Category Archives: Airline industry

Nose wheel falls off Boeing 757 airliner waiting for takeoff

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Delta Air Lines jet was due to depart Atlanta international airport and none of the crew or passengers were hurt

A nose wheel fell off a Delta Air Lines Boeing 757 passenger jet and rolled away as the plane lined up for takeoff over the weekend from Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson international airport in the US, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

According to a preliminary FAA notice, none of the 184 passengers or six crew members aboard were hurt in the incident.

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Boeing plane returns to airport in Japan after crack found in cockpit window

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All Nippon Airways flight was en route to Toyama airport when crack found in window of Boeing 737-800

A domestic flight of Japan’s All Nippon Airways returned to its departure airport on Saturday after a crack was found on the cockpit window of the Boeing 737-800 aircraft midair, a spokesperson for the airline said.

Flight 1182 was en route to Toyama airport but headed back to the Sapporo-New Chitose airport after the crack was found on the outermost of four layers of windows surrounding the cockpit, the spokesperson said, adding there were no injuries reported among the 59 passengers and six crew.

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BAE Systems in line for potential windfall from Kazakhstan airline flotation

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Air Astana, which is 49% owned by the British defence firm, announces plans to float on London stock market

Kazakhstan’s national airline has announced plans to float on the London stock market, bringing a potential windfall to BAE Systems, which has been an investor for more than two decades.

Air Astana, which is 49% owned by the British defence company, hopes to list in London and Kazakhstan and raise $120m (£94m). The airline, which is majority owned by the Kazakh sovereign wealth fund, did not say how much of the company would be floated and is yet to confirm an expected valuation range.

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Bonza owners being chased in court for US$30m after leased planes repossessed in Canada

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777 Partners, which launched Australian budget carrier in early 2023, had leased four planes for Flair Airlines in Canada, UK court documents show

The private investment firm poised to take over Everton football club and which owns airlines in Canada and Australia is being chased for almost US$30m (A$44.7m) in unpaid aircraft leasing fees and damages.

777 Partners is facing legal action in the UK from three aircraft lessors over unpaid fees and damages related to four aircraft that were leased to Flair Airlines, the Canadian low-cost carrier that 777 partly owns.

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CEO says Boeing must acknowledge ‘our mistake’ as 737 Max 9 jets are grounded

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Planes await inspection by aviation regulators after panel blowout on Alaska Airlines flight amid heightened safety concerns

Boeing must acknowledge “our mistake”, its CEO has said, after the cabin panel of a 737 Max 9 jet blew off during an Alaska Airlines flight last week.

Dozens of Max 9 planes have been grounded following the incident, awaiting inspection amid heightened concerns around safety. Alaska and United Airlines have since both found loose parts on several jets.

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Design flaws not suspected ‘at this time’ with Boeing Max 9 jets, investigators say

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Boeing faces fresh scrutiny after door panel blows out of brand new plane, leaving a hole ‘the size of a refrigerator’

US aviation investigators were on the ground in Oregon on Sunday trying to figure out what caused a door panel to blow out of a brand new Boeing passenger jet just minutes after takeoff, forcing pilots to make an emergency landing with a hole “the size of a refrigerator” in the side of the plane.

The American jet maker was facing fresh scrutiny as regulators temporarily grounded the Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft after a section of a plugged exit door on an Alaska Airlines flight detached 16,000ft (4,877 meters) above Portland, Oregon, on Friday with 171 passengers and six crew on board. The weeks-old plane had been modified, requiring fewer emergency exits because it had fewer seats.

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US orders Boeing 737 Max 9 planes grounded after Alaska Airlines blowout

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Nearly 200 planes grounded as FAA investigates Saturday flight from Portland, Oregon, in which a cabin panel blew out in mid-air

US regulators have ordered the temporary grounding of 171 Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft following a cabin panel blowout late Friday that forced a brand-new airplane operated by Alaska Airlines to make an emergency landing.

