São José dos Campos, Brazil, October 15, 2019 – Amaszonas Línea Aérea of Bolivia is the newest Embraer E-Jet operator. The airline started flying an E190 today between Santa Cruz de la Sierra’s Viru Viru Airport and La Paz. Amaszonas is adding a total of six E190s to its fleet. The airplanes will fly to several domestic and international destinations.
“We have been working with Amaszonas for a long-time. To see the E190 flying in the airline’s colors is really rewarding for Embraer,” said Reinaldo Krugner, Vice President, Latin America & Caribbean, Embraer Commercial Aviation. “The E190 is the ideal aircraft to support the airline’s growing capacity in a very disciplined way. Amaszonas is taking advantage of the E190’s low operating cost.”
The first two E190s are leased from GECAS and configured with 112 seats in a single class layout. The other four aircraft will be leased from CDB Leasing and have 110 seats in a single class layout. The airline will also operate the E190s at Montevideo’s Carrasco International Airport in the future.
“The range of the E190 allows us to replace our smaller regional jets and support our expansion plans in Bolivia and Uruguay,” Sergio de Urioste, President & CEO of Amaszonas Línea Aérea. “Our E-Jets give us the flexibility we need to add more frequencies and destinations. We know our passengers are going to love the comfort of the E190 cabin.”
Embraer and Amaszonas have also signed a Flight Hour Pool Program agreement until 2024 to provide repairable component support for the carrier’s fleet of up to six E190s. The multiyear program features both the Pool Program and repair management services for the carrier’s fleet of E-Jets, including material services engineering and advanced component exchanges from Embraer’s spare parts distribution center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Embraer is the world’s leading manufacturer of commercial aircraft up to 150 seats with more than 100 customers across the world. For the E-Jets program alone, Embraer has logged more than 1,800 orders and 1,500 aircraft have been delivered. Today, E-Jets are flying in the fleets of 80 customers in 50 countries. The versatile 70 to 150-seat family is flying with low-cost airlines as well as with regional and mainline network carriers.
– Eleven-year award builds on more than a decade of A-10 support
PLANO, Texas, Aug. 21, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — Boeing (NYSE: BA) will continue its legacy of A-10 Thunderbolt II sustainment work under an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract award from the U.S. Air Force (USAF), with a maximum ceiling value of $999 million.
Under the contract, which was competitively awarded, Boeing will be responsible for managing the production of a maximum of 112 wing sets and spare kits. The USAF ordered 27 wing sets immediately at contract award.
“Boeing is honored to be selected to continue as the A-10 Thunderbolt II wing kit contractor,” said Pam Valdez, vice president of Air Force Services for Boeing Global Services. “Our established supply base, experience with the A-10 structures, and our in-depth knowledge of the U.S. Air Force’s requirements will help us deliver high-quality wings to meet the customer’s critical need.”
Boeing will team with Korean Aerospace Industries and other key suppliers to deliver the first wing sets to Hill Air Force Base in Ogden, Utah.
Under a previous contract, Boeing delivered 173 enhanced wing assemblies.
Boeing is the world’s largest aerospace company and leading provider of commercial airplanes, defense, space and security systems, and global services. As the top U.S. exporter, the company supports commercial and government customers in more than 150 countries. Boeing employs more than 150,000 people worldwide and leverages the talents of a global supplier base. Building on a legacy of aerospace leadership, Boeing continues to lead in technology and innovation, deliver for its customers and invest in its people and future growth.
CHICAGO, July 1 (Reuters) – Southwest Airlines expects it will have to remove the grounded Boeing Co 737 MAX jets from its flying schedule beyond the current Oct. 1 re-entry date following the discovery of a fresh safety issue, Chief Executive Gary Kelly told employees on Monday.
Last week, Boeing said that it would take until at least September to solve 737 MAX software issues – later than airlines had been expecting – after U.S. aviation regulators uncovered a new problem during simulator sessions.
