Tuesday, October 08, 2013

Flights Start To Cuba From The Bahamas

 This evening will mark the inaugural Western Air flight from the Bahamas to Cuba, building what officials hope will be a “bridge” between the two countries to better facilitate trade and commerce.

The aircraft can seat 33 passengers and is expected to carry out one complete route, once a day, three times a week – courtesy of a partnership between Western Air and Blue Bahamas Crossing (BCB).

Captain Wolf Seyfret, Western Air’s director of operations, said a demand for such a route does exist based on statistics from other airlines and past services that Western Air has done.

“Our average load has been 22 passengers. We’ve had full flights, we’ve had flights with 19 passengers – but the average load has been 22 passengers. So yes, from that I can say there definitely is a demand there,” he said.

He explained that Western Air and BCB have “very diligently looked at the market” and decided the two carriers that presently provide the service are “not able to satisfy demand” – leaving room in the market for Western Air to step in.

“We can say from observing the current levels with Cubana and Bahamasair – there’s a lot of passengers being turned away because of the load factors on both airlines so definitely there is a demand for that service,” he said.

Mr Seyfret added that the privately-owned Western Air “can definitely be more flexible” than the two government-owned airlines.

Zena Burland, BCB chairwoman, explained that the creation of this new service is mainly geared towards encouraging business opportunities and trade relations between the Bahamas and Cuba.

She noted that transportation remains “one of the major barriers” that prevents the Bahamas’ movement for commerce, trade, and wider networking in the region.

“Blue Crossing Bahamas saw this barrier to regional trade and initiated a strategic solution,” she said.

“To this end, it focused on its nearest trading and regional neighbor, the Republic of Cuba. As many of you are aware, the Bahamas shares regional trade agreements with the Republic of Cuba.

“The goals then became to stimulate and encourage the flow of trade and commerce at all sectors of industry thereby creating opportunities for the citizen within the regional areas.

“The success of these activities of course needs to be secured and supported by offering a scheduled air service to the republic of Cuba from the Bahamas and therefore providing a bridge for Bahamians, Cubans, and those from the US with full complete approval to visit Cuba for vacation, education, health care and family visits. Likewise for them to also visit the Bahamas and other regional areas.”

BCB is already engaged with businesses that are interested in the new service, Ms Burland said, adding that BCB and Western Air “recognize the need” for reliable air transportation service between the Bahamas and other countries in the region.

“We are providing these air link services to provide the venue for large scale development and hotel development to reach its strategic goals by positioning itself to support these developments as we seek to create our strategic partnering program to enhance and promote regional developments.”

The Western Air service leaves Nassau for Havana at 5:30pm on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. It leaves Havana on its return trip to Nassau at 8:15 pm the same day.


Story and Comments/Reaction:   http://www.tribune242.com

Boeing's Top Salesman Works to Rebuild Customer Trust, Fend Off Airbus: WSJ

October 8, 2013, 9:17 p.m. ET

By JON OSTROWER

The Wall Street Journal


In January, when burning batteries on two Japanese-owned 787 Dreamliners grounded the jetliner world-wide, Boeing Co. sales chief John Wojick flew to Tokyo to try to reassure two of his most loyal customers.

On Monday, he learned that Boeing's efforts to keep them both firmly in its corner weren't enough. Japan Airlines Co. announced its first-ever order from rival Airbus, a deal for at least 31 widebody A350s valued at as much as $9.5 billion.

The order is a setback in Mr. Wojick's efforts to defend Boeing's turf from Airbus and build a more aggressive, customer-focused sales culture since he took the top sales job just over a year ago. It puts heavy pressure on the 56-year-old executive to avert a similar Airbus deal with the second of its two key Japanese clients, All Nippon Holdings Inc., which is said to be nearing a decision on a major purchase.

Mr. Wojick, a former competitive downhill skier with a history of sales comebacks, has spent the year working to regain the trust of Boeing's customers—some of whom were already skeptical of the Dreamliner after years of production glitches and delays.

