Oman Air is considering buying Airbus Group SE (AIR.FR) A350 long-range planes amid a turnaround effort aimed at ending years of government handouts. The airline may take around 13 A350s from 2020, Chief Executive Paul Gregorowitsch said in an interview Wednesday, with the long-range jets replacing Airbus A330 widebodies currently used by Oman Air on some long-haul routes. The deal would have a...
Last year's sluggish sales of Falcon business jets was largely due to the slowing economies in emerging countries, Dassault CEO Eric Trappier said yesterday during a press briefing in Paris. There were gross orders for 45 Falcons received last year, and NetJets canceled an order for 20, bringing the net total to 25. The order intake represented €1.6 billion ($1.8 billion...
A Royal Jet BBJ, registered as A6-DRF, on display at Abu Dhabi Air Expo 2016 suffered what appears to be only superficial damage on Wednesday when two light aircraft were blown under it during a severe morning storm that brought the show to a halt for a second day. “Two light carbon-fiber craft were blown [by high winds] under the BBJ. I think they have been destroyed,...
Key business jet industry metrics are pointing to a further weakening of the market globally and suggest business conditions continue to head toward new post-recession lows, according to the latest UBS Business Jet Market Index, released today. UBS created the market index to track changes in market conditions based on surveys measuring customer interest, pricing, 12-month outl...
In 2011, Airbus and Qatar Airways announced to great fanfare a 50-plane order for the new A320neo airliner. Five years later, that deal could be jeopardy. The Pratt & Whitney 1100G geared turbofans engines Qatar selected to power the planes are not up to Qatar's exacting standards, Bloomberg's Andrea Rothman reported. According to Bloomberg, Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Bak...
In the spirit of Charles Lindbergh, a French research company hopes to complete the first carbon-free trans-Atlantic flight later this year. The Eraole, an electric biofuel plane developed by Laboratoire Océan Vital, will take flight from New York to Paris in June: The company says the plane will produce zero carbon emissions. If successful, the plane could have lasting impacts in the fi...
As the launch customer of the A320neo, IndiGo has been waiting eagerly to take delivery of the planes that will help it cut fuel costs by 10-15% InterGlobe Aviation Ltd, which runs the IndiGo low-fare airline, said on Twitter that it will take delivery of Asia’s first A320neo aircraft on Thursday from European plane maker Airbus SAS. “IndiGo took delivery of the new A320neo aircr...
In the 1940s, most planes had straight wings. Even the Bell X-1 that broke the sound barrier for the first time had straight wings. But a straight-winged aircraft can run into major stability issues when it gets flying at transonic speeds. In 1941, a Lockheed test pilot named Ralph Virden lost control of his P-38 Lightning in a dive and died in a crash. This prompted an engineer named John Stac...
A passenger delayed a flight by an hour by opening an emergency exit of a Boeing 737 just before take-off. He was on a domestic flight with China Southern Airlines when the incident occurred, the People's Daily Online reports. The plane had to stay at Chengdu Shuangliu airport while the issue was resolved. The flight, bound for Urumqi, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in north-west Ch...
Air New Zealand and United plan to expand their partnership to include revenue sharing on New Zealand-US routes. The move to deepen cooperation comes as United counts down to its return to NZ for the first time since 2003, with nonstop San Francisco-Auckland flights with Boeing 787s due to begin in July. United vice chairman and chief revenue officer Jim Compton said: “This joint ventu...
The contract for the sale of 36 Rafale fighters to India has not yet been signed, manufacturer Dassault Aviation said March 10. Four weeks was thought to be enough time to conclude the transaction when the heads of state of France and India reached agreement on the sale in late January. “We are getting closer; we are trying to finalize the price,” CEO Eric Trappier said during Dassa...
Dubai-based flydubai announced receiving its membership certificate from the International Air Transport Association (IATA), becoming the latest airline to join from the Middle East and North Africa. flydubai successfully completed its IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) last year. The audit, which is a pre-requisite for an IATA membership, examined all the operational depa...
