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World’s largest passenger plane was hurt by misjudged market trends, internal dysfunction and production problems<p>
Airbus has sunk at least $17 billion into the A380 project yet sold fewer than half of the 750 superjumbo jetliners it promised to deliver by the end of this year. An Airbus A380 of Lufthansa airline.<p>
When Airbus launched the A380 superjumbo in 2000, it touted the two-deck plane as “the Eighth Wonder of the World.” Instead, the world’s largest passenger plane exposed dysfunction inside the European aerospace company and now offers a textbook case of a company misjudging its market and losing big.<p>
Airbus has sunk at least $17 billion into the project yet sold fewer than half of the 750 superjumbo jetliners it promised to deliver by the end of this year. On Thursday Airbus said it would cease producing the 555-seat plane at the end of 2021.<p>
Excerpt from WSJ
Investigators in Texas looked Sunday for cockpit voice and data recorders in the wreckage of a cargo plane flying for Amazon.com<p>
Local and federal officials gathered at a staging area for the investigation into a cargo plane crash in Trinity Bay in Anahuac, Texas, on Saturday. The Boeing 767 was carrying goods for Amazon.com.<p>
Investigators in Texas searched Sunday for cockpit voice and data recorders in the wreckage of a cargo plane flying for Amazon.com Inc. that went into a sudden nosedive and crashed over the weekend, killing the three people on board.<p>
The Boeing Co. 767 crashed into Trinity Bay near Houston around 12:45 p.m. Central time Saturday, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Authorities on Sunday said two of the bodies had been recovered, and search teams were seeking locator signals from so-called black box recorders believed to be buried in mud.<p>
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Excerpt from WSJ
Honeywell unveils satellite-linked, in-flight devices intended to speed investigations. After the 2009 crash of Air France Flight 447 in the Atlantic Ocean, it took two years for investigators to find the black boxes.
Honeywell International Inc. is introducing a new line of aircraft cockpit and flight-data recorders that offer more data-storage capacity and the ability, for the first time, to use satellites to retrieve accident information in real time.
Honeywell officials and other proponents of the new technology said the devices, commonly called black boxes, promise major benefits for future plane crash investigations.
Such options have been debated for years by aviation industry officials, and have been championed by many safety advocates and accident investigators. The aim is to ensure vital crash data can be gathered quickly, avoiding the uncertainties of lengthy and sometimes fruitless searches for conventional recorders.
Excerpt from WSJ
Travelers love to hate on airlines. Airlines sometimes do bad things to their customers, dinging them with add-on fees, penalizing them when plans change, squeezing them into shrinking seats and bathrooms and occasionally leaving them stranded for a couple of days.
So if you could wave a magic wand and improve air travel, what would you do?
We’re not talking about fantasies like first-class seats for $10. Airlines need to be able to pay their bills. But are there practical fixes that could make flying better for people who don’t have superelite status or the cash to buy flying beds?
The question is a serious one for airlines. Airline loyalty is in decline. Henry Harteveldt, founder and analyst at Atmosphere Research Group, says his surveys show only 21% of U.S. airline passengers considered themselves loyal to any one airline last year. In 2000, that number exceeded 40%, he says.
This is an excerpt from WSJ
Southwest Airlines Co. and air-safety regulators are scrambling to complete work that would allow the carrier to begin service between California and Hawaii, scheduling eight government-supervised flights but the shutdown was looming
The unusually tight timeline, spelled out in federal documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, partly reflects the desire to minimize the impact from a possible second partial federal government shutdown by the middle of the month. The White House and congressional negotiators are working under a Feb. 15 funding deadline, though industry and government officials said some of the flights are slated to occur a few days past that date.
Under the most optimistic scenario, these officials said, Southwest could start regular service for passengers across the Pacific from the West Coast by April. The timing depends on whether the designated flights without passengers are completed successfully and on time, as well as when the low-fare carrier opts to put tickets on sale.
Limited service flown by senior pilots or managers could begin in March, according to industry officials.
This is an excerpt from the Wall St. Journal
Furlough of FAA inspectors also slows airline’s introduction of new Airbus planes
Delta Air Lines Inc. forecast sluggish revenue growth for early this year in part because of business lost to the federal government shutdown.
The Atlanta-based carrier said Tuesday that it expects first-quarter unit revenue—a key industry metric—to be flat or rise at most by 2% as federal workers travel less during the spending fight between the Trump administration and Congress.
Chief Executive Ed Bastian said the shutdown would cost Delta this month about $25 million in revenue from government travel. The airline also attributed its tempered outlook to a stronger U.S. dollar and to the timing of this year’s Easter holiday in April, which pushes a busy travel period beyond the first quarter.
This is an excerpt from The Wall Street Journal.
Rate of planes coming too close to each other hasn’t changed, but air-traffic controllers’ resources ‘are starting to run thin,’ union official says
U.S. aviation officials have compiled data that statistically support, for the first time, Trump administration statements that the partial government shutdown hasn’t jeopardized air-traffic-control safety.
The data, according to one person briefed on the details, indicate that serious traffic-control deviations—incidents of planes coming dangerously close to each other in the air or on the ground—have remained flat from levels a year ago. Such incidents are typically captured by computers and other automated means.
The statistical summary, covering the duration of the shutdown through the end of last week, also shows a 4% overall drop across a broader range of air-traffic-control deviations, this person said.
This is an excerpt from The Wall Street Journal.
Move aims to help reduce its shipping costs, reliance on carriers such as UPS and FedEx
An Amazon-branded Boeing 767 freighter flies over Lake Washington during the Seattle Seafair Air Show in August 2016.
Amazon.com Inc. AMZN -0.56% on Friday said it would lease another 10 freighter aircraft from Air Transport Services Group Inc., ATSG -1.42% as the online retail giant expands its air cargo operation.
The expanded deal also gives Amazon the ability to buy up to a 39.9% stake in the Wilmington, Ohio, air-cargo transportation company and includes multiyear extensions of the current aircraft leases between the companies.
This is an excerpt from The Wall Street Journal.
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