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Aviation News

More local laser R&D needed

By: Tracy Hancock 28th August 2020 South Africa is not placing enough focus on laser research and development (R&D), especially in the private sector, but there is hope, says the director of the Laser Research Institute (LRI) within the Physics Department at Stellenbosch University Dr Pieter Neethling. “Laser and photonics R&D is... →

Iata urges Africa to implement single air transport market and ICAO biosafety guidance

By: Rebecca Campbell 27th August 2020 The International Air Transport Association (Iata) has urged African governments to boost the post-Covid-19 recovery of their aviation sectors and wider economies by speeding up the implementation of the Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM). Iata, which is the representative body of the... →

Unions blast DPE and SAA over severance package uncertainty and lack of salaries

By: Rebecca Campbell 27th August 2020 Two trade unions, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) and the South African Cabin Crew Association (Sacca), have fiercely attacked the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) and the management of financially-beleaguered State-owned national flag carrier South African... →

Etihad Airways participating in Boeing/Nasa research programme

By: Rebecca Campbell 26th August 2020 Abu Dhabi airline Etihad Airways announced on Wednesday that one of its Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner aircraft was participating in the US ecoDemonstrator programme. This programme is a collaboration between the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa), Boeing, and French aerospace... →

Photo by Etihad
Etihad’s Boeing 787-10 airliner being employed for the tests.

Interprovincial travel allowed, four more airports to reopen, says Mbalula

By: News24Wire 25th August 2020 Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula announced on Tuesday that four more airports have been permitted to operate under Level 2 travel regulations. A total of 18 airports are now be able to operate. →

Iata stresses need for airline passengers to wear face coverings

By: Rebecca Campbell 25th August 2020 The International Air Transport Association (Iata), which is the representative body for the global airline industry, has urged all air passengers to comply with instructions and wear face coverings during their journey. The wearing of such coverings is one of the major recommendations of the... →

Public Enterprises department reports unsolicited investor interest in SAA

By: Rebecca Campbell 24th August 2020 The Department of Public Enterprises reported on Monday that the South African government had, by the start of this month, received more than ten unsolicited offers of interest in South African Airways and its subsidiaries. SAA is the State-owned national flag carrier, and its subsidiaries are... →

Rolls-Royce announces new partnership with revolutionary rocket engine company

By: Rebecca Campbell 24th August 2020 UK-based industrial technology group Rolls-Royce has announced that it has concluded a new strategic partnership agreement with privately-held British company Reaction Engines. The purpose of the partnership agreement is to develop high-speed propulsion systems for aircraft and to apply Reaction... →

Lufthansa announces expansion of its repatriation flight programme

By: Rebecca Campbell 20th August 2020 Germany’s Lufthansa Group announced on Thursday that it was expanding its repatriation flight programme between Germany and South Africa and between Switzerland and South Africa. The Germany flights will be operated by Lufthansa itself and will be between Frankfurt and both Johannesburg and Cape... →

Boeing wins first new order for 737 MAX in many months

By: Rebecca Campbell 20th August 2020 US aerospace group Boeing on Thursday announced a new order for its troubled 737 MAX single-aisle airliner. The type is currently still grounded after two fatal accidents in late 2018 and early 2019 killed a total of 346 people. Flight control software developed specifically for the MAX, known as... →

Photo by Boeing
A Boeing 737 MAX 8, now apparently being called a 737-8

South Africa starts talks with potential buyers of State airline

By: Bloomberg 20th August 2020 South Africa’s government has started talks with private entities interested in buying into the country’s insolvent national carrier, which needs at least R10-billion rand to resume operations. A team from the Department of Public Enterprises and advisers from FirstRand Ltd.’s Rand Merchant Bank... →

OR Tambo International Airport is ready for the resumption of domestic leisure travel

By: Rebecca Campbell 18th August 2020 The management at Johannesburg’s OR Tambo International Airport (ORTIA) has given the assurance that it is ready and able to handle domestic air passengers, now that the country has moved to Level 2 of the national lockdown, allowing domestic leisure travel. OR Tambo is owned and operated by the... →

Paramount advances production of Ahrlac aircraft

By: Marleny Arnoldi 18th August 2020 Paramount Aerospace Industries (PAI) has announced that the business rescue plans of the Aerospace Development Corporation (ADC) are in the final phase of implementation. ADC manufactures the Advanced, High-performance, Reconnaissance Light Aircraft (Ahrlac) aircraft. →

