AvNews: 18/11/17

Updates

Early retirement

The first ever Airbus A380 officials got retired and was ferried to Tarbes-Lourdes for storage at only 10 years. 9V-SKA will be stored at the storage facility until another airline buys it or it's ripped apart piece by piece.

Listeria infection

After American Airlines first stop catering after trace of Listeria were found in the food. Two new major airlines have suspended their on board service. Delta and Virgin Australia have both suspended onboard catering from Los Angeles International Airport after the detection of Listeria in multiple recent inspection.

A spokeswoman for Gate Gourmet said:

"We can't comment on behalf of our customers, but we remain committed to delivering a safe and efficient service,"

A Delta spokeswoman said

“The kitchen is in compliance with local and federal regulations but that the airline decided to suspend deliveries from the facility out of an abundance of caution for the health and safety of our customers."

According to Catherine Sirna , the Delta spokeswoman, onboard meals will remain the same.

A spokesperson for Virgin Australia said, "Over the coming days there will be limited catering available on flights from Los Angeles."

Major News

Game changing design.

Emirates unveiled a new modern cabin including a First Class suite for a few Boeing 777. The new suite is set to rival against Singapore Airlines's latest suite. Emirates is calling this new style of luxury a “game-changer “. Emirates has long been one of the best providers of luxury in flight with onboard showers, top notch cuisine and their amenity kits. This new cabin introduces a modern design and the new changes are really welcoming especially for us aviation enthusiast who are always driven by innovation in the sector. We attach the promotion video of Emirates highlighting the new design and the outstanding features being introduced like virtual windows.

As the video showed us some really nice features are including. Some of the highlights include:

• Floor to ceiling sliding doors for full privacy

• 1-1-1 configuration replacing the former configuration of 1-2-1

• Mercedes-Benz inspire soft leather seats.

• The introduction of a Zero-Gravity position inspired by a NASA product.

• 40 Squared feet of personal space

• Binocular fitted in windows suits.

• An “Inspiration kit” which features a luxury skincare collection, Bulgari amenity kit and a pyjamas.

• Centres will sport a virtual windows with real time views generated by live camera technology.

• Individual temperature controls

• Video or voice calling to order food.

This new design is a collaboration between Emirates and the German car manufacturer, Mercedes-Benz, and is a revolutionary for the way people travel. For those flying on Emirates new product they would be driven to or from Dubai’s airport in an S-Class Mercedes-Benz vehicle. Starting at $14 800 (CAD), the first routes featuring the new luxury design will be Dubai-Geneva and Dubai-Brussels starting from December 1, 2017. The current plans are only to refit their 777-300ERs and there have been no plans for the A380 yet. Emirates has currently plans to fit the new first class on nine Boeing 777s by the end of 2019 and will be including their new cabin design (read below) on their new 787-10s, 777-8s, and 777-9s.

Most people might be focus on the new first class but Emirates has also introduces a new Business and Economy Class. Their Business Class are not the best of the best however it still provides a bit of privacy and feature full flat seats.

Economy class will feature a new colour creating a spacious feeling. The new seat designs come with a full leather headrest that have flexible side panels and also be adjusted vertically.

British Airways being sued.

A flight attendant for British Airways had sued the airline. Lucy Sergeant has develop a fear of flying after an engine caught on fire on a BA flight from Heathrow to Oslo back in May 2013. The Airbus A319 turned back to Heathrow and made an emergency landing. She claimed £750,000 for BA leaving her mentally scarred after the traumatic event. According to court transcript.

She claims damage for “loss of congenial employment” and free or discounted travel and other perks went with her job. The court heard British Airways had admitted liability for Sergeant's psychiatric injuries. However the airline is disputing the amount of compensation due to her.

A deeper look into the 777X.

Boeing has unveiled the final cockpit configuration for the 777X and with the unique wing-fold control features that the crew will use to stow and deploy the movable wingtips.

