constantly and collectively to protect our flight operations and ensure minimal customer disturbance, especially during high travel months

It is consequently deeply sad that LHR offered us 36 hours to comply with capacity cuts last evening, a figure that appears to have been snatched from thin air. Their letters not only specified which planes we should reject paying customers, but also threatened legal action if we did not comply.

These requests are completely ridiculous and unacceptable, and we reject them.

Our ground handling and catering operations at London Heathrow Airport (LHR) are managed by dnata. Emirates Group – are well prepared and competent of handling our flights. As a result, the crux of the problem is with the airport operator’s central services and systems.

Emirates is an important and consistent operator at LHR, having reintroduced six daily A380 flights beginning in October 2021. Our operating requirements cannot be a surprise to the airport after 10 months of consistently high seat loads.

They now want to force Emirates to reject tickets to tens of thousands of passengers who have paid for and booked months in advance their long-awaited package holidays or flights to see their loved ones. And this at the peak season with the forthcoming UK holidays, when many people are keen to travel following two years of pandemic restrictions.

Emirates is committed to doing the right thing for our customers. However, with all flights running full for the next few weeks, including at other London airports and on other airlines, re-booking the large number of possibly impacted passengers is unfeasible. To complicate matters further, 70% of our LHR customers are travelling beyond Dubai to see loved ones in far-flung destinations, and it will be tough to locate them new onward connections at short notice.

Emirates unveils more spacious Business Class seats on its Boeing 777 aircraft

It is also unrealistic to move some of our passenger operations to other UK airports at such short notice. It is not as straightforward as locating a parking spot at a mall to ensure ground readiness for a widebody long-haul aircraft with 500 passengers on board.

The final truth is that the LHR management team is unconcerned about travellers and airline customers. All of the signs pointed to a robust travel comeback, and Emirates has been loud about it for months. We planned ahead of time to be ready to service customers and meet travel demand, including rehiring and training 1,000 A380 pilots in the previous year.

LHR decided not to act, plan, or invest. Faced with a “airmageddon” situation as a result of government incompetence and inaction, they are shifting the entire weight – of costs and the hurry to sort out the issue – to airlines and passengers.

The decisions of the London Heathrow management team should be scrutinised by the airport’s shareholders.

Given the enormous value that the aviation community generates for the UK economy and communities, we applaud the action taken by the UK Department for Transport and Civil Aviation Authority to request information from LHR on their response plans, system resilience, and the seemingly arbitrary cap of 100,000 daily passengers. Given that LHR handled 80.9 million passengers in 2019, or a daily average of 219,000, the cap represents a more than 50% reduction at a time when LHR claims to have 70% of ground handling resources in place.

Emirates intends to continue operating to and from LHR as usual till further notice.

FAA issued 737 MAX’s LEAP-1B engine corrosion issue: The FAA has released a new Airworthiness Directive for some CFM LEAP-1B engines used in the 737 MAX family of aircraft. The Directive addresses corrosion caused by long-term storage of planes, which can result in reduced thrust in certain cases. The remedy is simple enough, and it does not place a huge burden on the affected airlines.

When an aircraft is parked for an extended period of time without use, it is common for certain parts to begin to display signs of wear and tear. The global 737 MAX fleet was grounded for more than two years.

According to the FAA, there have been several reports of pressure sub-system (PSS) unit faults due to corrosion after storage for some CFM LEAP-1B engines. It explicitly states,

“In April 2021, the FAA received a report from CFM, the engine manufacturer, of numerous instances of PSS unit faults. The manufacturer reported these faults have been occurring since October 2020 and are a result of pressure transducer corrosion following extended storage periods. The manufacturer’s investigation found that certain PSS units, identified by serial number, have been exposed to conditions that make pressure transducers in these units susceptible to an increased rate of faults.”

The FAA has issued a new guideline requiring airlines to conduct repeated engine tests. The US authority stated that for Leap-1B engines that were restored to service but had less than 15 hours of electrical power applied to the PSS unit within the previous 90 days, the airline should monitor the engine maintenance messages related to the pressure transducer until the unit had 15 or more hours of electrical power.

Meanwhile, the FAA needed a one-time engine review for engines that had been returned to service and had already collected 15 or more hours of electrical power to the PSS units during the previous 90 days or completed 5 flight cycles.

The same law applies to air carriers that still have Leap-1B engine-powered aircraft in long-term storage. The FAA also cautioned that if any maintenance flaws were discovered during the tests, air carriers would have to replace the PSS units.

According to the FAA’s AD, it affected 158 engines registered in the United States. This fault has nothing to do with the electrical problem that was recorded in late April.

Electrical Issues Affecting More Boeing 737 MAX | Jetline Marvel

• easyJet partners with U.S.-based Wright Electric to support their ambition to design and scale its electric commercial aircraft over the next decade
• easyJet reveals prototype electric plane with a range of 540 km / 335 miles which would cover 20% of passenger journeys flown by easyJet

easyJet, Europe’s leading airline, today provided a glimpse of the future of aviation through its collaboration with electric aircraft manufacturer, Wright Electric. The airline has been working closely with Wright Electric over the course of 2017 to provide an airline operator’s perspective on the development of this exciting step forward in battery-propelled aircraft and this week the two companies showed what the new electric plane would look like.

Wright Electric is working towards producing a fully electric plane within a decade with a further ambitious goal for every short flight to be zero-emissions within 20 years. It is aiming for an aircraft range of 335 miles which would cover 20% of passengers flown by easyJet today.

Wright Electric has already demonstrated its first two seater plane, revealing how technology works on a smaller scale. Now, Wright Electric aims to prove the technology can be scaled to accommodate the needs of larger commercial aircraft. The battery in the two seater plane weighs approximately 600 lbs however when scaled up Wright Electric will utilize new energy storage chemistries that are substantially lighter than today’s commercial batteries.

