Timeline of Airline Stuff
Return to home
Boeing History: http://www.boeing.com/history
3500BC King Etena of Babylonia was pictured on a coin, flying on an eagle’s back.
(NPub, 2002, p.2)
1000BC The Chinese invented kites about this time that could carry scouts on reconnaissance missions.
(NPub, 2002, p.2)
1000-1100 Eilmer of Malmesbury (also known as Oliver due to a scribe's miscopying, or Elmer, was an 11th-century English Benedictine monk best known for his early attempt at a gliding flight using wings. He reportedly strapped wings to his hands and feet and jumped off a tower at England's Malmesbury Abbey gliding some 200 meters before crashing and breaking both legs.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eilmer_of_Malmesbury)(Econ., 10/10/20, p.75)
1162 A man in Constantinople fashioned sail-like wings from fabric into pleats and folds. He plummeted from the top of a tower and died.
(NPub, 2002, p.2)
1505 Leonardo da Vinci’s “Codex on the Flight of Birds" dated to about this time.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_on_the_Flight_of_Birds)
1740 Aug 26, Joseph-Michel Montgolfier, French inventor, born. He and his brother Jacques-Etienne invented the hot air balloon in 1783.
(RTH, 8/26/99)
1753 Jul 4, Jean-Pierre-Francois Blanchard (d.1809), 1st balloon flights in England and US, was born.
(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/AVblanchard.htm)
1783 Jun 4, The Montgolfier brothers launched their 1st hot-air balloon (unmanned) in a 10-minute flight over Annonay, France.
(http://inventors.about.com/od/astartinventions/ss/airship_2.htm)
1783 Aug 27, The 1st hydrogen balloon flight (unmanned), made by Professor Jacques Charles, successfully completed its inaugural flight in Paris.
(www.twinring.jp/english/balloon/what_balloon/)
1783 Sep 19, Jacques Etienne Montgolfier launched a duck, a sheep and a rooster aboard a hot-air balloon at Versailles, France.
(AP, 9/19/06)
1783 Oct 15, Francois Pilatre de Rozier (Jean Piletre de Rozier) made the first manned flight in a hot air balloon. The first flight was let out to 82 feet, but over the next few days the altitude increased up to 6,500 feet.
(HN, 10/15/98)(MC, 10/15/01)
1783 Nov 21, Jean-Francois Pilatre de Rozier (1754-1785) and the Marquis d’Arlandes made the first free-flight ascent in a balloon, to over 500 feet, in Paris.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Romain)(NPub, 2002, p.2)
1784 Apr 15, The first balloon flight occurred in Ireland. [see Jun 5, 1783 in France]
(HN, 4/15/98)
1784 Jun 4, Elizabeth Thible became the first woman to fly aboard a Montgolfier hot-air balloon, over Lyon, France.
(AP, 6/4/07)
1784 Jun 24, In a tethered flight from Baltimore, Maryland, Edward Warren (13) became the 1st to fly in a balloon on US soil.
(NPub, 2002, p.3)
1784 Nov 29, American Dr. John Jeffries paid Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard £100 pounds for a balloon flight in England during which he made some atmospheric measurements.
(ON, 10/03, p.6)
1785 Jan 7, The first balloon flight across the English Channel was made. Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and the American Dr. John Jeffries crossed the English Channel for the first time in a hydrogen balloon.
(HN, 5/15/98)(HN, 1/7/99)
1785 Jun 15, Two French balloonists died in the world's 1st fatal aviation accident.
(MC, 6/15/02)
1785 Major John Money (1752–1817) took off in a balloon from Norwich, in an attempt to raise money for the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. He passed over Lowestoft at 6pm and came down about 18 miles (29 km) into the North Sea and was saved by a revenue cutter about five hours later.
(Econ, 5/11/13, p.89)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_ballooning)
1785 Lt. Col. John Money set up a British balloon observation corps, but it did not gain much support.
(http://tinyurl.com/oe953qf)
1793 Jan 9, The first US manned balloon flight occurred as Frenchman Jean Pierre Blanchard, using a hot-air balloon, flew between Philadelphia and Woodbury, N.J. He stayed airborne for 46 minutes, traveled close to 15 miles and set down at the "old Clement farm" in Deptford, New Jersey. [see Jun 23, 1784, Mar 9, 1793]
(WSJ, 3/31/98, p.A1)(AP, 1/9/99)(ON, 6/09, p.2)
1794 Jun 26, The French defeated an Austrian army at the Battle of Fleurus. The French used a tethered balloon to observe the battlefield and direct artillery fire.
(www.historyofwar.org/articles/battles_fleurus_1794.html)(NPub, 2002, p.4)
1797 Oct 22, French balloonist Andre-Jacques Garnerin made the first parachute descent, landing safely from a height of about 3,000 feet; at some 2,200 feet over Paris.
(AP, 10/22/97)(HN, 10/22/98)
1804 Sir George Cayley, England’s “father of aeronautics," built and flew the world’s first successful model glider.
(NPub, 2002, p.4)
1819 Aug 2, The first parachute jump from a balloon was made by Charles Guille in New York City.
(HN, 8/2/01)
1838 Jul 8, Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin (d.1917), German designer and manufacturer of airships, was born.
(HN, 7/8/98)(WUD, 1994, p.1660)
1852 Sep 24, Henri Giffard, a French engineer, flew over Paris in the 1st dirigible flight.
(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/AVgifford.htm)
1861 Apr 20, Thaddeus Lowe landed in South Carolina only to be surrounded by a group of incredulous Carolinians who believed he was a spy. Lowe managed to persuade the crowd that his 500-mile trip from Cincinnati, Ohio, was merely an innocent aerial journey to test his strange craft. He later tried to convince the Union to use his skill as a balloonist.
(HNQ, 4/5/01)(ON, 2/05, p.7)
1861 Jun 10, Thaddeus Lowe demonstrated his balloon, the Enterprise, along with its telegraphy capabilities for Pres. Lincoln at the White House lawn.
(ON, 2/05, p.8)
1862 Jul 17, James Glaisher (52), British meteorologist, rose to some 22,000 over Wolverhampton with balloonist Henry Tracy Coxwell in an attempt to set an altitude record. They reached 24,000 feet in a 2nd attempt on Aug 18. On Sep 5 Glaisher passed out as they reached 29,000 feet. At a record 7 miles Coxwell managed to begin their descent.
(ON, 4/03, p.11)
1867 Apr 16, Wilbur Wright (d.1912), aeronautical inventor, was born in Dayton, Ohio.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers)
1868 Matthew Boulton obtained a British patent on a design for ailerons as control surfaces.
(NPub, 2002, p.5)
1869 Jul 4, Frederick Marriott flew his unmanned Aviator Hermes Jr. over a field near Millbrae and Burlingame. The machine was a gasbag filled with hydrogen, and a steam engine turning rotors with attached delta wings guided by men on the ground with ropes.
(SFC, 6/5/98, p.A23)(SFC, 10/11/14, p.C2)
1871 Aug 19, Orville Wright (d.1948), aviation pioneer, was born in Dayton, Oh. His birthday is celebrated as National Aviation Day.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers)(WUD, 1994, p.1647)
1873 Alberto Santos-Dumont (d.1932), aviation pioneer, was born.
(SSFC, 6/28/03, p.M1)
1878 May 1, James Graham was born. He was the inventor of the first naval aircraft-carrying ship and the first man to film a total eclipse of the Sun.
(HN, 5/1/99)
1878 May 21, Glenn Hammond Curtiss, aviation pioneer and contemporary of the Wright brothers, was born in Hammondsport, N.Y. He also originally made bicycles and invented the hydroplane. Curtiss` entrance into flying began in 1904 when Thomas Scott Baldwin, famous lighter-than-air devotee, asked Curtiss to make him a two-cylinder, air-cooled engine to power his airship. The first plane Curtiss had anything to do with was Red Wing, which Casey Baldwin lofted from the ice at Keuka Lake on March 12, 1908.
(HN, 5/21/98)(HNQ, 5/28/01)
1878 Jul 3, John Wise flew the first dirigible in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
(HN, 7/3/98)
1878 Bishop Wright gave his sons, Orville and Wilbur, a toy helicopter.
(NPub, 2002, p.5)
1883 Aug 28, John Montgomery (b.1858) made the first manned, controlled flight in the US in his "Gull" glider, whose design was inspired by watching birds. The craft weight 38 pounds and flew to 15 feet for at least 300 feet at Otay Mesa near San Diego, Ca. In 1911 Montgomery died in a glider crash.
(SFC, 6/5/98, p.A23)(SFCM, 2/6/05, p.3)(GenIV, Winter 04/05)
1884 Horatio Phillips of England designed a wing with a curved airfoil shape.
(NPub, 2002, p.5)
1890 Apr 6, Anthony Herman Gerard Fokker, aircraft pioneer, was born in Holland.
(MC, 4/6/02)
1892 Apr 6, Donald Wills Douglas, US aircraft pioneer (McConnell Douglas), was born.
(MC, 4/6/02)
1896 May 6, Samuel P. Langley (1834-1906), American physicist and aviation pioneer, launched the first reasonably large, steam-powered model aircraft.
(NPub, 2002, p.5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Pierpont_Langley)
1897 Jun 14, Dr. Karl Wolfert and his mechanic were killed in Germany when their dirigible, powered by a Daimler car engine, crashed on its 4th flight.
(ON, 3/03, p.10)
1897 Jul 14, Swede Saloman Andrée (b.1854)) and 2 accomplices, Knute Fraenkle and Nils Strindberg, in the Ornen balloon were forced down after 64 hours in the first expedition to fly by balloon from Spitsbergen across the North Pole. Their attempt to return ended on White Island. Their fate was only discovered Aug 5-6, 1930, by Norwegian whalers.
(HNQ, 5/22/01)(ON, 11/01, p.11)(Econ, 5/11/13, p.89)
1897 Jul 24, Amelia Earhart was born in Kansas. She was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic and disappeared in the South Pacific while trying to fly around the world. Her sister Muriel (d.1998 at 98) wrote a biography of Amelia titled: "Courage Is the Price."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelia_Earhart)(SFC, 3/6/98, p.E2)(HN, 7/24/02)
1897 Sep 18, Alberto Santos-Dumont crashed his 1st motorized dirigible into trees at the Zoological Gardens in Paris.
(ON, 3/03, p.10)
1897 Sep 20, Alberto Santos-Dumont successfully flew his repaired motorized dirigible around the Zoological Gardens in Paris.
(ON, 3/03, p.10)
1897 Nov 3, David Schwarz of Austria crashed his 156-foot aluminum powered airship with 2 propellers on its maiden flight.
(ON, 3/03, p.11)
1899 May 30, Wilbur Wright (1867-1912), Ohio bicycle mechanic, wrote the Smithsonian Institution and affirmed his belief that human flight was possible.
(NPub, 2002, p.5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_Brothers)
1900 Jul 2, Count Ferdinand Adolf Heinrich August von Zeppelin (1838-1917) made the 1st successful flight of his lighter-than-air ship LZ-1 in Friedrichshafen, Germany. The 400 foot craft stayed aloft 17 minutes before it crashed.
(AHM, 1/97)(WSJ, 2/120/00, p.A1)(ON, 3/03, p.11)
1900 Oct, The Wright Brothers began active flying experiments at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Their first glider was a biplane that soared for 300 feet.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D3)(NPub, 2002, p.5)
1901 Jul 13, Santos-Dumont flew his powered dirigible around the Eiffel Tower but failed to make it in an allotted half hour time frame to win a 100,000 franc prize.
(ON, 3/03, p.11)
1901 Aug 8, Santos-Dumont flew his powered dirigible around the Eiffel Tower a 2nd time but sprang a leak and caught suspension wires in his propeller blades.
(ON, 3/03, p.11)
1901 Oct 19, Alberto Santos-Dumont successfully circled Eiffel Tower in his Santos-Dumont No. 6 dirigible within a half hour and won a 100,000 franc prize. An initial ruling said that he failed by 40 seconds because the race wasn’t finished until he touched ground. A 2nd vote granted him the win. This proved the airship maneuverable.
(ON, 3/03, p.12)
1901 Gustave Whitehead, a German-born aviator and resident of Bridgeport, Conn., reportedly made the first powered airplane flight, two years before the Wright brothers. In 2013 Connecticut went on record acknowledging Whitehead’s flight. Ohio and North Carolina both disputed the Connecticut claim.
(SFC, 10/25/13, p.A8)
1901 The Wright Brothers constructed new wings for a large glider using existing aerodynamics tables. The flight was marginal so they tested the tables by analyzing model wings in a wind tunnel. The tables proved to be wrong and they painstakingly computer new ones.
(NPub, 2002, p.6)
1902 In Pittsburg, Texas, Rev. Burrell Cannon (d.1922), itinerant Baptist minister and inventor, built his Ezekial Airship and reportedly flew it for a short distance at a 12 foot altitude. The craft was destroyed on a rail car while enroute to the St. Louis World Fair.
(WSJ, 11/20/02, p.A1)
1902 The Wright Brothers built a glider based on their new aerodynamics tables. Efficiency was almost doubled and they made over 1,000 flights at Kill Devil Hills near Kitty Hawk, NC.
(NPub, 2002, p.6)
1903 Mar 23, The Wright brothers obtained an airplane patent.
(HN, 3/23/98)
1903 Mar 31, New Zealand aviator Richard Pearse flew a self-made, bamboo-framed, mono-winged airplane in Waitohi.
(NW, 3/17/03, p.20)
1903 Oct 18, In San Francisco Dr. August Greth flew his 80-foot-long American Eagle airship over the city. Its engine stalled and the wind carried it over the bay where it plummeted into the water. He and his assistant were recovered by soldiers from Fort Point.
(SFC, 10/11/14, p.C2)
1903 Dec 8, Samuel P. Langley’s man-carrying Great Aerodrome collapsed right after takeoff from a houseboat on the Potomac River.
(www.nasm.si.edu/research/arch/findaids/langley/langley_sec_6.html)
1903 Dec 17, The Wright brothers' Flyer I flew for 12 seconds in the first airplane flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The plane used an aluminum engine designed by their Dayton mechanic Charlie Taylor. The brothers were the sons of a Dayton, Ohio, bishop (Church of the United Brethren). Orville Wright made the first powered, controlled and sustained flight. Orville, lying prone at the 605-pound plane's controls, flew a distance of 120 feet in 12 seconds. Wilbur ran beside Flyer's wing tip until it was airborne to keep the wing from dragging in the sand. Four sustained flights were made on this day. The 4th flight lasted fifty-nine seconds. The day’s events received little press attention, since the reticent Wright brothers feared their ideas would be stolen by rival aviators. It was not until 1908, after making many refinements to their flying machine, that the Wrights embarked on a series of public demonstrations that finally earned them worldwide acclaim. A one-hour PBS documentary covered their life as part of "The American Experience." In 2015 David McCullough authored “the Wright Brothers."
(WSJ, 2/8/96, p.A-12)(AP, 12/17/97)(HNPD, 12/17/98)(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D3)(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D3)(SFEC, 9/26/99, p.B8)(Econ., 4/25/15, p.78)(Econ, 1/2/16, p.59)
1904 Sep 15, Wilbur Wright made his 1st controlled half-circle while in flight with Flyer II. On Sep 20 he flew a full circle for the first time.
(http://tinyurl.com/pkwd37)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_Flyer_II)
1904 Glenn Curtiss, a motorcycle builder in Hammondsport, NY, began making gasoline-burning aircraft engines for dirigibles that San Francisco daredevil Thomas Scott Baldwin was building in California. Baldwin flew a 54-foot dirigible equipped with a motorcycle engine and is credited with for building the first successful American dirigible.
(ON, 12/11, p.10)(SFC, 10/11/14, p.C2)
1905 Apr 12, French Dufaux brothers tested a helicopter.
(MC, 4/12/02)
1905 Apr 29, The Santa Clara, a heavier than air plane designed by Prof. John J. Montgomery, was flown by circus performer Daniel John Maloney. The glider was lifted by balloon to 4,000 feet and then cut loose over Santa Clara, Ca.
(GenIV, Winter 04/05)
1905 The Wright Brother’s Flyer III became the world’s first practical airplane, but attracted little attention.
(NPub, 2002, p.7)
1906 Mar 3, Vuia I aircraft, built by Romanian Traja Vuia, was tested in France.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1906 May 22, Orville and Wilbur Wright were awarded U.S. Patent 821,393 for "new and useful improvement in Flying Machines." They had hired a patent attorney to refine their 1903 application. The first successful powered flight of the Wright Flyer took place on December 17, 1903.
(HNQ, 3/19/01)
1907 Jun 1, Frank A. Whittle, England inventor (jet engine), was born. (MC, 6/1/02)
1907 Jul 1, World's 1st air force established as part of the US Army.
(MC, 7/1/02)
1907 Jul 29, The 1st helicopter ascent in Douai, France.
(MC, 7/29/02)
1907 Aug 1, The US Air Force had its beginnings as the US Army Signal Corps established an aeronautical division in charge of "all matters pertaining to military ballooning, air machines and all kindred subjects."
(AP, 8/1/07)
1907 Nov 13, The 1st helicopter was piloted by French engineer Paul Cornu (1881-1944). The copter hovered a foot off the ground for 20 seconds. [see Apr 12, 1905]
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Cornu)(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)
1907 Glenn Curtiss, of New York, joined with Alexander Graham Bell, F.W. Baldwin, Thomas Selfridge, and John McCurdy, working in Nova Scotia, to found the Aerial Experiment Association (AEA) to developing a practical flying machine.
(ON, 12/11, p.10)
1908 Mar 12, The Aerial Experiment Association (AEA) launched their new airplane, called Red Wing, from a frozen lake near Hammondsport, NY. Pilot F.W. Baldwin rose 20 feet and flew 319 feet before crashing. Newspapers hailed the test as the “first public flight" in the US.
(ON, 12/11, p.10)
1908 Mar 21, Frenchman Henri Farman carried a passenger in a bi-plane for the first time.
(HN, 3/21/98)
1908 May 14, 1st passenger flight in an airplane.
(MC, 5/14/02)
1908 May 21, The Aerial Experiment Association (AEA) launched their 2nd airplane, called White Wing, equipped with aelerons, a mechanism proposed by Alexander Graham Bell, to steer the craft. Pilot Glenn Curtiss flew over 1000 feet and landed safely.
(ON, 12/11, p.10)
1908 May 22, The Wright brothers registered their flying machine for a U.S. patent.
(HN, 5/22/98)
1908 May 23, In the SF Bay Area John Morrell and his crew boarded their 485-foot airship in a field near Berkeley High School. The ship’s gas bag burst at 300-feet and the 20 men aboard plunged to the ground. 9 were seriosuly injured but no one died.
(SFC, 10/11/14, p.C2)
1908 Jul 4, Glenn Curtiss flew a new airplane, called the June Bug, at a competition sponsored by Scientific American, for the first heavier than air machine to fly one kilometer. The Aero Club sent 22 members to Hammondsport, NY, to view the event. Curtiss easily covered the distance, angering the Wright Brothers, who felt that their patent was being infringed.
(ON, 12/11, p.11)
1908 Sep 3, Orville Wright began two weeks of flight trials that impressed onlookers with his complete control of his new Type A Military Flyer. In addition to setting an altitude record of 310 feet and an endurance record of more than one hour, he had carried aloft the first military observer, Lieutenant Frank Lahm.
(HNPD, 9/16/98)
1908 Sep 9, Orville Wright made the 1st 1-hr airplane flight at Fort Myer, Va.
(MC, 9/9/01)
1908 Sep 17, Orville Wright’s passenger on a test flight was Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge. They were circling the landing field at Fort Myer, Va., when a crack developed in the blade of the aircraft’s propeller. Wright lost control of the Flyer and the biplane plunged to the ground. Selfridge became powered flight’s first fatality, and Wright was seriously injured in the crash. But despite the tragic mishap, the War Department awarded the contract for the first military aircraft to Wright.
(HNPD, 9/16/98)
1908 Dec, The Aerial Experiment Association (AEA) took out patents on ailerons and in March 1809 the group disbanded.
(ON, 12/11, p.11)
1909 Jan 9, The Silver Dart made the 1st manned flight in Canada. It was funded by the Aerial Experiment Association, founded by Alexander and Mabel Bell.
(ON, 1/03, p.5)
1909 Jan 17, Wilbur and Orville Wright opened the world’s first flying school at Pau, France, and refused to accept women as students.