“I’m sure this will cause us to have to take the MAX out of the schedule beyond Oct. 1,” Kelly said in an internal update, adding that the company would also see “what other modifications we might need to make our plans for this year because it’s obviously extending well beyond what I had hoped.”
Kelly did not elaborate on the possible modifications. So far, the Texas-based airline has tried to substitute its MAX routes with spare aircraft but has still been forced to cancel about 115 daily flights.
American Airlines Group and United Airlines Holdings , the other two U.S. carriers that operate the 737 MAX, have removed the jetliner from their flying schedules until early September.
The three airlines are expected to provide more details on the financial toll of a prolonged MAX grounding during second quarter results later in July.
Boeing’s fast-selling narrowbody was grounded worldwide in March following two deadly crashes within five months.
(Reporting by Tracy Rucinski, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)
Le Bourget, France, June 19 (Reuters) – Airbus unveiled an aircraft deal with Taiwan’s China Airlines on Wednesday, snatching the carrier’s medium-haul fleet renewal from Boeing a day after its U.S. rival made a shock entry into the single-aisle fleet of British Airways owner IAG.
The European planemaker said China Airlines had signed a preliminary deal to buy 11 A321neo aircraft, worth about $1.4 billion at list prices, while leasing another 14.
Although much smaller than the IAG letter of intent for 200 Boeing 737 MAX announced on Tuesday, the China Airlines deal signals intensified competition in Asia where Boeing this week predicted 40 percent of jets would be delivered over the next 20 years.
Airlines can rarely be persuaded to jump ship to rival suppliers because of the costs of training and parts, but this week’s Paris Airshow has witnessed two such announcements as sold-out planemakers mount incursions to continue their growth.
In a further competitive twist, Boeing announced on Monday it would take over the supply of spare parts for the remaining Airbus A320 fleet at British Airways.
China Airlines announced the leasing part of the deal in May and Reuters reported it would pave the way for the Taiwan carrier to switch its medium-haul fleet to the Airbus A320neo.
The rare deal to replace older 737s took years to complete and was drafted before the 737 MAX was engulfed by a crisis involving two crashes and a worldwide grounding, sources said.
Aeroflot has flown at least 129 fewer Sukhoi flights since the crash
Petition to ground plane has over 200,000 signatures
MOSCOW, June 3 (Reuters) – Russian airline Aeroflot has scaled back the number of Sukhoi Superjet 100 flights it operates after one of its planes made a crash-landing last month, killing 41 people, according to data provided by a flight tracking website.
Flightradar24 data shows Aeroflot has also at times substituted Airbus or Boeing planes for the Superjet, the first new passenger jet developed in Russia since the Soviet Union collapsed.
Fallout from the crash risks undermining the aircraft’s reputation at a time when Russia is promoting another domestically made passenger plane, the M-21, as a rival to Boeing and Airbus.
Aeroflot and Sukhoi Civil Aircraft, the Superjet’s maker, declined to comment on the data or on the use of other aircraft instead of the Russian plane. Both the airline, Russia’s national flag carrier, and the manufacturer have said in the past that the aircraft meets all relevant international safety standards and will continue to be made and used.
The cause of the May 5 crash, the second deadly accident involving the Superjet in nine years of service, has not yet been established. Russian authorities said afterwards there was no reason to ground the Superjet.
Yet Aeroflot flew 129 – or about 7% – fewer Superjet flights in the two weeks after the crash than in the previous fortnight, the Flightradar24 data showed.
In one case, frightened passengers on a Sukhoi refused to continue their journey after an aborted take-off, forcing Aeroflot to lay on an Airbus instead, an airline industry source with direct knowledge of the matter said, a version of events corroborated separately by Russia’s RIA news agency.
Aeroflot after the crash began paying extra attention to safety checks and to scale back the Superjet’s usage to try to reassure passengers, the same source said.
More than 213,000 people have signed a petition demanding the plane be grounded since May 5.
‘WHO NEEDS IT?’
Some Russian and foreign operators have complained about the difficulty of servicing the Superjet due to delays in sourcing spare parts. Irish airline CityJet and Belgian carrier Brussels Airlines turned their back on the Superjet citing those reasons.