The highly anticipated flight deck is mostly composed by five Rockwell Collins 15.1" LCD screens four across the instrument panels and the last one a centrally mounted screen. These are the same being used on the 787 and the 737 and could potentially be retrofitted on the 757 and 767 which are two aircraft being highly demanded to restart production. The company would also provide the latest Boeing plane with its flight control stand, digital radio system and mode control panel. The new cockpit will incorporate touch screens making it a first of its kind. Rockwell Collins launched the touchscreen idea as part of its Pro Line Fusion upgrade package.

“The overall layout is similar to the 777 and 787,” says the 777X vice president and chief project engineer, Terry Beezhold.

“We have tried to keep it the same for crew training and common type rating, and we want to minimize the amount of transition training between the 777 and 787 families.”

The flight deck also offers optional dual head-up-displays (HUDs), unlike the standard fit of these devices on the 787.

“We think most customers will select the dual option,” he added.

The aircrew will have Class 2 electronics flight bag (EFB) which will enable greater connectivity allowing to run multiple applications.

“Now crews can take applications like the onboard performance tool on the EFB, load it and present it on the display,” Beezhold said

“This will be a much better integration of the EFB applications with the airplane. It’s the same with flight plans and applications with features like ‘brake-to-exit,’ where you can define the runway exit and the autobrake system will put you right on that exit. There will be much more integrated, intuitive apps available for the crew.” he added.

On the picture above , we can see on the over head panel which is similar to the 777s now and it includes the wingtips folding option.

“However, we have added a couple of things for control of the folding wingtip,”

“On the left side of the overhead panel, directly above the left seat, is a wingtips auto-fold push button that can be set to either auto or manual. Crews will usually operate the aircraft in auto,” says Beezhold.

The auto function will automatically fold the wingtips at an appropriate moment below a speed threshold following landing. So when the aircraft exits the runway the span will comply to restriction to aircraft with a wingspan of 65m or less.

As part of the before takeoff checklist, the crew will use a switch near the centre of the overheard to manually reply the wingspan to be down and locked.

“The switch looks like a little wingtip, and when it auto-folds, we back drive the switch to follow the commanded position of the winglet,” Beezhold said in a statement.

An icon resembling a wingtip will appear on the engine indicating and a crew-alerting system on the shared split screen on the multifunction display and it will show “down” in green when locked in the deployed position prior to take off

“This handle switch will then follow the position, so that’s the primary display of the wingtip position,”

“Typically for our flight deck design philosophy, we always want the handle to match the position. When the crew is taxiing out to take off, this will be in up position. At the appropriate time, as they get to the hold-short line, as part of the takeoff checklist, the crew will select the wingtips down and locked. They will get the indication, clear the checklist item, and they are on their way.” said the 777X vice president and chief engineer.

Other notable features include two distinctive positions, flaps 17 and 18 between the 15 and 20 degree range.

The LCD screens will also display the view for the new tail in-mounted camera similar to the A380.

“This works out really well because it gives you a picture of the span from tip to tip. We have also added high definition to the cameras in the leading edge of the horizontal tails that look forward to the landing gear,” Beezhold said.

The future of the A380plus

Emirates is now rejecting the new proposed Airbus A380 plus concept which was initially built for them by Airbus. Now at the Dubai Airshow, it has been revealed that Tim Clark is not a “big fan” of the Airbus A380 plus concept. Why is this? Mostly because Airbus has decided to remove the large forward stair case and an elegant abrupt cabin in the economy section both things Emirates does not want.

Nevertheless, both companies are planning to announce a major deal but the process was derailed over what guarantees for the continuation of the program. Emirates is looking for a certainly that Airbus can produce A380 for the upcoming decade before placing a new major order. It’ll also like to have Airbus ramp up production output has currently Airbus is making 15 A380 per years and expected to slow down to 1 per month by 2018 which is a really slow rate.

Airbus A380 backlog now stand at 100 aircraft and most of the non Emirates order are not expected to materialize. Making the A380 program a debate between leaving it alive or shutting it down as the profit has not met its expectation.

