US Airways had agreed to buy the Airbus 350 as part of an agreement for financial assistance during its merger. However, with it behind schedule, Today in the Sky reports that they are looking at the possibility of going with Boeing. Also from Today in the Sky, on June 3rd, Alitalia will add three flights…
Boeing took the first step Friday in ending production of C-17 military cargo planes in 2009, by notifying suppliers it will no longer buy parts for the jet not under contract or firmly committed. Unless the U.S. or other government expresses interest in additional aircraft, Boeing will shut the production line. Embraer delivered the first…
Bloomberg reports that Jetblue is grounding their Embraer 190 aircraft starting on Thursday, March 8th to fix persistent software problems. Jetblue will be contracting with Expressjet to operate four ERJ145 50-seater regional jets to replace the 190s as they are grounded two at a time. All passengers will have the option of changing their flight…
Alaska Airlines has announced it will offer seasonal service once-daily from Anchorage to San Francisco from June 3 through August 20th. Alaska Airlines’ summer schedule also offers daily nonstop service between Anchorage and Chicago; Denver; Los Angeles; Portland, Ore.; Seattle; and Vancouver, British Columbia. The service will be operated using 737-700s. Airtran Airways will introduce…
The last customer for the freight version of the Airbus 380, the United Parcel Service, has said it planned to cancel an order for 10 Airbus 380 freighters. It had considered waiting until 2012 for the aircraft, but when it learned that Airbus is diverting employees from the freighter version to work on the passenger…
Jetblue announced service from Boston to Charlotte and Washington-Dulles to Orlando beginning May 1st. The Boston flight will be once daily, the Dulles flight twice daily. It will also add once additional flight from Long Beach to Las Vegas, JFK to Portland ME, JFK to Charlotte, and JFK to Raleigh-Durham. Jetblue also announced increases in…
Bombardier, maker of the Canadair Regional Jet(CRJ) announced today it has added a 100-seater option to its lineup after receiving 38 firm orders for it today, which included the conversion of previous CRJ900 orders. The CRJ1000 is a stretch version of the CRJ900(90-seater aircraft and originally referred to as the CRJ900x. It is 3 meters…
For those of you who haven’t heard, the Airbus 380 is scheduled to touch down in JFK on March 19th as part of a trial flight for Lufthansa. Los Angeles, which had expected to have the honor of hosting the first A380 landing in the United States. The superjumbo’s arrival into the United States has…
Delta has ordered 30 Bombardier CRJ900 Aircraft at a value of $1.1 billion. Delta operates 350 out of the 1395 CRJ series aircraft. US Airways is in talks with Boeing and Airbus about buying sixty new aircraft to replace its aging 737 and 757 aircraft. UPS has ordered 27 new Boeing 767-300ER cargo planes to…
Continental Airlines announced today that Colgan Air has been selected to operate 74-seat Bombardier Q400 turboprop planes on short and medium distrance routes starting early next year. The Q400, as we have mentioned in the past, is an update of the Dash 8 turboprop…with state of the art noise suppression, seating comfort, and engine technology.…
We’ve been a fan of the Embraer 190 regional jets since long before we had the pleasure of flying on them. Recently we decided to take a few regional jet trips with Embraer products, so see how the experience rated. We hopped a US Airways Express flight on an Embraer 145, and then a Jetblue…
Reports that Airbus had solved the wiring problems for the Airbus 380 were apparently premature, as Airbus announced on Friday that the problems had been solved for the first aircraft only. Work is still going on to solve the long-term issues. Airbus expects to start building a common design platform between its various plants…the variance…
The United Parcel Service(UPS), is expected to cancel the only remaining order for the cargo version of the A380 superjumbo jet. As the Washington Post reports, rumors are that they will cancel the ten plane order sometime next week. In October, UPS began to review its purchase in light of the third delivery delay on…
Today, Boeing unveiled a life-size display of the interior for the new 747-8 Intercontinental. The 747 has transported passengers for decades. The 747-8 is stretched 18.3 feet from the 747-400 to provide 467 seats in a typical three-class configuration. The new interior configuration offers updates from the designs of later passenger aircraft, like the 787…
Up until last year, Airbus had outsold Boeing in commercial airplanes for five straight years. However, in 2006, Airbus received 790 airplane orders, compared to Boeing’s 1044. Airbus’s problems are blamed on the delays with the Airbus 380, which is two years behind schedule. The redesign of the A350, which failed to compete with Boeing’s…
The Embraer 190, popular as the second aircraft model used by low-cost carrier Jetblue, has recently been added to the US Airways fleet. The 190 will be operated as a mainline jet, with 11 first class seats and 88 in coach. It will be serving niche markets too large for a regional jet and that…
Last week, Boeing delivered its 600th 777 aircraft. The 777 aircraft has been in production for eleven years, and Boeing has produced these planes faster than any previous twin aisle aircraft production. Singapore Airlines took delivery of the aircraft, adding to the sixty it already had, with an additional sixteen due to be delivered.
The Airbus 380 received certification from European and U.S. aviation authorities today, signing airworthiness certificates for the much delayed airliner. The testing for this certification took it 70,000 nautical miles of route proving, including takeoffs and landings in a variety of conditions. USAToday reports that as this happens as an investigation into EADS and its…
Today, the chief of Boeing’s commercial airplanes unit said the 787 Dreamliner is on schedule for its first test flight next summer and first customer delivery in 2008. Assembly of the main sections is set to start in January. Boeing already has 435 orders for the aircraft. Meanwhile, Lufthansa has announced that they are ordering…
Pierre Beaudoin, president of Bombardier Aerospace, said the company, known for its Canadair Regional Jets, the Learjet, and its Q400 Next-Generation Turboprop, seat the company expects to decide by January 31st whether it will go ahead with a $2 billion project to develop its CSeries passenger jet. Last January, Beaudoin announced it would not develop…
The New York Times reports that Boeing has turned down the request of Southwest to add 2 planes to its recent order of 80. Demand for Boeing aircraft is increasing, especially considering that Airbus has had problems with the A380 and the A350. Scott E. Carson, the new head of Boeing Commercial Aviation, has vowed…
Bloomburg reports that Airbus plans to increase spending to $12 billion, a 20% increase to develop the A350 jet. The current design is its sixth attempt to come up with serious competition for the 787 Dreamliner. Airbus is seriously behind in the A350 project, partially due to the problems with its A380 project. With the…
Not long ago, a fellow blogger accused us of having a singular point of view in regards to Boeing vs. Airbus. Now, it was not long ago Boeing had its problems, and it has succeeded in turning them around for the most part. Right now, Airbus is in the midst of serious problems, and the…
Reuters reports that a delay in the launch of the A350 could affect USAirways in its long-term expansion plans for international service. Airbus invested in USAirways in exchange for a commitment to purchase 20 A350s. Since Airbus has no firm delivery dates for the A350, this commitment may not bear fruit in line with the…
We were recently reading the 24/7 Wall Street blog, and discovered their take on the Boeing 747 refit. Since the 787 has been such a success in orders due to its fuel-saving design, the 747-8 has incorporated those new designe elements. It is 11% lighter than the A380, comparing the total weight to the number…