News — 25/6/03.

[u]Iberia take delivery of first a346[/u]
Iberia Today recieved their first A340-600:

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/372938/M/
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[u]Injuries on a Malaysia A330 Flight[/u]

Twenty-five passengers and two crew members of a Malaysia Airlines flight were injured when the aircraft went through intense air turbulence lasting less than one minute over Pekan in Pahang at 4.25pm yesterday.

MAS senior general manager of corporate services Dr Mohamadon Abdullah, when contacted, said the Airbus A330-300 flight from Seoul, however, landed at the KL International Airport in Sepang safely at 5pm.

There were 224 Korean nationals and 10 Malaysian crew members on board the aircraft.

He said the captain of the aircraft had contacted the control tower to alert the medical team to attend to some passengers and crew members, who were injured following the incident.

Dr Mohamadon said after receiving initial treatment, seven of the passengers were sent to the Subang Jaya Medical Centre while the two crew members were admitted to the Selangor Medical Centre in Shah Alam for further observation.

“The initial report from our medical team indicated that no one had received any serious injuries and those admitted at the hospitals were reported to be in stable condition,” he said.

He said MAS engineers were checking the aircraft and initial checks showed no major structural damage.

They were carrying further checks before allowing the plane to fly, he said.

http://202.186.86.35/news/story.asp?file=/2003/6/24/nation/mashurt&newspage=Search
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[u]F-BVFB now at its new German home[/u]

With final roars from four engines, an Air France Concorde completed its farewell flight ahead of a journey where none of the supersonic jets has ever gone before — to a German museum, where it will stand next to its former rival, the Soviet-made Tupolev 144.

Thousands of onlookers cheered, clapped and shouted “Bravo” as Concorde F-BVFB touched down at Karlsruhe-Baden-Baden airport in southwestern Germany just after noon Tuesday, the last of nearly 5,500 flights since the plane began service on April 8, 1976.

After departing Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport, the plane broke the sound barrier one last time on a loop over the Atlantic before heading southeast to Germany with about 40 passengers, many of them Air France employees.

“I felt very sad,” pilot Jean-Louis Chatelain told reporters after leaving the cockpit. “It was very emotional to have flown my last flight with Concorde.”

Mechanics at Baden-Baden will remove the Concorde’s wing tips, nose, tail and tail cone to prepare it for a trip down the Rhine River to the Sinsheim Auto & Technik Museum — a privately funded fantasy world of modern technology ranging from an original Corvette and a 1952 Oldsmobile “Rocket” to steam engines, World War II-era fighter planes and a jumbo jet.

The F-BVFB will take up residence beside the Tu-144, known in the West as the “Concordski,” in what the museum boasts it will be the only place where both jets will be on show side by side.

Unlike the Concorde, which Air France flew for 27 years before retiring its fleet of five supersonic luxury jets last month, the Tu-144 flew for less than 10 years before being retired in 1978.

The mood on Tuesday’s flight was relaxed, with passengers roaming freely and swapping Concorde stories, said Nadine Grouspas, an Air France customer representative who was on board.

“It was great,” she said. “We saw as we flew in how many people had gathered to meet us, and it was a very moving experience.”

Air France said it donated the jet to the museum for a symbolic $1.15 in tribute to 75 Germans who lost their lives aboard the Concorde that crashed on July 25, 2000 after takeoff from Charles de Gaulle.

The crash, which killed 113 people, led to a 13-month suspension of all Concorde travel. Flights resumed after safety checks, but the plane never recovered and ultimately fell victim to the demise in luxury air travel. British Airways, the only other company to fly Concorde, is stopping supersonic service in October.

One Air France Concorde has already gone to the U.S. Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, in Washington. Another landed during last week’s Paris Air Show at Le Bourget for permanent display at the French Air and Space Museum.

An aeronautics exhibit park in Toulouse, France, near where the aircraft was originally built, will host another. The fifth will stay on display at Charles de Gaulle.

F-BVFB, which made its last flight Tuesday, flew around the world between Sept. 1-21, 1988, covering 29,561 miles in 38 hours and 13 minutes. In total, the plane had clocked 14,771 flying hours over 5,473 flights.
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[u]BMi to operate from Teeside[/u]

They are to operate daily to BFS and weekly to GVA and AGP. These services will be operated by EMA based aircraft, with plans for a based aircraft at MME from next year.
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A new special liver has been applied to one of the JAL 747 fleet:

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Angel Air, The Thai airline that was grounded more than a year ago could be in the air again as early as Aug03. Plans are to re-start operations with flights from Bangkok to South Korea. Initially the airline would operate 4 flights a week and it is expected Angel would lease an Airbus A300 from a Turkish airline. From Oct03 the airline plans to increase service with a 2nd aircraft to operate Bangkok to Korea via Chiang Mai and Bangkok to Korea via Singapore.
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[u]KLM to cut an extra 1,500 jobs[/u]

Amsterdam – Dutch airline KLM will cut an additional 1 500 jobs as part of a cost-saving restructuring underway that already had targeted 3 000 layoffs, a KLM spokesperson told Dutch ANP news agency on Wednesday.

“This is an estimate,” according to the spokesperson.

The additional cuts will be made in order for KLM to reach its goal of €650m total cost savings in 2005.

The Dutch airline employs around 35 000 people worldwide.

“From a structural point of view we are too expensive, low-budget airlines are eating away at our market. Changes and layoffs are the result of these developments,” the spokesperson explained.

KLM’s chairperson Leo van Wijk will speak at the general shareholders meeting later on Wednesday.

http://www.news24.com/News24/Finance/Companies/0,,2-8-24_1378314,00.html
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Hellas Jet Initiated operations yesterday with a flight from Athens to Brussels. The airline operates 3 Airbus A320-200s and will fly twice a day to Brussels and Paris and daily to London Heathrow and Zurich.
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An Easyjet Boeing 737-300, en route from Greece to London Luton, that did not respond to ATC was intercepted by 2 Belgian Air Force F-16s over Brugge at FL370. Apparently the crew claimed they had not been paying attention to the radio.

(THIS HAPPENED A FEW DAYS AGO!)
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Northwest Flight NW038, a Douglas DC10 en route from Boston to Amsterdam, was forced to return to Logan Airport for an emergency landing after the nbr 2 engine failed shortly after takeoff yesterday.
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Sorry there was alot to read.

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Cheers all. 🙂