To fend off Airbus, he is pushing three aircraft whose improved fuel efficiency makes them vital to Boeing's future, the narrow-body 737 Max, a stretched version of the Dreamliner, and the twin-aisle 777X, the company's planned competitor to the A350s bought by JAL.

"Our failure on the 787 has caused people to want to understand why we believe the 737 Max and the 777X will be a different story," Mr. Wojick said in a rare interview earlier this year.

Through a spokesman, Mr. Wojick declined to comment on JAL's Airbus order. Boeing said it was "disappointed with the selection," but aims to continue the "strong relationship" with JAL it has built over the past 50 years.

Pitching jetliners is among the toughest jobs in sales. Multibillion-dollar orders for big passenger aircraft can take years to nail down. The process requires patience and a deep understanding of the strategic needs of the airline in question. And it depends on product-development cycles that can last up to a decade. Airbus began test flights of the A350 in June. Boeing's 777X is still five years away.

Mr. Wojick's playbook, say Boeing customers and industry executives, has included offering deeper discounts on its planes and greater flexibility on delivery timing. Inside Boeing, he also has been an advocate for customers' needs, which he says the company hasn't always adequately grasped.

Mr. Wojick "asks the right questions to understand the right metrics for [an aircraft-purchasing] decision," says Nico Buchholz, executive vice president of Deutsche Lufthansa AG. Last month, after years of deliberation, the German carrier awarded Boeing most of a $19 billion order that included 34 777Xs, an update of the company's long-range 777. Lufthansa also ordered 25 jets from Airbus, a unit of European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co.

Winning the Lufthansa commitment was Boeing's opening salvo against Airbus. The industry widely expects it to take advantage of next month's Dubai air show to give the official go-ahead to the 777X, and to snap up a wave of orders.

But the real test for Mr. Wojick will be which plane maker "has the stronger position in the widebody market five years from now. We don't know the answer today," says Howard Rubel, aerospace analyst and managing director of equity research at Jefferies LLC.

Mr. Wojick, whose boyish face is topped by graying hair, is an unusually low-key player in the big-ego world of jet sales. His counterpart at Airbus, John Leahy, is famous for firing rhetorical missiles at competitors. One of Mr. Wojick's predecessors at Boeing drove a red Porsche with the license plate JETDLR.

"I have no idea what my license plate number is," says Mr. Wojick, who drives an Audi TT.

"He's blissfully happy under the radar," says John Feren, executive vice president of aircraft lessor Aviation Capital Group, and Mr. Wojick's former boss at Boeing.

Mr. Wojick, the son of an airline pilot, studied aerodynamic engineering at the University of Colorado, then took a Boeing job in 1980.

He returned to Colorado to get his M.B.A., meeting his wife Beth in 1982 while he worked part time as a ski instructor. He later rejoined Boeing, rising through the ranks.

In a pivotal early sales deal in 1996, he beat out McDonnell Douglas, which later merged with Boeing, and Airbus, then much smaller than it is today, to replace the aging fleet of Continental Airlines.

Continental's then-Chief Executive Gordon Bethune, a former Boeing executive, says Boeing won in "large part…due to the care, attention and focus that Wojick put on the account."

Mr. Wojick's understated manner belies a sometimes-fiery temper, according to those who know him.

Amid 3½ years of delays in producing the Dreamliner, Boeing executives debated how to compensate customers who ordered the plane. Mr. Wojick, then the head of Asia-Pacific sales, argued that Boeing needed to do more for his customers, including JAL and ANA, the jet's first buyers.

In 2010, Mr. Wojick stormed out of an internal meeting after a heated discussion with Marlin Dailey, then Boeing's sales chief, according to people who attended.

"Quite frankly we were failing at meeting our commitment to our customers," Mr. Wojick recalls. "Some of us may have been able to handle our emotions a little better than others."

Mr. Dailey, now chief marketing officer at aircraft lessor AWAS, said Boeing was doing the best it could with limited resources. Both men have long since reconciled.

Boeing hasn't disclosed how it compensated Dreamliner customers for delays. Industry officials say it included cash payments and steep discounts on other jets, among other accommodations.