(ON, 4/10, p.11)
1909 Jul 17, Glenn Curtiss entered and won the Scientific American trophy for a 2nd year by flying a total of 25 km. in 12 circuits on Long Island. His Golden Flier was sponsored by the Aeronautic Society of New York.
(ON, 12/11, p.11)
1909 Jul 25, French aviator Louis Bleriot (1872-1936) made the first crossing of the English Channel from Calais to the grounds of Dover Castle in a powered aircraft, winning a £1,000 prize offered by the London Daily Mail. Piloting his Type XI monoplane at an average of 39 miles per hour, Blériot made the trip of 23.2 miles in just under 36 minutes.
(AP, 7/25/97)(HNPD, 7/25/98)(ON, 6/07, p.9)
1909 Jul 27, Orville Wright tested the U.S. Army's first airplane, flying himself and a passenger for 1 hour, 12 minutes and 40 seconds over Fort Myer, Virginia.
(AP, 7/27/97)(HN, 7/27/02)(MC, 7/27/02)
1909 Aug 2, The Wright Flyer was formally accepted by the US Army in exchange for $30,000. It was designated Signal Corps Airplane No. 1, the world’s first military airplane.
(www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Wright_Bros/Military_Flyer/WR11.htm)
1909 Aug 28, American Glenn Curtiss won the James Gordon Bennett Cup at the first major international air show held in Rheims France.
(www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Wright_Bros/Patent_Battles/WR12.htm)
1909 Oct 2, Orville Wright set an altitude record, flying at 1,600 feet. This exceeded Hubert Latham's previous record of 508 feet.
(HN, 10/2/98)
1909 Oct 2, Raymonde de Larouche (1918), Franch actress, flew a Voisin airplane during a taxiing lesson under Gabriel Voisin at Chalons, establishing the first recorded flight by a woman.
(ON, 4/10, p.11)
1909 Nov 22, Wright brothers formed a corporation for the commercial manufacture of airplanes. Cornelius Vanderbilt and other financiers backed them with one million dollars.
(http://tinyurl.com/7ymq7rq)(ON, 12/11, p.11)
1909 Dec 28, The first manned, controlled, powered flight in the whole continent of Africa and the entire southern hemisphere was successfully carried out by the Frenchman Albert Kimmerling (d.6/12/1912) at East London, South Africa using a Voisin bi-plane.
(http://tinyurl.com/o7cropv)
1909 The Wright brothers sold a Military Flyer to the Signal Corps for $30,000.
(WSJ, 5/20/03, p.D5)
1910 Jan 24, Louis Paulhan, French aviator, made an aerial display at the Tanforan Race Track in San Bruno, Ca., before a crowd of 75,000. He flew his biplane 1,300 (700) feet high at 70 mph. Earlier he took William Randolph Hearst for a ride.
(SFEC, 12/26/99, p.W4)(Ind, 8/17/02, 5A)(SSFC, 1/24/10, DB p.42)
1910 Mar 28, The first seaplane took off from water at Martinques, France.
(HN, 3/28/98)
1910 Apr 28, The first night air flight was performed by Claude Grahame-White in England.
(HN, 4/28/98)
1910 May 10, The 1st aircraft air display was held at Hendon, England.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1910 Jun 2, Charles Stewart Rolls, one of the founders of Rolls-Royce, becomes the first man to fly an airplane nonstop across the English Channel both ways. Tragically, he became Britain's first aircraft fatality the following month when his biplane broke up in midair.
(HN, 6/2/00)
1910 Aug 20, The 1st shot fired from an airplane was during a test flight over Brooklyn's Sheepshead Bay.
(WSJ, 5/20/03, p.D5)
1910 Sep 27, 1st test flight of a twin-engine airplane was made in France.
(MC, 9/27/01)
1910 Oct 11, During a visit to St. Louis, Theodore Roosevelt flew with pilot Arch Hoxsey, becoming the first US president to fly.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Louis_Lambert_International_Airport)
1910 Oct 11, The San Francisco Rotary Club offered a $10,000 prize to the aviator who first flies from SF to New York.
(SSFC, 10/10/10, DB p.50)
1910 Oct 23, Blanche S. Scott became the first woman to make a solo, public airplane flight, reaching an altitude of 12 feet at a park in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
(AP, 10/23/00)
1910 Nov 14, Lieutenant Eugene Ely, U.S. Navy, was the first to take off in an airplane from the deck of a ship. He flew from the Birmingham at Hampton Roads to Norfolk. It was a Curtiss plane flown by Eugene Ely, a company exhibition pilot, that made the first successful takeoff from a Navy ship.
(HN, 11/14/98)
1910 Dec 31, John B. Moisant and Arch Hoxsey, two of America's foremost aviators died in separate plane crashes. Moisant died in a plane crash in New Orleans.
(HN, 12/31/98)(HN, 7/31/01)
1911 Jan 7, Aviator James Radley, operating a French Bleriot airplane, performed over South San Francisco, skimmed the the West Virginia, the flagship of Rear-Admiral Barry, and checked the time of San Francisco Ferry Tower clock on both sides.
(SSFC, 1/2/11, DB p.42)
1911 Jan 15, An explosive bomb was dropped from an airplane during an aviation meet in South San Francisco. The plane was about 400 feet high and the bomb dropped within 10 feet of its target.
(SSFC, 1/16/11, DB p.42)
1911 Jan 18, Naval aviation was born when pilot Eugene B. Ely flew a Curtis Pusher biplane onto the deck of the USS Pennsylvania in San Francisco Bay.
(SFC, 7/2/96, p.a15)(SFC, 5/7/97, p.A15)(AP, 1/18/98)(SFC, 6/5/98, p.A19)
1911 Jan 26, Glenn Curtiss piloted the 1st successful hydroplane in San Diego.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1911 Jan, A pair of U.S. Army aviators dropped the first live bomb. The Mexican Revolution gave the opportunity to use the airplane in actual combat. Airplanes had already begun to replace balloons for battlefield observation.
(HNQ, 7/16/00)
1911 Feb 17, The 1st hydroplane flight to & from a ship was made by Glenn Curtiss in San Diego.
(MC, 2/17/02)
1911 Apr 12, Pierre Prier completed the first non-stop London-Paris flight in three hours and 56 minutes.
(HN, 4/12/99)
1911 May 16, Zeppelin "Deutschland" was wrecked at Dusseldorf.
(MC, 5/16/02)
1911 Jul, Glenn Curtiss sold a seaplane with retractable wheels to the US Navy.
(ON, 12/11, p.12)
1911 Aug 3, Airplanes were used for the first time in a military capacity when Italian planes reconnoitered Turkish lines near Tripoli.
(HN, 8/3/98)
1911 Aug 31, Anthony Fokker's demonstrated the aircraft "Snip."
(MC, 8/31/01)
1911 Sep 1, M. Fourny set a world aircraft distance record of 720 km (447 mls).
(SC, 9/1/02)
1911 Sep 9, An airmail route opened between London and Windsor.
(HN, 9/9/98)
1911 Aug, Calbraith Perry Rodgers stayed aloft longer than any other contestant at the Chicago International Aviation Meet. Rodgers had recently purchased a new Wright airplane, the 1st ever sold to a private citizen.
(ON, 10/06, p.10)
1911 Sep 17, Cigar-smoking Calbraith Perry Rodgers (1879-1912) set off from Sheepshead Bay, New York, on the first flight across America. Rodgers, sponsored by the Vin Fiz grape drink company, flew the fragile Wright B biplane in pursuit of a $50,000 prize offered to the first person to make a transcontinental flight in 30 days or less. Rodgers failed to win the prize because his 4,321-mile flight took 84 days—of which only 3 days, 10 hours and 4 minutes was actual flying time! His average speed was 51.56 miles per hour. By the time he landed at Long Beach, California, on November 5, Rodgers had made 70 crash landings, suffered numerous minor injuries and had rebuilt his Vin Fiz so completely that only one strut and the rudder were its original equipment.
(HNPD, 9/18/98)(ON, 10/06, p.12)
1911 Sep 29, Walter Brookins set an American record by flying 192 miles from Chicago to Springfield, Ill., making two stops.
(NPub, 2002, p.8)
1911 Oct 31, Prof. John J. Montgomery (b.1858) died when his glider crashed on his 56th flight at the Evergreen College campus south of San Jose.
(GenIV, Winter 04/05)
1911 Nov 1, Italian planes performed the first aerial bombing on Tanguira oasis in Libya. Lt. Giulio Cavotti dropped a hand grenade on an oasis outside of Tripoli. In 2001 Sven Lindqvist authored "A History of Bombing."
(HN, 11/1/98)(SFC, 4/22/01, BR p.3)
1911 Nov 5, Italy attacked Turkish North-Africa (Libya), and took Tripoli and Cyrenaica. First use of a plane dropping bombs. [see Nov 1]
(MC, 11/5/01)
1911 Dec 10, Cal Rodgers (1879-1912) completed the first US transcontinental flight in the Wright EX Vin Fiz.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calbraith_Perry_Rodgers)(NPub, 2002, p.8)
1911 Dec 19, Onetime race-car driver Weldon Cooke piloted the homemade Black Diamond airplane over Mount Tamalpais on a flight from Oakland, Ca., to Marin County.
(SFC, 12/18/11, p.A1)
1911 The first US experimental airmail flight took place on Long Island, a 3-mile journey between Garden City Estates and Mineola.
(SFC, 9/12/08, p.B5)
1911 The US Navy acquired its first airplane, the A-1 Triad.
(HT, 4/97, p.60)
1912 Jan 10, The World's first flying-boat airplane, designed by Glenn Curtiss (1878-1930), made its maiden flight at San Diego, Ca. The Curtiss Model D featured an electric starter. Curtiss had become the first licensed pilot in 1911.
(www.aerofiles.com/chrono.html)(SFC, 8/5/00, p.B4)
1912 Mar 5, The Italians became the first to use dirigibles for military purposes, using them for reconnaissance flights behind Turkish lines west of Tripoli.
(HN, 3/5/98)
1912 Mar 7, French aviator, Heri Seimet flew non-stop from London to Paris in three hours.
(HN, 3/7/98)
1912 Mar 12, Capt. Albert Berry performed the 1st parachute jump from an airplane.
(MC, 3/12/02)
1912 Apr 3, Calbraith Perry Rodgers (b.1879), American pioneer aviator, crashed and was killed while flying over the ocean near Long Beach, Ca.
(ON, 10/06, p.12)
1912 Apr 10, The first wireless transmission was received on an airplane.
(HN, 4/10/98)
1912 Apr 16, Harriet Quimby became the first woman to fly across the English Channel.
(AP, 4/16/97)
1912 May 13, In San Francisco aviator Roy Francis and artist Phil Rader made a 36 minute flight over the city.
(SSFC, 5/13/12, p.42)
1912 May 13, The Royal Flying Corps was established in England. It was the predecessor of the Royal Air Force.
(SS, Internet, 5/13/97)(HN, 5/13/99)
1912 May 30, Wilbur Wright (b.1867), aeronautical inventor, died of a typhoid infection.
(WUD, 1994, p.1647)(ON, SC, p.4)
1912 Jun 7, US army tested the 1st machine gun mounted on a plane.
(SC, 6/7/02)
1912 Jul 1, Drama critic Harriet Quimby (28) took a passenger up in her new Blériot monoplane from Boston to fly over Dorchester Bay at the Harvard-Boston Aviation Meet. As she descended for landing, the plane went into a dive and, without seat belts, she and her passenger were thrown out into the shallow water of the bay, where they struck the muddy bottom and were crushed to death. Quimby was the first licensed woman pilot in the United States. Her interest in flight was piqued at an aviation meet in 1910. Quimby promoted aviation for women and once wrote, "In my opinion, there is no reason why the aeroplane should not open up a fruitful occupation for women."
(HNPD, 7/31/98)(ON, 1/00, p.11)
1912 Jul 16, A Naval torpedo, launched from an airplane, was patented by B.A. Fiske.
(MC, 7/16/02)
1912 Aug 25, An aircraft recovered from a spin for the 1st time.
(chblue.com, 8/25/01)
1912 Sep 7, French aviator Roland Garros set an altitude record of 13,200 feet.
(HN, 9/7/98)
1912 Sep 10, In France J. Vedrines became the first pilot to break 100 m.p.h. barrier.
(HN, 9/10/98)
1912 The Australian Antarctic Expedition of 1911-1914 began using an airplane to tow gear onto the ice in preparation for their sledging journeys. The plane, the first from France's Vickers factory, had not been seen since the mid-1970s, when researchers photographed the steel fuselage nearly encompassed in ice. Australian researchers stumbled on remains of the plane on Jan 1, 2010.
(AP, 1/2/10)
1913 Jan 16, Prof. Thaddeus Lowe (80), balloonist pioneer, died.
(www.militarymuseum.org/Lowe.html)
1913 Feb 29, A US judge upheld a Wright Brothers’ airplane patent regarding the use of ailerons in a suit against Glenn Curtiss. In 1914 a Court of Appeals affirmed the decision. Henry Ford offered assistance to Curtiss and Ford lawyer W. Benton Crisp put Curtiss back in production by employing non-simultaneous use of ailerons.
(ON, 12/11, p.12)
1913 May 13, The first 4 engine aircraft was built & flown by Igor Sikorsky of Russia.
(SS, Internet, 5/13/97)(HN, 5/13/98)
1913 Aug 20, 700 feet above Buc, France, parachutist Adolphe Pegoud becomes the first person to jump from an airplane and land safely.
(HN, 8/20/00)(MC, 8/20/02)
1913 Franz Schneider patented a gun synchronizing device in Germany, France and Great Britain. In 1915 it was developed as the "Fokker Scourge" to fire bullets through an airplanes propellers.
(ON, 10/02, p.8)
1913-1931 The famous Schneider Trophy contests between over this period were meant to prove the practicality of floatplanes and seaplanes, but the emphasis on speed produced a horsepower race that led to military applications, among them the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine that powered the WWII aircraft: Supermarine Spitfire. The Supermarine Spitfire was one of the beneficiaries of an engine that the Rolls-Royce Company built to power Britain’s race contender, the S.6B seaplane racer designed by Reginald Mitchell. Rolls continued development of the engine after the races ended and it was installed in a sleek landplane fighter also designed by Mitchell, and christened against his personal preference as the Spitfire. The Merlin would go on to power many other aircraft.
(HN, 9/30/02)
1914 Jan 4, In San Francisco pilot Lincoln Beachey looped the loop a record seven times in his biplane in an aerial show before a crowd of some 25,000 people. Motion pictures were taken from tethered balloon.
(SSFC, 1/5/14, p.42)
1914 Jan, The St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line became the world’s first regularly scheduled airline service.
(NPub, 2002, p.9)
1914 Jun 2, Glenn Curtiss flew his Langley Aerodrome.
(SC, 6/2/02)
1914 Jun 6, The 1st air flight out of sight of land was made from Scotland to Norway.
(MC, 6/6/02)
1914 Jul 18, US army air service 1st came into being as part of the Signal Corps.
(MC, 7/18/02)
1914 Aug, Alberto Santos-Dumont (1873-1932), Brazilian aviation pioneer, burned his aeronautical papers after French neighbors labeled him a German spy.
(SSFC, 6/28/03, p.M1)
1914 Nov 8, In San Francisco Lincoln Beachey thrilled some 100,000 people with aerial flights from exposition grounds and the wrecking of an artificial warship with bombs dropped from 2,000 to 4,000 feet.
(SSFC, 11/9/14, p.42)
1914 Two-way radio contact was accomplished between pilot and ground control.
(NPub, 2002, p.9)
1915 Mar 3, The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), a NASA forerunner, was created. It was the first US government sponsored organization in support of aviation research and development.
(SC, 3/3/02)(NPub, 2002, p.9)
1915 Mar 14, Lincoln Beachey, air devil, plunged into the shallows of SF Bay and was killed as some 50,000 fans watched his performance during the Panama-Pacific Expo. The battleship USS Oregon recovered the plane and body.
(Ind, 9/5/98, p.5A)
1915 Apr 1, Roland Garros (d.1918), French aviator, shot down 2 German aviators over Belgium, with bullets shot through his propellers. Corp. August Spachholz and Lt. Walter Grosskopf became the 1st to be killed by an enemy pilot flying alone.
(ON, 10/02, p.8)
1915 May 10, A Zeppelin dropped hundreds of bombs on Southend-on-Sea.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1915 Orville Wright (1871-1948) sold his interest in the Wright Company and retired.
(NPub, 2002, p.9)
1916 Sep 2, Two airborne planes communicated directly by radio for the 1st time.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)
1916 The Univ. of Michigan established the nation’s 1st Dept. of Aeronautical Engineering under Prof. Felix Pawlowski.
(MT, Summer/04, p.7)
1916 The German firm BMW began life assembling aircraft engines.
(Econ, 3/12/15, p.64)
1917 Mar 8, Ferdinand von Zeppelin (78), Dutch count, air pioneer, died.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1917 The Manufacturers Aircraft Association was formed under the efforts of Ford lawyer W. Benton Crisp. Royalties of 1% were paid to the Curtiss and Wright companies up to 2 million dollars each. The organization, later named the Manufacturers' Aircraft Association (MAA), continued to unify the air industry and engage in public education endeavors. The MAA was later dissolved, and in 1919, the newly formed Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce (ACCA) stepped in to promote civil aviation.
(ON, 12/11, p.12)(www.aia-aerospace.org/about_aia/aia_at_a_glance/history/)
1918 Apr 1, In England the Royal Flying Corps was replaced by the Royal Air Force.
(AP, 4/1/98)(HN, 4/1/98)(OTD)
1918 Apr 8, The US First Aero Squadron was assigned to the Western Front for the first time on observation duty.
(MC, 4/8/02)
1918 May 13, The first US airmail stamps, featuring a picture of an airplane, were introduced. On some of the initial stamps the airplane was printed upside down; the "inverted Jenny," as it came to be called, became a collector's item. One sheet of 100 stamps got by inspectors.
(SSFC, 11/12/06, p.A2)(AP, 5/13/08)
1918 May 15, The U.S. Post Office and the U.S. Army began regularly scheduled airmail service between Washington and New York through Philadelphia. Lieutenant George L. Boyle, an inexperienced young army pilot, was chosen to make the first flight from Washington. Even with a route map stitched to his breeches, Boyle lost his way and flew south rather than north. The second leg of the Washington--Philadelphia--New York flight, however, took off and arrived in New York on schedule--without the Washington mail. The distance of the route was 218 miles, and one round trip per day was made six days a week. Army Air Service pilots flew the route until August 10, 1918, when the Post Office Department took over the entire operation with its own planes and pilots.
(AP, 5/15/97)(HNPD, 6/15/99)(HNQ, 4/24/01)
1919 Mar 22, The first international airline service was inaugurated on a weekly schedule between Paris and Brussels.
(AP, 3/22/99)
1919 Apr 28, The first jump with an Army Air Corp (rip-cord type) parachute was made by Les Irvin.
(HN, 4/28/98)(MC, 4/28/02)
1919 May 2, The first U.S. air passenger service started.
(HN, 5/2/98)
1919 May 8, The first transatlantic flight took-off by a US Navy seaplane.
(HN, 5/8/98)
1919 May 13, Atlantic City, NJ, became the site of the 1st municipal airport in the US.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)
1919 May 22, The Orteig Prize was offered by New York hotel owner Raymond Orteig for the first allied aviator(s) to fly from New York to Paris or vice versa. This was a few weeks before Alcock and Brown successfully completed the first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orteig_Prize)(Econ, 5/16/15, p.72)
1919 May 27, U.S. Navy Curtiss flying boat NC-4, piloted by Lt. Cmdr. Albert C. Read, arrived safely in Lisbon, Portugal, to become the first aircraft to complete a transatlantic flight. Three aircraft, designated NC-1, NC-3 and NC-4--called "Nancy" boats--had taken off from New York's Rockaway Naval Air Station for Lisbon on May 8, with intermediate stops planned for Newfoundland and the Azores. Only NC-4 completed the 3,925-mile transatlantic flight. Heavy rain and fog forced NC-1 down at sea, where it sank on May 17. NC-3, as depicted in this painting by Ron Weil, came down in rough seas and taxied 200 miles into the harbor at Horta in the Azores.
