Despite continuing concerns from city officials, FAA lifted the temporary flight restriction over downtown Chicago last week. The TFR, which established a no-fly zone over the city after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, was rescinded shortly after midnight April 9, one week after it was due to expire. When the TFR was not automatically cancelled on April 2, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association immediately appealed to FAA Administrator Jane Garvey and the agency promised that the ban would be lifted shortly. (BA, April 8/167).
David Hurley, chief executive officer of PrivatAir, was named to the board of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. The board is a 32-member body appointed by the Smithsonian Board of Regents. Hurley, who has been a pilot since age 14, has more than 30 years of marketing and sales experience in the aerospace and telecommunications industry. He has logged more than 15,000 hours in a variety of aircraft.
A mild winter has put construction of the 760,000-square-foot Dulles annex to the National Air and Space Museum ahead of schedule, museum officials said last week, adding that they hope to begin moving the first artifacts into the Steven F. Uvar-Hazy Center next March. The center is slated to open to the public in December 2003, purposefully timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the first powered flight by the Wright brothers.
AN INTERNAL DIRECTIVE from the INS Commissioner to inspectors ordering "zero tolerance" spurred at least one group of inspectors to seek out office space at an FBO for interrogations of passengers arriving in the U.S. A Dulles International Airport FBO received that request from area inspectors, who said the alternative would be to send arriving passengers to the main terminal at Dulles for interrogation, said Pete West, senior vice president of government and public affairs for NBAA. While INS has jurisdiction for passenger interrogations, the U.S.
Brazilian Manufacturer Embraer posted a net profit of $470 million in 2001, a 70.7 percent jump from the $272 million it reported for 2000. The company topped the list of Brazil's principal exporters for the third consecutive year with $2.9 billion in overseas shipments. CEO Mauricio Botelho emphasized that after Sept. 11 only 18 purchase options - 15 from Brazil's Rio-Sul and three from foreign carriers - were rescheduled. He said there were no cancellations.
ALTHOUGH it received a letter from the Federal Aviation Administration warning of potential grant violations, the Naples Airport Authority has begun to enforce its ban on Stage 2 aircraft at Naples Municipal Airport that it adopted more than a year ago. NAA last week assessed its first fine on a violator of the Stage 2 ban, the Southwest Florida newspaper, the News-Press, reported. The authority fined a New York-based operator $500 and refused to allow the operator to pick up a passenger at Naples. NAA ordered the airplane to divert to Marco Island Airport.
MEDAIRE of Phoenix, Ariz. was honored as Gulfstream's 2001 Small Business Supplier of the Year. The Small Business Council of Gulfstream presented the award to MedAire last month at the Fourth Annual Year End Event in Savannah, Ga. The two companies have been partners since 1989 when Gulfstream became the first to make Med Aire's medical safety products and services a standard feature on every new aircraft sold.
NATIONAL AIR TRANSPORTATION ASSOCIATION is rounding out membership of its recently formed Airline Services Council, which will promote and represent interests of aviation businesses that provide services to scheduled airlines. The council includes GlobeGround North America, Airport Terminal Services, Signature Flight Support/ASIG, WorldWide Security Associates, Gate Gourmet, Menzies Aviation Group, Aramark/ServiceMaster Aviation Services, LSG Sky Chefs, Worldwide Flight Services, Swissport, ITS, Hallmark Aviation Services, Mercury Air Group, FSS and Servisair.
The doubling of the Flight Options fractional aircraft fleet as a result of its merger with Raytheon Travel Air (RTA) positions the Cleveland-based firm to compete more effectively against industry leader Executive Jet and relegates other fractional providers to "boutique markets," according to Kenn Ricci, chairman and CEO of Flight Options.
Raytheon Aircraft customer service representatives will be touring the country in the next three months hosting maintenance and operations conferences for owners of King Air, Beechjet and Hawker aircraft. Various Raytheon management and technical personnel will conduct the sessions in six major metropolitan areas: Houston on April 15; Atlanta on April 23; Tampa on April 24; New York City on May 21; Chicago on May 22 and Los Angeles on June 18.
"THE NEAT THING about the fractional business is that we're the anti-airline," Flight Options Chairman and CEO Kenn Ricci said last week. "We're everything an airline isn't from a financial standpoint." He observed that an airline makes huge investments in equipment and infrastructure "and then it hopes that somebody shows up to fly." With the Flight Options fractional program, however, "It's almost exactly the opposite. We own no airplanes, they're owned by owners, that's how we get our name.
"THE NEAT THING about the fractional business is that we're the anti-airline," Flight Options Chairman and CEO Kenn Ricci said last week. "We're everything an airline isn't from a financial standpoint." He observed that airlines make huge investments in equipment and infrastructure "and then it hopes that somebody shows up to fly." With Flight Options fractional program, however, "It's almost exactly the opposite. We own no airplanes, they're owned by owners, that's how we get our name.
