oneworld

Malaysia Air, which lost a wide-body jet with 239 people aboard three years ago in one of history’s most enduring aviation mysteries, has become the first airline to sign an agreement for space-based flight tracking of its aircraft. The subsidiary of MAS reached a deal with Aireon LLC, SITAONAIR and FlightAware LLC to enable it to monitor the flight paths of its aircraft anywhere in the world including over the polar regions and the most remote oceans, according to Aireon. Aireon is launching a new satellite network with Iridium Communications Inc. that will allow it to monitor air traffic around the globe. It’s projected to be completed in 2018. Most international flights are already transmitting their position with technology known as ADS-B and the signals can be tracked from the ground or space. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has already installed a ground-based tracking system for ADS-B. “Real-time global aircraft tracking has long been a goal of the aviation community,” Malaysia COO Izham Ismail said. “We are proud to be the first airline to adopt this solution."<br/>

American Airlines flight attendants are getting a 1.6% raise after an arbitrator ruled in an ongoing pay dispute Tuesday. That’s far less than the 8.2% the union had requested, prompting its president to call the raise “insulting.” “Flight attendants at this airline deserve industry-leading compensation. American CEO Doug Parker had an opportunity to deliver on the promise he made to make his employees the best-paid in the industry, and he refused,” said Bob Ross, president of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants. The dispute traces back to the complicated contract negotiations to bring together flight attendants from US Airways and American Airlines after the two carriers merged. Executives at the newly merged company promised industry-leading contracts for its labour groups, but at the time American struck a deal with flight attendants in late 2014, United was in the midst of negotiations with its own flight attendants. American’s deal included a clause that allowed for the two sides to revisit the pay scale once United reached a new contract with its flight attendants, which was approved in August. As American and the union revisited the contract, the union began pushing for its pay adjustment to reflect a six percent raise given to Delta flight attendants in November, as well as the new United deal. But American pushed back and held that only United’s new contract should be considered, not Delta’s recent raises, significantly lowering the size of the raise due to American’s more than 25,000 flight attendants.<br/>