DUBAI / Reuters Emirates, the world’s biggest long-haul airline, has taken delivery of its first Rolls-Royce engine-powered Airbus A380 superjumbo and has resolved its dispute with the engine maker over a technical issue. The A380 jet arrived in Dubai on Thursday morning, two days after Airbus said it would delay the delivery of 12 A380s to the airline over ...
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Qatar Airlines buys 10% stake in LATAM
Santiago / AFP Qatar Airways bought a 10-percent stake in LATAM, the largest airline in Latin America, the Chilean-Brazilian company said. The investment, first announced last July, amounts to 60.8 million shares at a price of $10 each, LATAM said in a statement. The airline — the product of a 2012 merger between Chile’s LAN and Brazil’s TAM — ...
Read More »Airbus delays deliveries of A380 planes to Emirates
Bloomberg Airbus Group SE’s struggles with its A380 superjumbo jet are deepening as the planemaker delays deliveries of a dozen aircraft over the next two years to Emirates, the double-decker’s biggest customer. To make up for the financial drag from the tardier handovers, Airbus will accelerate cost cuts, according to an e-mailed company statement. The delay stems from an ...
Read More »Delta drops Boeing Dreamliner order
Bloomberg Delta Air Lines Inc. scrapped an order for 18 Boeing Co. widebody Dreamliner jets valued at $4 billion at list prices, a commitment that was inherited with the company’s 2008 merger with Northwest Airlines. Atlanta-based Delta reached an agreement with Boeing on the cancellation, without disclosing terms, according to a statement from the carrier. The airline is sticking ...
Read More »ME’s first ‘Flammability Test Lab’ launched
Abu Dhabi / Emirates Business Etihad Airways Engineering and Lantal Textiles AG have launched the first Flammability Test Laboratory in the Middle East, for regional customers within the aviation industry, including VIP operators, MRO organisations, design and production organisations as well as cabin interior suppliers. Located inside the Etihad Airways Engineering facility adjacent to Abu Dhabi International Airport, the new ...
Read More »Low-cost airlines slow to take off in LatAm
Montevideo / AFP A cheap flight from Paris to Madrid will set you back about $100. But it costs six times that to cover the same distance in Latin America, where low-cost airlines are only just taking off. Latin America has long lured travellers with its history, music and natural beauty spanning from Mexico’s deserts to the Amazon rainforest ...
Read More »China vows to speed up devp of space industry
BEIJING / AP China vowed on Tuesday to speed up the development of its space industry as it set out its plans to become the first country to soft land a probe on the far side of the moon, by around 2018, and launch its first Mars probe by 2020. “To explore the vast cosmos, develop the space industry ...
Read More »Black boxes: A treasure trove of data for air crash probes
Paris / AP After finding possible survivors and victim remains, the first priority of air crash investigators is to locate the black boxes, a duo of data recorders that can hold vital clues on why an aircraft went down. Despite their name, the boxes that hold a plane’s flight data and cockpit voice recordings are actually bright orange with ...
Read More »Air safety directive grounds flights in Mexico
MEXICO CITY / AP The Mexican airline Interjet says it’s had to cancel some flights due to a mandatory safety inspection of its Russian-made Superjet 100 aircraft. Russian authorities issued the directive on Dec. 23 after cracks were found in a part on one of the Sukhoi planes. Interjet is among the largest customers for the relatively new Superjet, ...
Read More »China tests prototype of most advanced stealth fighter jet
Bloomberg China has tested the latest version of its fifth-generation stealth fighter, state media reported Monday, as it tries to end the West’s monopoly on the world’s most advanced warplanes. The test comes as the nation flexes its military muscles, sending its sole aircraft carrier the Liaoning into the western Pacific in recent days to lead drills there for ...
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