In July 2011, Boeing was caught off guard when American Airlines parent AMR Corp. split orders for 460 new airplanes between Airbus and Boeing in the largest aircraft order ever. The deal was a triumph for Airbus, which got its first orders from American in two decades.

Mr. Wojick says Boeing failed to understand American's needs. "For many, many years [American] struggled, and for many, many years we probably could have been better partners with them," he said.

The month after the debacle, Boeing replaced its sales chief, Mr. Dailey, with Ray Conner, who moved Mr. Wojick from Asia to head North American sales. In June 2012, Mr. Conner was named head of Boeing's commercial airplanes division.

The following month, Mr. Wojick landed an order from United Continental Holdings Inc. for 150 planes valued at around $14.7 billion at list prices, a critical win after allowing Airbus to make inroads with American. Mr. Wojick was named global sales chief that August.

Mr. Wojick's tenure started strong. Four months after he took over, Boeing reclaimed the title of world's biggest aircraft maker from Airbus, capturing the No. 1 spot in orders and deliveries for the first time in more than a decade.

But within days, the Dreamliner battery crisis surfaced. Mr. Wojick leaned on his relationships with JAL and ANA, trying to reassure customers while Boeing sought a solution to get the Dreamliner flying again.

"It takes hard work to have a clear conversation with a customer about what you do and don't know," he said. The Dreamliner resumed flights in April.

Investors seem sanguine about this week's JAL setback. Boeing's shares, up more than 50% this year, have fallen about 1.5% this week but are still trading near an all-time high.

But Boeing's status as top jet seller is tenuous: Airbus was outselling it this year even before the JAL deal, with 1,062 net orders through September to Boeing's 890, including more than 100 orders and commitments for a new version of its Dreamliner launched in June.

The battle to win orders for the long-range 777 against Airbus's A350 is especially intense. That fight threatens the Boeing cash cow and has turned into a "personal vendetta" between the two sales teams, said Steven Udvar-Házy, chief executive of Air Lease Corp.   "There's been a lot of venom that's built up fighting for campaigns" over the years.


Source:  http://online.wsj.com

Arrest after vehicle damages three planes at Englefield airfield - UK (With Video)

A man has been arrested after three light aircraft were vandalized at an airfield near Reading.

Thames Valley Police said it appeared a vehicle was driven into the Cessna single engine planes in Englefield.

The three planes have been written of as a result of the damage, estimated by the owners at up to £700,000.

A Jeep Grand Cherokee was discovered set alight nearby, in Bath Road. A 29-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the incident.

Buildings at the airfield were also damaged by the planes being pushed into them.

Hare coursing


Police said the planes were a 50 vintage type, a four-seater piston-powered plane and a six-seater light business plane.

The damage was discovered by estate staff shortly after 07:00 BST. They had been told that animals had escaped onto the nearby A4, and found a gate had been forced open.

David Wiggins, gamekeeper at the Englefield Estate, said: "We're pretty sure they were in after hares.

"We've got a lot of problems with hare coursing.

"Not just coursing, but just driving the animals over, running them over, flattening them.

"That's what it started as I guess and then it turned into this damage we've got here."

Peter Ford, owner of the 50 vintage type said: "The guys obviously came with this four-wheel drive, pushed the aircraft into the back of the barn and then came again."

He said his plane's wing had been "snapped off".


Story and Video:   http://www.bbc.co.uk

Alitalia risks bankruptcy without capital increase -source

* Government and Alitalia held talks Tuesday, no solution yet

* Alitalia needs 500 mln euros - analysts

* Aviation authority seeks meeting with company


ROME, Oct 8 (Reuters) - Loss-making Italian airline Alitalia risks having to file for bankruptcy if it fails to agree a deal for a capital increase in the next couple of weeks, a government source said on Tuesday.

Alitalia needs about 500 million euros ($680 million) to stay in business and invest in a new turnaround strategy, analysts have said, after accumulating losses of more than 1 billion euros and debt of a similar size since being rescued from bankruptcy in 2009.

