Tag: Commercial Aviation

Aerus Signs LOI for 30 Eviation Electric Aircraft

Aviation Today reports that electric aircraft manufacturer Eviation “announced last week that the airline Aerus signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) for 30 commuter aircraft.” Aerus, a regional airline in Mexico, “plans to serve communities in the northern parts of the country including Nuevo León, Coahuila, Tamaulipas, and Veracruz.” The airline will “use Monterrey Airport as its regional hub to launch commercial operations this year.” Eviation’s Alice aircraft “has nine seats and is fully electric.”
Full Story (Aviation Today)

Top 10 Safest Airlines in the World for 2023

CNBC reports that this month, AirlineRatings.com “announced its safest airlines for 2023. The study looked at 385 airlines at the forefront of safety, innovation, and launching new aircraft.” According to a press release, the study analyzed the following to determine the safest airlines in 2023: crashes over five years, serious incidents over two years, audits from aviation’s governing bodies and lead associations, fleet age, expert analysis of pilot training, and COVID protocols. It’s important to note “that although Alaska Airlines was the only U.S. carrier to land the top 10, Hawaiian Airlines, United Airlines, American Airlines, and Delta Air Lines did make the top 20.”
Full Story (CNBC)

Electric Aviation Set to Fly in Australia

The Guardian (UK) reports that in late September “the first fixed-wing passenger electric passenger aircraft took off from Grant County international airport in the US state of Washington.” The nine-seater charter plane – known as Alice – “soared to 1,000 metres (3,500 feet) for eight minutes.” Less than two months later “Northern Territory Air Services, a scheduled airline and charter operator, put in an order to bring 20 of the aircraft to Australia with plans to fly passengers from Darwin to Uluru and Mount Isa.” It’s a small sign “that the winds may be changing for zero-emissions aviation in Australia, one of the most flight-dependent countries in the world.” Until recently there was “no industry body making the case for change and even the Royal Flying Doctor Service, which operates the largest air fleet in the country and has traditionally been a hotbed of innovation, has no plans to acquire or develop electric aircraft.” Yet away from the spotlight, “a small crop of startups and aviation companies have been working on electric flight.”
Full Story (The Guardian)

Air India Order Includes 737 MAX, 787, and 777X Aircraft

Reuters reported that Air India “is close to a deal to order more than 200 Boeing jets including 190 narrowbody 737 MAX and 30 widebody 787s – part of an historic fleet shake-up roughly split with Boeing’s European rival Airbus, industry sources said on Friday.” The deal is “also expected to include an unspecified number of Boeing 777X long-range jets, they added.” Airbus is separately “moving towards a deal with Air India including at least 200 of its A320-family narrowbody jets as well as dozens of larger A350s, industry sources said.” Both The Boeing Company and Airbus declined to comment, but the orders split between the two major aircraft makers would reportedly cost tends of billions of dollars as the Tata Group-owned airline looks to create a renaissance for the carrier.
Full Story (Reuters)

Ampaire’s Grand Caravan Makes First Flight

Aviation Today reported that Ampaire’s Eco Caravan aircraft, “an upgraded Cessna Grand Caravan, made its first flight last week on a fully-integrated hybrid-electric propulsion system.” The Los Angeles-based electric aircraft developer “flew its first hybrid-electric regional aircraft on a 30-minute test flight above southern California during the early morning hours of Friday, Nov. 18.” This test flight shows “promising success for the developer’s integrated propulsion system.”
Aviation Today (Aviation Today)

FAA Will Add Powered-Lift Aircraft to Air Carrier Category

BBC News reports that the FAA said on Monday that “it was proposing to expand its definition of the machines it considered air carriers from airplanes and helicopters, adding ‘powered lift’ to the list.” This is a big step forward in the regulation clearance for commercial air taxis, but the rules “now face a period of public comment before they can go into effect.” The agency also “said it expected to publish proposed rules for operating such aircraft in summer 2023. Those rules will outline in more detail the criteria that firms will need to meet to license pilots and launch their operations.”
BBC News (BBC News)

Air Taxis Clear One Regulation Hurdle

BBC News reports that the FAA said on Monday that “it was proposing to expand its definition of the machines it considered air carriers from airplanes and helicopters, adding ‘powered lift’ to the list.” This is a big step forward in the regulation clearance for commercial air taxis, but the rules “now face a period of public comment before they can go into effect.” The agency also “said it expected to publish proposed rules for operating such aircraft in summer 2023. Those rules will outline in more detail the criteria that firms will need to meet to license pilots and launch their operations.”
BBC News (BBC News)

Delta Preparing for 5 Million Travelers During Thanksgiving

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that Delta Air Lines is expecting “the heaviest Thanksgiving traffic Delta has seen since the start of the pandemic” – over 5 million passengers for the holiday period. Recovering from pandemic staffing cuts means that around “a quarter of the airline’s employees have joined the company over the last two years.” Delta CEO Ed Bastian said, “We have hundreds of thousand[s] of years of service that retired and we have a whole new generation coming in.” Another result of the pandemic was the airline’s first Chief Health Officer, Dr. Henry Ting. Delta is now more focused “on the mental health and emotional well-being of its employees, including hiring a behavioral psychologist and staff clinicians.”
Full Story (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

Air Taxi Business May Get Early Business from Airline Alliance

Aerospace America reports that electric air taxi aircraft are seeing early customers in the form of the major airlines of American, United, and Delta. Examples include Delta’s $60 million investment in Joby Aviation, American placing a large pre-order with Vertical Aerospace, and United pledging to buy from Archer Aviation and Eve Air Mobility.
Full Story (Aerospace America)