News

Passenger rights groups are applauding the Department of Transportation’s decision to levy $175,000 in fines after 47 passengers were held onboard a regional jet overnight on the ramp at Rochester, Minn., on Aug. 8. The DOT fined Continental Airlines and ExpressJet, who operated Continental Express Flight 2816 from Houston with an intended destination of Minneapolis-St. […]

With an international U.N. climate-change summit coming up in Copenhagen next month, a group of business aviation associations this week set targets to achieve carbon-neutral growth by 2020 and improve fuel efficiency an average of 2 percent per year through 2020. They also said that by 2050 they aim to produce half as much carbon […]

A company in India is ready to launch the country’s first small-airplane air-charter service, starting with a fleet of two Cirrus SR22s. Air Car seats are priced competitively with business-class airline tickets and half the price of other air-charter options, entrepreneur Manav Singh told Business Standard. The company will fly out of Delhi and serve […]

An Idaho farmer who uses an unmanned aircraft for precision farming hopes to find a market for his specialty UAV. Blair calls his 9-foot wingspan unmanned reconnaissance aircraft “a hobby plane on steroids.” It weighs in at about ten pounds, carries two digital cameras, is onboard-GPS-guided, usually flies between 400 and 2,000 feet AGL, cruises […]

A European court, amid strong airline protest, has set rules for the monetary compensation of passengers based on the distance of their scheduled flights and the amount of time by which passengers were delayed. Maximum compensation is 600 Euros (about $900). Specific guidelines define compensation rates that begin at 250 Euros ($375) to be determined […]

Customer demand, not government regulation, forced a 70-percent improvement in the fuel efficiency of jet aircraft over the past 40 years and further improvement should be modeled on industry and public-sector cooperation, according to Cessna CEO Jack Pelton. Pelton delivered his remarks at an annual international environmental congress meeting near Paris. Failure to work together […]

The FAA is proposing limits on the ability of airlines, flight schools, fractional ownership programs and other certificated organizations to hire former FAA personnel to represent them before the FAA in FAA matters. The FAA rule would specifically prevent former FAA safety inspectors and managers from representing a company if the individual had any direct […]

A malfunctioning router was behind the system-wide slowdown of the air traffic control system last Thursday. The glitch occurred in Salt Lake City at the fortunate hour of about 5 a.m. EST. At that time, the router’s impending failure resulted in the delivery of misinformation about flight paths and weather to controllers. The problem remained […]

Although supplies are limited, Teledyne Continental said this week that it’s beginning to ship replacement valve lifter units to replace several thousand faulty units installed in O-240, O-360, O-470, O-520 and O-550 engines. TCM says “an issue” with a vendor component required the recall of those defective lifters under MSB09-8. The affected lifters are subject […]

Proposed Senate bills in the wake of Northwest Airlines’ October 21 NORDO flight past MSP have some pilots on edge, fearing they may bring about “grotesque consequences,” according to an article published Thursday in USA Today. Because the now notorious Northwest pilots of Flight 188 claimed they had been distracted by laptops, electronic devices in […]