Bloomberg Ryanair Holdings Plc’s effort to ease the shortage of pilots that contributed to months of flight cancellations may be bearing fruit, and could give the carrier leverage in a pay dispute with some existing employees. Europe’s biggest discount airline hired more than 200 pilots this month, according to a copy of a briefing document the carrier sent to employees. ...
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Boeing to gain as China agrees to recognise US safety approval
Bloomberg The US and China agreed to recognise the other’s aircraft safety approvals, which may boost the Asian nation’s burgeoning aviation industry and make it easier for companies like Boeing Co. to sell products there. The US-China Bilateral Aviation Safety Agreement was announced before President Donald Trump is set to travel to China. Trump will travel to China from November ...
Read More »American Airlines leads US in passenger racial complaints
Bloomberg American Airlines passengers have filed 29 complaints of racial discrimination in the last 20 months, the most of any airline flying in the US, according to data compiled by the US Department of Transportation. While air travellers are often unhappy, American’s treatment of African-American passengers has recently come under particular scrutiny. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored ...
Read More »US Air Force’s $2 billion bomber request pays for staff
Bloomberg The $2 billion that the US Air Force wants to spend this fiscal year for the new B-21 bomber would go towards added staffing for contractor Northrop Grumman Corp., software development and producing detailed engineering drawings, according to a top service official. While the items listed by Air Force Undersecretary Matt Donovan were predictable for early work on a ...
Read More »JetBlue’s plan to add seats on A320 gets stuck
Bloomberg JetBlue Airways Corp.’s plan to add more seats to its Airbus SE A320 planes is running into an obstacle: broken toilets. The Space Flex lavatories supplied by Zodiac Aerospace are crucial to JetBlue’s plan to reconfigure its fleet of A320 jets. The airline will set a “formal review†in November with Airbus and Zodiac to evaluate repairs on the ...
Read More »Boeing invests in drone startup in push for automated technology
Bloomberg Boeing Co. is investing in Pittsburgh-based Near Earth Autonomy, a self-guided drone startup, marking its first financial backing for a company specialising in autonomous technology since establishing the HorizonX venture fund in April. Boeing, the world’s largest aerospace company, declined to specify the size of the investment. Near Earth Autonomy authorized the sale of about $10 million in equity, ...
Read More »F-35s hobbled by parts shortages, slow repairs, audit finds
Bloomberg The Pentagon is accelerating production of Lockheed Martin Corp.’s F-35 jet even though the planes already delivered are facing “significantly longer repair times†than planned because maintenance facilities are six years behind schedule, according to a draft audit. The time to repair a part has averaged 172 days—“twice the programme’s objectiveâ€â€”the Government Accountability Office, Congress’s watchdog agency, found. The ...
Read More »Ryanair pilots demand double pay offered by airline at Stansted
Bloomberg Ryanair Holdings Plc’s pilot uprising shows little signs of abating, with an ad-hoc group demanding that a wage increase offered to crews at London Stansted airport be doubled and extended across the budget airline’s European bases. The unofficial European Employee Representative Council made the proposal to pilots after cockpit crews at Ryanair’s biggest base rejected the existing offer, according ...
Read More »Garuda sees profit in 2018 on cost cuts after loss this year
Bloomberg PT Garuda Indonesia is targeting a return to profit next year after a loss in 2017 as the flag carrier works to reduce expenses and operations improve. The airline is predicting a profit of $75 million in the second half ending December but won’t be able to post a profit for the 12-month period following a larger loss in ...
Read More »For C Series jet, Airbus puts price tag on ‘made-in-US’ label
Bloomberg Securing a “made-in-US†label for Bombardier Inc.’s C Series jet by building another assembly line in Alabama would cost only “a few hundred million dollars,†Airbus SE’s No. 2 executive said. The new facility is crucial to Airbus’s strategy for increasing US sales of the Canadian plane while avoiding stiff trade penalties imposed by the Trump administration. Bombardier projects ...
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