Aviation News

Airbus A320neo

Planemaker Airbus celebrated a $US72 billion ($A68 billion) haul of orders, including the biggest single airliner deal in history, in a home turf victory over US rival Boeing at the Paris Air Show yesterday.

“This success sets a new record for any commercial aircraft manufacturer at any air show ever,” Airbus said, after confirming Malaysia’s AirAsia would buy 200 of its A320neo medium-haul jets for $US18.2 billion (12.7 billion euros).

It said this brought Airbus’s order book for the week at the Le Bourget aerodrome north of Paris to 730 airliners, including 701 for its new star, the single-aisle A320 in both its original and fuel-efficient “Neo” variant.

At catalogue prices, the orders represent hard sales worth $US44 billion and memoranda of understanding for the purchase of aircraft worth $US28.2 billion.

The AirAsia order makes the Malaysian low-cost pioneer Airbus’s biggest customer and is the biggest single airliner sale by numbers in history.

Airbus chief commercial officer John Leahy also said that an unidentified firm had ordered 10 of its A380 super jumbos for $US3.75 billion dollars.

By contrast, Airbus’s great rival Boeing had a relatively quiet week in Le Bourget, despite being able to show customers its ultra-modern long-haul 787 Dreamliner and the new, longer version of its iconic 747 jumbo jet.

Boeing said Thursday it had logged 142 firm orders and commitments worth more than $US22 billion during the show, most of the confirmed purchases being for the medium-haul 737, the A320′s direct competitor.

The US behemoth has never used Le Bourget as a shop window in the same way as Airbus and was not expected to come out ahead.

“They choose to use their shows to make announcements, we choose to use our shows to demonstrate our technology, to connect with our customers and suppliers and to highlight our new airplanes’ capabilities,” said Randy Tinseth, Boeing’s marketing vice-president.

But sales figures for the year as a whole to date show a stark divide. Since January, Airbus has received 725 firm orders and Boeing only 195.

The surprise key to Airbus’s success has been the A320 — an unglamorous single-aisle workhorse now available as the “Neo” or “New Engine Option” which the company boasts is 15 per cent more fuel efficient.

“I have to admit, I largely underestimated the market demand for Neo before this show,” the European giant’s chairman Thomas Enders said.

With world oil prices hovering around $US100 a barrel, fuel accounts for almost a third of an airline’s operating costs, up from about 13 per cent in 2001, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

With the world recovery in travel gathering pace, airlines and plane leasing firms are seeking to renew their fleets with more efficient planes, and the A320neo arrived at the show at just the right moment.

The medium-haul market was formerly dominated by the world’s most ubiquitous airliner, the Boeing 737, now at a crossroads in its development.

The US firm has yet to decide whether to give the old favourite new engines, as Airbus has done with the A320, or to develop an entirely new airframe. It has promised to make its mind up by the end of the year.

“We continue to improve the performance of the 737,” said Tinseth. “By the beginning of next year, we are going to improve the efficiency of the airplane by another two percent.

“We are leaving our options open. New engine, new airplane — we will make the decision when the time is right.”

Thursday was the last trade-only day at Le Bourget. On Friday and Saturday the deal makers will make way for tens of thousands of visitors come to see aerobatic displays and the latest planes.

Southwest Airlines

SOUTHWEST has suspended a pilot whose disparaging comments about gay people and older flight attendants were transmitted over an air-traffic control frequency.

The pilot was talking with another crew member and apparently didn’t realise that his microphone was on.

On a tape of the two-and-a-half minute rant, the pilot can be heard talking about wanting to socialise with co-workers but complaining that many were gay or too old or too heavy.

Sometimes using profanity and slurs, he called them “a continuous stream of gays and grannies and grandes.”

An air-traffic controller in Houston told pilots in the area to check if their microphone was stuck open.

Southwest said that the pilot was reinstated after going through diversity training. The incident happened in March and was reported this week by KPRC-TV in Houston.