Another 747 to be gone

It's seems to be a really sad trend of airlines retiring their last 747s. This week Delta had annlced it's plans to retire the good old 747 for good.

Delta will operate their Boeing 747-400 its final US departure will be Flight 159 at Detroit to Seoul at 12:31pm on December 15th.

Final Asian Pacific arrival will be flight DAL159 at Seoul arriving from Detroit and should land at 4:30pm on December 16th.

It will depart from Seoul at 11:15am as flight DAL158 returning to Detroit International Airport and will land for one final time at Detroit at 10:14 am on December 17.

Delta employees will have a farewell tour from Detroit to Seattle on December 18, Seattle to Atlanta on December 19 and Atlanta to Minneapolis on December 20. Employees and retirees will have a special opportunity to participate in one of these flights with a big discount price. However, the 747 will fly a handful of sport teams and charter flights throughout December 31th.

Unfortunately ,this airplane will fly for it's last non-commercial to a storage in Arizona in early January of 2018.

Goodbye McDonnell Douglas

The era of 1970s and 1980s aircraft is slowly dying. Allegiant airlines ,one of the largest MD-80 operators, would be removing them from their fleet according to Gallagher:

“We now plan to retire our last MD by the end of 2018. One year earlier than was previously expected,” he said.

Allegiant already started retiring five MD-80s. They currently have 40 MD-80s. They hope to replace all their MD-80s and Boeings 757s by 2018 making them an all Airbus fleet.

Kenya Airways

Kenya’s government and domestic leaders agreed to pull out Kenya Airways debt (around $405.3miilions) giving the state a controlling stake and diluting other shareholders including Air France-KLM a key investor.

The government has giving $238,1millions dollars in loans and will increase its stake from 29.8% to 48.9% according to a statement earlier this week.

“The government of Kenya shall acquire effective control in Kenya Airways and it shall make an application to the Capital Markets Authority for exemption from the take-over requirements in compliance with the Take-overs regulations"

Additionally to the debt-for-equity swap, the government and Kenya Airways entered a convertible loan agreement for a reminding portion of the state loans. This will result in the issue of more shares at a future date. A smilar agreement was reach with a bank earlier this week, whose stake will be housed in a company knows as KQ leaders.

Kuwait Airways ruling

A German court has ruled for Kuwait Airlines. The case first filled in 2016 when Kuwaiti national airlines cancelled the ticket of an Israeli student who had booked a seat on a flight from Frankfurt to Bangkok. After the airline recognized that he held an Israeli passport they cancelled his flight. Kuwait Airways offered to book him a seat on different airlines but Adar refused to offer and decided to sue for alleged discrimination.

As Kuwaiti does not recognize the state of Israel, it has a law on the books baring Kuwaitis from entering into an agreement personally or indirectly with entities or person residing in Israel or with Israeli citizenship.

This Thursday a court in Germany ruled in this case. Can you guess who won? The German court sided with Kuwaitis saying the company would face repercussions at home for violating a national law. Kuwait has now the right to refuse to seat or fly any Israeli passenger according to this latest ruling.

The passenger’s lawyer called the ruling “shameful verdict for democracy and for Germany in General”. The Central Council of Jews in Germany related get the law to a Nazi-era of restrictions.

Nevertheless, the German foreign ministry seemed to be against the verdict. In a statement Michael Roth said:

"It is incomprehensible to me that in today's Germany a passenger cannot board a plane simply because of his nationality,”

This isn’t the first time that Kuwait’s has refused boarding to an Israeli passenger. In 2015, the US Department of Transportation forced Kuwait to drop their route from New York to London for discriminating against Israelis which US law prohibits.

Device ban lifted

Middle East Airlines on Friday lifted a restriction for carrying electronic devices on its planes traveling from Beirut to London.

Britain implemented a ban on electronic items in the cabin in March on direct flights from Lebanon and other countries in response to security threats. Passengers had to check devices larger than a mobile phone such as a laptops.

"As of Friday these devices can be carried in the cabin on direct flights only on Middle East Airlines from Beirut to London, provided specific random additional security measures are implemented at the London flight segregated gate,” MEA said in a statement.

