Commercial Aviation News

Where do you park all these undelivered jets?

For July Boeing recorded 47 737 MAX cancellations. 20 of those came from ALAFCO, a Kuwait-based lessor. 15 came from AerCap, another lessor company based in Ireland. AVALON also cancelled a couple orders as did Canada Jetlines and even one from the BBJ line. For July the airframer took in zero orders. The company is also struggling with delivery of planes too. For the month Boeing handed-over four airplanes which were represented as a 767 Freighter to FedEx, a 777 Freighter to DHL, and two 787-9s. Those commercial dreamliners went to Air France and Turkish Airlines.

Some spotting in SJU.

There is a new airline that is looking to spread its wings in the midst of this Corona pandemic. Whether it is a wise decision or not remains to be seen but the airline is an offshoot of Donghai Airlines which is owned by a Chinese property tycoon. It is to be called Greater Bay Airlines apparently and they have already submitted for an Air Operators Certificate (AOC). The premise of the new airline would be to operate short-haul international routes from Hong Kong. None of these routes are specified but we can imagine they will be domestic as to nearby Asian countries. As for aircraft type being used for the new start-up, they are looking st the Boeing 737-800.

Spotting commercial and business aviation traffic at Puerto Rico with some light effects from Tropical Storm Laura.

Commercial plane spotting at London City Airport.

For those who like the close-up cinematic views of commercial traffic. Traffic seen operating at Vancouver International.

Commercial aviation is set to commence between Israel and the UAE in a landmark first flight expected to take place on August 31st. In new diplomatic relations being formed between Israel and the UAE it paves the way for Israeli carrier El Al to start service on this route. The flight is expected to depart from Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport and arrive in Abu Dhabi. Teh website of the Israel Airports Authority suggests that the flight numbers will be symbolic. It said the flight would be numbered LY971, a nod to the UAE’s international calling code number. A return flight to Ben Gurion International Airport on Tuesday will be numbered LY972, Israel’s international calling code.

This historic flight is to take place today! The flight is expected to take around 3 hours and 19 minutes using a Boeing 737-900 aircraft with registration 4X-EHD. The aircraft enlisted to do the historic and momentous flight had the word peace painted on in English, Arabic and Hebrew just above the cockpit window. According to Flight Radar 24, the aircraft performing LY971 just touched down safely in AUH at the time of writing.

Turkish Airbus A330-223 arriving at MUC after light...

Wizz Air has a new division in Abu Dhabi and that startup, Wizz Air-Abu Dhabi recently received its first aircraft, an Airbus A321neo. Read more below.

https://www.thenational.ae/business...rrival-of-its-first-airbus-a321-neo-1.1073751

Looks like AlItalia is in line for some money from the European Commision (EC) to help pay for the damages associated with the fallout effects from the Covid-19 pandemic. It is said that the airline will get the equivalent of USD 236 million dollars (200 mil euros) from the EC.

After making that historic flight from Israel to Abu Dhabi this same aircraft Boeing 737-900 reg 4X-EHD can be seen in this video landing in Munich (MUC).

The Boeing Company (NYSE: BA) today named Ed Dandridge as the company's senior vice president and chief communications officer, effective Sept. 28. Dandridge succeeds Greg Smith, who has served as interim chief communications officer since July in addition to his role as executive vice president of Enterprise Operations and chief financial officer.

jetBlue is trying to fight its way out of the pandemic by adding routes. This may not seem like a wise move to some but the airline has added 24 leisure routes in recent. Many of the routes are domestic but some are also international runs. Newark will see additional rotations from jetBlue challenging airlines like United, as well as presence in LAX. These moves are mostly strategic and directly competing with some larger carriers like Delta and the same United. Have a look at the new routes below.

Quite rare...seeing a Boeing 737 MAX 7 flying around. This was seen at Vancouver (YVR)

Today Airbus released a trio of planes of the future (in concept) all will be powered by Hydrogen. #ZEROe

So why this new line of airplanes? Remember, for now these are just concepts but concepts that Airbus is actively and seriously pursuing. #ZEROe (Zero emissions) sounds nice and fancy and appears to be a step in the right direction for almost emissionless aircraft in the future. The real reason for going in the hydrogen direction is Airbus likely does not think battery technology is advancing enough or fast enough to be able to be scaled up for commercial airliners of the future.

Lufthansa expects to mothball its entire fleet of Airbus A380s and Airbus A340s. The long term storage of these high-capacity long range fuel-guzzling jets is simply because there is no demand for them in these covid-times. The only reason this will be reactivated for service is if there is concrete evidence that a rapid return to air-travel is happening.

An airline called Starlux located in Taiwan has made a firm order for eight Airbus A330neos. The eight aircraft will actually be leased from AirLease Corp. If all goes according to plan this airline should take delivery of the first example by late 2021. The airline is actually a very young fledgling airline currently operating with three A321neos. They have made orders for the much larger Airbus A350 but those orders are delayed. Three more A321neos are expected to be leased towards the end of 2021 as well. Currently this new airline operates between Taipei Taoyuan to Macau, Da Nang and Penang.