American Airlines named Gerard Arpey, 43, president and chief operating officer, putting him in line to eventually succeed CEO Don Carty. Arpey was previously executive vice president of operations. Arpey joined AA in 1982 and was chief financial officer from 1995-1999. The new appointment comes just a few weeks after Vice Chairman Bob Baker retired.
BRAZILIAN MANUFACTURER Embraer posted a net profit of $470 million in 2001, a 70.7 percent jump from the $272 million it reported for 2000. The company topped the list of Brazil's principal exporters for the third consecutive year with $2.9 billion in overseas shipments. CEO Mauricio Botelho emphasized that after Sept. 11 only 18 purchase options - 15 from Brazil's Rio-Sul and three from foreign carriers - were rescheduled. He said there were no cancellations.
A Boeing Business Jet flew 6,854 nautical miles from Seattle, Wash. to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, making the trip the farthest distance flown in a BBJ. The flight, which started at Boeing Field on April 7, took 14 hours and 12 minutes. The aircraft, owned by a company called BBJ One, is the first to be certified under Part 135 allowing charter operations.
A mild winter has put construction of the 760,000-square-foot Dulles annex to the National Air and Space Museum ahead of schedule, museum officials said last week, adding that they hope to begin moving the first artifacts into the Steven F. Uvar-Hazy Center next March. The center is slated to open to the public in December 2003, purposefully timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the first powered flight by the Wright brothers.
TWIN COMMANDER AIRCRAFT CORPORATION received certification to install Meggitt Avionics' MAGIC electronic flight and instrumentation system on the 690 series Twin Commander aircraft. MAGIC is a suite of four instrument panel and gauge displays that will show fuel levels, airspeed, attitude, altitude, vertical speed and heading references. The new system will be standard on Grand Renaissance Twin Commanders and available for retrofit in other Twin Commander 690-series models.
BOMBARDIER Model CL-600-2B19 series airplanes (Docket No. 2001-NM-346-AD) - proposes to require inspection of certain installed electrical relays to determine whether they have certain manufacturing date codes, and replacement of the electrical relays with those date codes with new relays with different manufacturing date codes. This action is necessary to prevent the failure of an electrical relay due to a defective moving blade assembly, which could result in the inability to generate electrical power from the emergency system.
Medaire of Phoenix, Ariz. was honored as Gulfstream's 2001 Small Business Supplier of the Year. The Small Business Council of Gulfstream presented the award to MedAire last month at the Fourth Annual Year End Event in Savannah, Ga. The two companies have been partners since 1989 when Gulfstream became the first to make Med Aire's medical safety products and services a standard feature on every new aircraft sold.
FLIGHTSAFETY INTERNATIONAL'S center in Daleville, Ala. received Level D certification from FAA for its new UC-35B full flight simulator. The new simulator is the U.S. Army's version of the Cessna Citation Encore business jet. The simulator will be used to train both military and civil pilots.
Fairchild Dornier's insolvency administrator Eberhard Braun still wants to sell the company as a whole, but said the schedule to achieve his "strategic goal" is very tight. Braun has two and one-half months left to find a buyer for the company. He is allowing spending only where it is absolutely necessary, and he defended the move to lay off virtually all sales staff except three Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany-based employees (BA, April 8/163).
Air Methods Corporation's products division received a contract from General Dynamics Landing Systems for development and production of a litter system for the U.S. Army's medical evacuation vehicle. The contract is for 27 units to be delivered this year and includes an option for the production of 91 more units, to be delivered between 2003 and 2007. If GD exercises all its options, the contract value could reach $5 million.
National Air Transportation Association is rounding out membership of its recently formed Airline Services Council, which will promote and represent interests of aviation businesses that provide services to scheduled airlines. The council includes GlobeGround North America, Airport Terminal Services, Signature Flight Support/ASIG, WorldWide Security Associates, Gate Gourmet, Menzies Aviation Group, Aramark/ServiceMaster Aviation Services, LSG Sky Chefs, Worldwide Flight Services, Swissport, ITS, Hallmark Aviation Services, Mercury Air Group, FSS and Servisair.
National Transportation Safety Board is investigating two recent accidents in Minnesota involving Piper PA-46-310P aircraft that made forced landings after loss of engine power. N9103Q sustained substantial damage March 31 when the pilot ditched the plane in the Mississippi River near South St. Paul, Minn. shortly after departing Fleming Field (SGS) in South St. Paul. The pilot and two passengers were not injured. NTSB said N9184F also sustained substantial damage when the pilot made a forced landing on a road in Hastings, Minn. after the pilot had departed St.