Its shareholders, a disparate group of 21 Italian investors including bank Intesa Sanpaolo and road operator Atlantia, will vote on a capital increase of at least 100 million euros on Oct. 14 to keep the business running as it seeks fresh bank financing and a longer-term solution to its financial plight.

"Alitalia risks filing for bankruptcy if no solution on the capital increase is found in a couple of weeks," the source told Reuters.

The airline has also fallen behind in its payments for fuel, suppliers have said, and could face the prospect of having to ground its fleet.

"In four or five days Alitalia risks not being able to fly," the government source added.

The company said on Sept. 26 that it had total available cash of 128 million euros, including unused credit facilities.

Such a sum would not last long. Andrea Giuricin, a transport analyst at Milan's Bicocca University, estimates that Alitalia needs at least 10 million euros a day to keep its aircraft flying and has annual operating costs of at least 3.7 billion euros.

An Alitalia spokeswoman was not immediately available to comment.

Concern over Alitalia's finances is such that civil aviation authority ENAC will summon representatives from the company in the next few days to assess its business prospects, a source close to the situation said on Tuesday.

STUMBLING BLOCKS

Italy's government and Alitalia shareholders have been betting on Air France-KLM raising its stake from 25 percent and possibly even taking control of the group, but there remain disagreements over financial commitments and business strategy.

A meeting between government and Alitalia management on Tuesday finished without a solution, while a separate Alitalia board meeting was ongoing. "We are working on it, there are various ideas, but there is no solution yet," Transport Minister Maurizio Lupi said.

Alitalia's new CEO Gabriele Del Torchio is pinning turnaround hopes on the more lucrative long-haul market after the company's attempt to become a strong regional player was scuppered by aggressive competition from low-cost carriers Ryanair and easyJet.

The chief executive of Air France-KLM has indicated that the two airlines could complement each other in the long-haul segment and that his company values Alitalia's presence in Europe's fourth-largest travel market.

"Alitalia is an important partner. If it leaves the Skyteam alliance, the loss of revenues for Air France-KLM could reach 100 million euros a year," Kepler Cheuvreux analyst Pierre Boucheny said, adding that he expects the group to back Alitalia only if it is guaranteed control of strategy.

However, the Italian side is determined not to sell too cheaply.

"This is a tug of war over the price," said transport analyst Giuricin. "Air France-KLM would like to buy Alitalia as cheaply as possible, preferably without having to take on its debt, while the Italian shareholders want to get something out of this as well."

The Italians will also take some convincing before giving up their say on company strategy, with the government considering Alitalia to be a key national asset that employs 14,000 people.

Alitalia shareholder and Deputy Chairman Salvatore Mancuso was quoted on Monday saying he was not in favour of a takeover by Air France-KLM, citing the risk of significant job cuts and a deep restructuring.

Rome has been looking for a public entity that could invest 100 million euros before a tie-up with a partner, sources said, although Transport Minister Lupi denied that the state had asked railway group Ferrovie dello Stato to buy into Alitalia.

http://www.reuters.com

Why Dana operations were suspended - Aviation Minister •Scores of passengers stranded •Accident Investigation Bureau to send crashed plane’s engine to Brazil

The Minster of Aviation, Ms. Stella Oduah, on Monday said that the suspension of the operations of Dana Air was to ensure that the airline’s activities were in tandem with the requirements of the law.

Fielding questions from State House correspondents in Abuja, she clarified that the airline’s operations were suspended to enable the aviation authorities to carry out an assessment for possibly re-certification.

Responding to questions on the suspension, she said: “The law, the policy, says that the assessment, the certification is ongoing. In aviation, security and safety measures are work in progress, you don’t stop. You don’t say that I have attained this and so we stop. It never stops. You continuously, constantly assess operators to make sure they are in compliance.”


Asked what regulation Dana may have fallen foul of having been recently authorised to restart its operations after the crash of its aircraft in June last year, Oduah declined any revelation, saying, “I am not at liberty to say so. But that is the reason why their operations were suspended. We cannot joke with safety and security. It is not even optional. It is the way things are done, it is part of the policy.”

