When Dave Calhoun called the head of the FAA Monday, the incoming Boeing CE purposely left other executives off the line. That self-confident but personal management style, honed over nearly 3 decades in various industries, will be one strategy Calhoun uses to try to mend the plane maker’s tattered relations with regulators, according to people who know him. The most immediate challenge confronting Calhoun is persuading FAA policy makers that Boeing will be more reliable and cooperative in providing data to verify flight-control fixes for the grounded 737 MAX fleet. That would mean abandoning his predecessor Dennis Muilenburg’s prodding of the agency over many months to accelerate vetting of the proposed software fix. <br/>
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Air travel experts say holiday periods are ripe for families being separated on airplanes. The US DoT recently decided against implementing a policy that would require airlines to seat minor children next to an accompanying adult. This leaves it up to the discretion of the airlines as to how it handles family bookings. Changes in the airline industry over the past several years have created prime conditions for such situations to arise. First, airlines started packing planes fuller. Second, the airline’s number crunchers realised not every airplane seat is worth the same amount of money. “These problems are just going to occur more frequently,” said one aviation analyst. “It’s a real issue and I don’t think the DoT has done itself any favour by taking a pass on it. The industry also needs…to decide if they want a black eye on this or solve it.” <br/>
Safran Group is considering a US$150m investment in a new aircraft engine maintenance, repair and overhaul unit in India to cater for its airline customers, according to the company. Safran and GE Aviation own a 50% stake each in CFM International, which manufactures engines for the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 types of aircraft. Currently, around 220 Airbus and Boeing planes in India are fitted with CFM engines. Additionally, there are 485 planes on order from IndiGo, SpiceJet, and Vistara, which will be equipped with these engines and are expected to be delivered over the next 5 years. CFM International won a $20b order from IndiGo to supply engines for 280 Airbus A320neo in June. Plans to set up an MRO unit in India are being evaluated following the big order win. <br/>
Boosted by the addition of a second runway, Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) is now projected to cater to 95m passengers per annum in the future, an upgrade from 65m. The daily Air Traffic Movements is also expected to touch 1,500 over the next decade. The Bangalore International Airport Limited's (BIAL) basis for this projection: Surge in air travel, the introduction of new routes and additional flights to cater to this growth. Once both the KIA runways are upgraded and operationalised by Oct 2020, the big growth will begin to show. A BIAL spokesperson has indicated that the growth will be driven by mixed-mode operations on the new runway and navigational enhancements. Despite the ups and downs in the aviation market, the airport has seen a perceptible growth trend over the last 4 years. <br/>
The General Authority of Civil Aviation announced Wednesday the transfer of 5 international and 2 domestic destinations to Terminal 1 at the new King Abdul Aziz International Airport in Jeddah. The domestic destinations are from Jeddah to Dammam and Qassim, while the international destinations are from Jeddah to Cairo, Beirut, Khartoum, Kuwait and Nairobi. The transfer will start Dec 29, via round-trip flights on Saudi Arabian Airlines, and brings the total number of domestic and international destinations that have been transferred to the new airport to 42. Terminal 1 has a total area of 810,000 square meters and a capacity for handling 30m passengers a year. It will be able to accommodate up to 70 aircraft simultaneously, including the Airbus A380 superjumbo jet. <br/>