News

News for the 24th of June

todays news is extra long because I haven't had time to post. Enjoy :)
Plane catches fire with Saudi Arabian football team onboard
An Airbus A319 operated by Russian airline Rossiya and was carrying the Saudi Arabian team (presumably to a game for the 2018 world cup) when the right engine caught fire and the plane safely diverted and performed an emergency landing at Rostov-On-Don Airport.

Lufthansa A340 severely burnt in tug fire
A Lufthansa Airbus A340 was on a tug at Frankfurt Int'l when the tug caught fire and burnt through the under part of the nose leaving and leaving large smoke contamination. Smoke also entered the cabin, however, no-one was hurt.
Passengers suing Southwest
8 passengers who were onboard Southwest Flight 1380, are suing Southwest because of 'improper and outdated maintenance'. The Boeing 737 (B737) was flying mid-air when its engines blew apart, shooting shrapnel everywhere and breaking a window, which killed Jennifer Riordan. The case is now being taken to the supreme court in New York.
Silk Air to transfer 737's to Scoot
Singaporean Airline 'Silk Air' will transfer some of it's Boeing 737's to other Singaporean Airline 'Scoot' as part of Singapore Airlines' eventual merger of the 2 Airlines, which are both owned by SIA, by the year 2020. Silk Air currently operates 22 737's of which includes 5 737 Max 8's and 17 737-800's and 12 Airbus A320 Family Aircraft, which are soon to be phased out, which in my mind is a very good strategy/very good way to merge the 2 airlines.
Airbus threatens to cut 14,000 jobs in the UK
European aircraft manufacturer 'Airbus' has threatened to leave the UK if the UK decides to leave the EU Customs Union as well. UK Prime Minister Theresa May said they can leave EU but stay in the Customs part of it or work out a way to 'make it un-noticeable', but if that doesn't happen then Airbus will leave the UK meaning up-to 14,000 job cuts.
First plane lands at new Istanbul Mega Airport
On June 24th the Turkish president landed in his Presidential A319 at Istanbul's New 'Mega Airport' today making his aircraft the first ever to land there. The President appointed the construction a few years ago when he saw a lack of capacity with the current 2 airports but this man must have done his research because it has been worked out that a Boeing 777-200lr could get to just about every major airport in the world thanks to its geographical location. The airport hasn't officially opened yet as it is scheduled to open on the 28th of October but it will only be in 2023 when it will be fully completed and will be able to handle as much as 200 MILLION + passengers EVERY YEAR. It will also have a cargo terminal which will eventually be able to 'facilitate as much as a FedEx superhub' though I think the president may have had his hopes up just a little.
RR Announces 4,600 job cuts
Rolls Royce Engines will be cutting around 4,600 jobs in the near future to try and get a steady profit as the past few years haven't been profitable. RR says the 4,600 jobs weren't really needed and could easily be shared between existing workers. Most of the cuts will happen in their historical Derby location with 10% of jobs being lost there. Most of the losses came from the Trent 1000 engine problems and it has estimated the total scenario has cost RR and airlines a total of $1 Billion.

Orders And Deliveries

This week we've had enough orders and deliveries to do a full segment
Iberia receives first of 20 A320neo and A321neo aircraft
Iberia has recently received their first Airbus A320neo. They have so far ordered 16 A320neo and 4 A321neo as well as 7 A320-200 aircraft. These will likely be shared between the IAG company
Avion express takes delivery of 3 new A320
Lithuanian Airline; Avion Express has received 3 dry-leased A320 which now brings the total number of A320 family aircraft to 18
Jazeera Airways receives its first A320neo
Kuwait Carrier; Jazeera Airways has received its first, of 3, A320neo or 8th total A320 in the fleet. There are 2 A320-200 and 2 A320neo on order at the moment
Easy Jet receives 300th A320
A few days ago, British/EU Low-Cost Carrier received its 300th aircraft, an Airbus A320. Following the delivery, they have announced a new route which it will be used on, a Berlin Tegel and Cologne-Bonn Airport
Jet Airways order totals 225
Indian carrier Jet Airways has recently ordered 75 737 max aircraft bringing the total order to 225 aircraft along with 10 787-9 aircraft. The 737 max' aircraft will replace the current 737-900's.
FedEx order 24 new aircraft
FedEx announced this week that they have made a purchase for 12 767 freighter planes and 12 777 freighter planes as they start modernising their fleet. The 767's are to replace the A300's and MD-10. FedEx has got a very good system in terms of efficiency and cost. Here is a great video which explains the logistics of FedEx's fast overnight shipping: https://youtu.be/y3qfeoqErtY
Aegean Airlines order 30 A320neo family aircraft
Greek carrier Aegean Airlines has placed an order for 20 A321neo' and 10 A320neo' aircraft. Aegean currently operate 37 A320', 11 A321' and 1 A319.