An Ahrlac aircraft

Virtual marketing platform to be launched to fill gap created by the postponing of air show

By: Rebecca Campbell 17th August 2020 An online business-to-business virtual marketplace for the South African and African General Aviation (GA) sector will be launched later this month. This is an initiative of Messe Frankfurt South Africa, organiser of Africa’s largest GA trade show, AERO South Africa. Because of the Covid-19... →

King Shaka International Airport announces updated Covid-19 operational processes

By: Rebecca Campbell 14th August 2020 Durban’s King Shaka International Airport (King Shaka) on Friday announced that it was updating its operations processes concerning Covid-19. The new processes would come into effect on Sunday (August 16). King Shaka is one of the airports owned and operated by the Airports Company South Africa.... →

Airports company assures that its airports are safe despite need for ILS recertification

By: Rebecca Campbell 14th August 2020 State-owned Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) issued a clarification and assurance on Thursday regarding operational safety at their airports. This followed reports that some of their airports had been or would be closed due to the need to recertify their instrument landing systems (ILS).... →

Impact of Covid-19 on African aviation even worse than previously expected

By: Rebecca Campbell 14th August 2020 The global representative body of the airline industry, the International Air Transport Association (Iata), on Thursday warned that the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the African aviation sector and wider economy was set to be worse than previously expected. Iata’s previous assessment of the... →

SAA business rescue process has four elements, reports Public Enterprises

By: Rebecca Campbell 12th August 2020 The Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) on Wednesday assured that it was “working around the clock” to implement the business rescue process for the State-owned national flag carrier South African Airways (SAA). The implementation conditions for the airline’s business rescue plan were met... →

World airlines expect next 12 months to be tough

By: Rebecca Campbell 6th August 2020 No less than 68% of the world’s airline Chief Financial Officers and Heads of Cargo expect profits not to improve or even to decline further over the next 12 months. This is one of the results reported in the International Air Transport Association’s (IATA’s) “Airline Business Confidence Index... →

US regulator publishes proposed design and software changes for Boeing 737 MAX

By: Rebecca Campbell 4th August 2020 The Federal Aviation Administration, America’s civil aviation regulatory body, released a document on Monday detailing changes it wants made to Boeing’s 737 MAX single-aisle airliner before it will allow it to resume commercial operations. The aircraft has been grounded since March 2019, as a... →

Photo by Boeing
A Boeing 737 MAX 8 in flight

Employees come up with a plan to save regional airline SA Express

By: Rebecca Campbell 3rd August 2020 A group of employees of State-owned regional airline SA Express (SAX), which is currently under provisional liquidation, have employed equity crowdfunding platform Uprise.Africa to help them raise capital to save the airline. They believe that, with the right strategy, the airline could be viable... →

Results show Boeing hit hard by both Covid-19 and continued 737 MAX grounding

By: Rebecca Campbell 31st July 2020 Giant US aerospace group Boeing has reported that its revenues for the first half of this year (1H20) were 26% down on those for the same period last year (1H19). In numbers, 1H20 revenues came to $28.72-billion as against $38.67-billion in 1H19. It suffered a net loss of $3.04-billion in 1H20... →

Airbus reports big impact on first-half results from Covid-19

By: Rebecca Campbell 31st July 2020 Europe-based global aerospace group Airbus on Thursday published its results for the first half of calendar 2020 (1H20). The group reported that its consolidated revenues for this period came to €18.9-billion, in comparison with €30.9-billion in the same period last year (1H19). →

Ctrack Transport & Freight Index shows some positives

By: Tasneem Bulbulia 31st July 2020 Vehicle tracking, fleet management and insurance telematics solutions provider Ctrack’s Transport & Freight Index for June shows that South Africa’s transport and freight volumes increased by 20.6% month-on-month across all sectors. The Ctrack headline change, however, declined by 23.2% for the... →

African airlines to lose $2bn this year; sector faces danger of collapse – Iata

By: Rebecca Campbell 29th July 2020 The global airline industry’s representative body, the International Air Transport Association (Iata) on Wednesday released its latest analysis and forecast regarding the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on Africa’s airline sector. The continent’s airlines are expected to suffer total losses of... →

