27 Nov 2017

USA Aviation Industry Newsletter 27 November

AAR Continues to Grow Business and Capabilities with Air New Zealand AAR has committed to significantly increasing the volume of contracted component repairs with Air New Zealand. In a 10-year agreement, AAR designated Air New Zealand’s component center as its Asia Pacific MRO of choice. This is the latest example of AAR’s commitment to grow and strengthen its partnership with Air New Zealand, the country’s flag carrier airline. Arab carriers hit out at US proposals to tax foreign airlines  The representative body for Arab carriers including Emirates and Etihad Airways seeks to quash a US proposal to remove a longstanding tax exemption for foreign airlines – a punitive measure it claims would hike costs for passengers and damage global networks. The Arab Air Carriers Organisation (AACO) – whose 30-strong membership network also features Gulf Air, Oman Air, Air Arabia, Kuwait Airways and Saudia – raised concerns with global industry bodies this week, AACO’s secretary-general Abdu. “The notion of imposing income tax on foreign carriers belongs to the first half of the last century, not today’s globalised world,” Mr Teffaha said. Boeing, Okay Airways Announce Order for Five 787-9 Dreamliners Boeing and Okay Airways, China's first privately-owned airline, say they have finalized an order for five 787-9 Dreamliners. The agreement, signed as a memorandum of understanding at the 2017 Paris Air Show, is valued at US$1.4 billion at list prices. Embraer KC-390 Now in the U.S. for More Test Flights One of the two Embraer KC-390 prototypes has flown to the U.S. to continue the flight-test program for the twinjet military transport and tanker. It will operate from Embraer’s facility in Jacksonville, Florida, for tests of the avionics systems; crosswind operations; and external noise measurements, tests that are expected to last two-to-three weeks. Ethiopian Receives a Second Boeing 787-9 Fleet Ethiopian Airlines, the largest Aviation Group and SKYTRAX certified Four Star Global Airline, is pleased to announce that it has taken delivery of its second Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner fleet on November 21, 2017. In less than a span of a month since Ethiopian took delivery of Africa’s first Ethiopian B 787-9, the 2nd B787-9 aircraft has joined its youngest fleet totaling its operating fleet to 95 among which 21 are from the Dreamliner family. ImagineAir Eyeing Fleet Expansion, More Bases Atlanta-based ImagineAir is hoping to double its fleet over the next year as it moves to expand its short-hop air-taxi service throughout the East Coast and ultimately move westward. The operator has developed a service designed to compete with automobile travel, rather than airline operations, with its current fleet of 14 Cirrus SR22 piston singles. The airline has five bases currently, mostly in the Southeast, but also in New England. Hamilton sees additional bases in the mid-Atlantic and in Florida. Linear Air Eyes Rapid Growth with Amadeus Link Linear Air is poised to rapidly expand its client base, becoming among the first dedicated private aviation services providers to tap into a global distribution system (GDS) for travel reservations. The company went live on November 15 through Amadeus GDS. Linear Air has already marketed its services on the meta travel search site Kayak, but linking into Amadeus will enable it to tap into travel agent sites, such as Expedia, said Linear Air CEO William Herp. LOT Polish Boeing 787-9’s To Serve Lot’s USA And Canada Routes Three new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft seating 294 passengers each are scheduled to start operating on LOT’s routes to Chicago, New York and Toronto in the spring and summer of next year. The deliveries of larger 787-9 Dreamliners are expected to commence in the spring of next year. Each of them will be capable of accommodating as many as 294 passengers (24 in business, 21 in premium economy and 249 in economy class). The Polish carrier has ordered the total of four larger B787 aircraft, with three of them starting service in 2018, and the last one joining the fleet in 2019. Acumen Aviation © 27 November All Rights Reserved.