| //07-04-2009 Safety officials are holding a hearing on an incident in which an American Airlines MD-82's engine caught fire, forcing an emergency landing.
The National Transportation Safety Board will hear from investigators on Tuesday why Flight 1400's left engine caught fire during a departure climb from Lambert-St. Louis International Airport on Sept. 28, 2007.
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 | //06-04-2009 Several major carriers reported sharp declines in March passenger traffic Friday, as dropping demand and a late Easter travel season combined to put fewer people on airplanes.
An exception was Southwest Airlines Co., which said that its traffic dropped only a bit and that its airplanes were fuller in March than a year earlier. Its traffic fell 0.4 percent, on a 1.5 percent reduction in capacity. It filled 77.3 percent of its seats, up 0.8 points from March 2008.
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 | //06-04-2009 Old jets come here, empty engine pods shrink-wrapped in white, tall red tails fading to pink in the desert sun. More will come soon. Some will never fly again.
Airlines have announced plans over the past year to take 1,700 planes out of service as fewer people fly. United Airlines is retiring all 94 of its Boeing 737s by the end of this year, and Northwest Airlines has cut its old DC-9 fleet by about a third.
The number of planes in storage has jumped 29 percent in the past year to 2,302, according to aerospace data firm Ascend Worldwide. That includes 930 parked by U.S. operators alone.
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| //04-04-2009 American Airlines Inc., the top carrier at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, said Friday its domestic traffic in March fell 10.6 percent from last year while capacity also fell 5.6 percent.
Fort Worth, Texas-based American, a subsidiary of AMR Corp. (NYSE: AMR Corp.), said revenue passenger miles hit 10.32 billion, down 10.9 percent from the same period a year earlier.
Revenue passenger miles is the airline industry’s measure of traffic, and it calculates every paying passenger flown per mile into its statistics.
The passenger carrier’s number of boarded passengers hit 7.4 million in March.
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| //04-04-2009 China Airlines Ltd., which posted a record loss in 2008, will retire 30.7 percent of its shares to boost shareholder value.
The airline, Taiwan’s largest carrier, said its board approved the plan to cancel 1.49 billion shares and reduce capital to NT$33.7 billion ($1 billion), according to a statement to the stock exchange last night. It didn’t say if the equity to be canceled is treasury stock or if the airline plans to buy back shares
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| //04-04-2009 NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Airline stocks closed narrowly higher Friday, shaking off evidence of weakening passenger demand and revenue, with AMR and US Airways leading the way. |
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| //30-03-2009 Ben Baldanza is chief of Spirit, which prides itself on minimal service and low costs. Employees help by vacuuming the office.
Alex Quesada for The New York Times |
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| //30-03-2009 SHANGHAI (Dow Jones)--Airbus (ABI.YY) has had no order cancellations from Chinese airlines so far, the European aircraft ... |
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| //30-03-2009 DENVER — A Southwest Airlines flight from Phoenix to Detroit was diverted to Denver after a woman was involved in an altercation with another passenger.
Airline spokesman Chris Mainz says he doesn't have details on what happened on Flight 1402 Saturday, but he says he does not know of any injuries.
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 | //26-03-2009 Global airline passenger traffic fell 10 percent last month, the steepest decline since the recession began, led by a plunge in long-haul travel.
The decline, gathering pace from a 5.6 percent fall in year-on-year traffic in January, included a 12.8 percent reduction in passengers flown by Asia-Pacific carriers and a 12 percent drop among North American airlines, the International Air Transport Association said today in a statement.
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 | //26-03-2009 China’s private airlines created competition for state-controlled carriers, just as the government wanted. Now, they are the ones suffering from it.
United Eagle Airlines Co., the first private carrier to win government approval, agreed to a takeover by a state-controlled airline last week. East Star Airlines also halted flights two days after rejecting a bid from Air China Ltd.’s state-owned parent. From December, Okay Airways grounded passenger planes for more than a month because of a management dispute.
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| //26-03-2009 Following February's proposed U.S. legislation to further scrutinize and limit antitrust immunity for airline alliances, airline and travel trade groups are fighting back. Five groups on 23 March sent a letter to U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood explaining that the proposal would sacrifice thousands of jobs and harm the travel and tourism industry. |
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 | //19-03-2009 David Shepherd, the manager of Berkeley's Northside Travel, looked up San Francisco-London round-trip fares on the agency's airline computer system and had a good chuckle.
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 | //19-03-2009 March 19 (Bloomberg) -- Airlines worldwide may report a larger-than-expected loss this year as the global recession saps demand for air travel, according to the International Air Transport Association.
“Our last industry forecast made in December was for a $2.5 billion loss in 2009,” IATA Chief Executive Officer Giovanni Bisignani said in a briefing in Kuala Lumpur today. “This is now looking very optimistic, and next week we will issue a revised forecast.”
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| //19-03-2009 Southwest Airlines Cargo is proud to announce it was recognized for its excellence in air cargo for the fifth straight year, named "Airline of the Year" by the Express Delivery & Logistics Association (XLA).
"Southwest Airlines' reliable schedule and outstanding Customer Service have differentiated us from our competitors," said Matt Buckley, Southwest's Senior Director of Cargo. "We appreciate the hard work and dedication of our Cargo and Ramp Employees who go above and beyond to meet the needs of our Customers. We owe this award to them."
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 | //16-03-2009 DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Emirates, the biggest customer for Airbus' A380 "superjumbo," said Sunday it recently outlined a range of reliability issues about the double-decker plane but still has confidence in the jetliner |
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 | //16-03-2009 It was the nearest of misses, an accident that could have been catastrophic. January 17, 2008, as this Examiner.com writer was at London Heathrow Airport for a conference, a British Airways www.ba.com Boeing 777-200ER, inbound from Beijing, inexplicably lost considerable thrust while on final approach. The widebody jet crashed short of the runway, injuring eight passengers and four crewmembers – and raising real questions as to just what happened. |
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| //16-03-2009 China grounded East Star Airlines, a small private carrier based in the central city of Wuhan, for being unable to pay back heavy debts and for "poor internal management", a government official told state television.
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