“The FAA has decided not to pursue the elimination of midnight shifts at FAA towers at this time,” a spokesman for the agency told AIN today. As part of sequester-mandated cuts announced in late February, the FAA had planned to eliminate overnight shifts at 72 air traffic control facilities, including those at Chicago Midway Airport.
AINalerts
May 9, 2013 - 3:00pm
Newly restructured Beechcraft logged 65 deliveries–including six Hawker 4000s–in the first quarter, compared with 41 deliveries a year ago. According to Beechcraft CEO Bill Boisture, the upgrade programs for the Hawker 400XPR and 800XPR are also “attracting a strong positive response,” with slots in 2013 sold out for the 400XPR program as it completes its final certification phase. “Our plan throughout last year’s restructuring was to emerge as a stronger, more agile organization,” said Boisture.
May 7, 2013 - 2:25pm
Honeywell, which provides SmartView synthetic-vision systems (SVS) for Gulfstream business jets with PlaneView avionics, Falcon jets with EASy II flight decks and Pilatus PC-12 NG turboprops with Apex cockpits, is far along in its development of a combined vision system (CVS), which marries forward-looking infrared to SVS, for helicopters.
May 7, 2013 - 2:15pm
Congressional and local lawmakers have called on the FAA to use newly available funds to stave off the June 15 closure of 149 contract towers under budget sequestration. Signed into law last week, the “Reducing Flight Delays Act of 2013” allows the FAA to reallocate unassigned funds from the Airport Improvement Program to end FAA employee furloughs and keep the national airspace system functioning smoothly through the end of Fiscal Year 2013.
May 7, 2013 - 2:10pm
The Argus Prism annual audit of safety management system (SMS) implementations has been released and reveals deficiencies in areas different from those of the 2011 results.
According to Argus, “The objective of this report is to highlight those recurring problem areas found in SMS implementation and execution.”
May 7, 2013 - 2:05pm
Fledgling FBO chain Hawthorne Global Aviation Services will be adding another location to its roster as it obtained development rights for a new FBO at Chicago Executive Airport (PWK). Hawthorne acquired the rights from Sovereign Development Group and will begin construction immediately on the facility, which will be the third FBO at the airport along with Signature and Atlantic.
May 7, 2013 - 2:00pm
The massive, gangly Solar Impulse landed at 12:30 a.m. in Phoenix on Saturday, having completed the first leg of the solar-powered airplane’s Across America mission. The flight departed Moffett Airfield in Mountain View, Calif. on Friday at 6:12 a.m. PDT and landed at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport on Saturday at 12:30 a.m. MST.
The flight took 18 hours and 18 minutes, all powered by 12,000 solar cells mounted in the wings, driving four 10-hp electric motors and propellers. To fly at night, energy is stored in 881 pounds of lithium-ion batteries.
May 7, 2013 - 1:55pm
Dassault has released Falcon sales numbers for the first quarter, highlighting that the net orders for 14 jets, worth €656 million ($853 million), are a better performance than the net orders for 10 jets worth €450 million ($585 million) in the same period last year. Deliveries, however, are down to eight Falcons, lower than the 15 deliveries during the same period last year. The company still expects to deliver 70 Falcons this year.
May 7, 2013 - 1:50pm
The FAA chose FreeFlight Systems to provide ADS-B avionics upgrades for up to 600 aircraft that helped the agency with development of ADS-B as part of the Capstone Program in Alaska and several other states in the U.S. The contract is worth up to $7,017,094. FreeFlight will be installing the Rangr FDL-978-XVR in partnership with an avionics shop in Alaska. The Capstone participants had installed first-generation ADS-B equipment, funded by the FAA in exchange for pilot feedback.
May 7, 2013 - 1:45pm
Macquarie Infrastructure, the parent company of Atlantic Aviation, announced its first-quarter financial results last week, posting a 3.2-percent increase in Atlantic’s GA jet fuel sales on a same-store basis, over the opening quarter of last year. The chain’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) rose by 6.9 percent year-over-year. Macquarie expects to complete refinancing of Atlantic’s long-term debt this month, a move the company expects will give it more resiliency in case of another downturn in GA activity.