(HNPD, 5/27/99)
1919 Jun 14, Pilot John William Alcock (1892-1919) and navigator Arthur Witten Brown (1886-1948) took off from St. John’s, Newfoundland, for Clifden, Ireland, on the first nonstop transatlantic flight. The flight lasted 16 hours and 28 minutes and carried the first transatlantic airmail. They won a 10 thousand pound prize, first offered by the Daily Mail in 1913.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Whitten_Brown)(ON, 4/09, p.1)
1919 Jul 19, Raymonde de Larouche (1882-1919), Franch actress and aviatrix, died in an plane crash at Le Crotoy airport in France.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymonde_de_Laroche)
1919 Jul 21, Anthony Fokker established an airplane factory at Hamburg and Amsterdam.
(MC, 7/21/02)
1919 Jul 21, A dirigible crashed through a bank skylight killing 13 in Chicago.
(MC, 7/21/02)
1919 Aug 25, The 1st scheduled passenger service by airplane between Paris and London.
(MC, 8/25/02)
1919 Oct 11, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines made its debut and served a pre-packaged dinner, believed to be the 1st in-flight meal, on a flight between London and Paris.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)(WSJ, 5/31/08, p.A12)
1919 Dec 5, Colombian airline Avianca S.A. was initially registered under the name SCADTA (Colombian-German Air Transport Company).
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avianca)
1919 Dec 18, British pilot John William Alcock (b.1892), enroute to a Paris air show, was killed while making a forced landing in fog near Rouen. He and navigator Arthur Witten Brown (1886-1948) had recently completed the world’s first nonstop transatlantic flight [see June 14].
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Whitten_Brown)(ON, 4/09, p.1)
1919 Chalk’s Ocean Airways was founded to fly tourists and fisherman from Florida to the Bahamas.
(SFC, 12/20/05, p.A4)
1920 Feb 4, Lt. Col Pierre van Ryneveld and Flight Lieutenant Christopher Joseph (Flossie) Quintin-Brand left London from Brooklands Aerodrome in Surrey, England in the Vimy named the Silver Queen in the 1st flight from London to South Africa. Their flight took a total of 45 days with a flight time of 109 hours and 30 minutes.
(http://sapfa.co.za/index.php/2-uncategorised/234-1920-s-london-to-cape-town)
1920 Jul 27, A radio compass was used for 1st time for aircraft navigation.
(MC, 7/27/02)
1920 Sep 8, New York-to-San Francisco air mail service was inaugurated. US postal planes began flying across the country, but these flights took place only in daylight because pilots relied on visual landmarks to navigate.
(www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Government_Role/1918-1924/POL3.htm)(AP, 9/8/00)
1920 Australia-based Qantas Airlines was founded as Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services Ltd. Regular passenger service began in 1922.
(AP, 7/25/08)(http://airlines.ws/qantas.htm)
1921 Feb 22, An air mail plane left San Francisco at 4:30 a.m., landing at New York (Hazelhurst Field, L. I., N. Y.) at 4:50 p.m. on February 23.
(www.airmailpioneers.org/history/Sagahistory.htm)
1921 Feb 24, A giant plane was completed at 421 Colyton Street, Los Angeles. The "leviathan of the Skies" or "The Cloudster," was designed by Donald Douglas and was the first to carry a load greater than it own weight.
(www.lahistoryarchive.org)
1921 Mar 23, Arthur G. Hamilton set a new parachute record, safely jumping 24,400 feet.
(HN, 3/23/98)
1921 Jul 21, Gen. Billy Mitchell flew off with a payload of makeshift aerial bombs and sank the former German battle ship Ostfriesland off Hampton Roads, Virginia; the 1st time a battleship was ever sunk by an airplane.
(MC, 7/21/02)
1921 Aug 3, The 1st aerial crop dusting was in Troy, Ohio, to kill caterpillars.
(SC, 8/3/02)
1921 Nov 21, The 1st mid-air refueling was done by hand over Long Beach on a Curtiss JN-4.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)
1921 Dec 1, The US Navy flew the first nonrigid dirigible to use helium; the C-7 traveled from Hampton Roads, Va., to Washington.
(AP, 12/1/06)
1922 Mar 23, 1st airplane landed at the US Capitol in Washington DC.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1922 Jun 16, Henry Berliner demonstrated his helicopter to US Bureau of Aeronautics.
(MC, 6/16/02)
1922 Nov 2, Australian Qantas airways began service.
(www.qantas.com.au/travel/airlines/history-birthplace/global/en)
1923 Feb 9, Soviet Aeroflot airlines formed.
(MC, 2/9/02)
1923 May 2, Lieutenants Okaley Kelly and John Macready took off from New York for the West Coast on what would become the first successful nonstop transcontinental flight.
(HN, 5/2/02)
1923 May 3, The 1st non-stop flight across the US was completed. Army lieutenants Kelly and Macready arrived in San Diego from New York in 26 hours and 50 minutes.
(HFA, '96, p.30)(HN, 4/6/98)(NPub, 2002, p.10)
1923 Jun 27, The first in-flight refueling occurred over San Diego, Ca.
(NPub, 2002, p.10)
1923 Amelia Earhart became the 16th woman to be issue a pilot’s license by the Federation Aeronautique Internationale.
(ON, 12/07, p.8)
1924 Mar 17, Four Douglas army aircraft left Los Angeles for an around the world flight.
(HN, 3/17/98)
1924 Apr 1, Imperial Airways was formed in Britain.
(OTD)
1924 Apr 6, Four open-cockpit biplanes took off from Seattle for a round the world flight. Two of the planes made it back. They flew 26,000 miles in 363 hours over a 175 days at an average speed of 77 mph. The US Congress had to approve the financing and the airplanes were built by Douglas Aircraft. [see May 3, 1923]
(Hem., 2/96, p.43)(HN, 4/6/98)
1924 Jul 1, A regular transcontinental airmail service formed between NYC and SF.
(MC, 7/1/02)
1924 Sep 28, Two US Army planes landed in Seattle, Wash., having completed the first round-the-world flight in 175 days. Three U.S. Army aircraft arrived in Seattle, Washington, after completing a 22 day round-the-world flight.
(AP, 9/28/97)(HN, 9/28/98)
1925 Apr 6, A Deutsche Lufthansa flight debuted an in-flight movie, a silent-reel short.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)
1925 Sep 3, The dirigible "Shenandoah" crashed near Caldwell Ohio, 13 die. The 682-foot Shenandoah, a dirigible built by the U.S. Navy in 1923, broke apart in mid-air, killing 14 persons aboard.
(HNQ, 1/2/00)(MC, 9/3/01)
1926 May 9, Americans Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett made the first flight over the North Pole. [see 1888-1957, Byrd] Two teams of aviators competed to be the first to fly over the North Pole. American Navy Lt. Cmdr. Richard E. Byrd and pilot Floyd Bennett claimed victory when they circled the North Pole. But even today experts suspect that faulty navigation caused Byrd to miss the North Pole. Later archivists determined that Byrd was probably 150 miles short of the pole. His tri-motor Fokker monoplane named Josephine Ford probably came within 2.25 degrees of the pole.
(HFA, ‘96, p.30)(TMC, 1994, p.1926)(SFC, 5/9/96, p.A-13)(HN, 5/9/98)(HNPD, 5/13/99)
1926 May 12, Italian Col. Umberto Nobile of the Italian army piloted his Norge dirigible over the North Pole with Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen.
(ON, 10/00, p.5)
1926 Jul 2, The U.S. Army Air Corps was created by Congress. The Distinguish Flying Cross was authorized.
(AP, 7/2/97)(HN, 7/2/98)(SC, 7/2/02)
1927 Mar 23, Captain Hawthorne Gray set a new balloon record soaring to 28,510 feet.
(HN, 3/23/98)
1927 Apr 26, US Navy officers Cmdr. Noel Davis and Lt. Stanton Wooster were killed when their aircraft crashed near New York while trying to take off with a huge load of fuel for a final test flight prior to an attempt to cross the Atlantic.
(ON, 2/08, p.1)
1927 Apr 29, Construction of the Spirit of St Louis was completed. B.F. Mahoney was the ‘mystery man’ behind the Ryan Aeronautical Company that built Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis. Engineer Donald Hall designed the $10,580 plane to carry 400 gallons of fuel.
(HN, 4/29/98)(ON, 2/08, p.1)
1927 May 4, The first balloon flight over 40,000 feet was made.
(HN, 5/4/98)
1927 May 7, Mills Field, later SFO, opened for business with Captain Frank A. Flynn as superintendent.
(SFEC, 4/25/99, Z1 p.4)(Ind, 5/5/01, 5A)(SFC, 3/26/04, p.F7)
1927 May 8, French pilots Charles Nungesser and Francois Coli took off from Paris in their airplane named L’Oiseau Blanc (the White Bird), in an attempt to cross the Atlantic. Pilots and plane vanished during the flight.
(ON, 2/08, p.2)
1927 May 10, US aviator Charles Augustus Lindbergh (1902-1974) picked up his plane, “The Spirit of St. Louis," in San Diego and flew it to St. Louis. The next day he continued to New York using railroad maps that he picked up in a drugstore for 50 cents each. The plane was powered by an air-cooled Whirlwind engine built by Ryan Aeronautical Company. Charles Fayette Taylor (1895-1996) worked on the engine design team. Taylor later authored "The Internal Combustion Engine in Theory and Practice."
(WUD, 1994, p.832)(SFC, 6/23/96, Z1 p.2)(SFC, 6/30/96, p.B6)(ON, 2/08, p.2)
1927 May 20, Charles Lindbergh (25) took off from Roosevelt Field in Long Island, NY, at 7:40 AM aboard the Spirit of St. Louis on his historic solo flight to France. The Minnesota native had decided to compete for a $25,000 prize, offered in 1919 by Raymond Orteig, NY hotel owner, to the first pilot to complete the feat. The Spirit of St. Louis, was capable of flying 4,000 miles on 425 gallons of fuel. His greatest problems on the 33-hour, 30-minute flight were staying awake and keeping ice from forming on the airplane’s wings.
(AP, 5/20/97)(HN, 5/20/98)(HNPD, 5/21/00)(USAW, 5/19/02, p.26)(ON, 2/08, p.1)
1927 May 21, Charles Lindbergh (Lucky Lindy) landed in Le Bourget Field in Paris after a 33.5-hour nonstop, first solo flight from Roosevelt Field on New York’s Long Island. In 1953 Lindbergh authored his memoir “The Spirit of St. Louis."
(F, 10/7/96, p.68)(AP, 5/21/97)(SFC, 10/20/99, p.C10)(ON, 2/08, p.1)
1927 Aug, Hermann Koehl attempted a nonstop flight from Dessau, Germany, to North America in a Junkers monoplane, the Bremen. He reached Ireland and was forced to turn back.
(ON, 9/02, p.5)
1927 Oct 28, Pan Am Airways launched the first scheduled international flight. Pan Am was founded this year as a mail carrier to Havana by Juan Terry Trippe. In 2000 Barnaby Conrad III authored "Pan Am: An Aviation Legend."
(HN, 10/28/98)(SFEM, 2/13/00, p.30)
1927 The Washington Airport opened in DC next to Hoover field, which had opened a year earlier. The two merged in 1930 to form the Washington-Hoover Airport.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan_Washington_National_Airport)
1927 Japan's Imperial Aeronautics Association launched a competition for a non-stop flight across the Pacific Ocean. The Ashi Shimbun newspaper offered a $25,000 prize.
(ON, 1/03, p.10)
1928 Feb 7, Australian Bert Hinkler took off from London in a two-seat Avro 581E Avian biplane on the first leg of his solo flight from England to Australia. On February 22, after flying 128 hours in less than 16 days, Hinkler's 11,250-mile adventure ended in Darwin, Australia.
(HNQ, 2/7/01)
1928 Apr 12, Hermann Koehl attempted a 2nd nonstop flight Europe to North America in a Junkers monoplane, the Bremen. Koehl along with a navigator and passenger departed from Ireland and reached Greenly Island, Quebec, the next day.
(ON, 9/02, p.5)
1928 Apr 14, The first air service from SF to Los Angeles began. Mines Field opened in LA on a 640-acre portion of the 3,000-acre Bennett Rancho, which had become a popular landing strip for area aviators.
(SFEC, 4/25/99, Z1 p.4)(Hem, 9/04, p.34)
1928 May 1, Pitcairn Airlines (later Eastern) began service.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1928 May 24, The dirigible Italia crashed while attempting to reach Spitzbergen. Nine men survived the initial crash. In 2000 Wilbur Cross authored "Disaster at the Pole," a revised edition of the 1960 version of the disaster led by Italian aviator Umberto Nobile.
(ON, 10/00, p.6)(SSFC, 1/7/01, Par p.14)
1928 May 31, The first flight over the Pacific took off from Oakland. Charles Kingsford-Smith & Charles Ulm departed from Oakland, Ca., and arrived in Australia on June 9.
(HN, 5/31/98)(NPub, 2002, p.11)
1928 Jun 3, Commander Amelia Earhart departed with pilot Bill Stultz from Boston Harbor to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and then to Trepassey, Newfoundland. From there on June 17 they embarked on a trans-Atlantic flight from Newfoundland to Wales.
(AP, 6/17/97)(HNQ, 3/8/02)(ON, 12/07, p.8)
1928 Jun 9, Charles Kingsford-Smith & Charles Ulm were the 1st to fly across the Pacific when they ended their flight from California to Brisbane, Australia.
(NPub, 2002, p.11)
1928 Jun 17, Amelia Earhart embarked on a trans-Atlantic flight from Newfoundland to Wales with pilots Wilmer Stultz and Louis Gordon, becoming the first woman to make the trip as a passenger.
(ON, 12/07, p.9)(AP, 6/17/08)
1928 Jun 18, Aviator Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean as she completed a flight from Newfoundland to Wales in about 21 hours as a passenger.
(AP, 6/18/97)(HN, 6/18/98)(HNQ, 3/8/02)
1928 Jun28-1928 Jun 29, Albert Hegenbeerger and Lester Maitland accomplished the first nonstop flight across the Pacific.
(NPub, 2002, p.12)
1928 Aug 16, The US Navy selected the Oakland municipal airport as the site of a US Naval Reserve aviation base.
(SFC, 8/15/03, p.E9)
1928 Aug, Amelia Earhart became the 1st woman to make back-to-back solo transcontinental flights as she flew across back forth across America.
(ON, 12/07, p.9)
1928 Oct 25, An American group, led by James A. Talbot of Richfield Oil, acquired control of the American airplane business of Anthony H.G. Fokker.
(SFC, 10/24/03, p.E10)
1928 Oct 26, The Pickwick Stage System filed documents to form a passenger airplane service connecting SF, San Diego and Chicago. It planned to use a fleet of tri-motored, 12 passenger Bach monoplanes.
(SFC, 10/24/03, p.E10)
1928 Transcontinental Air Transport, the forerunner of Trans World Airlines (TWA), was incorporated. Thomas B. Eastland acquired enough shares to become the West Coast Director. Clement M. Keys was president and hired Charles Lindbergh as chairman of the technical committee.
(Ind, 11/16/02, 5A)
1928 The first diesel powered aircraft, a modified Stinson, took to the air.
(Econ, 9/6/08, TQ p.8)
1929 Jan 2, Evelyn "Bobbi" Trout (d.2003 at 97) shattered the female pilot endurance record of 8 hours with a flight of 12 hours and 11 minutes.
(SFC, 2/1/03, p.A18)
1929 Mar 26, The SF board of Supervisors voted 14-1 to remove Captain Frank A. Flynn from his post as superintendent of Mills Field, following the story of a Lindbergh complaint. Charles Lindbergh had come to San Francisco’s Airport, Mills Field, to promote his airline, Transcontinental Air Transport. His plane was forced off the field by another plane and became stuck in the mud.
(SFEC, 6/29/97, AS p.6)(SFC, 3/26/04, p.F7)
1929 Jul 16, Col. Charles Lindbergh was severely angered when he realized a sound-camera man had recorded a private conversation using a concealed microphone. The “voice that has never been filmed" left San Francisco’s Mills Field airport on the cameraman’s reel.
(SFC, 7/16/04, p.F4)
1929 Jul, Transcontinental Air Transport began regularly scheduled between NY and LA. Service took 48 hours with trains for night travel. A ticket cost $310. [see Oct 23]
(Ind, 11/16/02, 5A)
1929 Aug 7, Germany’s Graf Zeppelin airship embarked from Lakehurst, New Jersey, on the first round-the-world passenger voyage.
(www.airships.net/blog/graf-zeppelin-round-the-world-flight-august-1929)(Hem., 2/96, p.43)
1929 Aug 18, The first cross-country women's air derby began. Louise McPhetride Thaden won first prize in the heavier-plane division, while Phoebe Fairgrave Omlie finished first in the lighter-plane category.
(HN, 8/18/98)
1929 Aug 25, Graf Zeppelin passed over SF for LA following a trans-Pacific voyage.
(MC, 8/25/02)
1929 Aug 29, The Graf Zeppelin returned to Lakehurst, New Jersey, after 21 days 4 hours, a new world record.
(Hem., 2/96, p.43)(MC, 8/29/01)(ON, 1/03, p.10)
1929 Sep 1, Maddux Air began the 1st direct aerial passenger service from SF to NY. The 48 hour trip included 2 nights on trains.
(SSFC, 8/22/04, p.F8)
1929 Sep 24, U.S. Army pilot Lt. James H. Doolittle guided a Consolidated NY2 Biplane over Mitchel Field in New York in the first all-instrument flight.
(AP, 9/24/97)(HN, 9/24/98)
1929 Sep 30, The 1st manned rocket plane flight was made by auto maker Fritz von Opel at Frankfurt-am-Main [see May 29, 1928].
(http://strangevehicles.greyfalcon.us/OPEL%20ROCKET%20VEHICLES.htm)
1929 Oct 23, First transcontinental air service began from New York to Los Angeles. [see July]
(HN, 10/23/98)
1929 Oct 28, Universal Pictures joined with Transcontinental Air Transport to offer moving pictures for air passengers bound for California.
(SFC, 10/29/04, p.F11)
1929 Nov 28, Commander Richard E. Byrd embarked on the first South Pole flight.
(NPub, 2002, p.12)
1929 Nov 29, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Richard E. Byrd radioed that he'd made the first airplane flight over the South Pole: "My calculations indicate that we have reached vicinity of South Pole." He was wrong [see 1888-1957, Byrd].
(TMC, 1994, p.1929)(HFA, '96, p.42)(AP, 11/29/97)(NPub, 2002, p.12)
1929 Hangar 1, the first modern air terminal of LA, was completed at Mines Field in Spanish Colonial Revival style. In 2005 it was still part of LAX.
(Hem., 5/97, p.70)(Hem, 9/04, p.34)
1929 Amelia Earhart and other female aviation pioneers founded the Ninety-Nines (a women’s pilot’s association). Only about 150 of the nation’s 9,800 licensed pilots were women. While the number of female pilots increased, it was stunted by a Depression-era society no longer tolerant of the feminist activism of the 1920s.
(HNQ, 3/16/01)
1929 St. Louis hired Archie William League as the first US air traffic controller. His first "control tower" at Lambert Field consisted of a wheelbarrow on which he mounted a beach umbrella for the summer heat. In it he carried a beach chair, his lunch, water, a notepad and a pair of signal flags to direct the aircraft.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archie_League)
1929 Ira C. Eaker and three other pilots set an endurance record for flying. Eaker set flying records in 1929 and 1936, became the commander of VIII Bomber Command and later the entire Eighth Air Force in World War II.
(HNQ, 3/9/01)
1929 William Green developed the first automatic pilot used on an airliner.
(NPub, 2002, p.12)(www.spaceday.org/index.php/History-of-Flight-Timeline.html)
1929 The pilot of a Fokker C.IV crashed in Vancouver, Canada, during an attempt to fly nonstop from Seattle to Tokyo. The 1923 plane became a tourist attraction, then burned and ended up in Maine, where it was restored for the Owls Head Transportation Museum.
(SFC, 9/13/07, p.E3)
1930 Jan 6, Aviator Douglas Campbell, the 1st American ace of WW I, visited C.A. “Mother" Tusch at 2211 Union St. in Berkeley, Ca. Tusch’s home was known s the “Hangar" because it was one of the most complete privately owned aviation museums in America.
