Flight Wisdom

It’s time here at Flight Wisdom to review the latest in airplane manufacturing…

Airbus

Airbus delivered the first Airbus 380 to Singapore Airlines last month. After delivering the first four superjumbos to Singapore Airlines, Airbus will have to redesign cabins and electrical layouts for Emirates Airlines and Qantas. It is scheduled to hand over 13 planes [...]

We’ve been a bit occupied of lot, and have a lot to catch up on. Rest assured, that while this is not our primary responsibility(we have jobs), we hope to be back on top of things soon, bringing the best in air travel developments in a timely fashion.

Hagerstown Airport, 80 miles northwest of downtown Washington [...]

Mesa Airlines announced an agreement with United Airlines to replace 8 50-seat CRJ-200 aircraft with two 66-seat CRJ-700 aircraft. United, as well as other airlines, are replacing the cramped 40-50 seater planes with larger more spacious regional planes which preserve the economy of smaller aircraft but add the comfort of mainline service.
San Francisco International Airport [...]

We’ve been away for a few days and there is a lot to catch up on…

Northwest has announced its new regional subsidiary, Compass Airlines, will launch its new Embraer 175 regional jets this coming Tuesday with a flight from Minneapolis to Omaha. Compass, which was created uses the assets of Independence Air, which Northwest [...]

We thought we should address the unveiling of the new 787…Fifteen thousand cheering people showed up to the event, giving crowds at the plant in Everett, Washington the first look at Boeing’s first all-new plane in twelve years. The event, hosted by Tom Brokaw, was watched live by thousands at Qwest Field in Seattle and [...]

Easyjet is promoting its vision of a shorthaul aircraft that will generate half as much carbon dioxide and can be delivered by 2015. They are working with aircraft manufacturers to make their dream a reality.
US Airways won’t be allowed to serve alcohol once again in New Mexico, after being refused an extension on its 90-day [...]

There’s a lot to catch up on…

Qantas is expanding its flight schedule to the United States, effective March 2008, bringing total flights to 46 flights per week. The increased schedule includes daily service between Los Angeles and Brisbane effective March 27th; Increasing to 17 weekly flights between Los Angeles and Sydney, effective March 30th; increasing [...]

Air Canada will introduce daily nonstop service from Vancouver to Yellowknife with seasonal service from December 1st through April with a 50-seat CRJ. Flights are timed to connect with service to Tokyo, Osaka, and points within British Columbia.
Airtran launched service today from Portland, Maine to BWI. The first flight from BWI brought a delegation of [...]

A man desperate to keep his girlfriend from boarding a flight from Ft. Myers to New York called in a bomb threat for her airplane Wednesday afternoon. Christian G. Mejia, age 23, was arrested after he dropped off his girlfriend and her travelling companion to an airport and drove to a pay phone and called [...]

US Airways and Northwest Airlines have received temporary liquor licenses from the state of New Mexico and are once again selling alcohol on flights to and from the state. Expressjet, which just opened its service, plans to sell alcohol in the air before it gets its license, taking the same view as other carriers that [...]

intends to connect to more of upstate New York. Delta will be adding 22 Delta Connection flights, operated by Big Sky Airlines using 19-seater Beechcraft 1900D aircraft, effective April 8th. The flights will connect customers in Albany, Massena, Ogdensburg, and Watertown to Boston, with additional nonstop service between Albany and Watertown with continuing service [...]

For those of you who want to feel like you were there…which alas we here at Flight Wisdom could not be….The Cranky Flier was present for the arrival of the LAX A380 earlier today.
Click here to catch a look at his report…
“It’s definitely not the best looking plane around, but man is it big…The plane [...]

Courtesy of Business Week, a list of airports that meet FAA standards for the A380.

Anchorage
Denver
Dallas-Fort Worth
New York-JFK
Los Angeles(LAX)
Orlando(MCO)
Miami
San Francisco
Washington-Dulles
Memphis(Cargo Only)
Louisville(Cargo Only)
Ontario, CA(Cargo Only)

The United States debut of the Airbus A380 Superjumbo jet was today, with two planes touching down on opposing sides of the country. New York won the title of the first city to receive an A380 by twenty minutes.

Frankfurt to New York - operated by Lufthansa as Flight 8940, carrying around 500 Airbus and [...]

US Airways had agreed to buy the Airbus 350 as part of an agreement for financial assistance during its merger. However, with it behind schedule, Today in the Sky reports that they are looking at the possibility of going with Boeing.
Also from Today in the Sky, on June 3rd, Alitalia will add three flights weekly [...]

Boeing took the first step Friday in ending production of C-17 military cargo planes in 2009, by notifying suppliers it will no longer buy parts for the jet not under contract or firmly committed. Unless the U.S. or other government expresses interest in additional aircraft, Boeing will shut the production line.
Embraer delivered the first Embraer [...]

The last customer for the freight version of the Airbus 380, the United Parcel Service, has said it planned to cancel an order for 10 Airbus 380 freighters. It had considered waiting until 2012 for the aircraft, but when it learned that Airbus is diverting employees from the freighter version to work on the passenger [...]

For those of you who haven’t heard, the Airbus 380 is scheduled to touch down in JFK on March 19th as part of a trial flight for Lufthansa. Los Angeles, which had expected to have the honor of hosting the first A380 landing in the United States.
The superjumbo’s arrival into the United States has been [...]

Delta has ordered 30 Bombardier CRJ900 Aircraft at a value of $1.1 billion. Delta operates 350 out of the 1395 CRJ series aircraft.
US Airways is in talks with Boeing and Airbus about buying sixty new aircraft to replace its aging 737 and 757 aircraft.
UPS has ordered 27 new Boeing 767-300ER cargo planes to be delivered [...]

Reports that Airbus had solved the wiring problems for the Airbus 380 were apparently premature, as Airbus announced on Friday that the problems had been solved for the first aircraft only. Work is still going on to solve the long-term issues. Airbus expects to start building a common design platform between its various plants…the variance [...]

The United Parcel Service(UPS), is expected to cancel the only remaining order for the cargo version of the A380 superjumbo jet. As the Washington Post reports, rumors are that they will cancel the ten plane order sometime next week. In October, UPS began to review its purchase in light of the third delivery delay on [...]

Up until last year, Airbus had outsold Boeing in commercial airplanes for five straight years. However, in 2006, Airbus received 790 airplane orders, compared to Boeing’s 1044.
Airbus’s problems are blamed on the delays with the Airbus 380, which is two years behind schedule. The redesign of the A350, which failed to compete with Boeing’s 787, [...]

The Airbus 380 received certification from European and U.S. aviation authorities today, signing airworthiness certificates for the much delayed airliner. The testing for this certification took it 70,000 nautical miles of route proving, including takeoffs and landings in a variety of conditions.
USAToday reports that as this happens as an investigation into EADS and its shareholders [...]

Today, the chief of Boeing’s commercial airplanes unit said the 787 Dreamliner is on schedule for its first test flight next summer and first customer delivery in 2008. Assembly of the main sections is set to start in January. Boeing already has 435 orders for the aircraft.
Meanwhile, Lufthansa has announced that they are ordering 20 [...]

Bloomburg reports that Airbus plans to increase spending to $12 billion, a 20% increase to develop the A350 jet. The current design is its sixth attempt to come up with serious competition for the 787 Dreamliner. Airbus is seriously behind in the A350 project, partially due to the problems with its A380 project.
With the 787 [...]