News, Monday 11th of June

Air New Zealand to lease A340
Air New Zealand has had to lease an Airbus A340 because of the latest 787 engine problems. The 1 A340 will be leased from Portuguese carrier Hi-Fly. It is not known how long it is being leased.
Emirates wanting windowless planes
UAE carrier Emirates is wanting new windowless planes in the future. Doing this would have several benefits such as better views and larger windows you could also have a window row which means that rather than having, for example, 10 windows and 15 rows which would mean that not every row gets a window but with the virtual windows you can do as many windows as you want. having windowless planes could also go faster and be more efficient and no doubt could probably go higher. Another benefit and certainly most important is that not having windows would mean less fatigue and stress on the metals in which the aircraft is made which is a lot safer. There have been many incidents in which metal fatigue has played a big role in the crash of an aircraft. The windows have already been installed on the centre first-class cabins onboard the 777 but Emirates wants it on all aircraft in all seats on all cabins. Emirates is (in my opinion) likely to start talks with Airbus and Boeing sometime soon.
Heathrow have thoughts to build a new runway
London Heathrow is one of the busiest airports in the world yet they only have 2 runways meanwhile other airports with similar movements have more runways, Atlanta (5), Pris CDG (4), LAX (4) and Schiphol (6). So they recently announced a vote is being done to see if a third runway could be built. The vote will be done by MP's in the UK.
A380's to head to scrapyard
Airbus is considering sending some A380's to a scrapyard after many have just been sitting around doing nothing but in a final effort to get rid of them without heading to the scraps' negotiations were started with British Airways, Iran Air and Hi-Fly although Iran Air couldn't take due to the latest political problems, Hi-Fly had 'failed to produce a convincing business case' and BA would only take once the current 747's left the fleet in 2021 so unless another airline steps up the 2 used A380's are going to scrap.

Thank you for coming, in case you were wondering the reason I haven't been uploading is because we have a new teacher and she hasn't let us do our blog as much.

News, 28th of May 2018

Search for MH370 to end tomorrow
Malaysian Airlines MH370 went missing on March 2014 and has since been considered aviation's greatest mystery, possibly the world's greatest, and searching for the missing 777 will stop on the 29th, tomorrow.
North Korea to open airspace to South Korea
While it hasn't officially been announced, North Korea has considered, and will likely, allow for South Korean aircraft to fly over NK's capital, Pyongyang. Doing this doesn't seem like a big deal but doing so has been worked out to save up to $14 Billion in fuel a year by having more-direct route to places like Russia, so when this will happen is not yet known but you can expect it to be some time in the near future.
Service dog gives birth just before flight
A service dog was ready to take-off with her owner at Tampa Airport when the 'yellow Labrador' named Eleanor, Ellie for short, went into labor and gave birth to 8 puppies, they later boarded a different flight safely.
What's the cheapest airline?
A recent test by Rome2Rio tested all major airlines and tested the cheapest by timesing the cost by km's of travel.

5. IndiGo, tied with Etihad, Ryanair, Qantas, WOW air, Virgin Australia, Oman Air, Jet Airways, and Air India all with the same cost of $0.1/km

4. Primera Air $0.09/km

3, tied, Air Asia Indonesia, and Air India Express $0.08/km

1. Air Asia X $0.07/km
Possible agreement between AA and Latam
The go-ahead for a partnership between American Airlines and Latam would likely happen by the end of the year. They first needed to make sure it was alright with (I think) officials (for some reason) and they also have permission from Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, and Brazil.
Thanks for coming this week, For your information I won't be posting on Tuesday or Wednesday as I want to focus on a different post that I know you'll love, but that doesn't mean great aviation entertainment has to stop, you can check out my friend Harison's blog, Planes 2018

News, Thursday the 24th of May

Sudia A330 makes an emergency gear-up landing

A Saudia flight SV3818 was en route to Dhaka from Madinah with 141 passengers and 10 crew when the pilots made the decision to divert to Jeddah when they found out about a problem with the hydraulics in the nose landing gear. Soon after the Airbus A330 landed safely and everybody onboard evacuated safely with no-one hurt, except for the aircraft of course.

WHY
Tesla Model X tows Qantas 787
On a remote taxiway in Melbourne Tesla brought their Model X P100d and pulled a Qantas 787 and while it may not have been very fast it is still quite impressive coming from an electric car, although you do have to consider that the 787 is a relatively light aircraft being made of mostly a carbon fibre and plastic composite.

