Airbus Group for the second time this year is cutting production plans for its flagship A380 superjumbo and now faces the prospect of losing money on the plane again already next year. The move comes at a time both Airbus and Boeing face the prospect the era of the big, 4-engine long-haul plane is ending. Airbus has struggled to win orders for the A380 and Boeing has had to cut production plans for its 747-8 jumbo jet owing to slack demand. Airbus in July had to concede the outlook for the A380 was darkening when it cut production plans to just 12 A380s planes a year starting in 2018, down from the 27 it built last year. It had planned to build around 20 of them next year, reaching break-even on those deliveries. But Airbus Tuesday said it had to cut further. <br/>
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Major travel booking systems lack a proper way to authenticate air travellers, making it easy to hack the short code used on many boarding passes to alter flight details or steal sensitive personal data, security researchers warned Tuesday. Passenger Name Records (PNR) are used to store reservations with links to a traveller’s name, travel dates, itinerary, ticket details, phone and email contacts, travel agent, credit card numbers, seat number and baggage information. The 6-digit codes act as pin codes for locating travel records, albeit with vital differences that make them highly insecure, the researchers said. "While the rest of the Internet is debating which second and third factors to use, GDSs do not offer a first authentication factor," researchers said. <br/>
Sukhoi Civil Aircraft said it has identified a minor fault in the tail stabiliser of one SuperJet SSJ100 during inspections after Russian aviation authorities grounded the aircraft Dec 24. Sukhoi said Tuesday there was a “defect in the stabiliser attachment bands on one aircraft” but the fault was not systemic and other all aircraft were able to resume flights after being inspected. “Examination has confirmed that the issue is not a critical situation: the node features a multi-level redundant structure and has a safety margin which is more than twice the operational loads,” Sukhoi said. An industry expert said it appeared the “stabiliser attachment bands” referred to were structural reinforcements in the horizontal stabiliser where it attaches to the fuselage. <br/>
Russian investigators looking into the crash of a military plane that crashed, killing all 92 on board, believe a fault with its wing flaps was the reason it plunged into the Black Sea, an investigative source has said. The plane, a Tupolev-154 belonging to the Defence Ministry, disappeared from radar screens 2 minutes after taking off Sunday from Sochi in southern Russia. The 3 black box flight recorders from the aircraft were found Tuesday, Russian news agencies said, amid unconfirmed reports that authorities had grounded all aircraft of the same type. The Life.ru news portal, which has close contacts to law enforcement agencies, said it had obtained a readout of one of the pilot's last words, indicating a problem with the wing flaps. <br/>
A total of 1.86m passengers passed through Abu Dhabi International in Nov 2015, marking a 4.4% increase in passenger traffic compared to the 1.78m seen in Nov 2015. The figure brings the total number of passengers who used the airport in the first 11 months of the year to 22.3m — up 5.3% year-on-year. Abu Dhabi Airports said there was a 38.6% increase in passenger traffic through Terminal 3 in November compared to the same month last year, with the traffic there reaching 1.3m passengers. Traffic to and from Saudi Arabia saw a surge in November, jumping 43.5% year-on-year. Meanwhile, total aircraft movements rose marginally during the month, reaching 14,272 (up 1.7%). Cargo traffic also experienced slow growth in November, rising 1.3% year-on-year. <br/>