Aviation

  Bloomberg Africa-focused discount airline Fastjet Plc will switch to a fleet of Embraer SA regional jets from larger Airbus Group SE planes as new Chief Executive Officer Nico Bezuidenhout seeks to stem losses by better matching capacity to demand. The fledgling carrier also plans to move its headquarters to Johannesburg from London to pare expenses and bring the company ...

  Bloomberg JetBlue Airways Corp. will burn a mixture of biofuel and traditional jet kerosene on some flights at New York City-area airports under a 10-year purchase agreement designed to cut aircraft pollution and costs. The airline will purchase more than 33 million gallons of blended fuel annually under the contract with S.G. Preston Co., a bioenergy company based in ...

  Blagnac / AFP Airbus chief Tom Enders said he did not rule out job cuts at the European aircraft manufacturer after a media report said the group was considering slashing costs. “You never exclude anything when you’re talking about efficiency and synergy but we’re in the process of thinking it all through, how we can make our corporate structures ...

  Bloomberg Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc is eliminating more than 200 positions from its management team as Chief Executive Officer Warren East extends a wide-reaching restructuring of the embattled engine maker. The additional cuts brings the total trimming of management positions under East’s reign to more than 600, a Rolls-Royce spokesman said in a statement in response to a Financial Times ...

  AP As thousands of commercial drones take to the skies under new Federal Aviation Administration rules, some small operators are pursuing a coveted exemption that would allow them to fly their drones where they can’t be seen by the pilot. The companies who want them say the so-called line-of-sight exemptions are essential to someday use drones for such tasks ...

  TEHRAN / Reuters Iran urged the United States on Sunday to remove remaining obstacles to it buying passenger planes following the lifting of international sanctions and spread out the welcome mat to foreign investors as it seeks to boost its aviation sector. Iran provisionally agreed earlier this year to buy over 200 jets worth $50 billion at list prices ...

  WASHINGTON / AP So many people are registering drones and applying for drone pilot licenses that federal aviation officials said they are contemplating the possibility of millions of unmanned aircraft crowding the nation’s skies in the not-too-distant future. In the nine months since the Federal Aviation Administration created a drone registration system, more than 550,000 unmanned aircraft have been ...

  Bloomberg A spare battery overheated and created smoke in the cabin of a Delta Air Lines Inc. flight. The plane, a Boeing Co. MD-88, continued to its destination without further problems. Flight 2557 from Norfolk, Virginia, to Atlanta, carrying 143 passengers and five crew members, had just taken off when flight attendants noticed the smoke in the rear section ...

  Bloomberg Brazil is unlikely to join the initial phases of a proposed United Nations accord being brokered this month to limit emissions from international air travel, a senior government official said. Brazil, one of the fastest-growing aviation markets, doesn’t produce enough emissions to justify joining the accord in the initial voluntary phases, beginning in 2021, said Brazilian National Civil ...

  Johannesburg / AFP Spiralling debt, massive losses and a widely-criticised boss. For many, the problems besetting South African Airways (SAA), the state-owned national airline, are emblematic of issues roiling President Jacob Zuma’s government and fuelling unease among foreign investors. SAA is “on the brink of disaster”, Mmusi Maimane, head of the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) party, said in a ...