By 2029, Boeing predicted the global fleet would expand some 64% to 30,900 aircraft from 18,890 today, a $3.6 trillion opportunity for the builders of passenger and cargo jetliners.
That’s up from the past year’s industry forecast of 29,000 at $3.2 trillion when global air traffic was projected to fall 4% for the year.
source: Market Watch
The airline went out of business in March with debts of £4.5m after a potential rescue deal fell through. Now, 92 members of staff agreed pay cuts amounting to a total of £746,000 to try to save the airline.
Highland Airways had operated flights in Scotland and Wales.
source: BBC News
Only a quarter of travel insurance policies offer cover if the policy holder is stranded because their airline has gone bust, according to a new study.
The research by Defaqto found 77% of travel insurance policies do not cover airline failure.
Even insurers that cover airline failure may only offer a refund for the missed flight, and not for other components of a holiday such as accommodation and pre-booked activities.
source: Finance Markets
A solar-powered plane is getting ready to hit the skies once again – this time, at night.
It will be the first ever manned night flight on a plane propelled exclusively by solar energy.
The aim of the project’s founders, Andre Borschberg and round-the-world balloonist Bertrand Piccard, is to show that a solar-powered craft is able to fly day and night – and eventually long-distance flights – without any fuel.
The ultimate aim is to push the frontier of renewable solar energy. In two years’ time, the plane will set off on its first manned transatlantic solar flight, followed in 2013 by an even more daring circumnavigation of the Earth.
source: BBC News
The Iraqi government has said it will close the state-owned Iraqi Airways after declaring it bankrupt.
Iraq’s transportation ministry told reporters the airline would be closed following a damaging dispute with Kuwait over war reparations. Kuwait Airways says the Iraqi flag carrier owes it about $1.2bn for aircraft and plane parts taken during the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
All scheduled Iraqi Airways flights have been cancelled.
source: BBC News
Passengers can claim no more than about €1,100 from airlines that lose their baggage, regardless of the value of the contents, the European Court of Justice has confirmed.
In a case brought by a traveller who had claimed three times as much, the court this week ruled that air carriers’ liability for lost baggage is limited to the amounts set in the Montreal Convention, which was approved by the EU in 2001. This sets the maximum compensation at 1,000 special drawing rights for each passenger, equivalent to about €1,134 at current exchange rates.
source: Irish Times
Flights bound for Britain from outside Europe which are not able to land there due to the volcanic ash cloud will be allowed to land in Spain instead under a deal reached on Sunday between the two nations.
The deal will allow passengers bound for Britain from Asia, Latin America and North America to fly to Spain and from here reach their final destination either overland or by ferry, it said.
‘Spain is offering the use of some Spanish airports as a intercontinental platform,‘ Spanish Transport Minister Jose Blanco told a news conference, adding flights from other continents could land in Spain from where passengers could make their way to other destinations in Europe by road or rail.
source: Straits Times
A British law professor is slamming Air Canada after the airline left him asleep on a plane for 90 minutes after it landed – and he woke up in a hangar at Vancouver International Airport.
Kris Lines says he’s not satisfied with the airline’s claim that the flight attendant was preoccupied with several wheelchair passengers and didn’t check the rest of the cabin.
Air Canada offered Lines a “one-time saving” of 20 per cent on up to four tickets “as a gesture of goodwill.”
source: The Gazzette
The nine flight attendants with the now bankrupt Spanish Air Comet airline posed naked or semi-naked for a calendar to “continue to publicise their situation and demand a solution“.
The airline failed to pay staff for up to nine months before it finally filed for bankruptcy last December.
The company had debts of around 160 millions euros (£142m) when it folded including unpaid wages.
source: Telegraph.co.uk
The Canadian Transportation Agency will review a policy at the country’s biggest airlines allowing cats in the cabin to see if it interferes with air travel for allergic customers.
The independent tribunal announced the review on Thursday after ruling that three people who are allergic to cats are, in effect, persons with disabilities because the airlines’ pet policies affect their ability to fly.
The passengers had complained about Air Canada, the country’s biggest airline, its regional carrier Jazz Airline, and WestJet Airline, the No. 2 airline in Canada.
source: Reuters