Britain’s ambassador did confirmed the ban on his twitter page. All flights on MEA to London has lifted the ban in immediate effect.

British Airways, the other operator on the direct route from Beirut, had not lifted the restrictions yet.

Superstar making a comeback

Lufthansa is determined to bring back “superstars” from its ancient classical fleet. As of November 20th 2008, Lufthansa has been working on bringing back a super antique aircraft back to live. Since 2008, the Lockheed L-1649A Starliner from 1957 has almost been fully rebuilt.

The old structures are replaced by newly built components. All components of the aircraft such as the landing gear, propellers , hydraulic lines, power cables, cockpit instruments, and systems for flight controls have been removed, overhauled, and reinstalled. The four Curtis-Wright piston engines had to be sent to a specialized workshop to be modernized.

Why the superstars?

Well, according to Lufthansa they want to, “offer a regular flight operations with paying guests in the future," the LSSG superstar is permitted in the highest class for commercial aircraft. This results in a significant additional investment of time and money in the current repair, but we like to invest this for our Superstar passengers thus able to travel with the same safety standards as on board a modern passenger aircraft in the future.

So that guests will enjoy their flight with the Superstar in the fullest, they equiped the Superstar also out with their original pressurized cabin. As with modern commercial aircraft, it allows the flight far above the clouds and annoying turbulence.”

It’s not known yet when it’ll be entering service however Lufthansa has said it'll be entering service shortly.Nor is it known which flight it’ll fly. Nevertheless this is surely exciting! I'm sure looking forward to opportunities when iI'll be able to fly this historic aircraft.

Here’s a link if you want to read more about how the aircraft was modernize and the history of it: http://superstar.lufthansa.com/en/a-new-super-star.html

Southwest pilot with a gun

Authorities at St. Louis Lambert Airport have arrested a Southwest Airlines pilot after he tried to load a 9mm pistol inside his carry-on luggage before he boarded his 737. The airport said in a statement that Transportation Security Administration made the discovery early Wednesday.

In the statement, they described the pilot as a 51 year old who didn’t have any authorization to carry his firearm on the Las Vegas bound flight. He was arrested on suspicion of unlawful use of a weapon and the airline says charges are pending through the St. Louis County. The company is aware of the situation and is working alongside the authorities to gather more information.

Spirit Airlines stabbing

A Spirit Airlines employee has been charged with stabbing a co-worker following an argument at Cleveland Hopkins Airport.

Around 7pm on November 12th, police were called to the Spirit Airlines ticket counter because of a flight between two employees. When they arrives authorities found a male employee who said he had been stabbed in a stomach with a pair of scissors.

At around 6:30pm the victim was sitting on the “belt” behind the ticket counter when another employee told him he wasn’t allowed to sit down. Gardner ,the suspect, had taken photographs of him sitting down.

Following the incident, the victim who has not been named approached Gardner about the photograph and she denied taking any pictures of him. The victim wanted to have a discussion with the management to solve the situation to which she replied;

“Don’t worry about it, I got it taken care of.”

During the time, Gardner was typing an email on her computer while the victim was reading over her shoulder. When she realized she turned her computer monitor off. The victim reached over turned the monitor back on and was then was stabbed by Gardner with a pair of scissors according to the initial report.

Gardner is currently charged with felonious assault and is schedule to appear in court on November 22th.

Aircraft News

737 Family:​

• Aviation Lease and Finance Company based in Kuwait finalized an order for 20 additional 737 MAX 8s

• Boeing has also received six 737 MAX8s order from Kazahkstan’s SCAT airlines worth $674 millions (USD) with an additional purchase right for five additional aircraft.

• FlyDubai an order of 175 Boeing 737 Max on Wednesday worth 27 billion dollars.

• Boeing had made a slip when updating their website. On the Qantas page, for a brief moment, they had show a sneak peak of what seems to be a new Qantas aircraft. The page was updated again and was taken down, Qantas had yet to say anything.

