Short Takes
July 10th 2020
Emirates Airline chief operating officer, Adel Al Redha, told Bloomberg mid-week first delivery of the 115 777-X aircraft the Dubai-headquartered carrier had on order was likely to slip to 2022. Read More » "I don’t see they will be able to deliver the aircraft in 2021,” Al Redha said. “We will engage with Boeing to get more visibility. I think 2022 is a safe assumption to make.”
Airbus has disclosed the "first metal cut" of the first Rear Center Tank (RCT) for the A321XLR long-range narrow-body took place at its Premium AEROTEC subsidiary in Augsburg, Germany on June 25. Flight testing is expected to begin in 2022, with an entry-into-service slated for 2023. Airbus said it had more than 450 orders from 24 customers for the A321XLR, which had a published range of 4,700nm.
Rolls-Royce said this week it had completed the backlog of engine overhauls related to durability issues with the Trent 1000 engine used on the 787 fleet. The number of aircraft on ground (AOG) had been reduced to single digits, it said. "We are progressing well with the type test of the replacement high pressure turbine blade for the Trent 1000 TEN, the final durability issue to be fixed, and remain on track for its incorporation into the fleet by the end of first half 2021," the company said in a trading update.
Qantas Group has announced its final 747-400 would be retired on July 22 with a hangar farewell event for staff in Sydney before the aircraft was ferried to storage in the U.S. The Australian carrier, which has operated 747s since September 1971, this week sold out in minutes three 747-400 joy flights for aviation enthusiasts.
The Australian government has placed limits on the number of citizens and permanent residents returning home to ease the pressure of quarantine facilities and focus resources on contact tracing and testing, Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, told reporters in Canberra today. He said the number of inbound flights would be cut by 50%, or about 4,000 people a week, with the new limits to apply from Monday and be reviewed "as the weeks go by".
Japan Airlines (JAL) plans to operate 91% of its scheduled domestic flights in August as demand continues to grow after coronavirus-linked domestic travel restrictions were lifted in the middle of June. This was an improvement from the intended operation of 68% of scheduled domestic flights in the last week of July. "Looking ahead at the month of August, a recovery of 70% is expected for the JAL Group," the airline said in a statement earlier today.
The oneworld alliance member will fly 10% and 11% of scheduled international flights during August and September, respectively. Despite the low number of flights, JAL said it would increase frequencies from Tokyo to Bangkok, Frankfurt, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh, Manila and Paris as well as add more services on the Tokyo-Honolulu route to "serve essential travel needs for students, workers stationed abroad and citizens returning to/from Japan".