Another and urgent request for Comair business rescue to be extended

By: Rebecca Campbell 29th July 2020 On Tuesday afternoon the business rescue practitioners (BRPs) for South African private-sector airline group Comair asked its creditors to extend the publication date for the airline’s business rescue plan by a month (until August 28). The creditors have until midday Wednesday to respond. The... →

SAA rescue plan ready bar the funding, say administrators

By: Reuters 28th July 2020 A rescue plan for South African Airways (SAA) is ready and can be implemented once funding for the restructuring is found, the state-owned airline's administrators said on Tuesday. The administrators took over SAA in December after almost a decade of financial losses and published their... →

Air transport body reports air cargo demand is recovering, but slowly

By: Rebecca Campbell 28th July 2020 The International Air Transport Association (IATA), the representative body of the global airline industry, reported on Tuesday that worldwide air cargo demand was recovering, but slowly. In June, air cargo demand, measured in cargo-metric ton-kilometres, was 17.6% lower than in June last year.... →

SA Express employees still pleading for govt help with airline in provisional liquidation

By: News24Wire 28th July 2020 A group of employees at state-owned regional airline SA Express are still desperately hoping that government will be able to assist them in getting their unpaid salaries - last paid in February - as well as retrenchment packages. Unlike South African Airways, which is still in business rescue, SA... →

SAA administrators seek creditor fund accord

By: Bloomberg 27th July 2020 The administrators of South African Airways, the state-owned airline that’s in bankruptcy protection, want the government to ring-fence R16.4-billion that it has guaranteed can be used to pay creditors if the airline fails, a person familiar with the situation said. The administrators want an... →

Embraer highlights ways of carrying cargo in the passenger cabins of its airliners

By: Rebecca Campbell 27th July 2020 Brazilian aerospace group Embraer, the world’s top manufacturer of airliners with up to 150 seats, has announced that it has developed ways for airlines to carry cargo on the passenger decks of its aircraft. This is to help meet the great demand for more air cargo capacity, which has resulted... →

Photo by Embraer
A computer model of an Embraer E-Jet showing most of its seats removed to make space for cargo

SAA business rescue plan amended at urgent meeting

By: Rebecca Campbell 24th July 2020 In a statement released on Friday, the business rescue practitioners (BRPs) for South African Airways (SAA) announced that 95% of the airline’s creditors with a voting interest, and 95% of its independent creditors (defined by the Companies Act) with a voting interest, had voted to accept... →

Airbus acts to finally settle trade dispute with the US

By: Rebecca Campbell 24th July 2020 Europe-based global major aerospace group Airbus reported on Friday that it had taken the final step in ending a long-running trade dispute at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) between the European Union and the US. The dispute had been running for 16 years. The issue was repayable launch... →

SAA BRPs call short-notice meeting of airline’s creditors

By: Rebecca Campbell 24th July 2020 The business rescue practitioners (BRPs) for financially-beleaguered State-owned national flag carrier South African Airways (SAA) have had to call for an urgent (virtual) meeting of the airline’s creditors, to consider amending the business rescue plan for SAA. The email notice announcing this... →

Airbus confident that its unequalled range of airliners is ideal for the post-Covid-19 market

By: Rebecca Campbell 23rd July 2020 Europe-based global aerospace group Airbus reports that its smallest airliner family, the A220, is proving a most useful asset, particularly in this time of the Covid-19 pandemic. Airbus acquired the A220 programme from Canadian group Bombardier, which had designated it the C-Series. “We have... →

Photo by Airbus
From front to rear: an Airbus A220-300, A319neo, A330neo, A350-1000, Beluga specialised freighter (used by Airbus itself) and an A380.

DHL orders freighter aircraft from Boeing

By: Rebecca Campbell 23rd July 2020 Global logistics group DHL Express and US aerospace group Boeing jointly announced on Wednesday that the former had ordered four 767-300BCF air cargo aircraft from the latter. The suffix -BCF stands for Boeing Converted Freighter and indicates that the aircraft will be converted from standard... →

Photo by Boeing
A Boeing 767-300F of DHL Express takes-off

UP, CSIR sign collaboration agreement on smart transport, cities

By: Irma Venter 23rd July 2020 The University of Pretoria (UP) and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), an entity of the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI), have signed a memorandum of agreement to collaborate in the areas of smart transport, cities and environments. “The cooperation means that UP... →

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