Two Boeing 737 jetliners swooped onto a factory airfield near Seattle in March, the last of the models once flown by a collapsed Russian carrier. They were headed for makeovers to erase the Cyrillic logos and any other trace of Transaero Airlines. Next stop: Dallas’s Love Field, where hometown carrier Southwest Airlines Co. is on a record shopping spree. The imports are integral to what Jon Stephens, Southwest’s director of fleet transactions, describes as a “beautiful plan” to swap out some of its oldest models without spending lavishly. The carrier’s in the middle of acquiring 83 used Boeing 737-700s from around the world, the largest such haul in its more than four-decade history. Southwest and its US competitors -- now awash in cash after earning record profits last year -- are scouring developing nations for second-hand jetliners as cheap fuel makes older, less efficient aircraft more economical to operate. That bucks the traditional flow of hand-me-down planes from North American carriers to counterparts in emerging-market countries and makes an already volatile market for Boeing and Airbus more unpredictable. “If you’ve got excess things with wings, you are probably trying to sell it in the U.S. right now,” said George Ferguson, senior air transport analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. Driving the shift is the collapse of crude prices. While the commodities downturn has clipped economies from Russia to Brazil, lower fuel costs helped US airlines earn almost $19b last year. The carriers haven’t cut back on new aircraft orders, either, in a buyer’s market for cutting-edge jets. Because the used planes don’t need to be flown heavily to recoup capital costs, they can be added selectively to routes “so airlines have more schedule flexibility and can improve on-time performance,” said George Dimitroff, head of valuations for Ascend Flightglobal Consultancy.<br/>
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The undisputed superstar of the skies -- the biggest airplane in the world -- is taking flight on a rare delivery mission across three continents. The Ukrainian cargo jet named "Mriya" is one of a kind. There is no other. That's why the gawkers showed up Tuesday in Prague. They watched in awe as this big boy defied gravity before it touched down at Vaclav Havel Airport in the Czech Republic. Officially designated as the Antonov An-225, the plane was developed in the 1980s to carry the Soviet version of the space shuttle on its back. When the shuttle program ended, the plane morphed into the world's coolest flying moving van. While in Prague, workers will load Mriya with a generator weighing 130 tons for delivery to Australia. This monster has six jet engines. Its wingspan measures 88 metres. Mriya's cargo hold is actually longer than the Wright Brothers' historic flight in 1903. Its maximum total weight at takeoff: 640 tons. To carry all that weight Mriya has 32 wheels spread across its oversized landing gear. It's rare to see it in action. Lately, Mriya has been making deliveries once -- maybe twice -- a year. If you need to fly something big -- like gargantuan oil industry equipment or a giant electric generator -- this is the plane you want.<br/>
Five airlines, two of them foreign, have been punished over errors that could have resulted in plane crashes, China’s civil aviation regulator announced Wednesday. China Eastern Airlines, Okay Airways, XiamenAir, Orient Thai Airlines and Emirates have been ordered to make immediate corrections. The Civil Aviation Administration of China has also sent senior pilots, engineers and supervisors to the three domestic airlines to inspect their operations and carry out training due to a “landslide of safety conditions,” the administration announced on its website. Pilot error was responsible for most of the problems, it said. A captain and deputy pilot with the private, Beijing-based Okay Airways have been suspended indefinitely after one of its cargo aircraft ran out of runway during takeoff at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport on April 27. The carrier was suspended from operating new flights or introducing new cargo aircraft for the rest of the year. Story details other incidents.<br/>
Heathrow Airport has promised to reduce night flights and curb both noise and pollution if it is allowed to build a new, third runway. The pledge comes ahead of a government decision expected this summer on whether to expand Heathrow or Gatwick. Last year, the Davies Commission recommended expanding Heathrow, but with strict environmental restrictions. But, Gatwick Airport is still fighting, saying it remained the "only expansion plan that could deliver for the UK". Heathrow said it will allow a longer quiet period overnight, with flights not allowed to land between 11pm and 5:30am, from their current 11.30pm finish and 4.30am start. John Holland-Kaye, CE at Heathrow Airport Holdings, said they would bring in the new times in six and half years time if they were granted the right to expand. The offer differs from the recommendations made by Sir Howard Davies' inquiry, which wanted a ban on night flights between 11.30pm and 6.00am. The airport is promising to meet his calls for limits to overall noise and guarantees that local pollution would not get worse.<br/>