Airlines

Ampaire last month flew its Electric EEL aircraft on a 20-minute flight from Maui’s Kahului Airport across the island to Hana and back on a single battery charge. The company is now flying the route regularly in a one-month demonstration program with Hawai’i-based Mokulele Airlines, one of 15 airlines that signed a Letter of Interest […]

In late September, the mainstream media was alive with headlines detailing the tens of thousands of airline employees who would be furloughed October 1, 2020, without further government payroll assistance, all because of the corrosive effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. When no fresh funding appeared, some of the airlines—such as United—worked hard to keep as […]

At this point in the year, it’s pretty widely known that pilot hiring at the airlines fell off a cliff during most of 2020 following the COVID-19 outbreak. Louis Smith said, “The 12 major US airlines combined hired only 98 pilots in September.” Smith is president of the Future and Active Pilot Advisors (FAPA). Aircraft […]

Boeing’s latest aviation employment forecast—Pilot and Technician Outlook 2020-2039—reflects the chaos the industry is facing as it copes with the chaos surrounding COVID-19, the pandemic that has already put tens of thousands of professionals on the street, exacerbated on September 30 by the expiration of government airline payroll subsidies. The forecast includes data for commercial […]

The Flight Safety Foundation (FSF) announced earlier this week, “The industry’s efforts have succeeded in greatly reducing the possibility of transmission [of COVID-19] in airports and on aircraft.” Based on a six-month analysis, the foundation said, “The traveling public should have increased confidence that it’s safe to fly.” Dr. Hassan Shahidi, president and CEO of […]

The National Air Transportation Association (NATA) has released details of what the latest proposal for COVID-19 relief is expected to look like based on reports released Tuesday by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The skinny bill—as it’s being called—includes no fresh money for the Payroll Support Program for the airlines, that expire at the end […]

It was a bright spring day at Flight Level 350, far above the Chesapeake Bay, as we cruised up the Eastern Seaboard en route to Newark, New Jersey. This was my first time flying a jet in more than a month—really flying, not playacting in a giant video game on hydraulic stilts ensconced in the […]

When Southwest Airlines reported its quarterly earnings last week, the company included a $428 million payment received from Boeing to cover a variety of ongoing issues surrounding the grounded 737 MAX aircraft. The MAX has been grounded since March 2019 following two accidents, one in 2018, the other in 2019. Southwest had already accepted delivery […]

After more than 50 years since its first flight, the Boeing 747 faces the end of the production line. The Boeing Company indicated during its second quarter earnings report on July 29 that the company would end production of the 747 four-engine jumbo jet in 2022. The Commercial Airplanes division delivered 20 airplanes during the quarter, with a reported […]

When the Great Recession hit the United States just more than a decade ago, the media was ripe with stories of companies dumping their airplanes faster than McDonalds flips burgers. That flurry of sales—roughly one in five airplanes—followed the PR nightmare created after a number of automakers flew their business jets to Washington to ask […]