Friday, September 28, 2012

Did the Captain Fly 9 Years Past Retirement Age?

Thomas Good's Facebook photo
Did airline captain Thomas Good fly right by the mandatory retirement age for commercial pilots? The Federal Aviation Administration would like to know. To some of his fellow aviators at American Eagle's Executive Air Good is already a legend. 

A spokesman for the FAA says it is investigating whether Good, until recently a captain with the regional carrier Executive Air, falsified his age on official documents.

Thursday, September 27, 2012

AA and Labor - Toxic Today - What About Tomorrow?

Astonishing. That's the only way to describe the apology being issued by American Airlines. Its reputation is on a steep descent and perhaps company honchos have come to believe only a big and sincere mea culpa can save it from disaster.

"This is not the way American Airlines runs an airline. It's not the way we're going to be running it in the future," airline spokesman Bruce Hicks told CBS News.

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Near Disaster for Passenger Flight in the Syrian War Zone

Photo from The Aviation Herald  www.avherald.com
No matter what one's politics, the good news being reported out of Syria today is about the heroic accomplishments of the pilots in command of Syrianair Flight #501. They are to be commended for saving the lives of the 200 passengers on the plane by safely landing a crippled airliner after an inflight collision with a military helicopter.

Friday, September 21, 2012

FAA Action on Dreamliner Engine at Warp Speed

The engine on JA825J, has presumably been inspected for cracks
In what certainly deserves a round of applause for speedy response, the Federal Aviation Administration issued an airworthiness directive on Thursday, ordering immediate inspections of Dreamliner and Boeing 747-800 GEnx 1B and 2B engines. The FAA took little time before agreeing with the National Transportation Safety Board's characterization of three GEnx engine failures in three months as problem that could potentially lead to "loss of the airplane".

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Japan's Global Hub - Poised to be Eclipsed

Writing from Numazu, Japan

If there's a lesson for Narita International Airport in the recent jump by Qantas from Singapore to Dubai, it is this: Don't take anything for granted. Rather than continue to let Emirates eat its lunch, Qantas boss Alan Joyce is doing business with Emirates. (I'm not going to get into it here, because I already did here.)

But I was reminded of Joyce's decision to take some of his wide bodies from one airport and fly them from another as I sat at Narita's Museum of Aeronautical Science just beyond runway 16R/34L on Saturday, thrilling to the sight of jumbo jets taking off. From Finnair to Sri Lankan I watched a parade of flags and colors from every corner of the world. But just because they're all coming here now, doesn't mean it always will be so.