Aviation News

A passenger has been arrested after he slapped a flight attendant on a JetBlue plane.

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida. — A JetBlue plane traveling from Fort Lauderdale to New York has made an emergency landing at Palm Beach International Airport.

Aviation officials say the Airbus A320 plane left Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport late Thursday morning. A short time later, a pilot reported a speed indicator problem and safely landed at PBIA, about 50 miles north of where it took off.

Maintenance crews were inspecting the plane Thursday afternoon.

JetBlue says the 134 customers on Flight 18 were moved to another plane, which was scheduled to leave PBIA around 5:30 p.m. and arrive at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York several hours later.

The RNZAF 757 makes a landing at the Whenuapai Airbase near Auckland after it was hit by lightning five minutes after take-off.

Photographs have captured the dramatic landing of an Air Force plane this morning after lightning struck.

The Royal New Zealand Air Force 757 was hit by lightning prompting an emergency landing at Whenuapai air base around 9.30am.

The plane had just taken off from Auckland and was heading to Wellington on a routine flight with 19 passengers and seven crew on board when it was hit.

Air force spokesman Squadron Leader Kavae Tamariki said there were no injuries and engineers were carrying out an inspection of the aircraft.

Wintry weather has closed roads and a Wellington train line today as severe gales and heavy downpours lash the country.

The Lindis pass in central Otago remained closed this morning due to heavy snow.

About 12 vehicles, including a tourist bus, had to be towed from the highway yesterday after they became trapped.

AIR FORCE PLANE CIRCLES

This was not the first time an Air Force plane had been struck by lightning. Last year an Orion returning from Canada was struck on the nose, with the jolt going right through the plane.

It was described by those on the plane as a “big bang” which caused minor damage and some of the systems to go down, though the planes were built to withstand such things, Tamariki said.

The RNZAF has two ex-commercial Boeing 757s.

Configured for both cargo and passengers, they can carry between 186 and 279 passengers.

MORE BAD WEATHER TO COME

A cold front is expected to move over the North Island today, bringing a burst of heavy rain to western and northern areas of the country, the MetService said.

Only a few more hours of heavy rain were expected in central Westland before it eased, following heavy rain overnight. More significant rain was expected from later today.

A severe gale warning was also in place for Wellington, Wairarapa and central Hawke’s Bay, the MetService said.

The winds had the potential to lift roofs, cause damage to trees and power-lines, and make driving hazardous.

Thunderstorms were also likely given the unstable nature of the front.

Earlier today a slip on the Johnsonville line in Wellington caused delays on the city’s train system this morning, with buses needed after a tree fell on the tracks.

Tranz Metro spokeswoman Cathie Bell said the fall happened on the tracks near Ngaio, and buses were needed to replaced the train while the debris was cleared.

Teams were working to clear the Lindis pass and it was hoped it would be reopened this morning, Kurow constable Craig Bennett said.

State Highway 85 from Palmerston to Kyeburn was also closed by snow, with chains essential on Arthur’s pass and State Highway 94 near Te Anau.

The snow was a welcome relief for the ski fields, however, with more snow falling overnight on Mt Ruapehu and the Southern Alps.

At least 30cm fell on the Ohau ski field, with smaller falls on Coronet Peak, the Remarkables and Cardrona.

source: http://www.stuff.co.nz

Aerolineas Argentinas air company worker stands at Jorge Newbery airport where flights were canceled due to an ash cloud that reached Buenos Aires from the Chilean Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcano, grounding air travel in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The cloud of volcanic ash traveled in June from the southern area of Argentina to the northeast, causing flight cancellations, a considerable diminish of tourism and economic prejudice in the area

The ash cloud from a volcanic eruption in southern Chile has spread to Argentina, causing flight cancellations across South America.

Aerolineas Argentinas, the country’s biggest airline, cancelled operations, according to the press office. American Airlines cancelled scheduled flights from Buenos Aires to Miami, New York and Dallas, according to the international airport’s information centre.

Lan Airlines scrapped flights to Buenos Aires from Ecuador, Uruguay and Peru, while others were delayed, the company said on its website.

European carriers including those run by Alitalia, Iberia and Air France-KLM Group are reporting some delays in arrivals and departures, according to the press office of Aeropuertos Argentina 2000, which operates 33 terminals in the country, including two in Buenos Aires.

Chile’s Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcanic complex began to erupt on June 4, generating ash clouds that led to flight cancellations because of concerns that they may clog jet engines.

Damage to livestock and crops led Argentina to declare an agriculture emergency last month in the southern provinces of Rio Negro, Chubut and Neuquen.

Air France

Air France will ask passengers to clear their seats and take rubbish with them when leaving the plane as it seeks to cut costs and stem the advance of budget airlines EasyJet and Ryanair Holdings in its home market.

The Paris-based carrier is working on the plan after cabin crew refused to assume cleaning duties at a low-cost operation it is introducing in a push to claw back traffic at provincial airports, according to a union official involved in the talks.

Chief executive officer Pierre-Henri Gourgeon wants to eliminate ground-based cleaners to keep jets flying for longer, emulating discount rivals and rendering hitherto-unprofitable regional hubs viable. Still, union wrangles have already forced one of four planned bases to be abandoned, even as EasyJet adds French routes and Spain’s Vueling Airlines begins flights from Toulouse, one of the remaining locations.