(SFC, 1/7/05, p.F6)
1930 Apr 6, 1st transcontinental glider tow was completed.
(MC, 4/6/02)
1930 Apr 20, Charles (d.1974) and Anne Lindbergh (d.2001 at 94) set a transcontinental speed record flying from Los Angeles to New York in 14 hours and 45 minutes. Anne was 7 months pregnant. [see Jan 20]
(SFC, 2/8/01, p.C2)
1930 May 15, Ellen Church, the first airline stewardess, went on duty aboard an Oakland-to-Chicago flight operated by Boeing Air Transport, a forerunner of United Airlines.
(HN, 5/15/98)(AP, 5/15/07)
1930 May 20, The first airplane, piloted by Charles Nicholson, was catapulted from a dirigible.
(HN, 5/20/98)(MC, 5/20/02)
1930 May 24, Amy Johnson became the first woman to fly from England to Australia.
(HN, 5/24/98)
1930 Aug 13, Captain Frank M. Hawks, superintendent of the Aviation Division of Texaco, flew a red-and-white Travel Air monoplane from Los Angeles to New York in 12 hours, 25 minutes and 3 seconds. According to Hawks' own widely publicized account, the Travel Air performed flawlessly, with an average airspeed of 215 mph. Hawks made three 15-minute refueling stops during the 2,510-mile journey. He battled a rainstorm, crosswinds, hunger and a thick haze that made "the ground barely visible at 8,000 feet," but reached New York City in time for dinner.
(HNPD, 8/20/99)
1930 Aug 18, Eastern Airlines began passenger service.
(MC, 8/18/02)
1930 Sep 2, The first non-stop airplane flight from Europe to the US was completed as Captain Dieudonne Coste and Maurice Bellonte of France arrived in Valley Stream, New York, aboard a Breguet biplane. The plane was known as "The Question Mark" because it bore a large question mark, instead of a name, on each side.
(AP, 9/2/08)
1930 Dec 10, Lady aviator Ruth Nichols set a new women's record for coast to coast flight, traveling from Los Angeles to New York in 13 hours 22 minutes.
(NY Times, 11/12/1930, p.1)
1931 Feb 7, Amelia Earhart (33), aviatrix, married George Palmer Putnam (45), divorced heir to a publishing empire in Noank, Conn.
(SFEM, 1/25/98, p.31)(HN, 2/7/99)
1931 Mar, United Aircraft-Transport Corp. acquired National Air Transport. 3 months later it bought Varney Air Lines and incorporated as United Air Lines Inc.
(WSJ, 12/6/02, p.B5)
1931 May 18, Japanese pilot Seiji Yoshihara crashed his plane in the Pacific Ocean while trying to be the first to cross the ocean nonstop. He was picked up seven hours later by a passing ship.
(HN, 5/18/99)
1931 May 27, Piccard and Knipfer made the first flight into stratosphere, by balloon.
(HN, 5/27/98)
1931 Jun 23, Wiley Post and Harold Gatty flew in a single-engine plane, the Winnie Mae, from New York on a round-the-world flight and returned to New York on July 1 after 8 days, 15 hrs, and 51 min., a new world record.
(AP, 6/23/97)(ON, 12/03, p.10)(NPub, 2002, p.12)
1931 Jul 28, Clyde Panghorn and Hugh Herndon took off from Roosevelt Field, NY, in an attempt to set a round-the world speed record. They got delayed in Siberia and changed their plan to pursue a record non-stop flight from Japan to the US. Herndon's mother, an heiress of Standard Oil Company money, financed most of the trip.
(ON, 1/03, p.10)
1931 Aug, Clyde Panghorn and Hugh Herndon landed at Japan's Tachikawa Airport and were arraigned for landing illegally. They paid fines of $1,050 apiece to be released.
(ON, 1/03, p.10)
1931 Oct 2, Aerial circus star Clyde Pangborn and playboy Hugh Herndon, Jr. set off in Miss Veedol to complete the first nonstop flight across the Pacific Ocean from Sabishiro Beach in Misawa City, Japan. A young boy gave Panghorn 5 apples from Misawa City.
(HN, 10/2/99)(ON, 1/03, p.10)
1931 Oct 3, Clyde Pangborn and Hugh Herndon, Jr. belly landed Miss Veedol, a Bellanca CH-200 monoplane, in Wenatchee, Wa., to complete the first nonstop flight across the Pacific Ocean from Japan. They won a $25,000 prize from the Japanese Ashi Shimbun newspaper. Panghorn sent apple cuttings from Wenatchee's Richard Delicious apples to Japan which were soon distributed across Japan.
(ON, 1/03, p.10)
1931-1975 Raymond Kelly (d.2003 at 102), flight engineer, shot 8mm movies of various flights. A 45-minute compilation was later made: "44 years in Aviation, 1931-1975," and kept at the national Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.
(SFC, 10/8/03, p.A27)
1932 Mar 20, The German dirigible, Graf Zepplin, made the first flight to South America on regular schedule.
(HN, 3/20/98)
1932 May 20, Amelia Earhart took off from Newfoundland to become the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. Because of weather and equipment problems, Earhart set down in Northern Ireland after 13 ½ hours instead of her intended destination, France.
(HFA, '96, p.30)(HN, 5/20/01)(AP, 5/20/07)(ON, 12/07, p.9)
1932 May 21, Amelia Earhart made her first transatlantic solo flight from Newfoundland to Ireland.
(HN, 5/21/98)(AP, 5/20/97)
1932 Jul 23, Alberto Santos-Dumont (b.1873), aviation pioneer, hanged himself in Guaraja, Brazil after hearing a bomber discharge its load on fellow countrymen. In 2003 Paul Hoffman authored "Wings of Madness: Alberto Santos-Dumont and the Invention of Flight."
(SSFC, 6/28/03, p.M1)
1932 Aug 18, Auguste Piccard and Max Cosijns reached 16,201m in a balloon.
(MC, 8/18/02)
1932 Aug 24, Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly nonstop across the United States, traveling from Los Angeles to Newark, N.J., in just over 19 hours.
(AP, 8/24/97)
1932 Aug 25, Amelia Earhart completed a transcontinental flight.
(chblue.com, 8/25/01)
1932 Oct 15, In India J.R.D Tata began flying regular mail service. India’s first airline, Air India, was founded by the Tata family. In 1953 Air India was nationalized. In 2007 it merged with Indian Airlines.
(www.airindia.com/SBCMS/Webpages/JRD.aspx?MID=196#)(Econ, 3/23/13, p.72)(Econ 7/8/17, p.59)
1932 Night flying was introduced in the US and transcontinental travel was cut to 24 hours.
(Ind, 11/16/02, 5A)
1933 Feb 8, The 1st flight of all-metal Boeing 247.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1933 Apr 3, The dirigible Akron crashed into the Atlantic off of New Jersey and killed 73 0f the 76 men aboard.
(SFC, 9/20/97, p.A21)
1933 Apr 13, The first flight over Mount Everest was completed by Lord Clydesdale.
(HN, 4/13/98)
1933 Jul 1, Italian Air Force Gen. Italo Balbo led a flight of twenty-four flying boats on a round-trip flight from Rome to the Century of Progress in Chicago, Illinois. The flight had seven legs and ended on Lake Michigan near Burnham Park on Aug 12. In honor of this feat, Mussolini donated a column from Ostia to the city of Chicago; it can still be seen along the Lakefront Trail, a little south of Soldier Field.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italo_Balbo)
1933 Jul 15, Wiley Post began the 1st solo flight around world.
(MC, 7/15/02)(ON, 12/03, p.12)
1933 Jul 22, American aviator Wiley Post completed the first solo flight around the world as he returned to New York's Floyd Bennett Field after traveling for 7 days, 18 and 3/4 hours.
(AP, 7/22/08)
1933 Pan American Airlines took over China Airways, founded by Clement Keys, and renamed it China National Aviation Corp. (CNAC).
(SFEM, 2/13/00, p.38)
1933 The first unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was the radio-controlled “Fairey Queen" biplane. It was catapulted into the air and survived 2 hours of live fire from a British warship. In 1934 Britain’s Air Ministry ordered 420 such aircraft, known as the Queen Bee, which gave rise to the word drone to describe such aircraft.
(Econ, 12/8/07, TQ p.23)
1934 May 18, TWA began commercial service.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1934 Aug 2, The 1st airplane train towed 3 mail gliders behind it.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1935 Jan 1, Eastern Airlines hired Eddie Rickenbacker as GM.
(MC, 1/1/02)
1935 Jan 1, Helen Richey became the 1st woman employed as an airplane pilot. She resigned 10 months later after the all-male pilot's union refused to accept her.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)
1935 Jan 11, Aviator Amelia Earhart began a trip from Honolulu to Oakland, Calif., becoming the first woman to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean.
(AP, 1/11/98)
1935 Feb 12, The 785-foot USS Macon, the last US Navy dirigible (ZRS-5), crashed on its 55th flight off the coast of California, killing two people. After takeoff from Point Sur, California, a gust of wind tore off the ship's upper fin, deflating its gas cells and causing the ship to fall into the sea. Two of Macon's 83 crewmen died in the accident. The U.S. Navy lost the airships Shenandoah in 1925 and Akron in 1933. Some considered airships too dangerous for the program to continue at that point, and work on them in the United States halted temporarily.
(HNQ, 2/7/99)(SFC, 9/27/06, p.B1)
1935 Mar 11, Hermann Goering made the German Air Force an official organ of the Reich.
(HN, 3/11/98)(MC, 3/11/02)
1935 Aug 15, Humorist Will Rogers (55), American comedian and "cowboy philosopher," and aviation pioneer Wiley Post (36) were killed when their airplane crashed near Point Barrow, Alaska. Rogers once said: "Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there."
(AP, 8/15/97)(HN, 8/15/98)(MC, 8/15/02)
1935 Sep 12, Millionaire Howard Hughes flew his own designed plane at 352.46 mph.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1935 Oct 30, The US Army Air Corps held a competition to see which company would build the country’s next-generation of long-range bombers. Boeing’s “flying fortress" crashed shortly after takeoff and Martin and Douglas won by default.
(Econ, 1/16/10, p.84)
1935 Nov 22, Pan Am inaugurated the first transpacific airmail service, San Francisco to Manila. The Pan Am China Clipper under Captain Ed Musick took off from Alameda Point bound for the Philippines with 111,000 letters. It was the company's first trans-Pacific flight. The plane was a 25-ton Martin M-130 flying boat with a wingspan of 130 feet, and was the largest aircraft in world service.
(HN, 11/22/98)(Ind, 5/1/99, p.5A)(SFEM, 2/13/00, p.35)(NPub, 2002, p.13)
1935 Dec 1, The fist airway traffic control center went into operation.
(NPub, 2002, p.13)
1935 Dec, The fist Douglas DC-3 airplane was introduced. By 1938 it carried the bulk of American air traffic. It was the first practical passenger plane and stemmed from the DC-1, whose design was led by Arthur E. Raymond (d.1999 at 99). Raymond helped found the Rand Corp. in 1948.
(SFC, 3/27/99, p.C2)(NPub, 2002, p.13)
1935 The British de Havilland DH82B Queen Bee, a remote controlled aircraft, entered military service.
{Britain, Aviation}
(Econ 6/10/17, TQ p.4)
1935-1945 There were 12,731 B-17 bomber airplanes built. Nicknamed the "Flying Fortress," over 4,000 never returned from combat.
(WSJ, 9/9/98, p.A20)
1936 Jan 14, American explorer Lincoln Ellsworth and Canadian pilot Herbert Hollick-Kenyon were rescued by the research ship Discovery II. The pair had made the first flight across Antarctica, 2,300 miles from the Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea. They landed when their plane's engine faltered, and waited in the previously constructed shelter at Little America for a month to be picked up. After his earlier attempts to cross Antarctica failed, Ellsworth set out with Hollick-Kenyon in the Northrop Gamma monoplane, Polar Star, and succeeded. Part of the area that Ellsworth and Hollick-Kenyon flew over in 1935 has been named the Ellsworth Highlands.
(HNPD, 1/14/99)(AH, 2/06, p.14)
1936 Mar 4, The 1st test flight of airship Hindenburg was made in Germany.
(www.airships.net/hindenburg)
1936 Mar 5, Spitfire made it's 1st flight at the Eastleigh Aerodrome in Southampton, England.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1936 Apr 18, Pan-Am Clipper began regular passenger flights from SF to Honolulu.
(MC, 4/18/02)
1936 May 6, The Hindenburg airship departed Germany and on the 9th on May, it arrived at Lakehurst, N.J., having completed the first scheduled transatlantic dirigible flight.
(www.airships.net/hindenburg/flight-schedule/maiden-voyage/passenger-account)
1936 Jun 26, The 1st flight of Fw61 helicopter.
(MC, 6/26/02)
1936 Sep 2, The 1st transatlantic round-trip air flight took place. [see Sep 6]
(MC, 9/2/01)
1936 Sep 6, Aviator Beryl Markham flew the first east-to-west solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. [see Sep 2]
(HN, 9/6/00)
1936 The multi-airlines magazine "Airlanes" was begun to popularize passenger flying.
(Hem, 11/02, p.53)
1937 Jan 19, Millionaire Howard Hughes set a transcontinental air record by flying his monoplane from Los Angeles to Newark, N.J., in seven hours, 28 minutes and 25 seconds.
(AP, 1/19/06)
1937 Mar 17, Amelia Earhart took off from Oakland, Ca., in an attempt to become the first pilot to fly around the globe at the equator.
(SFC, 3/1/97, p.A8)
1937 Apr 25, Clem Sohn (26), air show performer, died when his chute failed to open.
(SS, 4/25/02)
1937 May 6, At 7:25 p.m. the giant German airship (dirigible or zeppelin) Hindenburg burst into flames and crashed to the ground as it attempted to dock with a mooring mast at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey. Carrying 36 passengers and 61 crew, Hindenburg left Frankfurt on May 4 for its first transatlantic voyage of the 1937 season. A total of 36 died when the fire ignited the 16 hydrogen-filled cells and destroyed the zeppelin in only 34 seconds. It was 803 feet long and had private rooms for 50 passengers. It had an 11,000 mile range. A newsreel film of the Hindenburg Disaster was made. The true cause of the disaster remains a mystery, although crash investigators considered claims that Hindenburg was lost due to sabotage or an accidental charge of static electricity.
(TMC, 1994, p.1937)(Hem., 1/96, p.108)(AP, 5/6/97)(SFC,11/21/97, p.C17)(HNPD, 5/6/00)
1937 Gibbs Field opened in San Diego, Ca. On May 20, 1950, it was formally re-dedicated as Montgomery Field in honor of John Montgomery, the man who made the first controlled flight in a fixed wing craft (1883).
(GenIV, Winter 04/05)
1937 In Iceland an airline was founded that developed into Icelandair.
(WSJ, 10/14/08, p.B10)
1938 Jun 7, Boeing 314 Clipper flying boat was 1st flown (Eddie Allen).
(SC, 6/7/02)
1938 Jun 23, The Civil Aeronautics Authority was established. Nevada Sen. Patrick McCarran wrote the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938, which put the government in charge of regulating airline fares and accident investigations.
(https://tinyurl.com/y75ama6o)(AP, 6/23/97)
1938 Jul 10, Howard Hughes and the "Yankee Clipper" began the 1st passenger flight around the world flight from NYC. [see Jul 14]
(MC, 7/10/02)
1938 Jul 14, Howard Hughes landed at Floyd Bennet Field in NY with a crew of four after flying around the world in 3 days, 19 hours, and 17 min., a new record.
(Hem., 2/96, p.44)
1938 Jul 18, Douglas "Wrong Way" Corrigan arrived in Ireland. He had left NY for Calif. [see Jul 17]
(MC, 7/18/02)
1939 Mar 3, Eleanor Roosevelt christened Pan Am's new Boeing built Yankee Clipper.
(SFEM, 2/13/00, p.38)
1939 May 20, Regular trans-Atlantic air mail service began as a Pan American Airways plane, the Yankee Clipper, took off from Port Washington, N.Y., bound for Marseilles, France.
(AP, 5/20/97)(www.airliner.net/pan-am-clipper-flying-boat/transatlantic-airline-service/)
1939 Jun 28, Pan American Airways began regular trans-Atlantic passenger air service as the "Dixie Clipper" left Port Washington, N.Y., for Portugal.
(AP, 6/28/99)(NPub, 2002, p.13)
1939 Jul 3, Ernst Heinkel demonstrated an 800-kph rocket plane to Hitler.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1939 Aug 27, The world's first jet-propelled plane, the Heinkel He-178, made its first flight at Marienehe, north Germany. Hans von Ohain’s aircraft became the first jet-powered airplane to fly. It remained airborne for 7 minutes. Erich Warsitz made the 1st jet-propelled flight.
(SFC, 8/10/96, p.A20)(Reuters, 8/28/01)(MC, 8/27/01)
1939 Oct 15, The New York Municipal Airport was dedicated. It was the largest, most advanced commercial airport in the world. Its new terminal featured innovative design that kept arriving and departing passengers separated on two levels for greater efficiency. It was also terminals adorned with Art Deco details and fine restaurants and a rooftop viewing promenade as well as many technological details that made flying safer and less expensive. On Mar 31, 1940, the new airport was rechristened LaGuardia Airport after the mayor, who had been a bomber pilot in World War I and whose interest in aviation lasted throughout his lifetime, barely a month after it opened.
(www.arcadiapublishing.com/news_article.html?id=1816)(AP, 10/15/97)
1939 Dec 2, New York's Municipal Airport began operations as an airliner from Chicago landed at one minute after midnight. The North Beach Airport opened in Queens, NYC, with 2 levels for passenger circulation. It was renamed LaGuardia on March 31, 1940.
(Hem., 5/97, p.70)(AP, 12/2/98)
1940 Mar 31, The New York Municipal Airport, opened in October, 1939, was renamed La Guardia airport, after the mayor, who had been a bomber pilot in World War I and whose interest in aviation lasted throughout his lifetime, barely a month after it opened.
(www.arcadiapublishing.com/news_article.html?id=1816)
1940 May 20, Igor Sikorsky unveiled his helicopter invention.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1940 May 23, The 1st great dogfight between Spitfires took place.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1940 Jul 18, The 1st successful helicopter flight was made at Stratford, Ct.
(MC, 7/18/02)
1940 Aug 25, The first parachute wedding ceremony was performed by Rev. Homer Tomlinson at the New York City World’s Fair for Arno Rudolphi and Ann Hayward. The minister, bride and groom, best man, maid of honor and four musicians were all suspended from parachutes.
(HN, 8/25/00)
1940 Sep 16, The Luftwaffe bombed the Bristol Aeroplane Company.
(http://www.fishponds.freeuk.com/nluftbri1.htm)
1941 Jan, The US War Dept. formed an all-black flying unit that achieved fame as the Tuskegee Airmen. On June 20 the Tuskegee program officially began with the formation of the 99th Fighter Squadron at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Their 1st mission was in June 1943. African-Americans were barred from the Air Corps until this year, and then were shunted to all-black squadrons.
(SFC, 9/22/99, p.A24) (WSJ, 8/17/99, p.A1)(NPub, 2002, p.14)
1941 Mar 15, Philippine Airlines maid its maiden flight from Manila to Baguio.
(SFC, 9/24/98, p.A19)
1941 Apr 15, 1st helicopter flight of 1 hour duration took place at Stratford, Ct.
(MC, 4/15/02)
1941 May 11, The 1st Messerschmidt 109F was shot down above England.
(MC, 5/11/02)
1941 May 15, 1st British turbojet flew.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1941 Jun 16, The new Washington National Airport opened southwest of DC. In 1945, Congress passed a law that established the airport was legally within Virginia but under the jurisdiction of the federal government. In 1998 it was renamed Ronald Reagan National Airport.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan_Washington_National_Airport)
1942 Jan 6, The Pan American Airways "Pacific Clipper" arrived in New York under Captain Robert Ford. He flew west from New Zealand to avoid Japanese attacks and became the first commercial pilot to make a round-the-world trip. The Pacific Clipper was known as a "flying boat." This flight was 31,500 miles and took 209 hours to complete.
(AP, 1/6/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_314)
1942 Mar 3, Canada's Avro Lancaster military plane made its 1st combat flight.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1942 May 13, A helicopter made its 1st cross-country flight.