She denied that proper work was not done during the previous assessment of Dana Air before it was re-certified leading to the latest suspension.

“It was concluded and like I said, the process of certifying, re-certifying security and safety is continuous. It doesn’t stop. You can get your certification today and in a month’s time or even a week down the line, something may happen because, constantly the papers, the documents, the log books are constantly being checked,”  she said.

She also denied that aviation authorities act only in fire brigade manner after incident had occurred rather than being proactive, adding, “No! Nothing in aviation is ever fire brigade because there are processes and procedure, nothing at all.

“And their (DANA) license was not stopped what was stopped is their operations and it was stopped; because the law says that, if there is anything noticed not in tandem with the policy, the regulation must stop and re-certify and make sure that there are compliance.”

On Associated Airline plane which crashed recently in Lagos, the Minister assured that it was safe to fly in the country in spite of the relatively frequent air crashes, noting that “we have the safest air space. Nigerians shouldn’t be afraid to fly, Nigerian airspace is very safe.”

She revealed that the preliminary report on its investigation should be released in a couple of weeks while representatives of the manufacturers of the ill-fated aircraft were being expected in the country before its engine could be opened for further investigations.


She added: “The preliminary report should be out in a couple of weeks. The experts that are coming from France and the manufacturer of the aircraft, we must have them regardless of how we want to accelerate it.

“We are waiting for them to come so that we can open the engine and find out exactly from them. And you cannot do any of those without their presence. If you do that then, you have contaminated the investigation. So, we must wait for them.”

Oduah rejected claims that the recent crash had made nonsense of the effort of government to ensure aviation safety in the country, noting that accidents were acts of God that were inevitable.

According to her, “we do not pray for accidents but it is inevitable. But all we do is to do everything to ensure that we do not have accidents. But it is an act of God. Again, we do not speculate on the cause of accidents. Until that happens, you can’t say this is the cause or that is not the cause.

“But what is obvious and is the truth is that, in aviation there are shared responsibilities, starting from the man that carries your luggage to the man that makes sure that your boarding pass is issued to you and so is the regulatory agency, the operators, the management.

“Everybody has his responsibility and all must work in tandem for there to be an optimal, secured and safe aviation sector. And that is what we have been working.”

AIB sends crashed engines to Brazil

 
The Accident Investigation Bureau  (AIB)  will any moment from now send the two engines of the crashed Embraer 120 aircraft to Brazil for comprehensive analysis.

The  accident investigation unit according to information gathered, needs to carry out a detailed analysis on the engines to know the cause of the crash.

AIB said that the best company to carry out an analysis on the crash was the manufacturer, Embraer Manufacturing Company based in Brazil.

Confirming this on behalf of AIB was the image-maker, Mr. Tunji Oketunbi hinted of plans by the agency to take the engines abroad for comprehensive analyses and tests.

He said, “There might be a need for tear down of the engines. We are likely to send them to the manufacturer of the aircraft in Brazil because they are in the best position to carry out analyses and tests on the damaged engines.


Original article and comments/reaction:    http://www.tribune.com.ng

JAL's Airbus Purchase Upsets Half-Century Relationship With Boeing: 'It's a Heartbreak,' Says Executive With U.S. Aircraft Maker

The Wall Street Journal 

By  Mayumi Negishi and  Daisuke Wakabayashi


Updated Oct. 7, 2013 12:41 p.m. ET

TOKYO—It was a scene unthinkable just 10 years ago: the chief executive of Airbus appearing at a swank hotel conference room, shaking hands with his Japan Airlines Co. counterpart as together they hoisted a model of an A350 jetliner bearing the JAL red crane.

The real significance of the Monday news conference was that JAL's order iced out Boeing Co., which had claimed every previous JAL long-distance-aircraft contract of the past half century.

"We have had a long-standing relationship—it's a heartbreak," said Kostya Zolotusky , managing director of capital markets and leasing at Boeing Capital Corp., the aircraft maker's finance unit.

