Australia’s two largest airports posted strong passenger growth in March as more international travellers pour into the country. At Melbourne Tullamarine, international passengers were up 7.3 per cent in March at 763,848, compared with the prior corresponding period. The March figures represented seven straight years of international passenger growth at Melbourne. Melbourne Airport...
Traveling in and out of Belgium’s capital city of Brussels has been tense since the March 22nd terror attacks, which left 32 dead and the city on edge. However, officials have been working hard to restore normalcy to the European travel hub’s usually bustling flight schedule. While the Brussels Airport symbolically reopened on April 3rd with three departing flights, today it will se...
Specialist aviation company SaxonAir continues its growth reporting on a buoyant performance over the past year in most areas of the group. Since the company was founded in 2007 it has grown year on year with new charter and managed aircraft being added to the fleet, flight support contracts won through its Business Aviation Centre headquarters and increasing numbers of aircraft sales and acquisit...
Waypoint Leasing (Ireland) Limited (“Waypoint”), the largest independent global helicopter leasing company, today announced that it has closed on a $100 million term loan facility led by Lombard North Central Plc (“Lombard”). The facility has a maturity of approximately six years and provides for USD, EUR and GBP funding capacity on a delayed draw basis. The company will us...
European planemaker Airbus is close to a deal to sell 37 current-generation A321 passenger jets to Delta Air Lines, three people familiar with the matter said. Such a deal would be worth $4.3 billion at list prices. Airbus declined to comment. A Delta spokesman said "no decision has been made on any aircraft transaction." If confirmed by the airline's board, which has the fi...
It’s sort of scary how often we hear stories about Air India flights being diverted due to rats onboard. For example, this past Saturday an Air India Boeing 787 bound from Melbourne to Delhi was diverted to Singapore after a rat was spotted onboard. It might sound like a joke, or like something out of Samuel L Jackson’s “Snakes On A Plane” movie, but this actually h...
A four-month-old girl has died while travelling on a Cathay Pacific Airways flight from London to Hong Kong. The infant is believed to have been suffering from a gastrointestinal disease when the family boarded the plane at Heathrow on Sunday. She fell unconscious during the flight and her parents - who were planning on visiting relatives in China – alerted cabin crew immediately. A...
Airbus Training Center (ATC) in Miami – part of the growing worldwide network of Training by Airbus* facilities – has installed its first A350 XWB full-flight simulator. The A350 XWB simulator has received Level-D** qualification from both the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). This is the first A350 XWB full-flight...
Sabre has made its first acquisition of 2016 with the purchase of Airpas Aviation, a technology provider that helps airlines manage their route networks and costs. No terms regarding the acquisition were released in the announcement. Sabre will place the Germany-based company within its Airline Solutions portfolio of tools and services. Airpas has a number of tools and products that allow...
European low-cost airline easyJet's founder and biggest shareholder Stelios Haji-ioannou would oppose any move by the company to make an acquisition, he said on Tuesday, following media reports that it was looking at making a bid for smaller rival Monarch. The Sunday Times newspaper said that easyJet was eyeing Monarch Airlines, one of a number of stories about Monarch to emerge in rec...
While there are plenty of struggling airlines, the one I probably feel worst for is Malaysia Airlines. The airline had already been losing money for years, and then they lost two Boeing 777 aircraft just months apart, which is just about an unprecedented tragedy. Probably the smartest thing the airline did in a while is hire Christoph Mueller as their CEO, who is known as one of the industry&rs...
Garuda Indonesia has confirmed an order with Airbus for the purchase of 14 A330-900neo, the new re-engined version of the best-selling A330 widebody airliner, to support the company’s growth and business expansion in the future. The deal was signed at a ceremony in London in the presence of the President of Indonesia, His Excellency Joko Widodo and British Prime Minister, the...
