Aircraft News - Asia / Pacific.

Sep 17, 2007

ARINC announced the availability of AviNet Xmail, which it called "the first desktop XML messaging solution for the air travel industry." AviNet Xmail service will be available immediately to ARINC's aviation network customers and "allows airline and operations staff to easily edit and exchange modern XML and TypeX messages," the company said. Sep 13, 2007

China developing WIGE aircraft. A wing-in-ground-effect aircraft is under development at Shanghai based-Tongji University, according to Chinese media. Sep 10, 2007

Indian Civil Aviation To Attract USD$150 Bln In 10 Years. India's civil aviation sector will attract investments worth USD$150 billion in the next 10 years, according to Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel. Development of airport infrastructure, communication and navigation facilities are key areas where the country needs investments, Patel said on the sidelines of an All India Management Association (AIMA) seminar. The ministers will also take up issues like allowing private Indian carriers with three years experience in the domestic sector to fly abroad, he said. Currently, carriers with 5 years of experience and a fleet of 20 aircraft are allowed to fly abroad. He said the first phase of modernization of Kolkata Airport will require an investment of 20 billion rupees. The Kolkata Airport modernization work will be taken up by state-run Airports Authority of India, he said. Sep 10, 2007

Japan to fund stealth fighter study. Japan's Y4.8 trillion ($41.4 billion) defence budget request for fiscal year 2008 includes an initial Y15.7 billion allocation from the nation's air. Sep 10, 2007

Adam Air, Boeing

Adam Air, the Indonesian budget carrier, has seen its passenger numbers rebound after slumping by around a third following a fatal plane crash earlier this year, a newspaper reported. Danke Dradjat, head of corporate communications at Adam Air, was quoted by The Jakarta Post as saying the number of passengers in the last few months had gradually picked up. He added that Adam Air, which now carries between 450,000 and 600,000 passengers a month, lost around 30 percent of its passengers following the crash. A Boeing 737-400 plane operated by Adam Air crashed on New Year's Day with 102 people aboard. The 17-year-old plane was heading from Surabaya in East Java to Manado in northern Sulawesi when it crashed into the sea with all presumed dead. Sep 11, 2007

Air New Zealand 

Air New Zealand has hit a novel bit of turbulence in its plans to update and expand its ageing fleet of Boeing aircraft. The company is having to go direct to its shareholders to gain support to buy just over $4.5 billion worth of new wide-body long-haul jets, as the size of the deal is much bigger than those that would normally require just boardroom approval. The new order would double the assets owned by Air New Zealand, which at the end of June this year were worth $4.9 billion - mainly its existing fleet. Under New Zealand company law, any deal that adds assets or liabilities more than half a company's value needs support from 75 per cent of shareholders. Air New Zealand is keen to go ahead with an arrangement to directly acquire 10 aircraft, a mixture of Boeing 789 and 773 aircraft, worth $2.2 billion, and exercise options on a further 11 that will add an extra $2.3 billion to the final bill. Sep 11, 2007

All Nippon Airways, Bombardier

All Nippon Airways said on Sept. 13 it had suspended all flights using 14 DHC-8-Q400 aircraft made by Bombardier after the Canadian government said the craft must be inspected. ANA suspended 19 flights on Thursday morning and does not know when it will resume services using Q400s, ANA spokeswoman Keiko Ninomiya said. Bombardier asked airlines worldwide on Sept. 12 to ground 60 of its turboprop planes for inspections. Sep 13, 2007

EVA Air

EVA Air took delivery of its seventh 316-seat Boeing 777-300ER and will operate it on Taipei-Los Angeles service. An eighth 777-300ER will be serving LAX by year end. EVA flies the route 17-times-weekly. Sep 11, 2007

EVA Air, Boeing

EVA Air sold an MD-11 freighter to Wells Fargo Bank for $55 million, booking a gain of TWD50 million ($1.5 million) on the deal, Dow Jones reported. EVA now operates nine MD-11Fs, but will continue to sell the aircraft as it converts nine Boeing 747-400 Combis into freighters, an EVA spokesperson told the news service. Sep 11, 2007

Hong Kong Airlines 

Hong Kong Airlines finalized its order for 30 Airbus A320 family aircraft, 20 A330s and one A319CJ Corporate Jet initially announced at the Paris Air Show. Engine choice has not been finalized, Airbus said. Sep 13, 2007