“The FAA is requiring immediate inspections of certain Boeing 737 MAX 9 planes before they can return to flight,” said Mike Whitaker, a Federal Aviation Administration administrator, on Saturday. “Safety will continue to drive our decision-making as we assist the NTSB’s [National Transportation Safety Board] investigation into Alaska Airlines Flight 1282.”

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Ryanair ticket sales hit after travel agent websites delist airline

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Carrier says such sites only account for ‘small fraction’ of its bookings but move has affected load factor

Ryanair has said that it has seen a drop in the number of tickets it has been able to sell after a number of major online booking websites stripped the budget carrier’s flights from their listings.

Europe’s largest airline said that in early December “most” of the larger online travel agent sites – including Booking.com, Kiwi and Kayak – “suddenly removed Ryanair’s flights from sale on their websites”.

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Japan jet crash: passenger plane was cleared to land, say officials

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Smaller plane on runway was not cleared for takeoff, however, say authorities as investigations begin

A passenger jet that collided with a coastguard plane at Haneda airport in Tokyo had been given permission to land, but the smaller plane was not cleared for takeoff, Japanese authorities have said, as police reportedly prepared to investigate whether the crash involved professional negligence.

Five people on the coastguard aircraft died but all 379 passengers and crew escaped to safety down emergency slides minutes before the Japan Airlines Airbus was engulfed in flames on Tuesday.

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Victorian woman arrested after allegedly assaulting airline staff

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Australian federal police notified after 23-year-old woman allegedly became abusive on board a plane at Gold Coast airport

A Victorian woman allegedly assaulted airline staff at Gold Coast airport on New Year’s Eve while on board a plane bound for Melbourne.

The 23-year-old was arrested after airline staff notified the Australian federal police that a passenger was allegedly being verbally abusive on the plane, the AFP said.

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Six-year-old boy put on wrong flight from Philadelphia to Florida

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Spirit Airlines sent boy to Orlando instead of Fort Myers, leaving his grandmother to drive 160 miles to pick him up

A six-year-old boy boarded the wrong airplane last week, making a holiday trip look more like a Home Alone sequel in Philadelphia.

Spirit Airlines placed Casper on the wrong flight on Thursday, making his first flight one to remember. His grandmother was expecting him to arrive in Fort Myers, Florida, but instead he landed in Orlando.

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Australia news live: only 54.3% of Virgin flights and 66.3% of Qantas flights on time last month, transport minister says

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‘Very disappointing results, it is no wonder that so many Australians remain fed up with our major airlines,’ Catherine King says. Follow today’s news updates live

‘Very, very clear’ renewables are the cheapest form of energy, Bowen says

Renewable energy is the cheapest form of energy, including its storage and transmission costs, the energy minister told ABC RN.

Its conclusions this year are unimpeachable and very, very clear.

The cheapest form of energy is renewable energy, even including the costs that go with renewable energy around storage and transmission.

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Australia news live: Natasha Fyles resigns as Northern Territory chief minister; PM to visit north Queensland flood zones on Thursday

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Follow the latest updates live

Communities urged to exercise caution amid ‘huge volumes of water’

QFES commissioner Steve Smith has also made some comments on the flood situation up in Queensland.

There’s still huge volumes of water moving down through the systems, so at different points on the water, in the water catchments, they’re going to have rises. So we need people to stay informed, and they’ve done a great job in doing that. So we want that to continue with the support from community.

No. So we have commenced a search and rescue investigation into that. Degarra was one of the communities we couldn’t get into yesterday, but we have been speaking to a local man where there were a number of rescues completed yesterday in Degarra. So we have dispatched the water police vessel this morning, which left in the early hours of this morning and is on the way to that location. And in addition to that, we’ve now got rescue helicopters going that way as well.

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Two in five Australians had flight cancelled or delayed over 12 months, survey says

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Choice poll also finds less than half of all flight refunds are received within a month as government considers additional regulation

Less than half of Australians who seek a refund for a cancelled flight receive it within a month while one-fifth of those seeking a refund wait more than six months, a poll has found, as the government considers a compensation scheme and a passenger bill of rights.

