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LATEST NEWS
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Thursday, January 12th, 2023
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It was on Tuesday afternoon in the U.S. that air traffic controllers discovered a glitch with the computer system that would require an entire reboot. The problem was discovered to be a corrupt file in the main Notice to Air Missions, or NOTAM. A corrupt file was also found in the backup system.
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The NOTAM is a critical and massive safety computer system that advises pilots of issues along their route and at their destination. It was decided that the system reboot, which takes approximately 90 minutes, should be performed in the early hours of Wednesday morning before air traffic began flying on the East Coast in order to minimize disruption to flights. However, the reboot did not go according to plan and at approximately 7.30 a.m. ET the FAA issued a nationwide order to halt all domestic flight departures until the system was fully operational again.
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At 8.50 a.m. ET the FAA issued a statement saying that that the ground stop had been lifted and that normal air traffic operations were resuming across the U.S. However, the knock-on effect was considerable and even by the time the ground stop was lifted, the number of delayed flights had passed 4,000. By 5.22 p.m. ET that number had risen to over 9,000 flights with over 1,300 cancellations. Having cancelled tens of thousands of flights after Christmas following a systemwide meltdown Southwest Airlines saw some 377 flights cancelled, though rival carrier American was forced to cancel nearly 400 flights.
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LCI, a leading aviation company and a subsidiary of Libra Group, has signed an agreement with Elroy Air, developer of advanced autonomous cargo aircraft systems, to acquire up to 40 of the company’s Chaparral vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft.
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LCI’s investment in Elroy Air’s system underpins the company’s long-term commitment to sustainable growth and innovation. Under the terms of the deposit-backed agreement, LCI will initially acquire 20 aircraft with an option for a total of up to 40 units. The VTOL aircraft are currently under development at Elroy Air’s facility in South San Francisco, California.
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The Chaparral is the first end-to-end autonomous VTOL cargo delivery system. It is designed for aerial transport of up to 500 lbs (225 kg) of goods over a 300 nautical mile range. This is enabled initially by a turbine-based hybrid-electric powertrain with distributed electrical propulsion and specially designed aerodynamic modular cargo pods.
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Its applications include safe, efficient and cost-effective aerial cargo transport for commercial logistics, disaster relief, firefighting and humanitarian operations without risk to pilots or the need for airport infrastructure.
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Independent spare engine leasing company Engine Lease Finance Corporation (ELFC) has named Avril Comerford to the position of Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer with overall responsibility for the Finance function,
replacing Declan Sheedy who is departing the company after 19 years of service to pursue other opportunities.
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Comerford has 20+ years of experience in the aviation industry. Following her qualification in 1998, she joined Ernst & Young as Audit Manager supporting various companies in the aviation industry, in 2001 she moved to Shannon Engine Support Limited (SES) progressing in the organisation to Chief Financial Officer.
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Comerford joined ELFC in June 2013 as Senior Finance Manager and since then has held several positions of increasing responsibility within the finance department. As of January 2019, she has held the position of Senior Vice President Finance, contributing notably to areas of digitisation, Japanese Sarbanes Oxley and large transactions such as business and asset acquisitions
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Airbus UpNext, a wholly owned subsidiary of Airbus, has started testing new, on ground and in-flight, pilot assistance technologies on an A350-1000 test aircraft.
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Known as DragonFly, the technologies being demonstrated include automated emergency diversion in cruise, automatic landing and taxi assistance and are aimed at evaluating the feasibility and pertinence of further exploring autonomous flight systems in support of safer and more efficient operations.
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“These tests are one of several steps in the methodical research of technologies to further enhance operations and improve safety,” said Isabelle Lacaze, Head of DragonFly demonstrator, Airbus UpNext. “Inspired by biomimicry, the systems being tested have been designed to identify features in the landscape that enable an aircraft to “see” and safely manoeuvre autonomously within its surroundings, in the same way that dragonflies are known to have the ability to recognise landmarks.”
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During the flight test campaign, the technologies were able to assist pilots in-flight, managing a simulated incapacitated crew member event, and during landing and taxiing operations. Taking into account external factors such as flight zones, terrain and weather conditions, the aircraft was able to generate a new flight trajectory plan and communicate with both Air Traffic Control (ATC) and the airline Operations Control Centre.
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Airbus UpNext has also explored features for taxi assistance, which were tested in real-time conditions at Toulouse-Blagnac Airport. The technology provides the crew with audio alerts in reaction to obstacles, assisted speed control, and guidance to the runway using a dedicated airport map.
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In addition to these capabilities, Airbus UpNext is launching a project to prepare the next generation of computer vision-based algorithms to advance landing and taxi assistance.
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These tests were made possible through cooperation with Airbus subsidiaries and external partners including Cobham, Collins Aerospace, Honeywell, Onera and Thales. DragonFly was partially funded by the French Civil Aviation Authority (DGAC) as part of the French Stimulus plan, which is part of the European Plan, Next Generation EU, and the France 2030 plan.