(MC, 5/13/02)
1942 Jun 6, The 1st nylon parachute jump was made in Hartford, Ct., by Adeline Gray.
(MC, 6/6/02)
1942 Jun 18, Eric Nessler of France stayed aloft in a glider for 38h 21m.
(MC, 6/18/02)
1942 Jul 18, The German Messerschmitt Me 262 Schwalbe, the first jet-propelled aircraft to fly in combat, made its first flight. Walter Nowotny was a rising your star in the Luftwaffe, chosen by Hitler to be the point man to lead the new jet fighter under the tutelage of General of Fighters Adolf Galland who was assigned to prove the airplane in battle. The Axis hopes were dashed when Nowotny was attacked by American pilots during landing and crashed. Col. Edward R. "Buddy" Haydon was one of those American pilots.
(www.fighter-planes.com/info/me262.htm)(HNQ, 9/2/02)
1942 Aug 1, Ensign Henry C. White, while flying a J4F Widgeon plane, sank U-166 as it approaches the Mississippi River, the first U-boat sunk by the U.S. Coast Guard. In the summer of 1942, German submarines put saboteurs ashore on American beaches. [see Jul 30, 1942]
(HN, 8/1/98)(SFC, 6/9/01, p.A5)
c1942-1945 The Bell P-39 Airacobra was liked for its easy-to-taxi tricycle landing gear and the 37mm cannon that fired through the propeller hub. But the engine mounted behind the pilot led to balance concerns and the lack of a turbosupercharger in the overweight airplane rendered it useless against higher-performing enemy aircraft at higher altitudes. Allied pilots considered it an accomplishment to even survive in the P-39, much less to win in aerial battle against the vaunted Japanese Zero, whose pilots considered the Airacobra "cold meat."
(HNQ, 9/13/02)
1943 Jan 11, President Franklin D. Roosevelt flew to Morocco for a top-secret meeting with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. He had not flown since 1932, when he traveled from Albany, New York, to Chicago to accept his nomination at the Democratic national convention. No U.S. president had previously flown while in office because the Secret Service regarded flying as a dangerous mode of transport. Air travel was the only realistic option for the trip to Casablanca because German submarines lurking in the Atlantic made a surface crossing too risky.
(HNQ, 4/8/02)
1943 Mar 5, The Gloster Meteor first flew. Great Britain emerged from World War II with a decided head start in jet technology, the only Allied power to have had a jet fighter operational in squadron strength before the German surrender on May 8, 1945. On July 21, 1944, the first two production Meteors arrived at Culmhead and formed the nucleus of No. 616 Squadron, Royal Air Force (RAF). Appropriately, the Meteor’s first duty was to defend Britain from attacks by German V-1 pulse jet-powered guided bombs, of which they destroyed 13 by the end of the war. Meteor IIIs of No. 616 Squadron were committed to Continental Europe in the last months of the conflict, but they never got the opportunity to meet the German Me-262A in battle.
(HNQ, 8/21/01)
1943 Mar 19, Airship Canadian Star was torpedoed and sank.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1943 Apr 11, Frank Piasecki, Vertol founder, flew his 1st (single-rotor) craft.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1943 May 15, Halifax bombers sank U-463.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1943 May 22, The 1st US jet fighter was tested. Lockheed Martin had picked Clarence Johnson, a Univ. of Michigan graduate (1932) to develop the nation’s 1st jet fighter. He had already designed the P-38 Lightning. Johnson and his staff developed a jet prototype, the Shooting Star, in 143 days.
(MC, 5/22/02)(MT, Summer/04, p.7)
1943 Jul 18, The US Navy airship K-74 was shot down by anti-aircraft fire from a German U-boat.
(HN, 7/18/98)
1943 Jacqueline "Jackie" Cochran convinced the U.S. military that qualified women pilots could free men for combat duty by performing non-combat missions. Supported by Eleanor Roosevelt and Army aviation chief General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold, Cochran's goal was achieved with the formation of the Women's Air Force Service Pilots (WASPs).
(HNPD, 2/25/99)
1944 Mar 23, Nicholas Alkemade fell 5,500 meter without a parachute and lived. [see Mar 25]
(SS, 3/23/02)
1944 Mar 25, RAF Sgt. Nickolas Alkemade survived a jump from his Lancaster bomber from 18,000 feet without a parachute. [see Mar 23]
(MC, 3/25/02)
1944 Jun 13, Only one week after the Normandy invasion, the first German V-1 buzz bomb, also called the doodlebug (Fieseler Fi-103), was fired at London. The first guided missile to be used in force, the V-1 was powered by a pulse-jet engine and resembled a small aircraft. Only one of the four missiles London saw that day caused any casualties, but a steady stream of V-1s causing severe damage and casualties fell on London in coming months. At times, nearly 100 bombs fell each day. Many German buzz bombs never reached their targets because of primitive guidance systems or because they were destroyed in flight by anti-aircraft fire or intercepting Allied fighters.
(AP, 6/13/97)(HNQ, 6/13/98)(MC, 6/13/02)
1944 Jul 4, Stanley Hiller Jr. (1925-2006) flew his XH-44 helicopter free from its tether for the 1st time in the stadium of UC Berkeley. A public demonstration took place in SF on Aug. 30, 1944.
(SSFC, 4/23/06, p.B7)(www.helis.com/timeline/hiller.php)
1944 Jul 25, The Messerschmitt 262 became the 1st jet fighter used in combat.
(SC, 7/25/02)
1944 Nov, An Int'l. Civil Aviation Conference established English as the air traffic control language. The Chicago Convention on air travel attempted to lay down technical and legal rules for the post-war order in int’l. air transport.
(SFC, 5/16/03, p.A25)(Econ, 10/4/03, p.66)(Econ, 7/9/11, p.69)
1944 Britain’s government decided to bulldoze the village of Heath Row to accommodate an expansion of a nearby aerodrome.
(Econ, 7/20/13, p.51)
1945 Dec, Eric Brown (1919-2016), British test pilot, made the first-ever jet aircraft landing on the carrier Ocean.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Brown_%28pilot%29)(Econ, 3/5/15, p.86)
1946 Mar 8, The 1st helicopter licensed for commercial use was in NYC.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1946 Apr 24, The Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, ordered the establishment of the Blue Angels team. In 1985 funding for the program was $4.2 million, about half the cost of replacements for the two A-4 jets. By 2005 21 pilots died during Angels shows. Navy officials said the super-trained unit and its dazzling displays are valuable in attracting young and talented recruits into the Navy and Air Force. By 2009 on the average, one F/A-18 used approximately 8,000 pounds or 1,300 gallons of JP-5 jet fuel at a cost of roughly $1,378. Fat Albert, which transports the crew to shows, holds 46,000 pounds of fuel.
(www.navy.com/about/navylife/onduty/blueangels/faq/)(http://tinyurl.com/ydn8pes)
1946 May 28, The US Army Air Force initiated the Nuclear Energy for the Propulsion of Aircraft program (NEPA). Fairchild Engine and Airplane Corp. was selected to study the possibility of developing a long range strategic bomber powered by a nuclear reactor.
(AH, 2/03, p.52)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_Nuclear_Propulsion)
1946 Heathrow Airport, an air base near London for fighter planes during WWII, was converted to civilian use. A modified Avro Lancastrian bomber made the first scheduled flight.
(Econ, 3/29/08, p.91)(Econ, 3/30/13, p.55)
1946 Scandinavian airlines began as a co-operative venture between the airlines of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. In 1951 they merged. Marcus Wallenberg Jr. (1899-1982), tennis champion, sold out of railways to concentrate on airplanes. Wallenberg helped to establish the Scandinavian Airlines System and controlled companies that employed one of every eight working Swedes.
(www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,925746-2,00.html)(Econ, 10/14/06, p.73)(Econ, 5/19/12, p.74)
1947 May 1, Radar for commercial and private planes was 1st demonstrated.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1947 Jun 17, Pan Am Airways was chartered as the 1st worldwide passenger airline.
(Hem., 2/96, p.44)(MC, 6/17/02)
1947 Jul 8, In New Mexico the Roswell Daily Record reported the military’s capture of a flying saucer. It became know as the Roswell Incident. Officials later called the debris a "harmless, high-altitude weather balloon. In 1994 the Air Force released a report saying the wreckage was part of a device used to spy on the Soviets.
(SFC, 6/23/96, p.T4)(USAT, 6/28/96, p.7D)
1947 Aug 10, William Odom set a solo record by completing a round-the-world flight in 73 hours and 5 minutes, landing at Chicago's Douglas Airport.
(AP, 8/10/97)
1947 Aug 25, Marion Carl, US Navy test pilot, set a world speed record of 651 mph in a D-558-I at Muroc Field (later Edwards AFB), Ca. He was shot to death in Oregon by a house robber in 1998 at age 82.
(SFC, 6/30/98, p.A3)(chblue.com, 8/25/01)
1947 Oct 14, Air Force test pilot Charles E. "Chuck" Yeager (24) flew the experimental Bell X-1 [Bell XS-1] rocket plane aircraft and broke the sound barrier to Mach 1.07 for the first time over Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., which was then called Muroc Army Air Field. The area has the largest dry lake bed in the world, a 44-square mile area known as Rogers Lake. Suspended from the belly of a Boeing B-29, Glamorous Glennis was dropped at 10:26 a.m. from a height of 20,000 feet. Yeager (who had broken two ribs in a riding accident the night before) fired the four rocket motor chambers in pairs, breaking through the sound barrier as he increased airspeed to almost 700 mph and climbed to an altitude of 43,000 feet. The XS-1 remained at supersonic speeds for 20.5 seconds, with none of the buffeting that characterized high-speed subsonic flight. The 14-minute flight was Yeager’s ninth since being named primary pilot in June 1947. The Air Force and the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (the forerunner of NASA) did not make the event public until Jun 10, 1948.
(SFC, 8/5/96, p.A3)(SFC, 10/13/97, p.A7)(AP, 10/14/97)(HNPD, 10/14/98)
1947 Nov 2, Howard Hughes piloted his huge wooden airplane, known as the Spruce Goose, on its only flight, which lasted 70 sec. over Long Beach Harbor in California. The plane had an 8-story tail and a 320-foot wingspan. It was designed to take seven hundred soldiers into battle. The plane had a wing span longer than a football field, and was powered by 8 engines and was crafted out of 200 tons of plywood. The war ended before the plane was deployed, but Hughes proved the Spruce Goose's was air-worthy.
(AP, 11/2/97)(SFC, 7/29/98, p.A20)(HN, 11/2/98)(MC, 11/2/01)
1947 Kirk Kerkorian (1917-2015), Fresno-born former RAF pilot, bought a tiny charter line and renamed it Trans Int’l. Airlines. Nearly two decades later he took the TIA public and used cash from the stock to build the Int’l. Hotel (later renamed the Westgate Las Vegas). In the 1970s he opened the first MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
(SFC, 6/17/15, p.D5)
1947 The first airport duty-free store opened at Shannon Airport, Ireland.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R49)
1948 Mar 23, John Cunningham set a world altitude record at 54,492' (18,133 meters).
(SS, 3/23/02)
1948 May 5, 1st air squadron of jets aboard a carrier
(MC, 5/5/02)
1948 Jun 26, The Berlin Airlift began in earnest as the United States, Britain and France started ferrying supplies to the isolated western sector of Berlin, after the Soviet Union cut off land and water routes. The Soviets had been harassing the French, British and American authorities in Berlin for weeks, trying to force them from the city. Finally, when all surface routes to the city were blockaded, it became clear that an airlift through the Allied sectors was the only way to re-supply the 2 million West Berliners. In spite of the enormous human and financial cost, “Operation Vittles" supplied food, fuel and hope to beleaguered citizens until the Soviet barricades were finally lifted on May 12, 1949. In 2010 Richard Reeves authored “Daring Young Men: The Heroism and Triumph of the Berlin Airlift, June 1948-May 1949."
(AP, 6/26/98)(HN, 6/26/99)(http://tinyurl.com/gqhi)(Econ, 1/2/10, p.63)
1948 Jul 1, New York International Airport at Idlewild, later renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport, was officially opened.
(AP, 7/1/98)
1948 The John Murtha Airport opened in Jonestown, Pennsylvania. From 1989-2009 Congressman John Murtha steered some $150,000,000 to the airport. In 2009 there were a total of 18 commercial flights per week, all of which went to Dulles Airport in Washington, DC.
(http://tinyurl.com/nsdv8k)(Econ, 1/23/10, p.26)
1949 Feb 26, A USAF plane began a 1st nonstop around-the-world flight.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1949 Mar 2, The Lucky Lady II (USAF B-50 Superfortress), landed at Fort Worth , Texas, after completing the first non-stop, round-the-world flight: 23,452-mis in 94 hours.
(AP, 3/2/98)(SC, 3/2/02)
1949 May 13, The 1st British-produced jet bomber, Canberra, made its 1st test flight.
(MC, 5/13/02)
1949 Jul 27, The British 36-seat jet-propelled De Havilland Comet 1 flew for the first time. This was the world’s first passenger jet.
(www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Commercial_Aviation/Opening_of_Jet_era/Tran6.htm)(Econ, 11/22/14, p.51)
1949 Sep 30, The Berlin airlift ended its operation after 277,264 flights. Through accidents 31 Americans lost their lives in support of the airlift. The Berlin Airlift, which began on June 26, 1948, and lasted 321 days, consisted of 272,264 flights by British and American airmen. They transported some 2.3 million tons of food to supply the 2.1 million residents of the blockaded portion of the city. The operation ended after 278,288 flights and delivery of 2,326,406 tons of supplies. In 2010 Richard Reeves authored “Daring Young Men: The Heroism and Triumph of the Berlin Airlift, June 1948-May 1949."
(EWH, 1968, p.1180)(AP, 9/30/97)(SFC, 5/12/98, p.A14)(HNQ, 7/9/98)(SSFC, 3/28/10, p.f3)
1950 Apr 8, A US Navy privateer airplane flew from Wiesbaden, West Germany, to spy over the Soviet Union with 10 people on board. Soviet reconnaissance spotted the plane over Latvia and shot it down.
(SFEC,12/21/97, p.A26)
1950 Apr 11, A US B-29 bomber was shot down above Latvia.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1950 Apr 18, The first transatlantic jet passenger trip was made.
(HN, 4/18/98)
1950 America established an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in fear of a nuclear attack.
(Econ., 6/20/20, p.33)
1951 The US Atomic Energy Commission and the Air Force instituted the Aircraft Nuclear propulsion development Program (ANP). It ended in 1961 under Pres. John F. Kennedy.
(AH, 2/03, p.52, 56)
1952 Apr 15, The 1st B-52 prototype test flight was made.
(MC, 4/15/02)
1952 Apr 21, BOAC began 1st passenger service with jets from London to Rome.
(MC, 4/21/02)
1952 May 1, TWA introduced tourist class.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1952 May 2, The British Overseas Aircraft Corporation (BOAC), the national British carrier, introduced the world’s 1st commercial jet airliner service. Initial flights took passengers from London to Johannesburg in South Africa, with stops. The British De Havilland Comet, the first commercial jetliner, was grounded later this year after a series of fatal crashes. Its flaws were fixed and the plane went on to deliver years of reliable service.
(www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Commercial_Aviation/Opening_of_Jet_era/Tran6.htm)(Econ, 1/19/13, p.65)
1952 May 3, The first airplane landed at geographic North Pole. It was a ski-modified U.S. Air Force C-47, piloted by Lieutenant Colonel William P. Benedict (d.1974) of California and Lieutenant Colonel Joseph O. Fletcher of Oklahoma. In 2002 Charles B. Compton authored "Born to Fly: Some Life Sketches of Lieutenant Colonel William P. Benedict."
(Polar Times, Fall, 97)(CBC)
1952 KLM Royal Dutch Airlines began offering first class passengers ceramic houses filled with liquor. Industry rules capped handouts at 75 cents, but there was no limit on booze. In 2008 the 89th house in the series made it debut on Oct 7, the airline’s 89th birthday.
(WSJ, 5/31/08, p.A1)
1953 May 18, Jacqueline Cochran became the first woman to break the sound barrier as she piloted a North American F-86 Canadair over Rogers Dry Lake, Calif.
(AP, 5/18/97)
1953 Jul 9, The 1st helicopter passenger service began in NYC.
(MC, 7/9/02)
1953 Aug 7, Eastern Airlines entered the jet age with the Electra prop-jet.
(MC, 8/7/02)
1953 Aug 21, Marion Carl in Douglas Skyrocket reached a record 25,370 m.
(SC, 8/21/02)
1953 Aug 25, The government of India exercised its option to purchase a majority stake in Tata Airlines and Air India International Limited was born as one of the fruits of the Air Corporations Act that nationalized the air transportation industry.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_India#Early_years_.281932-1945.29)
1953 Oct 19, America's first ever non-stop transcontinental service began with flights by American Airlines using DC-7 aircraft.
(www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Commercial_Aviation/Opening_of_Jet_era/Tran6.htm)
1953 Nov 20, Scott Crossfield (1921-2006), test pilot for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), flew a D-558-II Skyrocket to a record speed of over 1,320 mph.
(SFC, 4/21/06, p.B9)
1953 Dec 12, Chuck Yeager, test pilot for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), reached Mach 2.43 in Bell X-1A rocket plane.
(SFC, 4/21/06, p.B9)
1954 Feb 6, A US Air Force 4-engine RC-121 Super Constellation, one of the new flying radar stations, crashed in the shallows of San Pablo Bay. All 13 crew members survived.
(SFC, 2/6/04, p.E12)
1954 Apr 1, U.S. Air Force Academy was founded in Colorado. President Dwight Eisenhower signed a bill authorizing the establishment of an Air Force Academy, similar to West Point and Annapolis. On July 11, 1955, the first class was sworn in at Lowry Air Force Base. The academy moved to a permanent site near Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 1958.
(HN, 4/1/98)(HNQ, 2/22/99)(MC, 4/1/02)
1954 Jul 5, The B-52A bomber made its maiden flight.
(MC, 7/5/02)
1954 Jul 15, The Boeing “Dash 80," a prototype of the 707, made its first test flight.
(NPub, 2002, p.17)
1954 Aug 3, The 1st VTOL (Vertical Take-off & Land) aircraft was flown.
(SC, 8/3/02)
1954 Aug 29, The SF International Airport’s (SFO) Terminal 2 opened with a ceremony led by Mayor Robinson. Mills Field became SF Airport.
(SFEC, 5/16/99, Z1 p.4)(SSFC, 8/22/04, p.F8)
1954 Col. John Paul Stapp, an Air Force medical researcher, accelerated to 632 mph on a rocket powered sled in 5 sec. The sled then decelerated to a dead stop in 1.4 sec. with 40 times the pull of gravity.
(SFC, 11/18/99, p.C7)
1954 In Lebanon Beirut Int’l. Airport opened. In 1998 a new $460 million airport was under construction.
(WSJ, 4/6/98, p.A1)y
1955 Feb 26, G.F. Smith became the 1st aviator to bail out at supersonic speed.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1955 May 21, The first transcontinental round-trip solo flight was completed.
(HN, 5/21/98)
1955 Jun 11, The 1st jet magnesium airplane was flown.
(SC, 6/11/02)
1955 Aug 4, The U-2 reconnaissance prototype made its first flight.
(NPub, 2002, p.17)
1955 Sep 17, A US Convair B-36 bomber took off from Carswell AFB, Texas, becoming the first aircraft in the world to fly with a nuclear reactor. Over the next 2 years the Convair Crusader made 47 flights.
(AH, 2/03, p.51)
1955 In England Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 2 was completed.
(Econ, 3/29/08, p.91)
1956 Jul 23, The Bell X-2 rocket plane set a world aircraft speed record of 3,050 kph.
(MC, 7/23/02)
1957 Jan 16, Three B-52's (accompanied at first by two spare aircraft) took off from Castle Air Force Base in California on the first nonstop, round-the-world flight by jet planes, which lasted 45 hours and 19 minutes.
(AP, 1/16/07)
1957 Jan 18, A trio of B-52's completed the first nonstop, round-the-world flight by jet planes, landing at March Air Force Base in California after more than 45 hours aloft.
(AP, 1/18/07)
1957 Apr 11, The Ryan X-13 Vertijet became the 1st jet to take-off and land vertically.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1957 May, Two US fighter planes were scrambled and ordered to shoot down an unidentified flying object (UFO) over the English countryside. This was only made public on Oct 20, 2008, when Britain made public secret files on UFOs.
(Reuters, 10/20/08)
1957 Jul 16, Marine Maj. John Glenn set a transcontinental speed record when he flew a jet from California to New York in 3 hours, 23 minutes and 8 seconds.