“No flag-carrier in the history of aviation has ever succeeded in rolling out a real low-fares airline,” he said.

Air France-KLM Group, Europe’s biggest airline, trails rivals in evolving a strategy to confront the no-frills threat.

BA Experiment

British Airways founded a low-cost subsidiary, Go Fly, in 1998 at London Stansted, the biggest base for Ryanair. Go was sold to 3i Group in 2001 and then EasyJet a year later, while BA pared its own unprofitable short-haul network to focus on providing feeder traffic to London Heathrow.

Deutsche Lufthansa created GermanWings to defend its position on regional routes, and Iberia combined its no-frills operation with Vueling in 2009. The Spanish company has since merged with BA as International Consolidated Airlines Group SA.

“Air France is a little late making these adjustments and the market rolls on without waiting for them,” said Penny Butcher, an analyst at Morgan Stanley in London. “Most of their peer group recognised the low-cost threat and adapted their businesses years ago. The delay is 99 per cent labour-related.”

Air France’s share of domestic and international traffic fell from 39 per cent in 2002, when Luton, England-based EasyJet opened its first French base, to 34 per cent in 2009, the most recent year for which a breakdown is available.

TGV challenge

EasyJet more than quadrupled its share to 7.6 per cent over the same period. It increased capacity on French routes by 35 per cent in the first half and based a 22nd aircraft in the country to add summer flights from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport and winter services to Verona and Bologna. Spokeswoman Celine Prenez declined to comment on the Air France plan.

French short-haul air travel is also under pressure from state rail operator SNCF’s TGV high-speed trains as the network is extended and journey times fall.

Gourgeon’s strategy involves shifting part of Air France’s single-aisle Airbus SAS A320 fleet from Paris to Marseille, Nice and Toulouse, opening up dozens of new routes including services to north Africa, Eastern Europe and Scandinavia.

According to the plan, staff will work longer hours and be stationed at the bases, paring costs and trimming the turnaround between flights to 25-30 minutes in order to lift time in the air to about 12 hours a day from the current eight or nine.

Air France dropped Bordeaux from the model, and may instead serve the city with smaller Embraer SA jets, while postponing the Marseille base’s opening from June to October to allow for extra union consultation, Gourgeon said in a June 16 interview, adding that the company wants its employees to endorse the plan.

“The delay is mainly because we want to do it in a win-win way with staff,” the CEO said. “We don’t force anybody, we don’t have to say ‘OK, you have to work more and make less money’.”

Cabin-crew impasse

Members of Air France’s main SNPL pilots union accepted the strategy by a 54.5 per cent majority in a ballot that ended this week, the labour group said on its website. Finding crew prepared to move to the provincial cities may prove tougher.

Talks with the SNPNC cabin-crew union broke down earlier this week, Fatiha Aggoune, its president, said. Negotiations are stuck over issues including reduced rest periods and a lower hourly pay rate, she said. Air France spokesman Jean-Charles Trehan declined to comment on the plans.

“It’s very difficult to get concessions from strong unions at traditional airlines,” said Alex Cruz, CEO of Barcelona-based Vueling. “We’ve not yet seen a strategy articulated by Air France that’s competitive enough to affect us.”

Pilot intervention

Vueling, which opened its Toulouse base this year and is seeking to expand at Paris Orly, keeps to tight schedules thanks to pilots and flight attendants who accept their wider roles, he said, citing the actions of one pilot on a recent flight.

“The plane wasn’t getting refueled fast enough so he went down the stairs and began to give hell to the people on the ground until they got their job done,” Cruz said in an interview. “Our cabin crew go through and do a cleanup because they’re already on board. You won’t get Air France staff to do that unless you hire a new crew under new conditions.”

Yet unless Air France secures comparable agreements, it will “never get near” the productivity or 25-minute turnarounds of low-cost rivals, said Morgan Stanley’s Butcher, who blames legacy labor costs for scuppering no-frills experiments at other mainline carriers and reckons Qantas’s Jetstar is the only budget offshoot that actually worked.

Weaker hand

What’s more, Air France could soon face competition in southern cities from additional discount carriers, such as Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA, Europe’s fourth-largest, she said.

“It’s not a recent phenomenon that EasyJet decided to move into France, and it has been over a year since Vueling decided to move into the market,” Butcher said. “Yet they really only launched the idea of short-haul bases late last year, so they’ve taken a very long time to actually get things moving.”

A rebound in demand for air travel from the credit crunch and recession also gives labor representatives more leverage, weakening Gourgeon’s hand, said Yan Derocles, an analyst at Oddo Securities in Paris with a “buy” rating on Air France-KLM, which he reckons should have acted after racking up 2.4 billion euros of net losses in the two years through March 2010.

“The time to negotiate was during the crisis, when management held the bargaining power,” he said, citing increased labour flexibility secured by Lufthansa in 2009. “But there was almost no discussion with unions, and now the environment has changed completely. Management simply wasn’t doing its job.”

At Ryanair, which serves 26 French destinations but ceased to base planes in Marseille in a spat over labor laws, encouraging Air France to target the city, CEO O’Leary said Gourgeon could undermine demand at his company’s own mainline operation in his eagerness to stem the discount tide.

“For the low-fares airline to succeed it would have to cannibalise Air France’s traffic,” he said. “What Air France will do is probably use it to block the development of Ryanair or EasyJet in some regional markets, but that will be it.”