Commercial Aviation News

Vietnamese carrier Vietjet has announced that it will add the A321XLR to its fleet, with a firm order for 15 aircraft and the conversion of five A321neo aircraft from its existing backlog. The announcement was made during a visit to Airbus headquarters in Toulouse by Vietjet President & CEO Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao, hosted by Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury.

Spirit Airlines signs an MoU for as many as 100 Airbus A320neo FAMILY aircraft. The order entails the A319neo, A320neo and A321neo for future fleet requirements. "This new order represents another milestone for Spirit," said Spirit Airlines’ President and CEO Ted Christie. "The additional aircraft will be used to support Spirit’s growth as we add new destinations and expand our network across the U.S., Latin America, and the Caribbean. We look forward to working with our valued partners at Airbus to finalize our agreement."

A look back at EL AL's final Boeing 747 flight with Sam Chui capturing the moment for us.

Second test/research flight from Qantas for their Project Sunrise evaluation seen through the lens of Sam Chui.

Check out a snippet of the making of Garuda Indonesia's first Airbus A330neo.

The Irkut MC-21-300 was seen on display in Turkey fitted with a full passenger cabin at an show. This was one of the rare times the Russian jet has been seen so far from its airspace. Three test aircraft are currently engaged in the flight test program and another is expected to join fitted with a single-aisle cabin.

In The Making; The first A321neo for Air Asia.

The first Embraer E195-E2 for Binter Airlines is now a reality. Below you get a look at the spanking-new aircraft and the name it is "Islas Canarias". Five of the type were on order. Two more are anticipated to be handed over before the year ends and the other two by mid-2020.

A couple days ago Boeing rolled out the longest and final variant of the 737 MAX family, the 737 MAX 10. The roll-out really didn't create much buzz in the industry at all and shows how people appear to feel about Boeing and this particular product. Besides being a tad longer (1.6-meter stretch) than the MAX 9, the main gear also was redesigned to handle the extra length and weight of the 10. It was necessary to redesign the main gear to provide the clearance for the aft fuselage underbelly on take off. The MAX 10 is expected to fly in 2020 although no one really knows what is going on with the MAX program as to when it will actually return to service. When it does the MAX 10 will be able to carry up to 230 passengers.

Airlines that are operating the Airbus A380 are actively seeking to lessen the number of aircraft of the type they have. We have seen Singapore decommission some of their A380s at least one of them made it back into the air as a second-hander with Hi-Fly. Air France is the latest carrier preparing to get rid of some of their own. In fact from as early as February 2020, the French carrier is expected to hand one back to the lessor company. In fact Air France appears to want to be rid of all 10 of their A380s by 2022.

Airbus has celebrated the 100th delivery of the A220. This 100th unit has gone to airBaltic. airBaltic became the A220-300 launch operator when the Latvian airline received delivery of the first ever A220-300 three years ago, on 28 November, 2016. airBaltic has since then re-ordered A220-300 aircraft twice – bringing its firm order to 50 aircraft to become the current biggest European A220 customer. The airline now operates a fleet of 20 A220-300 aircraft.

SAS receives its first A350XWB

Scandinavian carrier SAS has taken delivery of its first A350-900, becoming the newest operator of this latest generation, highly efficient widebody aircraft. The airline has a total of eight A350-900 aircraft on order and operates an Airbus fleet of 68 aircraft (51 A320 Family, 17 A330 and A340 Family aircraft). In the coming years, as part of an extensive fleet modernization, SAS will take delivery of 54 additional A320neo Family aircraft and the remaining seven A350-900s through direct purchase and lease contracts. SAS’s A350-900 features a modern and highly comfortable three-class cabin layout with 300 seats: 40 “SAS Business” class, 32 “SAS Plus” class and 228 “SAS Go” class seats.

It appears Airbus has finally got the ball rolling again in-terms of orders for the Airbus A330-800neo. Hardly any airlines have been ordering this particular variant of the 330neo. Prior to this order they only logged two orders totaling 10 units of the type. The new order from an undisclosed customer calls for 4 aircraft. The other orders came from Uganda Airlines for two and Kuwait Airlines for eight. However, the A330-900 has been selling decently.

It appears that wind-tunnel testing of the CR929 has begun. The below image showcases a 1:32 model in a wind chamber. Testing of the high-speed standard model, comprising a fuselage and wing, has been conducted at the Moscow-based Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute. The CR929 is a collaboration between Russia and China, United Aircraft of Russia and China’s COMAC.

Air Caraibes has taken delivery of its first Airbus A35K (A350-1000). The airline has three of the type on order and of course they already operate an airbus fleet that consists of the A350 already but the -900 variant as well as a handful of A330s and ATRs. The A35K is configured to seat around 429 passengers in three-classes, 360 in economy, 45 in premium economy and 23 in business class.

Sam Chui tries out Xiamen Air's Boeing 787-9 from Schiphol, Amsterdam to Xiamen, China. The aircraft was wearing a special livery too, the"In Support of the UN Sustainable Development Goals" livery.

A look at the first Airbus A220 for Air Canada.

Air Kiribati has taken delivery of its first Embraer E190-E2. The aircraft was delivered to the airline on December 30th. One more E190-E2 is to be delivered and the airline has rights to purchase two more all worth around 243 million dollars. With 12 seats in business class and 80 in economy the two-class layout seats 92 in total.

Turkish and Boeing have apparently come to an agreement regarding compensation for the grounded 737MAX. It has not disclosed the extent or nature of the compensation, nor whether the agreement is a final or interim arrangement.

Airbus now has Russian type certification for the A350 which will allow it to deliver Aeroflot's first aircraft of the type which will be an A350-900. 14 of these are on order. The certificate only covers the A359 at this point.