Airlines

Statistics released this week by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) paint a sharp picture of the effect the COVID-19 pandemic had on the global air industry in 2020. Among the more startling numbers released by the trade association for the airline industry: The number of passengers dropped more than 60 percent, from 4.5 billion […]

The US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) issued their 2020 Occupational Outlook Handbook showing that “airline pilots, copilots, and flight engineers” had a median annual wage of $160,970, nearly four times the median wage for all US workers, who earned $41,950 on average. It is worth noting that in the handbook data, […]

On May 23, 2021, a scheduled Ryanair flight from Athens, Greece, to Vilnius, Lithuania, was diverted as it transitioned the airspace over Belarus, and instructed to land at Minsk. Belarus’ air traffic control informed the pilots of a bomb threat—the purported reason for the diversion, though the flight was quite near its destination already—yet once […]

The FAA in January 2021 sent a letter to Pedro Fabregas, president and CEO of Envoy Air, Inc—American Airlines’ largest regional partner—that the agency’s safety assurance system inspectors had identified nine potential operational safety concerns related to flight crew performance. The letter and other documents were anonymously sent to Flying magazine, but were believed to […]

Cape Air confirmed its plans to take delivery of 10 Tecnam P2012 Travellers in 2021, to add to the 20 aircraft already entered into the regional airline’s fleet. The airline took its first delivery of the light commuter twin—set to replace the company’s venerable Cessna 402s—in October 2019, shortly after its FAA certification. Cape Air […]

On a sunny August afternoon in New York City, an Airbus A330 landed on Runway 31R at John F. Kennedy International Airport. It appeared to be a perfectly normal flight, noteworthy only in the era of COVID-19 for having been one of relatively few airplanes to come across the North Atlantic tracks from Europe that […]

Saving fuel directly translates to saving dollars for any flight operation’s bottom line, and the latest release from GE Digital apparently is doing the job for crews using it on Qantas. FlightPulse—announced on March 9—is an app and flight analytics tool that GE Digital developed in concert with Qantas as a way to enhance safety […]

Though hundreds of American Airlines passengers were inconvenienced last week when American Airlines subsidiary PSA Airlines grounded its fleet of Bombardier CRJ700 and CRJ900s –because of worries about potential mechanical issues—the efforts should not go unnoticed in an era of anxiety about aircraft safety. The grounding affected some 230 PSA flights system wide, with most […]

If you think back to the days when you regularly travelled aboard an airliner, you’ll remember it’s a federal crime to interfere with a flight crewmember carrying out their normal duties. Practically, that usually meant some poor flight attendant trying to deal with a passenger who’d had too much to drink. Since the pandemic hit […]

The $900 billion stimulus package officially known as the Consolidated Appropriation Act of 2021 was signed into law on Monday, December 21, and includes a second round of CARES Act Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) relief for commercial air carriers and contractors with additional CARES Act Payroll Support Program (PSP) funding. The additional stimulus funds will […]