Boeing's shares fell 51 cents to close at $116.69 Monday on the New York Stock Exchange. Shares of Airbus parent European Aeronautic Defence & Space  Co. rose 2.2% to close at €50.30 ($68.19) in Paris.

JAL's decision to buy Airbus planes with a list value of $9.75 billion, marks ablow for Boeing, which dominated the Japanese market for decades. It is also a transformation at Japan's flagship carrier, which has a fleet that is 70% made by Boeing.

The decision was born out of JAL's 2010 bankruptcy, according to people familiar with the situation. Kazuo Inamori , the wealthy founder of ceramics giant Kyocera Corp. and telecommunications company KDDI Corp., took over the airline and shook up its traditional culture, bringing it out of bankruptcy last year. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal shortly after his retirement in March, Mr. Inamori publicly questioned JAL's reliance on a single airplane supplier.

Airbus CEO Fabrice Brégier was heavily involved in the negotiations with JAL, which started to solidify over the summer, the people said.

JAL joins a group of carriers that have bought from both Boeing and Airbus, among the last major global carriers to do so. Splitting orders often means securing better terms for deals at increasingly competitive prices. Among the remaining full-service carriers that have pegged their fleets solely to one manufacturer, El Al Israel Airlines Ltd. and Grupo Aeromexico SAB for Boeing and Ireland's Aer Lingus Ltd. and TAP Air Portugal for Airbus. Many budget carriers like Southwest Airlines Co. and AirAsia Bhd. still operate fleets entirely made up of aircraft from a sole manufacturer.

Airbus gained a new advantage when it began flying the A350 in June, which gave it hard data on the plane's performance in flight tests to show customers. Boeing's 777X, which it is developing as a competitor to the A350, won't be airborne until 2018 or 2019 at the earliest.

Mr. Brégier, standing on Monday with JAL President Yoshiharu Ueki in front of the companies' intertwined logos, said winning over JAL was a sign the Japanese market, like the rest of the world, was opening to competition.

It was important, he said, for the plane maker to make its pitch in Japan, rather than from Airbus's base in Toulouse, France. "If you believe that from Toulouse, you can convince people here who have flown the competitor for 30, 40 years that you have the best product, then you are just damn wrong," Mr. Brégier said. "The problem wasn't Japan or Japanese customers. The problem was probably Airbus."

Boeing's viselike grip over Japan's aeronautics industry can be traced to Japan's attempts to rebuild after World War II with American support. The rapid recovery of companies like Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd.  and the predecessor of Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd. got a boost from license agreements to make parts for Boeing.

Boeing's first sale of commercial aircraft to JAL and its chief domestic rival, All Nippon Airways, was in 1964, the year Tokyo hosted the Olympic Games. The first of the 129-person Boeing jets inspired pop songs as well as races between aircraft and bullet trains, and remain associated with Japan's rapid postwar growth.

JAL's 1966 order for Boeing 747 jumbo jets—the second placed by any airline—cemented the JAL-Boeing relationship. In the years that followed, JAL took delivery of more than 100 747s, adopting the 747-400 as the airline's signature plane.

The aircraft were retired in 2011 after JAL filed for protection from creditors.

n the 1970s and '80s, Japan became the world's best market for Boeing outside the U.S., as Japan's trade and finance ministries urged airlines to buy more U.S. planes, partly, industry insiders said, to help offset a huge U.S. trade deficit. National carrier JAL—the government didn't sell its full stake until 1987—was particularly susceptible to bureaucratic influence, they said.

Boeing, in turn, gave Japanese manufacturers increasingly large parts of its planes to build, giving policy makers in Tokyo further incentive to protect the aircraft maker's lock on the market. Japan's aerospace industry "built a part of every single one of Boeing's commercial airplanes," Nicole Piasecki , a former president of Boeing Japan, said in a 2009 speech.

The mutually dependent relationship—cemented with subsidies and other support from the Japanese government—looked impossible to breach by outsiders.