(AP, 7/16/97)
1958 Mar 25, Canada’s era of supersonic flight began, when pilot Jan Zurakowski took off from Malton Airport near Toronto in an Avro CF-105 Arrow for a 35-minute maiden flight. Less than a month later, Zurakowski flew the Arrow at Mach 1.5 at an altitude of 50,000 feet. In spite of the aircraft’s early promise, the Canadian government scrapped the project before the Arrow could be put into production.
(HNPD, 8/21/00)
1958 Mar 29, Aerial circus star Clyde Pangborn died. He and playboy Hugh Herndon, Jr. complete the first nonstop flight across the Pacific Ocean in 1931.
(HN, 10/2/99)(ON, 1/03, p.10)
1958 May 7, Howard Johnson set an aircraft altitude record in F-104.
(HN, 5/7/98)
1958 May 16, A man endured a record 82.6 G for .04 seconds on a water-braked rocket sled at Holloman Air Force Base. He was hospitalized for 3 days for recovery.
(SFEC, 7/2/00, Z1 p.2)
1958 Jul, Soviet fighter planes shot down an RB-50G US reconnaissance plane over the east coast of the USSR. In 2002 William E. Burrows authored “by Any Means Necessary: America’s Secret Air War in the Cold War."
(AH, 6/02, p.70)
1958 Aug 29, Air Force Academy opened in Colorado Springs, Colo.
(MC, 8/29/01)
1958 Oct 4, The first trans-Atlantic passenger jetliner service was begun by British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) with flights between London and New York.
(AP, 10/4/97)
1958 Oct 26, Pan American Airways pilot Samuel H. Miller (d.2001 at 84) flew the first Boeing 707 passenger service jetliner from New York’s Idlewild Airport (later JFK) to Paris; the trip took eight hours and 41 minutes. 111 passengers flew aboard the Clipper America and a ticket cost $489.60. The plane was christened a week earlier by Mamie Eisenhower. The first New York London transatlantic jet passenger service was inaugurated by BOAC. [see Oct 4]
(AP, 10/26/97)(WSJ, 10/23/98, p.W6)(HN, 10/26/98)(SFC, 9/12/01, p.A21)
1958 Dec 10, The first domestic passenger jet flight took place in the United States as a National Airlines Boeing 707 flew 111 passengers from New York City to Miami.
(AP, 12/10/97)
1958 Passenger service by air over the Atlantic exceeded passenger steamship crossings for the 1st time.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)
1959 Jun 8, The NASA rocket powered X-15 made its first glide flight.
(http://history.nasa.gov/x15/chrono.html)
1959 Sep 15, Scott Crossfield (1921-2006) flew the rocket-powered X-15 faster and higher than any aircraft in history.
(NPub, 2002, p.19)
1959 Sep 17, The North American Aviation X-15 rocket plane, piloted by Scott Crossfield, made its first powered flight.
(SFC, 4/21/06, p.B9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Scott_Crossfield)
1959 Industrialist Henry Kremer offered the Kremer Prizes of £5,000 for the first man-powered aeroplane to fly a figure-of-eight course round two markers half-a-mile apart.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human-powered_flight)
1960 May 17, The YF4H-1 Phantom fighter and Douglas DC-8 were unveiled.
(NPub, 2002, p.19)
1961 Apr 30, Eastern Airlines began the 1st shuttle flights began between Wash DC, Boston and NYC.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1961 May 26, A USAF bomber flew the Atlantic in a record of just over three hours.
(HN, 5/26/98)
1961 Jul 24, A US commercial plane was hijacked to Cuba and began a trend.
(MC, 7/24/02)
1961 Nov 1, Pres. J.F. Kennedy signed executive order 10971 creating a board of three members to investigate a dispute between TWA and certain of its employees.
(www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/jfkeo/eo/10971.htm)
1961 United Airlines merged with Capital Airlines and became the world’s largest commercial airline.
(WSJ, 12/6/02, p.A1)
1962 Mar 5, The US Supreme Court in Griggs v. Allegheny County ruled that airports must compensate people living in the near vicinity for noise and vibrations.
(http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/369/84/)
1962 Harvard Professor Richard Caves published a paper that used economic logic to show that price-regulation of airlines was unnecessary.
(Econ, 10/4/14, p.92)
1962 American Airlines rolled out its proprietary computerized reservation system, Sabre.
(Econ, 4/3/04, p.70)
1963 May 18, It was reported that American Airlines has approved a new contract allowing its stewardesses to keep flying until they are 33, take a ground job when they reach 32, or retire at 32 with severance pay.
(SSFC, 5/19/13, p.46)
1963 Jun 27, USAF Major Robert A. Rushworth reached an altitude of 53.9 miles in the X-15.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_X-15)
1963 Aug 22, The X-15 aircraft set an altitude record of 67 miles.
(NPub, 2002, p.20)
1964 Apr 17, Jerrie Mock (1925-2014) became the first woman to complete a solo airplane flight around the world. Her journey had begun on March 19 from Columbus, Ohio.
(AP, 4/17/97)(SFC, 10/2/14, p.D4)
1964 Apr, In Marin County, Ca., Danny Nowell (11) was caught by the hand on a hot-air balloon rope and went airborne for about 10 minutes and 2 miles before being rescued.
(SFC, 10/20/09, p.A1)
1964 The US used an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) called the Firebee, a small jet-powered drone, for taking photographs over China. It was launched from another plane and released a parachute upon return for pickup by a helicopter. It was later used in the Vietnam war.
(Econ, 12/8/07, TQ p.23)
1965 Jun 28, In California a blazing engine tore from the Pan American Flight 843. The engine plunged into San Bruno and a piece of the wing fell into South San Francisco. The plane with 153 passengers landed safely at Travis airport.
(SSFC, 6/28/15, DB p.50)
1966 Apr 13, Pan Am placed a $525,000,000 order for 25 Boeing 747s. The 747 jumbo jet revolutionized mass air transportation.
(MC, 4/13/02)(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)
1966 Jul 8, A US airline strike began and lasted until Aug 19th.
(MC, 7/8/02)
1967 Mar 15, Texas lawyer Herb Kelleher and businessman Rollin King incorporated Southwest Airlines initially as "Air Southwest Co." Kelleher and King faced four years of setbacks and legal challenges from competitors that culminated in winning key cases before the Supreme Court of the United States in December 1970 and the Supreme Court of Texas in June 1971. The first flights finally took off on June 18, 1971.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herb_Kelleher)
1967 Apr, Henry Hill (d.2012) completed his first major robbery when he and Thomas DeSimone, who was portrayed in an Oscar-winning performance by Joe Pesci in "Goodfellas" (1990), famously robbed Air France of a shipment of $420,000. Hill became an FBI informant following a 1980 arrest on a narcotics-trafficking charge, and testimony he delivered led to 50 arrests. Hill’s life story was documented in the book "Wiseguy" (1986) by Nicholas Pileggi.
{Mafia, USA, France}
(ABCNews, 6/12/12)
1967 Sep, The British, French and German governments signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to start development of the 300 seat Airbus A300 in order to compete with American companies. Airbus Industrie was formally set up in 1970.
(www.absoluteastronomy.com/reference/airbus)
1967 Apr 9, The 1st Boeing 737 rolled out.
(MC, 4/9/02)
1967 Trudy Baker, Rachel Jones and Donald Bain authored “Coffee, Tea or Me: The Uninhibited Memoirs of Two Airline Stewardesses." The pseudonymous author turned out to be a male airline publicist.
(http://tinyurl.com/33hh6e)(Econ, 5/5/07, p.105)
1968 Jun 30, The Lockheed C-5A Galaxy, a large US Air Force transport plane, made its first flight.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-5_Galaxy)
1968 Jul 15, Commercial air travel began between US & USSR.
(www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1968/1968%20-%201275.html)
1968 Aug 21, William Dana reached 81.53 km. in the last high-altitude X-15 flight.
(http://pages.prodigy.net/pxkb94ars/Astro_X-15_Flights_9.htm)
1968 Sep 30, The 1st Boeing 747 was rolled out of the Everett, Wa., assembly building.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747)
1968 Nov 23, Five Cubans hijacked a US B-727 jet, from Chicago to Cuba.
(http://cuban-exile.com/doc_176-200/doc0180.html)
1968 Nov 24, Three Latins hijacked a US B-707 jet, from New York’s Kennedy Int’l. to Cuba. Pena Soltren, a US citizen, and two accomplices used weapons hidden in a diaper bag to hijack Pan Am Flight 281. In 2009 Luis Armando Pena Soltren (66) voluntarily returned to the same airport to surrender and face prosecution. On Jan 4, 2011, Soltren was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
(http://cuban-exile.com/doc_176-200/doc0180.html)(AP, 10/12/09)(SFC, 1/5/11, p.A4)
1968 Dec 5, Eduardo Castera, a Latin successfully hijacked a B-727 from Tampa to Cuba.
(http://cuban-exile.com/doc_176-200/doc0180.html)
1968 Dec 11, Two blacks successfully hijacked a DC-8 from St. Louis to Cuba.
(http://cuban-exile.com/doc_176-200/doc0180.html)
1968 Dec 28, Israel attacked the Beirut Int’l. Airport, destroying 13 civilian planes. This was in response to an attack on an Israeli airliner in Athens by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Israeli_raid_on_Lebanon)
1968 Dec 31, The Soviet Union's TU-144, similar in appearance to the Concorde, made its 1st flight. The first Tu-144S production aircraft crashed at the 1973 Paris Air Show.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-144)
1969 Feb 9, The Boeing 747, the world's largest airplane, made its 1st commercial flight. The Juan T. Trippe, named after the founder of Pan Am, was sold in 2000 to a South Korea couple, who transformed it into an aviation themed restaurant. The venture failed in 2005 and the plane was demolished in late 2010.
(www.boeing.com/commercial/747family/pf/pf_milestones.html)(SFC, 12/13/10, p.A2)
1969 Mar 2, The Concorde jetliner's 1st test flight took place in Bristol, England.
(www.xent.com/pipermail/fork/Week-of-Mon-20031013/026200.html)
1969 Apr 9, The maiden flight of Concorde 002 was from Filton to Bristol.
(www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects/aeronautics/1977-45.aspx)
1969 Jun 4, A 22-year-old man sneaked into wheel pod of a jet parked in Havana & survived a 9-hr flight to Spain despite thin oxygen levels at 29,000 ft.
(MC, 6/4/02)
1969 Oct 5, Lieutenant Eduardo Guerra Jimenez, a Cuban defector, entered US air space undetected and landed his Soviet-made MiG-17 at Homestead Air Force Base near Miami, Florida, where the presidential aircraft Air Force One was waiting to return President Richard M. Nixon to DC.
(www.missilesofkeywest.bravepages.com/penetrated.htm)
1969 Dec 12, PanAm signed for the first delivery of the new Boeing 747-100. Commercial service began Jan 21, 1970.
(Econ, 11/4/06, p.21)(http://tinyurl.com/ye3vwv)
1969 Dec 30, The US Federal Aviation Administration certified the Boeing 747-100 for commercial service.
(www.boeing.com/commercial/747family/pf/pf_milestones.html)
1969 Pan Am selected Najeeb Halaby (d.2003 at 87), former FAA head, as successor to chairman Juan Trippe. Halaby served 3 years as CEO. His daughter later became Queen Noor of Jordan.
(SFC, 7/4/03, p.A25)
1969 Embraer SA, an aircraft maker, was founded by Brazil’s military dictatorship in an effort to develop an aviation industry. The company was privatized in 1994.
(WSJ, 9/13/04, p.A8)(Econ, 9/11/10, SR p.10)
1969 In the Soviet Union Rostislav Belyakov (d.2014 at 94) became the MiG chief designer, succeeding the firm's founder, Artyom Mikoyan. He led the development of a family of MiG fighters, including MiG-23, MiG-25, Mig-29 and their versions, which have been the backbone of Soviet and then Russian air force.
(AP, 3/1/14)
1970 Jan 21, The Boeing 747-100 made its 1st commercial transatlantic flight from NY to London. The plane was 231 feet long with a wing span of 195 feet. It could seat 400 people in a cabin 182 feet long.
(WSJ, 7/19/96, p.B5)(www.boeing.com/commercial/747family/pf/pf_milestones.html)
1970 Mar 25, The Concorde, an Anglo-French airplane, made its first supersonic flight.
(HN, 3/24/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concorde)
1970 Apr 30, Yoshimi Tanaka and a group of students of the Red Army Faction, including Shiro Akagi, seized a Japan Airlines jet and flew to Pyongyang, N. Korea, in Japan's first ever case of air piracy. In 1996 Tanaka was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
(http://tinyurl.com/3c4bk7)(AP, 6/5/07)(www.tkb.org/KeyLeader.jsp?memID=102)
1970 Aug 1, W. Lain Guthrie (d.1997 at 84), a commercial airline pilot, refused to dump kerosene into the atmosphere as had been common practice. He kept his DC-8 on the ground and ordered the ground crew to drain the waste fuel from the previous flight. He was fired but other pilots supported him and he was reinstated and the industry stopped its dumping.
(SFC, 3/28/97, p.D2)
1970 Sep 13, The supersonic airliner Concorde landed for the 1st time at Heathrow airport.
(www.aviation-news.co.uk/concordeChronology.html)
1970 Oct 24, The X24A lifting body exceeded Mach 1. The X-24A was the Martin Corporation's subsonic test version of the US Air Force's preferred manned lifting body configuration. The lifting bodies were used to demonstrate the ability of pilots to maneuver and safely land wingless vehicles designed to fly back to Earth from space and be landed like an airplane at a predetermined site.
(NPub, 2002, p.22)(www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Movie/X-24A/index.html)
1970 Airbus Industrie was formally set up following an agreement between Aerospatiale (France) and Deutsche Aerospace (Germany). In 1971 it was joined by CASA (Spain). The name "Airbus" was taken from a nonproprietary term used by the airline industry in the 1960s to refer to a commercial aircraft of a certain size and range, as term was acceptable to the French linguistically.
(www.absoluteastronomy.com/reference/airbus)
1971 Feb 4, Rolls-Royce collapsed due to rising development costs on the RB.211, the sole powerplant selected for the Lockheed TriStar.
(http://widebodyaircraft.nl/chro1971.htm)
1971 Jun , Southwest Airlines, co-founded by Herbert Kelleher, made its 1st flight.
(WSJ, 1/13/03, p.A1)(WSJ, 7/11/03, p.A6)
1971 May 20, The US Congress cancelled the supersonic SST airplane program.
(WSJ, 7/26/00, p.A26)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_2707)
1971 Nov 24, On Thanksgiving eve DB Cooper boarded Flight 305 in Portland, Or., and demanded $200,000 with the threat of a bomb. He parachuted from a Northwest Airlines 727 with the money over the Cascade Mountains near Ariel, Wash., and was never seen again. FBI agent Ralph Himmelsbach wrote the book NORJAK that described the case. A packet containing $5,880 of the ransom money was found in 1980 on the north shore of the Columbia River, just west of the Washington city of Vancouver. In 2011 evidence was presented that Lynn Doyle Cooper (d.1999) of Oregon, a Korean war veteran, was the hijacker. On July 13, 2016, the FBI said it is no longer investigating the case.
(SFEC, 11/17/96, Z1 p.5)(AP, 11/24/97)(SFC, 8/4/11, p.A8)(SFC, 7/13/16, p.A6)
1972 Jan 26, A DC-9 exploded over Serbska Kamenice, Czechoslovakia, and attendant Vesna Vulovic dropped 33,300 feet and survived following a 27-day coma and a 16-month recovery. The cause of the explosion has never been established, but was attributed by the Yugoslav and Czechoslovakian authorities to a bomb placed on the plane by a Croatian Terrorist group, known as the Ustasa.
(SFEC, 3/14/99, Z1 p.10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesna_Vulovic)
1972 Feb 5, It was reported that the United States had agreed to sell 42 F-4 Phantom jets to Israel.
(www.historynet.com/tdih0205.htm)
1972 Apr 7, Richard McCoy (1942-1974), Vietnam veteran and pilot, hijacked a United Air Lines jet and extorted $500,000 in copycat version of the DB Cooper crime. He parachuted into a Utah desert, but was caught with the money in his house and was sentenced to 40 years in prison. He escaped and died in a shootout with FBI agent Nicholas O’Hara in Nov, 1974.
(SFEC, 11/17/96, Z1 p.5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_McCoy,_Jr.)
1972 Apr 25, Hans-Werner Grosse (b.1922), German glider pilot, glided 907.7 miles (1,461 km) in an AS-W-12.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Werner_Grosse)
1972 May 8, A Belgian Sabena aircraft, bound for Tel Aviv, was hijacked by 4 Palestinians. At Lod Intl. 2 hijackers were shot and killed by Israeli military personnel, dressed as ground engineers. One passenger died 8 days later as a result of her wounds. The two women hijackers were subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment.
(www.prophetofdoom.net/Islamic_Terrorism_Timeline_1972.Islam)
1972 May 30, Three militants of the Japanese Red Army staged a machine-gun and hand-grenade attack at the Lod Airport in Israel. 24 people were killed and a 100 injured. The terrorists found refuge in Lebanon until 1997 when they were arrested. Kozo Okamoto served 13 years of a life sentence in Israel. In 2000 Lebanon granted asylum to Kozo Okamoto. 4 other Japanese Red Army members were deported to Japan.
(SFC, 2/19/96, p.A8)(SFC, 3/18/00, p.A3)
1972 Jun 18, BEA Trident crashed after takeoff from Heathrow killing 118.
(MC, 6/18/02)
1972 Jul 31, George Wright, dressed as a priest and using an alias, hijacked a Delta flight from Detroit to Miami with four other BLA members and three children. They released 86 other passengers in exchange for a $1 million ransom and forced the plane to fly to Boston. There an international navigator was taken aboard, and the plane was flown to Algeria, where the hijackers sought asylum. Wright's associates were tracked down, arrested, tried and convicted in Paris in 1976. In 2011 Wright (68) was arrested in Portugal.
(www.edmontonsun.com/2011/09/27/us-fugitive-caught-after-41-years)
1972 Aug 21, The 1st hot air balloon flight over the Alps.
(SC, 8/21/02)
1972 Oct 26, Igor Sikorsky (b.1889), Ukraine-born helicopter pioneer, died in Connecticut.
(HNPD, 10/27/98)(ON, 3/06, p.5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Sikorsky)
1972 Oct 29, Hijackers of a German Lufthansa passenger jet demanded the release of the three surviving terrorists, who had been arrested after the Fürstenfeldbruck gunfight and were being held for trial. They forced West Germany to release 3 terrorists who were involved in the Munich Massacre.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_massacre)
1972 Oct 29, Charles A. Tuller, his 2 sons and William White Graham hijacked an Eastern Airlines jet from Houston and flew to Cuba 4 days after an abortive bank robbery in Arlington, Va. The robbery left 2 people dead in Arlington and a ticket agent dead in Houston. This was the second-to-last successful hijacking from the United States to Cuba before the signing of an anti-hijacking agreement between the two countries in February, 1973.
(www.latinamericanstudies.org/hijackers/72-killings.htm)
1972 Nov 10, Hijackers diverted a jet to Detroit, demanding $10 million and ten parachutes.
(HN, 11/10/98)
1972 Nov, Three hijackers threatened to crash a Southern Airways passenger flight after a stopover in Birmingham, Ala. They threatened to crash into a research reactor at Oak Ridge, Tenn. The airline turned over $ 2 million and a shootout took place in Orlando. The plane flew on to Havana where the hijackers were arrested for 8 years. They returned to Alabama in 1980 and received 20-25 year sentences.
(USAT, 6/11/03, p.2B)
1972 Dec 5, The Nixon administration, in response to recent hijackings, ordered airports to screen every passenger with a metal detector, inspect the contents of carry-ones and station a local police officer or sheriff’s deputy at every one of the nation’s 531 major commercial facilities. In 2013 Brendan I. Koerner authored “The Skies Belong to Us: Love and Terror in the Golden Age of Hijacking."
(SSFC, 6/30/13, p.F4)
1972 The Alaska Continental Development Corp. merged with the financially troubled Alaska Airlines. The airline soon became profitable in part due to the Alaska oil pipeline.
(WSJ, 1/7/07, p.A4)(http://tinyurl.com/6obvr7)
1973 Jan 5, San Francisco Int'l. Airport began screening passengers. This followed Pres. Nixon's mandate for screening due to increased hijackings in the 1960s and early 1970s.
