Aviation News

Air France

Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) — Air France scrapped some flights today because of a strike by pilots, cabin crew and ground workers over proposed changes to rules governing labor protests.

The French unit of Air France-KLM Group operated 449 flights as of 12:30 p.m. in Paris, Cedric Leurquin, an airline spokesman, said by phone, without specifying how many were scheduled to operate by that point today. The full day’s timetable called for 1,332 flights.

The strike, planned to extend through Feb. 9, comes less than three months after Alexandre de Junaic took charge as chief executive at Air France, succeeding Pierre-Henri Gourgeon, who left amid financial losses. The parent airline will post a loss of “several hundred million euros” for 2011 after fuel costs increased, de Juniac told French legislators on Jan. 25.

Unions are protesting a bill to be considered by the French Senate that would oblige each employee planning to strike to give 48 hours’ notice. The measure would give the airline a better idea of how travelers would be affected.

Air France-KLM declined as much as 4.4 percent in Paris trading and was down 3.9 percent at 5.13 euros at 3:56 p.m. local time. International Consolidated Airlines Group, the parent of British Airways, fell 1.9 percent in London, and Deutsche Lufthansa AG was down 1.3 percent in Frankfurt.

Late Notice

Air France passengers had to wait until this morning to know whether they would fly, and some who were told earlier that things looked good were later disappointed.

Radomir Hikl, a professor of homeopathic medicine based in Bangkok, had planned to return home from vacation in Prague via Paris with his wife and two children, and was told early this morning that the Air France leg from Paris to Bangkok would probably take off. By midday, he was told the flight would likely be canceled and the airline said it would try to find him a flight by tomorrow.

“They should have told me on Friday,” Hikl said in an interview by phone from Prague. “Now today, when they try to find me something else, airlines like Lufthansa and Austrian are already full.

“It’s very frustrating,” he said. “These employees should have the right to strike but maybe they should find some other way to block things, for example by blocking the French parliament. They shouldn’t punish the passengers.”

The airline sent 22,000 e-mails and text messages alerting passengers to the disruption, though 20 percent of the flights canceled were scrapped at the last minute, Leurquin said.

“De Juniac is meeting with various employee groups to discuss the situation,” Leurquin said.

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An airport ground-crew worker is trapped under the landing gear of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner jet at Paine Field in the western US state of Washington.

A Boeing employee became trapped under the landing gear of a 787 Dreamliner jet on Friday at the manufacturer’s Everett factory in the US.

Associated Press reports that emergency crews had to rescue the man after he was run over as the plane, with Japan Airlines livery, was being towed.

The man was transported by helicopter to hospital with serious leg injuries, the report said.

Boeing said it was investigating the incident and would “implement will implement the necessary changes to avoid a future re-occurrence”.

Meanwhile, the plane maker has discovered a problem related to the aft fuselage of its Dreamliner and is making repairs that will not affect production of the aircraft, the company said yesterday.

The 787 Dreamliner is a light-weight, fuel-efficient, carbon-composite aircraft. It was three years behind its development schedule but finally entered service last year.

“Boeing has found that incorrect shimming was performed on support structure on the aft fuselage of some 787s,” Boeing spokesman Scott Lefeber said.

Lefeber added, “we do not expect that it will affect our planned product rate increases,” and that there are no short-term safety concerns.

Boeing aims to ramp up monthly production on the airplane to 10 by the end of 2013. Some experts believe the target rate is too ambitious, but Boeing is standing by it.

Lefeber declined to identify how many aircraft were affected.

HongKong Airline

Hong Kong Airlines has become a new operator of Airbus single aisle aircraft, following the delivery of its first A320. The aircraft is the first of 30 A320s ordered by the airline and is powered by CFM International’s CFM 56 engines. Seating 152 passengers in two classes, the A320s will be operated across the carrier’s regional network, linking Hong Kong with destinations in mainland China, and North and South East Asia.

Hong Kong Airlines has also taken delivery of its latest long range A330-200, featuring a new all-premium class layout. With luxurious accommodation for just 116 passengers, the aircraft will be used to launch new non-stop services to London. The delivery increases the carrier’s in-service widebody fleet to 10 aircraft, comprising seven A330-200 passenger aircraft and three A330-200F freighters.

“With the delivery of our first A320 and the new all-premium class A330 Hong Kong Airlines will consolidate further its position as a premier full-service carrier,” said Yang Jian Hong, President, Hong Kong Airlines. “The on-board features will ensure that we are able to offer the best possible in-flight experience, while benefitting from the economic efficiency offered by these modern aircraft types.”

“We are pleased to see Hong Kong Airlines become a new A320 operator and also increase its Airbus long range fleet,” said John Leahy, Chief Operating Officer, Customers, Airbus. “These modern and fuel-efficient aircraft will offer Hong Kong Airlines the lowest operating costs in both regional and medium capacity long haul markets, as well as a level of technical commonality unique to the Airbus product line.”

The A320 Family is the best-selling and most modern single aisle product line available today, with over 8,300 aircraft ordered and some 5,000 delivered to some 340 customers and operators worldwide.

Airbus has recorded nearly 1,200 orders for the A330 Family and more than 800 aircraft are flying with some 90 operators worldwide. In addition to passenger aircraft, the A330 Family also includes freighter, VIP and military transport / tanker variants.

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Airbus A330

Airbus is considering beefing up its A330 passenger jet in a bid to expand a recent winning sales streak for the junior member of its wide-body jet family, the planemaker said on Monday.

While the twin-engined aircraft, in service since the 1990s, is enjoying a second honeymoon with airlines due, in part, to delays in Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner, analysts say it faces a threat from a possible stretched version of the 787.

An Airbus spokeswoman said a decision on how to enhance the A330 would be taken in the second half of the year.

The EADS unit is considering increasing the maximum amount of weight the A330 can carry by up to 5 tonnes and adding drag-reducing wingtip devices called “sharklets” — upward-slanting wingtips designed to help the aircraft fly further on the same amount of fuel.

They are already planned for the smaller narrowbody A320 and similar devices appear on some Boeing 757s.

A330 sales have flourished in the past two years as Boeing encountered delays in bringing out its carbon-composite 787, which recently entered service.

It has shorter range than either the 787 or Airbus’s planned carbon-fibre alternative, the future A350, but has sold well to airlines operating intermediate long-haul routes.

With the changes under consideration, the A330 would be able to lift up to 240 tonnes at take-off, Airbus said — an increase of 5 tonnes for the most popular variant, the A330-300, and two tonnes for the A330-200.

Increasing the maximum take-off weight allows airlines to add more fuel to carry the same number of people and their baggage further, or else carry a larger payload.

France’s La Tribune newspaper said the moves to increase the maximum tolerated weight at take-off would add 7 percent to the range of the A330, potentially giving it a range over 7000 nautical miles.

With a three-class layout, the A330-300 carries 295 people up to 5650 nautical miles or 10,500 kilometres, while the A330-200 — a later spin-off with a shorter fuselage and more range — takes 253 people up to 12,500 km.

Boeing has said it was considering a stretched version of its 787 called the 787-10 that would carry about 300 people approximately 6,800 nautical miles.

The move has been described by an industry official familiar with Boeing pre-marketing as a potential “A330 killer”.

The skirmish addresses a lucrative niche of the industry alongside high-profile battles between the A350 and Boeing’s 787 and the older but larger 777, which had record sales last year.

Airbus has said the carbon A350 will eventually outshine the 777 because it will be lighter and cheaper to run, while Boeing was expected to make similar claims about the 787-10 against the A330, which stems from roughly the same era as the 777.