leadnews

Of course, all the congressional help in the world won’t help the legacy carriers if they can’t help themselves and it seems like pilots at both Delta and Northwest are willing to pull the pin on their respective airlines. When it comes to concessions, pilots have the most to give and they’ve given up a […]

As the committee was finishing its work, the full Senate was busy ratifying a bill that, among other reforms, would allow pilots caught in the various airline pension-scheme defaults, either completed or imminent, to qualify for the full rate offered by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, the federal agency that bails out bankrupt pension plans. […]

Bill Sets Pilot Retirement At 65 — Sort Of Is there life after 60 for airline pilots? By the end of next year there may be, as long as they’re willing to share the cockpit with a (relatively) young whippersnapper. The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation passed a bill last Thursday that would […]

Meanwhile, the Department of Transportation has issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that would change the law that governs foreign ownership and control of U.S. airlines, and the proposal has caused an uproar. Continental Airlines called the proposal “a blatant attempt to circumvent the law that DOT has been unable to convince Congress to […]

Pilots On The Picket Line How tough is it? Well, on Friday you might have run into FedEx pilots picketing outside your local FedEx Kinko’s store when you stopped by for some copies. The pilots, who are members of the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), have been working without a contract for more than a […]

Since the legal matter is pending, neither party was willing to say much about it. Todd Simmons, spokesman for Cub Crafters, told AVweb in an e-mail that “Our company policy is not to comment specifically on legal matters or pending litigation. … We are bringing a variety of internal and external company resources to bear […]

Cub Crafters Sue Over Colors, Name A bright-yellow taildragger with a black lightning-bolt stripe means “Cub” to many aviators, but with a kit industry awash in Cub-a-likes just who has the right to use those colors and that name for production aircraft has come into dispute. Cub Crafters, of Yakima, Wash., has filed a lawsuit […]

NATCA didn’t even wait for Blakey to give the speech before going on the attack. In a news release sent out the day before, NATCA predicted Blakey would paint a “rosy picture” of the state of the nation’s aviation system — a picture that NATCA sees very differently. NATCA cited inadequate staffing, outdated and broken-down […]

Blakey said the FAA must deal with three immediate challenges — building a next-generation air transportation system that incorporates new technology, operating more like a business and changing how the FAA is financed. “They are all interrelated,” Blakey said. “Each depends on the other.” She also cited the ongoing contract negotiations with the National Air […]

Blakey Issues Annual “Report Card” On Tuesday, the FAA released its latest version of its Flight Plan, setting strategy and priorities for the agency through 2010, and Administrator Marion Blakey made her annual “State of the FAA” speech to the staff, carried by satellite to field offices around the nation. She listed the FAA’s achievements […]