(SFC, 3/30/19, p.C1)
1973 Jan 29, Emily Howell Warner (b.1939) became the 1st woman pilot permanently employed by a commercial airline. Her first flight as co-pilot was on the Frontier Airlines DHC-6 Twin Otter August 1, 1974.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)(http://members.tripod.com/~LAMKINS/Emily_Howell_Warner.txt)
1973 Feb 15, The US and Cuba reached an anti-hijacking agreement.
(SFC, 7/9/96, p.A8)(www.historyofcuba.com/history/time/timetbl4.htm)
1973 Jul 20, The Japanese Red Army and Lebanese guerrillas hijacked a Japan Airlines plane over the Netherlands. The passengers and crew were released in Libya where the hijackers blew up the plane.
(SFC, 11/9/00, p.C2)(www.cdi.org/friendlyversion/printversion.cfm?documentID=1771)
1973 Jul 27, Eddie Rickenbacker (b.1890), American WW I fighter pilot, died in Zurich. He and several associates bought Eastern Airlines in 1938 and guided it to become one of the most profitable airlines in the postwar era. Rickenbacker had granted mechanics a 40-hour week, profit-related pay and a pension.
(www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=324)(HNPD, 10/7/98)(Econ., 12/12/20, p.65)
1973 Sep 26, Concorde flew from Washington DC to Paris in 3hr. 33m.
(www.concordesst.com/02.html)
1973 Nov 25, Three Palestinians hijacked a KLM B747 enroute to New Delhi to Abu Dhabi.
(www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Terrorism/incidents.html)
1973 Ethiopian Airlines became the first African carrier to fly to China.
(Econ, 10/22/16, p.59)
1974 Feb 22, Samuel Joseph Byck (1930–1974), an unemployed former tire salesman, attempted to hijack a plane flying out of Baltimore-Washington International Airport. He intended to crash into the White House in hopes of killing US President Richard M. Nixon. Byck killed pilot Fred Jones and a aviation officer George Neal Ramsburg before he was shot and wounded by gunfire through the door of a Delta DC-9 airplane. Byck then shot himself in the head.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Byck)
1974 Mar 8, Charles the Gaulle Airport (aka Roissy I) opened outside of Paris.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_de_Gaulle_International_Airport)
1974 Aug 26, Charles Lindbergh (72), the first man to fly solo, nonstop across the Atlantic, died at his home in Hawaii. Lindbergh had 3 illegitimate children in Germany with Brigitte Hesshaimer, a Munich hat maker. In 1998 A. Scott Berg authored "Lindbergh." Earlier Lindbergh's daughter authored her memoir "Under a Wing."
(AP, 8/26/97)(SFEC, 11/15/98, Par p.29)(SSFC, 10/24/04, Par p.2)
1975 Apr 25, 1st Boeing Jetfoil revenue service began between Hong Kong and Macao.
(SS, 4/25/02)
1975 Tony Ryan (1921-2007), Irish-born aviation entrepreneur, set up Guinness Peat Aviation with money from Air Lingus, bankers in London and some of his own cash. GPA rented planes to airlines around the world. Its IPO in 1992 stumbled and General Electric Co. picked up most of the company at a bargain price.
(WSJ, 10/6/07, p.A17)
1976 Apr 26, Pan Am began non-stop flights between NYC and Tokyo.
(www.wingnet.org/rtw/rtw006hh.htm)
1976 May 24, Britain and France opened trans-Atlantic Concorde service to Washington. This was the 1st commercial supersonic transport (SST).
(AP, 5/24/97)
1976 Jun 27, An Air France Airbus flight AF139, from Tel Aviv to Paris, was hijacked shortly after departing Athens and taken to Uganda. It was hijacked by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and a German radical group. The hijackers released 148 non-Israeli passengers after the plane landed in Uganda. French pilot Michel Bacos (d.2019) remained with the hostages despite offers of release.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France)(AP, 3/27/19)
1976 Jul 3, Israel launched its daring mission to rescue 103 passengers and Air France crew members being held at Entebbe Airport in Uganda by pro-Palestinian hijackers.
(AP, 7/3/97)
1976 Jul 4, Jonathan Netanyahu, brother of Benjamin, led and was killed in an Israeli raid called Operation Thunderball that rescued the [105] hostages held at Entebbe Airport in Uganda. The raid was by Sayeret Matkal, Israel’s elite counter-terrorist unit led by Muki Betser, and it freed all but 3 of the 104 Israeli and Jewish hostages and crew of an Air France jetliner seized by pro-Palestinian hijackers. The events are described by Muki Betser and Robert Rosenberg in "Secret Soldier, The True Life of Israel’s Greatest Commando." 20 Ugandan soldiers, 1 Israeli officer, 3 hostages and 7 hijackers died. The hijacking was linked to Carlos the Jackal, aka Ilich Ramirez Sanchez.
(SFC, 6/24/96, p.A19)(SFC, 7/16/96, p.E5)(AP, 7/4/97)(SFC,12/11/97, p.C2)(HN, 7/4/98)
1976 Jul 27, Kakuei Tanaka, former PM (1972-1974) of Japan, was arrested for accepting a bribe from the US Lockheed Corp. Tanaka was convicted in 1983 but continued to fight the charges. A. Carl Kotchian (d.2008 at 94), a Lockheed salesman, had testified that Lockheed had paid $12.6 million in bribes to Japanese businessmen and government officials.
(www.international.ucla.edu/eas/restricted/lockheed.htm)(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 216)(SFC, 12/24/08, p.B7)
1976 Jul 28, Eldon Joersz & Geo Morgan set a world air speed record of 3,530 kph.
(SC, 7/28/02)
1976 Sep 10, 5 Croatian terrorists captured a TWA-plane at La Guardia Airport, NY.
(http://nycslav.blogspot.com/2005/11/croatian-terroristsin-new-york.html)
1976 PT Dirgantara Indonesia was founded as a state-owned company to produce prestige-enhancing aircraft.
{Indonesia, Aviation}
(Econ, 2/15/14, p.57)
1977 Sep 26, Sir Freddie Laker began his cut-rate "Skytrain" service from London to NY. Laker airways collapsed into bankruptcy in 1982.
(SSFC, 2/12/06, p.B8)(www.cnn.com/almanac/9709/26/)
1977 Aug 23, The Gossamer Condor 2 flew the first figure-of-eight, a distance of 2,172 meters winning the first Kremer prize at Minter Field in Shafter, California. It was built by Dr Paul B. MacCready and piloted by amateur cyclist and hang-glider pilot Bryan Allen.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gossamer_Condor)
1977 Oct 13, A Lufthansa Boeing 737, bound for Frankfurt, was hijacked by Palestinians shortly after take-off. The plane is diverted to Rome's Fiumicino Airport. Almost all of the passengers are German vacationers. "This is Captain Martyr Mohammed speaking," announces one of the hijackers to the Rome air-traffic controllers. "The group I represent demands the release of our comrades in German prisons [see Oct 18].
(www.baader-meinhof.com/timeline/1977.html)
1977 Oct 18, West German commandos stormed a hijacked Lufthansa jetliner that was on the ground in Mogadishu, Somalia, freeing all 86 hostages and killing three of the four hijackers, Palestinians of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. In 1996 Suhaila al-Sayeh was sentenced to 12 years in prison by a German court.
(SFC, 11/20/96, p.A17)(AP, 10/17/07)
1977 Nov 22, Regular passenger service between New York and Europe on the supersonic Concorde began on a trial basis.
(AP, 11/22/97)
1978 Mar 14, Clayton Thomas (27) surrendered in Denver after hijacking United Flight 696 from SF.
(SFC, 3/14/03, p.E8)
1978 Aug 17, The helium-filled balloon, Double Eagle II, crossed the Atlantic in 6 days. The first successful trans-Atlantic balloon flight ended as Americans Maxie Anderson, Ben Abruzzo and Larry Newman landed outside Paris.
(AP, 8/17/97)(HN, 8/17/98)
1978 Sep 13, The US Navy's F-18 Hornet makes its public debut during rollout ceremonies in St. Louis, Mo.
(www.boeing.com/defense-space/military/fa18/fa18_milestones.htm)
1978 Sep 15, Willy Messerschmitt (b.1898), German aircraft builder, died in Munich.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willy_Messerschmitt)
1978 Oct 24, Pres. Carter signed the Airline Deregulation Act. The main purpose of the act was to remove government control from commercial aviation and expose the passenger airline industry to market forces. Alfred Kahn (1917-2010) was the head of America’s Civil Aeronautics Board and the driving force behind the deregulation of air travel.
(WSJ, 10/5/04, p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_Deregulation_Act)(Econ, 1/8/11, p.67)
1978 Dec 11, Six masked men bound 10 employees at Lufthansa cargo area at NY Kennedy Airport & made off with $5.8 M in cash & jewelry. Nicholas Pileggi wrote "Wise Guys," which described his participation in the heist. The robbery inspired the movie "Goodfellas."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lufthansa_heist)(SFC, 5/10/97, p.A3)
1979 Jan 23, The USAF's 388th Tactical Fighter Wing at Hill AFB, Utah, became the first unit anywhere to receive the F-16 Fighting Falcon. Lockheed Corp. produced the F-16 fighter jet. It became the first production military aircraft to incorporate a fly-by-wire control system.
(WSJ, 3/22/96, p.A-1)(NPub, 2002, p.23)(www.f-16.net/timeline_1979.html)
1979 Jun 12, Cyclist Bryan Allen (26) flew the manpowered Gossamer Albatross across the English Channel. This was the first man powered craft to fly across the English Channel. The bicycle plane was designed by Paul MacCready (1925-2007).
(Hem, Nov.'95, p.138)(AP, 6/12/97)(WSJ, 9/1/07, p.A4)
1979 Jun 20, Nikola Kavaja (d.2008 at 77) hijacked a US passenger jet with the intention of crashing it into Yugoslav Communist Party headquarters in Belgrade. He abandoned his hijack mission in Ireland, saying at the time he was not sure of the exact location of the downtown party office and did not want innocent civilians to die if the jet missed the target.
(AP, 11/12/08)(www.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/world/europe/12kavaja.html)
1980 May 8, Maxie Anderson (45) and his son Kris (23) lifted off from Fort Baker in Marin Ct., Ca., in a helium-filled balloon to make the 1st transcontinental balloon crossing.
(SFC, 5/6/05, p.F2)
1980 May 12, Maxie Anderson (45) and his son Kris (23) completed the 1st balloon crossing of the American continent as they landed their helium-filled balloon on Canada’s Gaspe Peninsula. Their journey began May 8 in Marin Ct., Ca.
(SFC, 5/6/05, p.F2)
1980 Jun 10, A package bomb injured United Airlines Pres. Percy Wood at his home in Lake Forest, Ill. It was later attributed to the Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski.
(SFEC,11/9/97, Z1 p.4)(www.courttv.com/trials/unabomber/bombings.html)
1981 Feb, John King (1917-2005), at the behest of PM Margaret Thatcher, became chairman of British Airways with a brief to clean the company up for privatization. Over the next 12 years he steered the company to profitability.
(Econ, 7/16/05, p.54)(http://tinyurl.com/3xl527)
1981 Mar 2, A Pakistan Airways Boeing 720 was hijacked by 3 Pakistani terrorists. The passengers and crew were released March 15 in Syria.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/15/newsid_2818000/2818437.stm)
1981 Apr 3, Juan Terry Trippe (b.1899), American commercial aviation pioneer, entrepreneur and the founder of Pan American World Airways, died in NYC.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Trippe)
1981 May 1, American Airlines instituted the 1st "frequent flyer" program to keep customers returning.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)(http://tinyurl.com/2uvcut)
1981 May 26, 14 people were killed when a Marine jet crashed onto the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz off Florida.
(AP, 5/26/97)
1981 Jul 7, The 1st solar-powered aircraft, Solar Challenger, crossed the English Channel flying 163 miles from Paris to Canterbury. It was created by Dupont and Paul MacCready.
(www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/news/FactSheets/FS-054-DFRC.html)(Econ, 9/8/07, p.88)
1981 Aug 3, US air traffic controllers (PATCO) went on strike, despite a warning from President Reagan they would be fired. Most of the 13,000 controllers defied Reagan’s order to return to work within 48 hours and were fired.
(AP, 8/3/02)(SFC, 10/4/02, p.A17)
1981 Oct 22, The Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) was decertified by the US federal government for its strike the previous August.
(AP, 10/22/06)
1981 Nov 12, The Double Eagle V landed in California 84 hours and 31 minutes following its Nov 10 launch in Japan. It was the 1st balloon to cross the Pacific ocean. Rocky Aoki (1938-2008), founder of the Benihana steakhouse (1964), was part of the crew.
(http://www.benihana.com/ballooning_history.asp)(SFC, 7/12/08, p.B5)
1982 Feb 5, Laker Airways, founded in 1966 by Sir Freddie Laker, collapsed owing $351M.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laker_Airways)
1982 May 12, Braniff Airlines ceased operations. N601BN "747 Braniff Place" made the very last Braniff flight from Hawaii to Dallas/Fort Worth on May 13.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braniff_Airways)
1982 Jul 2, Larry Walters (1949-1993), a Los Angeles truck driver, flew 16,000 feet into the air with 42 helium balloons attached to a lawn chair. Walters surprised an airline pilot, who radioed the control tower that he had just passed a guy in a lawn chair with a gun. The weapon was to shoot balloons and descend. Walters paid a $1,500 penalty for violating air traffic rules. Eleven years later, he committed suicide at age 44.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Walters)(SFC, 7/3/02, p.A17)(AP, 7/10/07)
1982 Aug 11, Pan Am flight 830 from Tokyo to Honolulu was bombed. The bombing was set in motion when Mohammed Rashed, wife Christine Pinter and their son traveled to Tokyo with fraudulent identification documents. Rashed tucked a bomb beneath window seat 47K, pulled the pin, engaged the timer and got off in Japan. Toru Ozawa (16), vacationing with his family, occupied the same seat on the next leg and was killed. 15 people were injured. In 1998 Mohammed Rashid, a Palestinian national, was turned over to the US by Egypt on charges related to the bombing. In 2002 Rashid pleaded guilty in exchange for a release date of March 20, 2013.
(SFC, 6/4/98, p.A4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_830)(AP, 3/17/13)
1982 Husband and wife Selig Altschul and Marylin Bender authored "The Chosen Instrument," a biography of Juan Trippe (1927-1981), the founder of Pan American World Airways.
(SSFC, 11/8/20, p.C14)
1982 Charles F. Ehret (1923-2007), a scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, released the “Argonne Anti-Jet-Lag Diet."
(WSJ, 3/10/07, p.A4)
1982 Braniff Airlines, based in Dallas, ceased operations with $1 billion in debt. Harding Lawrence (d.2002 at 81) led the company from 1965-1980.
(SFC, 1/21/02, p.B5)
1982 The Pentagon acknowledged for the 1st time the existence of a "stealth" aircraft.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)
1982 A US federal law was passed that prohibited airport revenue from being transferred to local city general funds.
(SFC, 7/20/96, p.A11)
1983 Jun 2, A toilet caught fire on Air Canada's DC-9 and 23 died at Cincinnati.
(SC, 6/2/02)
1983 Jun 27, Maxie Anderson and Don Ida died during a balloon race.
(SC, 6/27/02)
1983 Jul 15, In France a bomb explodes in front of the THY counter at Orly airport. 8 people were killed and more than sixty injured. A 29 years old Syrian-Armenian named Varadjian Garbidjian (d.2019) confessed to having planted the bomb. He admitted that the bomb was intended to have exploded once the plane was airborne. Karapetian (d.2019), who headed the French branch of the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia, later confessed to paying a passenger to check a bomb-carrying bag for him onto a Turkish Airlines flight, claiming he had too much luggage himself. Karapetian was sentenced to life imprisonment in France, but was released in 2001 on condition of his being deported to Armenia.
(http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2006/12/1273-this-month-in-history-armenian.html)(AP, 1/29/19)
1983 Bhutan’s Paro Airport, the country’s first commercial airport, was constructed 40 miles from the capital.
(WSJ, 3/6/97, p.A8)
1983 In Saudi Arabia the King Khalid Int'l. Airport opened in Riyadh and was touted as the largest in the world. One of the terminals was mothballed at opening and remained so in 2008.
(WSJ, 8/20/96, p.A1)(Econ, 4/26/08, p.15)
1984 Mar, William Potts, on a Miami-bound Piedmont Airlines flight that originated in Newark, N.J., pushed his call button and gave the flight attendant a note saying he had two accomplices aboard with explosives. He hijacked the plane to Cuba, where he was arrested and served 13½ years in prison. In 2013 he returned to the US to face piracy charges.
(http://tinyurl.com/oayj9do)(Reuters, 11/6/13)
1984 Jun 22, Richard Branson led the inaugural flight of his Virgin Airlines from London to Newark, NJ.
(Econ, 6/16/07, SR p.10)
1984 Dec 4, A five-day hijack drama began as four armed men seized a Kuwaiti airliner en route to Pakistan and forced it to land in Tehran, where the hijackers killed American passenger Charles Hegna.
(AP, 12/4/04)
1984 Dec 9, In Iran a five-day hijack drama ended when Iranian commandos captured the Kuwaiti plane. 4 armed men had seized a Kuwaiti airliner en route to Pakistan and forced it to land in Tehran, where the hijackers killed American passenger Charles Hegna.
(AP, 12/4/04)
1984 Dec 14, The maiden flight of NASA’s X-29, a forward swept wing aircraft, took place.
(NPub, 2002, p.24)
c1984 Air Serv International was founded to ferry humanitarian workers to world hot spots.
(WSJ, 12/8/03, p.B1)
1985 Jun 14, The 17-day hijack ordeal of TWA Flight 847 began as a pair of Lebanese Shiite Muslim extremists seized the plane with 104 Americans shortly after takeoff from Athens, Greece. The hijackers killed Petty Officer Robert Dean Stethem and dumped his body on the tarmac in Beirut. In 2002 Stethem’s family was awarded $21.4 million in compensatory damages from the US Treasury. In 1987 Mohammed Ali Hamadi was arrested at the Frankfurt airport, when customs officials discovered liquid explosives in his luggage. The Lebanese man was convicted and served a life sentence in Germany for the 1985 hijacking of a TWA jetliner and killing of a US Navy diver. In 2005 he returned to Lebanon after being paroled in Germany.
(AP, 6/14/97)(HN, 6/14/98)(SSFC, 4/21/02, p.A9)(AP, 12/20/05)
1985 Gulf Air, a joint venture between Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Oman and Qatar, decided to cut back its services to Dubai. This prompted Dubai to launch its own airline. The Emirates Airline began in the UAE with 2 rented planes and a $10 million investment from Dubai’s ruling family under the direction of Maurice Flanagan. In 2005 the state-owned operation planned to double its 73-plane fleet. Sir Tim Clark helped set up the airline and by 2015 it was the world’s biggest carrier as measured by int’l. passenger mileage.
(WSJ, 1/11/05, p.A1)(Econ, 6/5/10, p.75)(Econ, 11/26/16, p.63)
1985 Ryanair was founded by Cathal and Declan Ryan (after whom the company is named), Liam Lonergan (owner of an Irish tour operator named Club Travel), and noted Irish businessman Tony Ryan (1936-2007), founder of Guinness Peat Aviation and father of Cathal and Declan. The small airline, flying a short hop from Waterford to London, grew to become one of Europe's largest carriers.
(WSJ, 10/6/07, p.A17)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryanair)
1986 Sep 5, The Pakistan army stormed a hijacked US B-747 in Karachi and 22 people were killed. A purser helped save the lives of more than 350 passengers when Libyan-backed hijackers stormed Pan Am Flight 73. The hijackers killed the purser and she posthumously became the youngest person to receive India's highest civilian award for bravery. In 2001 Zayd Hassan Abd Al-latif Masud Al Safarini, jailed in Pakistan for 15 years, arrived in Alaska and was expected to face a 1991 indictment for the 1986 hijacking of a Pan Am jet. In 2003 Safarini pleaded guilty and agreed to 3 life sentences plus 25 years. On Jan 3, 2008, Pakistani authorities freed and deported four Palestinians convicted in the hijacking.
(SFC, 10/2/01, p.A3)(SFC, 12/17/03, p.A4)(AP, 9/5/06)(AP, 1/3/08)(AFP, 7/16/17)
1986 Dec 23, The experimental airplane Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, completed the first non-stop, round-the-world flight without refueling as it landed safely at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
(AP, 12/23/97)
1986 Frank Borman, CEO of Eastern Airlines, sold the company to Texas Air, led by Frank Lorenzo.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Air_Lines)
1987 Mar, Britain’s PM Margaret Thatcher privatized BAA (British Airports Authority). From a lethargic government bureaucracy it grew to become a major airport operator.