State officials and airline executives say the airliner spends about half its time on the ground undergoing maintenance, and can fly only about a third as much as foreign-made rivals in a 24-hour period when in use.
They blame a lack of readily available spare parts and the complexity of servicing its engines.
Vitaly Savelyev, Aeroflot’s CEO, told Russian news agency TASS in 2017 that his company, which is majority-owned by the Russian state, might not have bought the Superjet at all if it was a private company.
Aeroflot, which has promised to buy a further 100 Superjets on top of the 49 it has already, is in a difficult situation because of the project’s political importance for Russia.
There are signs however that even some allies of President Vladimir Putin are growing weary of the aircraft.
Valentina Matviyenko, speaker of the upper house of parliament, in November publicly rebuked the transport minister over the large sums she said had been pumped into the Superjet in vain.
Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta estimated in 2012 that $7 billion had been spent on the project, while Sukhoi has put the figure at $2 billion.
“Who needs it? … It’s not good for anything,” said Matviyenko. “Aeroflot says we bought them and they sit on the ground. Nobody abroad is buying them … What have we achieved?”
Mexican low-cost carrier Interjet, citing maintenance and parts problems, told Mexican daily newspaper El Universal just over a week after the crash that it was trying to sell its 20 Superjets and favoured Airbus 320s instead.
Regional carrier Yamal Airlines, Russia’s second biggest Superjet operator after Aeroflot, said a day after the crash that it was cancelling its planned purchase of 10 of the planes. It cited high servicing costs.
And RusLine, another regional carrier, told Kommersant it was scrapping provisional plans to obtain 18 Superjets as part of a leasing deal. The paper cited RusLine’s owner Nikolai Ulan as saying he thought the plane was safe but that passengers would be afraid to fly on it, making it harder for him to break even. RusLine did not respond to a request for comment.
PASSENGER FEARS
The Superjet, which entered service in 2011, is predominantly operated inside Russia by regional airlines, corporations and government entities. Sukhoi had hoped to sell hundreds, but slack demand means only 138 of the planes are in use.
On the Moscow-Murmansk route, the one taken by the plane involved in the fatal crash, Aeroflot replaced the Superjet with either Boeing 737s or Airbus A320s in the five days after the accident, a practice it partially continued the week after.
This was done in direct response to the crash in order to try to calm passenger fears, the same airline source said.
There have been a spate of safety-related incidents and cancellations since May 5.
In one case, a Superjet flight from Moscow to Riga was held up after passengers noticed a burning smell and demanded a new plane. Engineers found nothing wrong, one of the passengers told state TV.
In another, on May 18, passengers on a Moscow-bound flight from the city of Ulyanovsk took fright after their Superjet aborted take-off because of a warning about the hydraulic system.
“Passengers were told that the flight was being delayed for technical reasons. Of course, after the catastrophe, they started to panic and refused to fly on the same plane. The psychological factor came into play,” the airline source with direct knowledge of the situation told Reuters.
Aeroflot flew the passengers to Moscow the next day on an Airbus A320 and engineers found nothing wrong with the Superjet involved in that incident either, the transport prosecutor’s office said.
Yevgeny Dietrich, Russia’s transport minister, said the situation was not “radically changed” from the pre-crash period.
“In fact, delays and cancellations occurred previously. You simply wrote about them less,” Dietrich told reporters.
His statement and the crash have highlighted the fact that many Superjets do not fly very often.
Flightradar24 data shows that 37 of 127 Superjets in commercial use globally did not make a single flight from April 22 until May 19, and that 45 did not make more than 10 flights during that period.
That tallies with expert reports, which have said foreign-made planes in Russia average nine hours flying time in every 24-hour period compared to between just three and four hours for the Superjet.
The same industry source said only about 50% of Aeroflot’s Superjets flew regularly and that Superjet pilots, who are paid for completed flights, had their salaries topped up to compensate for time spent on the ground.
(Writing by Andrew Osborn and Gleb Stolyarov; Editing by Giles Elgood)