Worlds shortest jet flight launched
Aruban airline, Aruba, has launched what some say is 'the worlds shortest jet flight'. The route goes between Aruba and Punto Fijo and will be served by a Bombardier CRJ-200 and ironically is the longer range version of this aircraft. The 2 airports are less than 100 kilometres away and the total journey will take around 8 minutes.
American Airlines to increase operations at DFW and CLT
American Airlines has said they will focus more on and increase operations at Dallas Fort Worth Int'l and Charlotte Douglas Int'l because of lower gate prices (compared to other airports that AA operates at) and relatively little competition.

News for Monday the 21st of May
Breaking News: more than 100 dead in Cuban Plane crash
News has come after a Boeing 737 operated by Cubana has crashed shortly after take-off in Havana, Cuba. The aircraft was a wet-lease Boeing 737-400*, built in 1992, was leased from an Italian airline, was taking off at Havana Jose Marti International Airport en route to Cayo Coco and had 104 passengers aboard when it 'exploded' just right of rwy 24/left of 06. The news is still developing so we will leave any further updates until we can confirm key information about the crash.
Airspace closed for 15minutes during Royal Wedding
ATC had stopped any aircraft flying over Windsor castle, which is in the approach path (obviously depending on wind direction) of London Heathrow Airport. It was closed for 15 minutes while the vows were being said.
Faa approves for 777x folding winglets
The Federal Aviation Administration (The FAA) has approved for folding winglets on the Boeing 777x. They did have some concerns about it possibly folding mid-flight but Boeing proved that it is near-impossible for that to happen. The FAA did also state that there had to be systems to stop pilots from taking-off with the winglets extended. Photo: Wikipedia

Air Italy receives 2 new aircraft
Last week Air Italy had received its first of 20 737 Max 8s and this week it received its first of 5 A330'. Air Italy is not a new airline, it's just a new re-brand of Meridiana after Qatar took a 49% stake in the company. They currently have 8 other 737 (-700 and -800 versions) which will be replaced by Max 8's as well as 3 767-300's which will be phased out by 30 787's which are on order.

News Thursday the 17 of May

Sichuan Airlines A319 loses windshield mid-flight
A Sichuan Airlines Airbus A319, registration B-6433, had reached its cruising altitude of 32,000 feet  en route to Lhasa and had reached Chengdu airspace when its right windshield separated from its housing causing significant damage to the cockpit, as well, causing a de-pressurization and causing the First officer to be sucked out from the waist up, luckily able to come back in and help land the plane safely at Chengdu International Airport. Fortunately, there were no fatalities and the only significant injuries were from the first officer. The incident is currently being investigated but so far it has been found that the windshield was faulty but was never replaced. Subscribe to stay updated.
EU caught illegally paying Airbus
The European Union has been caught by Boeing illegally paying Airbus billions after being told to stop back in 2016. The EU had been paying aid to the A350 and A380 program. What will happen to the airline will be decided by an independent company, from what I understand. View the article here. Subscribe to keep updated.
Japan Airlines will launch new low-cost carrier
Japan Airlines has plans to launch a new low-cost carrier that will commence operations around 2020. Its destinations will likely include Japan, Asia and possibly The US. They haven't yet said what it will be called or what fleet it will have but it will likely operate 787's. The reason for launching this is likely because of ANA's merging of their 2 Low-cost carriers, Vanilla Air and Peach Aviation by 2020.
New Low-cost carrier for Canada
WestJet has recently launched a new Ultra-Low cost carrier called Swoop. It recently received its first-of-six Boeing 737-800 (B738). They currently have 5 destinations including John C Munro Hamilton Int'l (hub), Halifax Stanfield Int'l, Edmonton Int'l, Abbotsford Int'l and Winnipeg James Armstrong Richardson Int'l. They plan to be the biggest and cheapest ULCC in Canada.
Spirit installs wifi on their planes
American low-cost carrier Spirit has announced they will apply internet to their 119 A320's by late summer 2019 (winter in NZ). They have been working out how to apply it with their low-cost structure. It will cost around US $6.50 to access it. It will take Spirit some time to market it but could work as many people who travel on Spirit are businessmen so they may invest just a little to roam. We'll have to wait and see I guess.

News Monday the 14th of May

Breaking news: Two planes collide on ground
An Asiana Airbus A330 had struck its wing with a Turkish A321's tail while taxiing at Istanbul airport. The A321 looked to have been parked back from the gate while waiting for ground personnel to guide them to the proper position, however, this is still been investigated and we'll get back to you when we have more information. To view the video click here 
 