Atlanta, 11th May 2017 – Atlanta, Georgia (U.S.)-based Delta Air Lines has placed an incremental order for 30 firm A321ceo aircraft. This order follows three previous Delta orders for the Current Engine Option version of the largest Airbus A320 Family member. The airline took delivery of its first A321 in March of last year. Delta now has ordered a total of 112 A321s, each powered by CFM56 engines from CFM International.
“The A321’s comfort, performance and economics make it a very compelling aircraft for Delta in our domestic route network,” said Gil West, Delta’s Sr. Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. “We value our longstanding partnership with Airbus and look forward to taking more new A321 aircraft for the benefit of our customers, employees and shareowners.”

“Delta’s vote of confidence in the A321ceo – which takes the airline now to more than 100 of the type on order – demonstrates the passenger, operator and investor appeal of this aircraft,” said John Leahy, Chief Operating Officer – Customers for Airbus Commercial Aircraft. “The A320 Family truly delivers unsurpassed comfort, economy and reliability for airlines like Delta that pay attention to what their customers want.”

All of Delta’s A321s will feature fuel-saving Sharklets – lightweight composite wingtip devices that offer up to 4 percent fuel-burn savings. This environmental benefit gives airlines the option of extending their range up to 100 nautical miles/185 kilometres or increasing payload capacity by some 1000 pounds/450 kilograms.

Many of Delta’s A321s are being delivered from the Airbus U.S. Manufacturing Facility in Mobile, Alabama. The airline received its first U.S.-manufactured A321 last year. By the end of 2017, the Airbus facility in Mobile is expected to produce four aircraft per month, most going to Airbus’ U.S. customers.

As of the end of April, Delta was flying a fleet of 187 Airbus aircraft, including 145 A320 Family members and 42 A330 widebodies.

A British Airways flight due to take off from Heathrow to the US had to be cancelled when a bird found flapping inside the cockpit could not be removed by crew.
Efforts to remove the blackbird over several hours culminated in airport ground staff using a recording of birds in distress in an attempt to scare it away, but this succeeded only in forcing the animal into hiding.
@britishairways any update on the bird of flight 189? Very concerned about his well being. #birdsonaplane #starlingsindistress

Passengers on Monday’s flight #BA189 to Newark, New Jersey, were transferred to a later service.
One passenger, Anna Dolganov, told the Guardian “A blackbird flew into the face of the pilot and started flying around the cockpit.”

Courtesy : Guardian

According to mint source In a bid to boost ancillary revenue and compete with full-service airlines, low-fare carrier SpiceJet Ltd may start offering in-flight Internet services to its passengers.
The paid service could allow passengers to stream live movies and cricket on platforms such as Hotstar and Netflix besides help retain business passengers who may drift towards full-service airlines who are planning to offer a similar service.

“We are seeing what all new things we can do to enhance passenger journey,” the chairman Ajay Singh said in an interview. “We should make the journey interesting and we should get ancillary revenue.”
Budget airlines offer services such as food and lounge access for an additional fee. In recent years, airlines have benefitted as liberal aviation regulators have allowed them to charge extra baggage fees, seat selection fee and Internet fee that have added to profits.

Internet services are currently barred on flights. Some airlines have started experimenting with streaming preloaded content onto passengers’ mobiles and laptops. Jet Airways and Vistara have it on some flights and this is likely to be offered by Air India as well.
The SpiceJet service will be paid, Singh said, and could be offered on its new planes.

“What we are looking at is full blown Internet on which you can browse the Internet. It will be on new planes. As far old planes are concerned, we are looking at it,” he said. “We will charge for it.”
SpiceJet which currently has 49 planes, has ordered nearly 205 next-generation Boeing 737 Max aircraft. Of these, 155 will be delivered between 2018 and 2024.

With airlines lobbying the aviation ministry, it has opened talks with other ministries to relax rules which obstruct such a service.
“The telecom ministry is currently looking into the matter,” said an aviation ministry official who did not want to be named.

One of the key reservations was the servers through which Internet traffic will be passing and how it will be kept under Indian jurisdiction for security oversight, the official said.
Wi-Fi equipment costs could be very steep. Besides a one time cost of Rs3 crore per plane, the airline will need to pay about Rs4 lakh per month, according to aviation consulting firm CAPA. ​

NEW DELHI: With Air India cancelling his ticket five times , Shiv Sena’s grounded MP Ravindra Gaikwad is now trying his luck with private airlines.
On Saturday, he booked a SpiceJet flight to fly from Pune to Ahmedabad on Monday (April 3) night. The low cost carrier’s reservation system immediately flagged the passenger name “Mr Ravindra Gaikwad” and the ticket was promptly cancelled, a SpiceJet spokesman said. The MP had paid Rs 4,504 to fly SG 524 at 8.40 pm on Monday.
Airlines are unanimous is seeing Gaikwad as a potentially unruly and unsafe passenger who can be a threat to crew members, co-passengers and flight safety. “What beats us is that people who misbehave with crew are handed over to security agencies and many end up in prison. Here the only action against Gaikwad has been by airlines grounding him. The police and political class is yet to do anything. It is very demoralising for us,” said an official of another airline.
Gaikwad is the first person ever to be grounded by schedule carriers in India. In the interest of safety, airlines want the government to quickly come out with a no fly list to keep such flyers from boarding aircraft.

The Shiv Sena has requested Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan to get Gaikwad flying again. Mahajan has held joint meetings with aviation minister A G Raju and the Shiv Sena MPs. However citing threat perception to crew, co-passengers and flight safety, airlines including AI, IndiGo, Jet, SpiceJet, GoAir and Vistara have barred Gaikwad from their flights.

Courtesy : Times of India