Japan Airlines, Bombardier

Japan Airlines said it had grounded all 10 of its Bombardier DHC-8-Q400 aircraft earlier on Sept. 13 but some are now up and flying after having been inspected. The airline suspended flights using three aircraft on Wednesday. Bombardier asked airlines worldwide on Sept. 12 to ground 60 of its turboprop planes for inspections after landing gear failures forced two SAS Scandinavian planes to make crash landings in the last couple of days. Sep 13, 2007

Lufthansa Technik

Lufthansa Technik expands maintenance operation in Asia Lufthansa has begun training personnel for its new maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facility. Sep 11, 2007

Nippon Cargo Airlines, Telair International, Boeing

Telair International was selected by Nippon Cargo Airlines to supply lower and main deck cargo-loading systems for 14 Boeing 747-8 Freighters ordered by NCA. Sep 12, 2007

One-Two-Go

Five survivors of the One-Two-Go airline crash were in critical condition, with burns to 60 percent of their bodies, hospital officials said. The "black box" flight data recorder has been recovered and much of the investigation is likely to focus on the weather conditions as the plane, flown by Bangkok-based low-cost operator One-Two-Go, was coming in to land. "We will have to wait for the actual cause of the accident. We will send the black box to the United States. It will take one week to analyze," Sansern told Thailand's Channel 7 television. Sep 16, 2007

One-Two-Go

One-Two-Go low-cost airline McDonnell Douglas MD-82 jet crashed on the Thai resort island of Phuket on Sunday, killing 88 people as it broke up and burst into flames while trying to land in driving rain, a senior official said. Forty two people were injured, Phuket deputy governor Vorapot Rajsima told a news conference, and a hospital official said at least five of the survivors were seriously hurt. Flight manifests at Phuket airport suggested well over half the 123 passengers on the flight from the Thai capital were foreign and an Airports of Thailand official in Bangkok said most of the foreigners were Europeans. There were seven crew members on board. Earlier reports had said there were five. Eight Britons, eight Thais, five Germans and two Australians were among 42 known survivors, hospital workers said. Sep 16, 2007

One-Two-Go

Survivors of the One-Two-Go low-cost airline crash such as Nong Khaonual, a Thai with his wife, said he believed the plane had descended too quickly. "The airplane was landing in heavy rain. It landed too fast. I have never seen anything like this. It descended very fast," he told Nation Television in hospital. "Just before we touched the runway we felt the plane try to lift up, and it skidded off the runway," he said. "My wife was half conscious and I dragged her out of the emergency exit. There was a man behind us and he was on fire." Another survivor, an Irishman named John, described the attempts to land in atrocious conditions. "You could tell there was a problem. The plane was flying around trying to land. It was making some noises and it was bad rain," John, who was traveling with a friend who also survived, told Thailand's ITV television channel. "The plane was on fire, but I managed to get through." Sep 16, 2007

One-Two-Go

Witnesses of the One-Two-Go low-cost airline crash reports said "The plane looks as though it veered off the runway into the side of a hill," said Leslie Quahe, a Singaporean pastor who arrived at the scene about an hour after the crash. "I was coming down the hill and saw smoke coming from the plane. It had broken into several parts," Quahe said. Officials said the McDonnell Douglas MD-82 had broken in two on impact on landing on the Andaman Sea paradise isle, which was hit by the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The tail section of the One-Two-Go flight lay on the runway and the rest was among the trees lining it. "I'm deeply sorry about this tragic event," Udom Tantiprasongchai, chairman of Orient Thai Airlines which operates the low cost airline, told reporters, promising a full investigation. Distraught relatives gathered at the airport, on the northwest coast of Thailand's largest island, desperate for news of loved ones. Sep 16, 2007

Singapore Airlines, Airbus

Singapore Airlines is promising a new class of premium travel that it calls "beyond first" for its Airbus A380 scheduled to be handed over in Toulouse the morning of Oct. 15. Unlike Qantas, which unveiled its A380 product in July, SIA has been tight-lipped on the details except to say that some elements are the same as its 777-300ER interior. It has said that the aircraft will be in a 471-seat configuration, but no breakdown of classes or seat pitch figures have been given, with very few in the airline privy to the details. Sep 11, 2007

ZZ

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