787 Family:

• This week something unpredictable happen. Emirates ordered 40 Boeing 787-10s. Emirates plans to fly them in a 280 seat three class layout. The airline did consider to buy the A350-900 however it was not happy with the initials aspects of the interior configuration. Only in November Airbus showed a new layout with the rear pressure bulkhead moved by 2,5 feet. Clark said that if Airbus had presented this new design it would of order A350-900 but it was already committed to Boeing has they already secured a deal.

• Vietjet looking into buying 787s or A350s as the airlines wants to expand routes to the US

• Azerbaijan airlines orders an additional 787 Dreamliners and is in talk to buy the 77W or the 777X.

A320 Family:

• Airbus just got its largest order for single aisle aircraft family. Indigo Partner’s have singed a Memorandum of Understand to buy from the four airlines of 430 additional A320neo family aircraft. These aircraft will be allocated among ultra low cost airlines Frontier Airlines, JetSMART, Volaris, Wizz Air. The 430 order comprise of 273 A320neos, 157 A321neos worth $49.5 billion. This order was announce at the Dubai Airshow by Bill Franke and John Leahy.

CSeries:

• Bombardier Commercial Aircraft has just signed a letter of intent with Egypt air for up to 24 CS300. This includes 12 CS3000 aircraft with the purchase right for an additional 12 aircraft. The firm order is valued at approximately 1.1 billion (CAD) and the contract value could increase to $2.2 billion

Airlines News

Reappearance

A new airlines has reemerge from the dead. Samoa Airways has commenced operations this week by relaunching flights from Apia to Auckland and Sydney. Samoa Airways is formerly known as Polynesian Airlines which was founded in 1959. These new routes will be flown by a 737-800

Emergencies

It’s been a sad week for aviation with three major aircraft accident.

• 11 killed in a crash of Coastal Aviation onboard a Cessna 208B Grand Caravan 5H-EGG in Tanzania. One pilot and 10 passengers dead. The aircraft was en route to Sergeant with four tourist and safari camp personnel.

• Six people died when a Let L-410 Turbojet twin engine crashed while performing a landing in Russia. According to media, six people were killed including two crew, nevertheless a three year old girl was save and she’s currently at a regionally hospital.

• At the moment, the girl is in a stable condition, she is in a hospital in the Nelkan village,” head of the main department for information policy and public relations of the regional government Svetlana Litvinova said.

• The plane registered as RA-67047 was en

• route from Khabarovsk to the village of Nelkan. The plane is owned by Khabarovsk Airlines.

• For now the cause of the crash is thought to be pilot error and a technical failure according to TASS. It crashed two kilometers from the airport.

• Aerolíneas Argentina Boeing 737-800 flight AR1865 was hit by a drone while landing at Buenos Aries Aeropoarque Jorge Newbery.

• A Saudi Boeing 747 cargo suffered a runway excursion at Maastricht airport. The plane was taxiing (nearly taking off) to runway 21 when the Boeing 747-400 suffered engine failure then rejected take off leading the wheels of the grass. The aircraft registered as TC-ACR, all its cargo has been unloaded and the fuel has been siphoned before the aircraft was towed back on the runway.

• Mid air collision between a helicopter and a Cessna in Buckinghamshire. It leaves four death. The Air Accident Investigation Branch has annonce it'll investigate the air collision involving an aircraft and a helicopter near Aylesbury. No much is known at the moment. We would make an updated post next week when we have more information.

Special

Air Transat's new livery.

Air Transat is Canada’s largest leisure company. To celebrate it’s 30th anniversary it has redesigned its livery on all its aircraft apart from the A310 as they’ll be replaced by the single-aisle Airbus A321LR, a variant of the A321neo.

The new designed reflects the evolution and long standing company’s image and the new livery has to brighten the everyday with the joy of action. The new livery has a touch of grey to commemorate its first livery. It also features a gradient blue to show the transformative power of holidays. Finally the airline's name will be painted above the windows and on the belly to ensure visibility of the airline when the aircraft is in flight.