BA to cancel routes
British Airways has had to cancel routes, particularly the London to Abu Dhabi route, due to Trent 1000 engine problems with the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. The reason the London to Abu Dhabi route is such a big problem is that it comes just as Ramadan starts, a Muslim celebration/holiday, which not only means a loss to business but, it also means that many people have been left stranded. One way BA has tried to solve this is by offering a stop-over in Bahrain, however, that would cost passengers almost 3 times more than a direct service, so, BA has also wet-lease (article coming soon on aircraft leasing) 3 planes from Qatar Airways to lessen the shortage.
Malaysian airports to sue Air Asia X
Air Asia X has been sued by Malaysia Airports (officially operating as Malaysia Airports Holding Berhad), a company that manages most of the airports in Malaysia after they failed to pay a sum total to more than $8.8 million in general cost to run the airport. Air Asia, the parent company of Air Asia X, had sued Malaysia Airports after a fuel pipe burst in a terminal causing damage to planes. Of course, $9 million isn't going to have any major effects on the airline.
New Taiwanese airline announced
A new airline is coming to Taiwan! The Airline will be called Starlux and will focus on a luxury experience. They so far have ordered 10 Airbus A321neo' which will be delivered in late 2019 before they commence operations in January 2020, they may also choose some widebody aircraft, likely a 787, A350 or 777x. They will have many destinations across Asia including Korea, Japan and obviously Taiwan. In my opinion, it will be a success, despite being a luxury airliner, I think it will attract many businessmen from across S.E. Asia and possibly beyond.

News 11 of May 2018

Etihad has loss of US $2Billion
UAE Airline Etihad has made a loss to the total of US$2Billion after investing in Alitalia (Which has long failed) and Air Berlin (which ceased operations in 2017) and may have to cancel orders or delay deliveries of its 166 planes including 62 A350's, 52 787's, 26 777's (including 1 cargo) and 26 A321neo's. They ordered these after Qatar and Emirates started expanding hugely and Etihad had no over choice but to keep competitive and as well as purchasing lots of aircraft they started dumping routes and operating others less-frequently so they are now re-considering their strategy. Meanwhile...
Emirates makes $1 Billion profit
UAE carrier Emirates has reported record profits of $1billion despite higher fuel prices and the purchase of over $31 Billion worth of aircraft including 40 787's and 36 A380s. To read the full article click the link: Emirates.com
New 787/A350 Hybrid?
Chinese aircraft manufacturer Comac has unveiled designs for their version of the 787/A350. It will be called The CR929. General Electric and Rolls-Royce are likely to bid on having their engines fitted. To be honest, though, I don't think it will be a success. check out next Tuesdays IMO for my full thoughts on this.
Aircraft manufacturers to lose around $40 Billion
Aircraft manufacturers Airbus, ATR and Boeing are going to lose an order worth, combined, US $40 Billion after The US pulled out of the nuclear agreement which now means that Iran Air cannot buy from US companies. The reason ATR and Airbus are restricted as well is because some of Airbus and ATR's workforce is supplied by American companies, also, General Electric is based in America. The order from Iran Air made a total of 109 aircraft including 12 ATR72, 6 A320, 7 A321, 32 A320neo, 8 A330, 38 A330neo and 16 A350s.
Lufthansa group orders:
Lufthansa has ordered 2 777-300ER for Swiss 2 777 Cargo freighters for Lufthansa to replace the MD11's and 12 A320s for Lufthansa on top of their 91 A320/A321neo's, 16 A350s and 20 777's which were made earlier.

News 7th of May 2018

Test plane veers off runway on first test flight
An Embraer KC-390 military test aircraft was on its first test flight when it veered off the runway at Gavião Peixoto. The damage is not yet known, fortunately, nobody was hurt. The accident is being investigated, make sure to tune into Thursday's news for updates.
FAA orders Rolls-Royce engine fitted 787's to fly within 1 Hour of an Airport
The Federal Aviation Administration (The FAA) has said that any Boeing 787 aircraft fitted with the Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines must fly within one hour of a suitable airport (capable of handling a 787). This comes after multiple incidents where the blades of the engine have chipped and flaked off randomly during flight under its own power.
Bombardier considers changing C-Series name to A200
Following the recent Airbus buying Bombardier, Airbus wants to rename the Bombardier C-Series to the A200 Family. For example, the CS100 would most likely become the Bombardier A210, because it is the newest and so on. Come back to see updates on this!
Orders And Deliveries:
American Airlines has ordered 30 new aircraft for its regional carrier American Eagle Airlines(AKA PSA Airlines). They have ordered 15 Bombardier CRJ900's and 15 Embraer E175's. They are expected to be delivered around 2019.

UAE based airline Emirates has put in an order worth US$15 Billion dollars for 40 Boeing 787's which should be delivered 2022

Qantas has ordered extra 787's to replace it's 10 747's by 2021 as well as a possible extra 5 787's after the airline said the 787's were breaking speed and price records on their Perth to Asia routes.

Alaska Airlines has swapped its order for 15 737 Max 8's to 15 Max 9's. They have also confirmed an order for 11 737-900ER's