to tune them out. Four years ago, a presidential commission predicted a "devastating loss of skill, experience and intellectual capital." Across the U.S., CEOs say the industry is not attracting nearly enough young engineers to replace the baby boomers that will start retiring in large numbers in the next few years. This magazine sounded the alarm in 1999, then 2000 and again in 2003.
Thai Airways International says it's likely to buy eight A330-300s that Airbus is offering at $90 million each as compensation for A380 delays. But the airline still isn't satisfied with the rest of the compensation package--$28 million in cash. Chairman Chalit Pukbhasuk says the price on the A330s represents a special discount of $10 million. Thai is interested in the offer because it needs 24 new aircraft within the next five years. It says that it will probably also take options on another four of the cheap A330s.
When Boeing takes an order for a new passenger airplane, several years can transpire before deliveries are made and payments are collected. Based on that model, the company's 2006 financial results should just be the start of a long run of growth. Revenues in Boeing's Commercial Airplanes unit rose 33% last year to $28.4 billion, and operating profit soared 91% to $2.7 billion, as the first benefits of an order surge that began in 2005 began to hit the bottom line. And there's much more to come.
Etihad Airways will start Airbus A340-500 services between Sydney and Abu Dhabi, its home base, Mar. 26, aiming to connect the Australian city with European and Middle Eastern destinations that Qantas doesn't serve. The announcement comes only three weeks after Canberra granted permission to the United Arab Emirates carrier to join the heavily contested Australian international market.
Kenneth J. Binder has been promoted to executive vice president/chief financial officer from senior vice president-finance/acting CFO of the New York-based Sequa Corp. Leonard P. Pasculli has become vice president-human resources and James P. Langelotti vice president/treasurer. Langelotti was assistant treasurer and succeeds Kenneth A. Drucker, who has retired. Gail Binderman has been named to the board of directors. She is director of corporate strategy and development and an investment officer of the Ampacet Corp.
Kongsberg Defense & Aerospace and Lockheed Martin have signed a joint marketing agreement for an air-launched version of the Norwegian company's Naval Strike Missile (NSM). Designated the Joint Strike Missile (JSM), the new weapon will be adapted for deployment by Lockheed Martin's F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), including carriage in its internal weapons bay. Kongsberg says it will take "three years to reach the technological maturity required for the missile to be an option for deployment on the JSF."
Steve Fossett--holder of numerous aviation world records in balloons, gliders, airships and powered aircraft--and four other "legends of flight" will be enshrined in the National Aviation Hall of Fame, Dayton, Ohio, on July 21. The others are: Walter J. Boyne, former director of the Smithsonian Institution's Air and Space Museum, aviation historian and author; Evelyn Bryan Johnson, a flight instructor who has logged more flight hours, trained more pilots and given more FAA exams than any other pilot; Sally K.