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AAR CORP. (AAR) has released that John M. Holmes, President and Chief Executive Officer of AAR has been named Chairman of the Board of Directors following the retirement of David P. Storch, the company’s Chairman for 18 years. Holmes will continue as President and Chief Executive Officer of the company.
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Holmes joined AAR in 2001 as Director of Mergers and Acquisitions. In 2003, Holmes moved into operations, becoming General Manager of AAR’s Parts Supply business and progressively assuming responsibility of other businesses before being appointed as President and Chief Operating Officer in 2017. In 2018, he was named President and Chief Executive Officer of AAR, the third since the company’s founding in 1955.
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Under Holmes’s leadership, AAR has achieved substantial growth in sales and profitability, while successfully navigating the company through the COVID-19 pandemic. As Chairman, Holmes will focus on strategies to drive continued growth while maintaining the Company’s strong culture and core values.
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KKR, a leading global investment firm, and Altavair L.P., a leader in commercial aviation finance, have announced that KKR is making an additional US$1.15 billion commitment to expand its global portfolio of leased commercial aircraft in partnership with Altavair. The investment will come from KKR’s credit and infrastructure funds.
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KKR has deployed and committed US$1.7 billion of capital into aircraft deals since forming a partnership with Altavair and acquiring an interest in the company in 2018. KKR, in partnership with Altavair, has acquired more than 90 commercial and freighter aircraft through a variety of transactions, including lessor trades, airline direct used and new delivery sale leasebacks, structured transactions and passenger-to-freight conversions and has successfully leased more than 75% of the portfolio to tier-one airlines and operators around the world.
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“We are thrilled to deepen our footprint in aircraft leasing through this new commitment, which underscores the conviction that we have in this space and our confidence in Altavair as a partner,” said Dan Pietrzak, KKR Partner and Co-Head of Private Credit. “We look forward to growing our portfolio further to support the fleet needs of airlines and operators around the world.”
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KKR has invested approximately US$8.3 billion of capital in the aviation sector since 2015. Investments include Altavair, AV AirFinance, Atlantic Aviation, KKR DVB Aviation Capital, K2 Aviation, Wheels Up, Global Jet Capital and Jet Edge, among others.
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Travelport, a global technology company that powers bookings for hundreds of thousands of travel suppliers worldwide, and Avianca Airlines, headquartered in Colombia and a member of Star Alliance, have renewed their long-standing relationship with a new distribution agreement.
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As part of the new deal, Travelport-connected agencies will have access to Avianca’s wide-ranging travel offers and ancillaries. Travelport will also support the airline’s technological transformation with advanced retailing and merchandising capabilities available on the Travelport+ platform.
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“By renewing our partnership with Travelport, we expect to elevate our distribution strategy and make our NDC content even more accessible to our agency retail partners. Travelport continues to influence with its enhanced retailing and merchandising technology solutions which further support the agency community along with simplified access to our wide range of travel offers and ancillaries,” said Catalina Nannig, Sales Vice President at Avianca.
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International air cargo consortium Challenge Group has selected AMOS for Challenge Airlines BE, Challenge Airlines IL, Challenge Airlines MT and Challenge Technic.
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The AMOS Airline Edition will enable the airlines to streamline operations, increase efficiency and reduce overall maintenance costs by improving and digitising internal aircraft maintenance procedures. As part of the paperless maintenance process, the use of AMOSmobile/EXEC, a touch-optimised add-on to AMOS, will enable the paperless execution of all line- and base-maintenance activities.
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To complete the service package, Challenge Group has chosen Swiss-AS Cloud Hosting, which includes the proven AMOS Operation Services. With the use of secured VPN connections, its AMOS environment will be easily accessible from all its international operational bases. The hosting services are an effective method of eliminating the need for the group to maintain a technical infrastructure on site and enabling it to operate in compliance with the latest security and IT standards.
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In order to address the complex implementation project that has already begun, AMOS will be implemented in phases, due to the amount of AOCs that will be migrating from different legacy systems to AMOS. Challenge Group is aiming to unify all its different entities on a single AMOS environment which will enable the different entities to maximise the synergies and ensure a complete harmonisation of all the processes and data between them. The first phase of the project will focus on the Part 145 organisation and the second phase will include the different CAMO (Continuing Airworthiness Management Organisation) organisations going live one by one.
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Regional Express, Rex, has released that its unaudited management accounts for November have shown a further increase in profitability for its domestic Boeing 737 jet operations, with the profit before tax (PBT) improving from about AU$2 million to AU$2.8 million. This makes November the third consecutive month that the domestic jet operations have been overall profitable since the jet operations resumed in February 2022.
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The regional Saab 340 operations are still making a loss of less than AU$0.2 million for November but EBITDA for the month has doubled to AU$2.2 million from the positive AU$1 million for the month of October, again making it the third consecutive month the regional operations have been cash-flow positive since COVID.
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The company believes that the regional Saab operations will return to monthly overall profitability in the current quarter. The entire Rex Group showed a profit for the second consecutive month, with the PBT for the month at just over AU$3 million following a smaller PBT of AU$800,000 the month before.
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