The consumer advocate Choice also found, in a survey of about 9,000 Australians, that two in five respondents had a flight cancelled or delayed in the 12 months between October 2022 and this year.

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Marles will ‘make right decision in Australia’s interest’ over deploying navy vessels to Red Sea, Farrell says – as it happened

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Up to 49 tonnes of illicit drugs prevented from reaching Australia

Australian federal police and international law enforcement partners have prevented up to 49 tonnes of illicit drugs from reaching Australia throughout the past financial year.

The AFP cannot overstate the amount of harm that 29 tonnes of methamphetamine could have caused to the community if it had not been intercepted by law enforcement.

On average, close to 12,000 Australians are hospitalised from methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin use every 12 months.

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Electric plane set to deliver mail across New Zealand in decarbonisation push

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Air New Zealand says using the ALIA electric cargo plane to deliver parcels will help plot route towards zero-emissions passenger flights in a ‘new age of propulsion’

Parcels and letters will soon be distributed by electric aircraft between regions of New Zealand as the sparsely populated country embarks on a “new age of propulsion” in its attempts to decarbonise its reliance on aviation.

On Wednesday, Air New Zealand announced it had purchased a battery-powered, all-electric five seater cargo aircraft, which will be put to use running mail between airports with New Zealand’s postal service from 2026.

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Alaska Airlines to buy Hawaiian Airlines in deal that may face regulator scrutiny

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Deal for $1.9bn, which includes $900m in Hawaiian Airlines debt, would keep both airlines’ brands

Alaska Airlines said Sunday it agreed to buy Hawaiian Airlines in a $1.9bn deal, including debt, putting it on track for a potential clash with a Biden administration that has shown wariness about higher fares in the industry.

The combined company would keep both airlines’ brands, rooted in the nation’s 49th and 50th states. Alaska will pay $18 in cash for each share of Hawaiian, whose stock closed Friday at $4.86 after losing just over half its value in the year so far.

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First transatlantic flight using 100% sustainable jet fuel to take off

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Virgin Atlantic flight, partly funded by UK government, hailed by ministers but criticised by campaigners


The first transatlantic flight by a commercial airliner fully powered by “sustainable” jet fuel will take off from London Heathrow this morning.

The Virgin Atlantic flight, partly funded by the UK government, has been hailed by the aviation industry and ministers as a demonstration of the potential to significantly cut net carbon emissions from flying, although scientists and environmental groups are extremely sceptical.

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EasyJet returns to profit but Israel-Hamas war reduces bookings

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Budget airline says its research has found two-thirds of Britons are more likely to travel abroad next year

EasyJet has experienced a general drop in bookings since the Israel-Hamas war started, which prompted it to pause flights to Israel and Jordan, but said demand was coming back and consumers were keen to holiday abroad next year.

Johan Lundgren, the budget airline’s chief executive, said: “As we saw with Ukraine, there has been a short-term industry-wide impact on [flight] searches and bookings, though this now seems to be coming back with a recent improvement in trading.”

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Australia news live: school strike for climate protests draw huge crowds in Melbourne and Sydney; Albanese says Apec leaders ‘very interested’ in Tuvalu deal

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‘A ceasefire is where we need to get to,’ Zoe Daniel says

Asked by RN Breakfast host Patricia Karvelas if she supports calls for a ceasefire, Zoe Daniel says:

If you call for a ceasefire, you’re letting down the Jewish community, if you don’t you’re allowing death and destruction to happen in Gaza.

At the end of the day, if I say to you right now, yes, I support ceasefire, that will make zero difference to what is happening in in Gaza.

I’m a former foreign correspondent. I know the logistics of this, of course, a ceasefire is where we need to get to, but you have a terrorist organisation in the middle of this. If there’s just a ceasefire, and there’s no capacity there to try to dismantle Hamas, does that allow Hamas to regroup? What does that actually lead to? That said, I’ve said to you before, very clearly, and I still stick to the position that the Israeli government has to adhere to international law and the rules of war, and I think, in some ways, has not been.

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