“The actions of this pilot are, without question, inconsistent with the professional behaviour and overall respect that we require from our employees,” Southwest spokeswoman Brandy King said.

She said the pilot was reprimanded and suspended without pay, although she wouldn’t say for how long.

She said he apologised to air-traffic controllers and their bosses.

King declined to identify the pilot. She said he has worked for Southwest for more than a dozen years and has an otherwise good record.

The Federal Aviation Administration said it alerted Southwest after determining that the pilot on the tape was likely from Southwest.

FAA spokesman Lynn Lunsford said the incident occurred at a time in the flight when personal conversions are allowed in the cockpit but that the FAA “expects a higher level of professionalism from flight crews.”

Philippine Airline A340

Philippine Airlines resumed regular flight service to Australia resumed on Wednesday following a single cancelation on Tuesday due to volcanic ash that enveloped the skies near Melbourne.

PAL PR 211 (Manila-Sydney-Melbourne) took off at 9:20 a.m. using a PAL Airbus A340 aircraft. Its 140 passengers include those supposed to take Tuesday’s canceled flight for Melbourne and Sydney.

PR209 (Manila-Melbourne-Sydney) was canceled on Tuesday as a precautionary measure to ensure passenger safety after volcanic ash clouds from Chile reached some parts of Australia.

The volcanic cloud traveled across the Pacific from Chile’s Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcano, which erupted on June 5.

Lufthansa A340-600

A jet carrying 286 passengers slammed on its brakes and aborted a take-off this week at Kennedy Airport, New York, after another plane began taxiing towards the runway it was using, the Federal Aviation Administration said on Wednesday.

Lufthansa Flight 411 was cleared for take-off and EgyptAir Flight 986 was instructed to stay behind a “hold line”, 250 feet behind the runway, at 6.50pm on Monday, said FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen. The EgyptAir crossed the line but did not enter the runway, she said.

“When air traffic control saw that, it cancelled the take-off for Lufthansa,” Bergen said, adding that the Lufthansa plane stopped “a considerable distance” from the EgyptAir jet.

In radio recordings posted on the website LiveATC.net, a controller in the JFK tower is heard giving take-off clearance to the Lufthansa flight while another controller directs the EgyptAir plane.

“No! Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa!” shouts someone in the tower as the EgyptAir plane crosses the hold-short line.

“Cancel take-off! Cancel take-off plans!” a controller shouts to the Lufthansa jet.

The Lufthansa plane, an Airbus A340, slammed on its brakes and came to a stop. Then it taxied off the runway. The pilot told controllers he was worried his brakes may have overheated, so controllers sent a Port Authority crew to help check the plane’s landing gear.

“That was quite a show. Thought it was going to be a short career,” a pilot who witnessed the aborted takeoff remarked on the radio.

The FAA was looking at “pilot deviation” because the EgyptAir plane, a Boeing 777, didn’t follow air traffic instructions.

“The pilot was instructed to turn onto another taxiway but did not,” Bergen said.

She said the FAA is investigating and will determine how close the two planes came.

EgyptAir officials said they had no knowledge of the close call.

The Lufthansa flight was heading to Munich, airline spokesman Martin Riecken said. After the takeoff was halted, the captain returned to the gate for a maintenance check while the passengers remained on the plane. The fight departed about two hours later, Riecken said.

There were no reports of injuries.

The New York Post reported that the EgyptAir flight was bound for Cairo. It was not immediately known how many people it was carrying. It departed about 90 minutes afterwards.

Bergen said investigators will listen to air traffic communications and look at radar replay.

Aviation authorities are increasingly worried about the danger of runway collisions as planes get bigger and airports more congested. In December a JetBlue plane took a wrong turn at Boston’s Logan Airport and nearly taxied onto a runway where another plane was taking off.

The deadliest crash in aviation history was a runway collision. In 1977 a KLM Boeing 747 crashed into a Pan Am 747 on the same runway in Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, killing 583 people.