Glen S. Fukushima , the president of Airbus Japan from 2005 until last year, recalled attending a meeting of the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines shortly after he joined Airbus and noting that the company supplied 16 of the 17 members. JAL was the only one that had never bought an Airbus plane. "That's how close JAL and Boeing have been," Mr. Fukushima said. "It was considered revolutionary for JAL to say it was even considering Airbus."

But Boeing's hold eventually began to loosen amid airline deregulation and other shifting economic forces. Airbus retained suppliers in Japan, denting Boeing's political advantage as a job generator. About 20% of the A350 is made from components produced by Japanese suppliers such as Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries Co. and Mitsubishi Heavy, according to Airbus. And Japan is trying to develop its own fuel-efficient regional passenger jet, making Boeing as much a rival as a partner.

And JAL, with the government no longer at the helm, has become more cost-conscious since it emerged from bankruptcy protection last year with an initial public offering that was heavily promoted to foreign investors.

Indeed, the carrier is in open warfare with the government, last week accusing Japanese officials of unfairly denying JAL coveted slots that were assigned at Tokyo's Haneda airport.

"What surprises me is not that they've ordered the A350, it's that Boeing was able to hold on to its monopoly for so long," said Henri Courpron , chief executive of aircraft-leasing company International Lease Finance Corp. "I think the Japanese airline industry will benefit over the long term."

Playing Airbus and Boeing against each other should improve the terms that JAL, rival ANA Holdings Inc. and perhaps others Japanese airlines will be able to negotiate, said Mr. Courpron, a former Airbus salesman.

Boeing further hurt itself in Japan with long delays for its new flagship, the 787 Dreamliner, followed by groundings after batteries burned on JAL and ANA planes this year.

In a sign of Boeing's diminishing clout in Japan, Mr. Ueki, the JAL president, said Monday that he didn't take into account the U.S. company's history or supplier relationships in Japan and that the company had no need to consult with Tokyo before selecting Airbus. "JAL was the only factor," he said.

—Daniel Michaels  and Jon Ostrower  contributed to this article.


Source:  http://online.wsj.com

Murbad copter crash: Panel seeks action against in-range aircraft

Days after five people died in a helicopter crash in Murbad, an advisory panel has recently asked the aviation regulator to take action against airlines whose aircraft were in close range of the ill-fated copter that crashed on September 29.

When an aircraft meets with an accident, it transmits a signal of the emergency situation.

Subsequently, all aircraft flying within that certain range also catch this distress signal which is sent out through the ‘Emergency Locator Transmitter’ system.

dna reported on Friday how a Jet Airways passenger aircraft had informed the Mumbai Air Traffic Control informing that the ill-fated helicopter was trying to get in touch with them.

The panel, Civil Aviation Safety Advisory Council, has contended that the other aircraft which, at that point of time, had been flying within that air range, would have been aware of the tragedy as the emergency system would have been alerted. It is this logic that the advisory panel has put up to the aviation regulator, Directorate General of Civil Aviation. It has raised the question as to why the other aircraft did not monitor and alert the air traffic control — something that they are, as per rule, supposed to do.

According to Mohan Ranganathan of Civil Aviation Safety Advisory Council, which had been set up set up after the Mangalore air crash; the pilots of all airlines are required to monitor 121.5 MHz on the standby set.

“This is a very serious operational issue and points to complete lack of professionalism and safety awareness of pilots,” said Ranganathan.

He said that if the Emergency Locator Transmitter signals had been activated, every aircraft in the vicinity should have picked up the signal. “Why then did not the pilots not check the frequency and if they did, why did they not inform traffic control,” said Ranganathan.

The emergency alert signal, also known as Distress Radio Beacon in aviation jargon, sends out signals in case.

Technical snag delays Dreamliner

An Air India Dreamliner flight from Chennai to Delhi was delayed by about seven hours on Monday after it developed a technical snag. According to sources, the aircraft, which was supposed to take off at 10.40 am, finally departed around 6pm.

Original article:   http://www.dnaindia.com


Bell 212,  United Helicharters (UHPL),  VT-HGC, Accident occurred September 29, 2013 in  Murbad, Thane, Maharashtra,  India