(TMC, 1994, p.1987)(WSJ, 9/24/96, p.A1)
1987 Apr 18, An unconscious skydiver was rescued by another diver in mid-air.
(MC, 4/18/02)
1987 Japan privatized Japan Airlines (JAL). By 2001 it required 3 state bailouts.
(Econ, 10/3/09, p.76)
1988 Mar 20, Eight-year-old DeAndra Anrig found herself airborne when the string of her kite was snagged by an airplane flying over Shoreline Park in Mountain View, Calif. Not seriously hurt, she was lifted 10 feet off the ground and carried 100 feet until she let go.
(AP, 3/20/98)
1988 Apr 23, A federal ban on smoking during domestic airline flights of two hours or less went into effect.
(AP, 4/23/98)(WSJ, 1/27/04, p.D12)
1988 Apr 23, Greek cycling champion Kanellos Kanellopoulos pedaled a self-powered aircraft named Daedalus 88 for 74 miles. The MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics Department's Daedalus was a human-powered aircraft flew from Iraklion Air Force Base on Crete, Greece, crashing in the sea just short of the island of Santorini in 3 hours, 54 minutes. Daedalus 87 had crashed on Rogers Dry Lakebed on 17 February 1988, and was rebuilt as a backup.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Daedalus)
1988 Jun 8, Nippon Airways announced that painting eyeballs on Jets cut bird collisions by 20%.
(MC, 6/8/02)
1988 Nov, African Aviation Ministers met in Yamoussoukro, Côte d’Ivoire, to develop a blueprint for building a strong and vibrant aviation industry that would galvanise economic and social development across the huge continent of Africa. Most African governments signed up to the Yamoussoukro Declaration, pledging to open their skies to one another. By 2016 not had done so fully.
(www.africanaviation.com/The_Yamoussoukro_Indecision.html)(Econ, 2/13/15, p.12)
1988 Dec 2, The 5 gunmen, who hijacked Soviet Aeroflot jet, surrendered in Israel.
(http://tinyurl.com/hkvkb)
1988 Tony Ryan, the founder of Guinness Peat Aviation, brought on Michael O’Leary to do whatever was necessary to make Ryanair profitable. In 2007 Alan Ruddock authored “Michael O’Leary: A Life in Full Flight."
(Econ, 8/25/07, p.76)
1989 Mar 4, Frank Lorenzo locked out Eastern's mechanics and ramp service employees, represented by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM). Eastern Airlines machinists went on strike and were joined by pilots and flight attendants.
(AP, 3/4/99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Airlines)
1989 Mar 5, Machinists striking Eastern Airlines withdrew an immediate threat to picket the nation's railroads, after a federal judge issued an order temporarily prohibiting rail workers from honoring the Eastern picket lines.
(AP, 3/5/99)
1989 Mar 6, With nearly 90 percent of its pilots honoring the picket lines of striking machinists, Eastern Airlines shut down operations on all but three routes.
(AP, 3/6/99)
1989 Mar 9, Eastern Airlines filed for bankruptcy.
(HN, 3/9/98)
1989 May 12, The nation's largest airline computer reservation system, the American Airlines Sabre system, shut down for nearly 12 hours, disrupting the operations of thousands of travel agencies nationwide.
(AP, 5/12/99)
1989 May 25, Eastern Airlines graduated its 1st class of non-union pilots.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1989 Jul 17, The controversial B-2 Stealth bomber underwent its first test flight at Edwards Air Force Base in California, two days after a technical problem forced a postponement.
(AP, 7/17/99)
1989 Aug 13, 2 hot-air balloons crashed at Alice Springs, Australia, and 13 were killed.
(MC, 8/13/02)
1989 Nov 1, A Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) and Finnair ban on smoking took effect for all Nordic flights.
(http://tc.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/13/suppl_1/i20)
1989 Nov 21, A law banning smoking on most domestic flights signed by President Bush.
(http://tinyurl.com/gf6zq)
1989 Nov 22, Eastern Airlines pilots and flight attendants ended their strike. President Bush vetoed a bill that would set up panel to investigate walkout. The strike by machinists continued.
(http://openweb.tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/1989-11/1989-11-22-ABC-11.html)
1989 Frank Lorenzo sold Eastern Air Lines Shuttle to real estate mogul Donald Trump (who named it the Trump Shuttle). Lorenzo sold other parts of Eastern to his Texas Air holding company and its subsidiary, Continental Airlines, at terms disadvantageous to Eastern.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Air_Lines)
1990 Apr 18, Bankruptcy court forced Frank Lorenzo (b.1940) to give up Eastern Airlines. Lorenzo had cut wages, alienated the staff and pursued a policy of asset-stripping the company.
(www.airlinesafety.com/Unions/UnionVictoryAtEastern.htm)(Econ., 12/12/20, p.65)
1990 Aug 20, Three former Northwest Airlines pilots were convicted in Minneapolis of flying while intoxicated.
(AP, 8/20/00)
1990 Sep 29, The YF22 fighter, an American prototype fighter aircraft designed by Northrop and McDonnell Douglas, was first flown by Lockheed test pilot Dave Ferguson.
(NPub, 2002, p.25)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_YF-23)
1990 Oct 11, The first flight of the X-31 took place. The collaborative US-German Rockwell-MBB X-31 Enhanced Fighter Maneuverability program was designed to test fighter thrust vectoring technology.
(NPub, 2002, p.25)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-31)
1990 Nov 11, In Myanmar Rangoon students Soe Myint and a friend hijacked a plane enroute from Bangkok to Yangon. They made it fly to Calcutta (later Kolkata) by pretending that a bar of soap inside a statuette was a bomb. Myint then launched a news service covering Myanmar from India using underground reporters.
(http://tinyurl.com/kz4vs6d)(Econ, 8/10/13, p.38)
1990 Smoking was banned on US domestic flights 6 hours or less.
(WSJ, 1/27/04, p.D12)
1990 Canada-based Bombardier took over American-based Learjet.
(Econ, 1/4/14, p.23)
1991 Jun 19, Five Cubans stole and flew a Russian-made Antonov AN-2 biplane to Miami.
(http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=82602&page=2#.T3eeOtnNlPs)
1991 Jun, Alaska Airlines began the 1st regularly scheduled service from the US to the Soviet Far East.
(WSJ, 1/7/07, p.A4)
1991 Aug 27, The first flight of the YF23 V-22 Osprey tiltrotor took place.
(NPub, 2002, p.25)
1991 Sep 17, The first flight of the McDonnell Douglas C-17 military cargo transport took place.
(NPub, 2002, p.25)
1991 Dec 4, Pan American World Airways ceased operations. Pan Am’s records went to the Univ. of Florida and artifacts went to the Historical Museum of South Florida. However, a new, smaller version of Pan Am was later formed.
(AP, 12/4/01)(SSFC, 11/4/07, p.A9)
1991 Sony introduced the first commercial lithium-ion batteries in its CCD-TR1 camcorder. They had a capacity to overheat. In 2004 the US banned them as cargo on passenger planes. In 2006 Dell and Apple initiated recalls for laptop computers with recently manufactured, problematic lithium-ion batteries.
(Econ, 8/19/06, p.52)(Econ, 3/8/08, TQ p.23)(Econ, 8/12/17, p.16)
1992 Jun 26, Supreme Court ruled that fund soliciting can be banned at airports.
(MC, 6/26/02)
1992 Boeing and Airbus reached a truce whereby EU aid to Airbus was limited to a third of development costs and Boeing government subsidies to 4% of its turnover. The truce ended in 1998 as Airbus approached 50% of the market.
(Econ, 6/4/05, p.59)
1992 In India Naresh Goyal founded Jet Airways. Etihad Aviation Group purchased a 24% stake in Jet Airways in 2013. In 2019 the company faced Bankruptcy.
(AP, 4/16/19)
1993 Jan 22, Norwegian Air Shuttle was founded by Bjorn Kjos to take over the regional airline services produced by Busy Bee for Braathens in Western Norway.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_Air_Shuttle)(Econ 7/15/17, p.55)
1993 Nov 18, American Airlines flight attendants went on strike. They ended their job action four days later.
(AP, 11/18/98)
1993 Nov, Wang Zhihua boarded a scheduled flight from Hangzhou to Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian province opposite Taiwan. He showed fake explosives to the crew, saying he had a bomb, and forced the plane to fly to Taiwan. In 2008 Wang was returned to China and sentenced to 12 years in prison.
(AP, 12/5/08)
1993 In China Chen Feng led a coalition of private investors and the government of Hainan to launch Hainan Airlines. In 2016 it recorded revenues of $90 billion.
(Econ, 4/15/17, p.56)
1994 Feb 10, Jeannie Flynn (b.1966)), the first female combat pilot in the US Air Force, finished flight training in the F-15.
(http://tinyurl.com/n5ehhg)(NPub, 2002, p.26)
1994 Jun 7, Vicki Van Meter 912) of Meadville, Pa., completed a trans-Atlantic flight, landing in Glasgow, Scotland. She was accompanied by her flight instructor.
(www.zinkle.com/p/articles/mi_m1590/is_n3_v51/ai_15823355)
1994 Jun, Carlo Toto, an Italian contractor, purchased a Boeing 737 at a court auction and began a small-charter airline service that became Air One.
(WSJ, 9/24/04, p.A13)
1994 Jul 12, The shareholders and employees of United Airlines approved a deal giving the majority ownership to the employees (76,000+).
(Hem, Dec. 94, p.13)
1994 Oct 31, An American Eagle French-built ATR-72, en route from Indianapolis to Chicago, crashed in Roselawn, Ind., and killed 68 people. In 1997 American Airlines and 7 other companies settled a suit filed by relatives for $110 million.
(SFC, 9/23/97, p.A4)(AP, 10/31/97)
1994 An investor group led by Banco Bozano, Simonsen SA, bought the loss-ridden aircraft maker Embraer SA from the Brazilian government.
(WSJ, 3/21/97, p.A17)(WSJ, 9/13/04, p.A8)
1994 Canada leased its major airports to private-sector entities.
{California, Aviation}
(Econ, 8/12/17, p.52)
1994 India allowed private rivals to compete with Air India.
(Econ 7/8/17, p.59)
1995 Feb 28, Denver International Airport opened after 16 months of delays and $3.2 billion in budget overruns. A $250 million automated baggage handling system contributed to the delays. United Airlines gave up on the system in 2005.
(AP, 2/28/98)(WSJ, 6/7/05, p.D5)
1995 Nov, Air One launched service between Rome and Milan, a route on which Alitalia had held a monopoly.
(WSJ, 9/24/04, p.A13)
1995 The US Predator surveillance drone was 1st used over Bosnia. In 2001 it was equipped with the hell-fire missile and used over Afghanistan. This unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flew as slowly as a Cessna.
(SFC, 11/23/01, p.A12)(Econ, 12/8/07, TQ p.22)
1995 Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou (b.1967), a Greek-Cypriot-born British entrepreneur, founded easyJet, a budget airline.
(Econ, 11/22/08, p.75)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EasyJet)
1995 Mexico created Cintra, a holding company to rescue Aeromexico and Mexicana airlines.
(Econ, 3/26/05, p.63)
1996 Jan 4, The Boeing Sikorsky Comanche helicopter was unveiled.
(NPub, 2002, p.26)
1996 Aug 8, Frank A. Whittle (89), inventor of the Jet engine, died.
(MC, 8/8/02)
1996 Fokker went bankrupt, and the last new Fokker-50 was delivered to Ethiopian Airlines in May, 1997. Stork, another Dutch company, bought a large part of Fokker's assets, and continued to be a main provider of parts and service for Fokker planes.
(AP, 2/10/04)
1997 May 5, American Airlines' pilots ratified a contract, ending nearly three years of negotiations.
(AP, 5/5/98)
1997 May 10, In Britain Jennifer Murray and co-pilot Quentin Smith began a round-the-world helicopter trip in an effort to become the first woman to pilot the globe in a helicopter. She completed her flight on Aug 15.
(SFC, 7/23/97, p.A3)(SFC, 8/16/97, p.A11)
1997 May 17, The first flight of NASA’s subscale remotely piloted X-36 Tailless Fighter Agility Research Aircraft took place.
(www.dfrc.nasa.gov/gallery/Photo/X-36/index.html)
1997 Jun 28, Robert Schuller, TV evangelist, attacked a flight attendant.
(MC, 6/28/02)
1997 Aug, Harry Stonecipher, CEO of McDonnell Douglas, negotiated a merger with Boeing.
(WSJ, 3/7/05, p.A1)
1998 Apr 30, United and Delta airlines formed an alliance that would control one-third of all U.S. passenger seats.
(AP, 4/30/99)
1998 May 10, The FAA grounded older models of the Boeing 737 after mandatory inspections of some aircraft found extensive wear in power lines through wing fuel tanks.
(SFC, 5/11/98)(AP, 5/10/08)
1998 Jun 30, In Malaysia the new Kuala Lumpur Int’l. Airport (KLIA) began operations.
(SFEC, 7/5/98, p.T3)(Econ, 2/7/09, p.35)
1998 Sep 10, The Northwest Airlines and its pilots reached an agreement to end their 13-day strike.
(SFC, 9/11/98, p.A3)(AP, 9/10/99)
1998 Sep 10, Air Canada and its pilots reached an agreement to end a 9-day strike. [see Sep 14]
(SFC, 9/11/98, p.A3)
1998 Dec 25, Seven days into their journey, American millionaire Steve Fossett, British mogul Richard Branson and Per Lindstrom of Sweden set down their ICO Global Challenger balloon in the Pacific near Honolulu. This ended their latest effort to circumnavigate the world.
(SFC, 12/26/98, p.A1)(AP, 12/25/99)
1998 The Washington National Airport was renamed Ronald Reagan National Airport.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan_Washington_National_Airport)
1999 Mar 20, Balloonists Bertrand Piccard of Switzerland and Brian Jones of Britain became the first aviators to fly a hot-air balloon around the world nonstop. They established an around the world record after floating over Mauritania at 1:54 a.m. PST and won a $1 million prize from Anheuser-Busch as the first aviators to fly a hot-air balloon around the world nonstop.
(SFEC, 3/21/99, p.A21)(AP, 3/20/00)
1999 May 31, It was reported that Mike Moshier (51), founder of Millennium Jet Inc. in Santa Clara, Ca., had developed the SoloTrek XFV, a single passenger flying vehicle, that could fly at 80 mph for up to 90 minutes as high as 10,000 feet on a single tank of 87-octane gas.
(SFC, 5/31/99, p.E3)
1999 Jul 23, In Japan Yuzi Nishizawa (b.1970) attempted to hijack flight 61 from Tokyo and stabbed to death pilot Naoyuki Nagashima (51). The hijacker was overcome and the plane landed safely with 516 passengers. On March 23, 2005, Nishizawa was found to be guilty, but of unsound mind and thus only partly responsible for his actions. Presiding judge Hisaharu Yasui handed Nishizawa a life sentence in 2005.
(SFC, 7/24/99, p.A9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANA_Flight_61)
1999 Dec 6, SabreTech, an aircraft maintenance company, was convicted of mishandling the oxygen canisters blamed for the cargo hold fire that caused the 1996 ValuJet crash in the Everglades that killed 110 people. Eight of the nine counts were later thrown out on appeal.
(AP, 12/6/04)
1999 Dec 20, Singapore Airlines agreed to buy a 49% stake in Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic.
(www.iht.com/articles/1999/12/21/virgin.2.t.php)
1999 David Neeleman founded JetBlue Airways, an American low-cost airline. In Dec, 2008, he founded Azul (meaning blue), his Brazilian airline.
(Econ, 8/29/09, p.58)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JetBlue)
1999 Jets began landing on the main island of the archipelago of Socotra, ruled by Yemen. Some 50,000 native Socotris spoke 4 dialects of an ancient language unintelligible to other Yemenis. It has been described as the most alien-looking place on Earth.
(Econ, 4/24/10, p.46)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socotra)
2000 Jul 1, Canada and Russia began to allow regular commercial air flights over the North Pole.
(WSJ, 6/8/00, p.A19)
2000 Jul 10, DASA (minus MTU) merged with Aerospatiale-Matra of France and Construcciones Aeronáuticas SA (CASA) of Spain to form the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS). DASA was founded as Deutsche Aerospace AG on May 19, 1989 by the merger of Daimler-Benz's aerospace interests (MTU, Dornier and two divisions of AEG). In July 1989 the two AEG divisions were themselves merged within Deutsche Aerospace to form Telefunken Systemtechnik (TST). In December 1989 Daimler-Benz acquired Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm (MBB) and merged it into DASA.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DASA)
2000 Aug 15, British Airways joined Air France in grounding its Concorde supersonic jets in the wake of the July 25th crash near Paris that claimed 113 lives.
(SFC, 8/16/00, p.A17)(AP, 8/15/01)
2000 Sep 15, The new San Francisco Int’l. Terminal opened at a cost of $950 million. SFO operations at Terminal 2 ceased in December as part of a $2.5 billion airport master plan.
(SFC, 9/16/00, p.A15)(SFC, 5/13/08, p.D4)
2001 Jan 10, American Airlines (AMR) called its plan to acquire Trans World Airlines (TWA) beneficial to consumers. TWA’s board approved plans for bankruptcy and accept the buyout offer. TWA had used St. Louis as a hub.
(WSJ, 1/11/01, p.A3)(WSJ, 1/2/02, p.R12)(Econ, 6/28/08, p.37)
2001 Jan, In Brazil Gol Airlines was launched by the Constantino family, which ran a fleet of buses. Employee owned Varig had 40% of the market, but was crumbling under competition from TAM. Varig went into bankruptcy in 2005.
(Econ, 4/28/07, p.76)
2001 Aug 10, A tourist helicopter crashed near the Grand Canyon and 6 people were killed.
(SSFC, 8/12/01, p.A8)
2001 cAug 26, In the French Alps a hot-air balloon caught fire after apparently hitting a high voltage wire and 6 people were killed.
(WSJ, 8/27/01, p.A1)
2001 Sep 11, Two planes left Boston’s Logan Airport. Both planes were hijacked and flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. In the same morning, another plane left Dulles International Airport in Virginia. It was hijacked, turned around and flown into the Pentagon building. A fourth plane from Newark Airport in New Jersey was hijacked and steered back toward Washington, D.C. It crashed in rural Pennsylvania after people on board tried to stop the hijackers. Four groups of terrorists used knives, hijacked 4 airplanes, and were linked to Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda organization. The terrorist attacks threatened to prompt a global recession. Thousands of people were stranded and air cargo was paralyzed as the FAA grounded all US flights. (http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/11/chronology.attack/)
8:45 am EST: American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767 carrying 92 people, crashed into the North tower of the World Trade Center in NYC. It was enroute from Boston to LA.
9:03 am EST: United Airlines Flight 175, a Boeing 767 carrying 65 people, crashed into the South Tower of the WTC. It was enroute from Boston to LA.
9:38 am EST: American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757 carrying 64 people, crashed into the Pentagon in Arlington, Va. It was enroute from Washington DC to LA.
9:40 am EST The FAA grounded all domestic flights and ordered all airborne craft to land immediately.
9:43 am EST: American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757 carrying 64 people, crashed into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. It was enroute from Washington, D.C. to Los Angeles, California
10:00 am EST The South Tower of the WTC collapsed.
10:10 am United Airlines Flight 93, a Boeing 757 carrying 45 people, crashed southeast of Pittsburgh. The plane had left Newark for SF but was believed to be directed by hijackers to Camp David. Passengers appeared to have overcome the hijackers. In 2002 it was reported that Congress was the target.
10:29 am EST The North Tower of the WTC collapsed.
1:04 pm EST: President George W. Bush puts the U.S. military on “high alert."
5:25 pm EST: Building 7 of the WTC complex collapsed.
8:30 pm EST: President George W. Bush, in a televised address, vowed to find those responsible for the attacks.
In 2005 NYC said it was unable to identify the remains of 1,161 of the 2,749 people killed in the Sep 11 attacks. The ultimate death toll would be: 2,797 at the World Trade Center Towers, 189 killed at the Pentagon and 44 died in Pennsylvania … a total of 3,030.
(SFC, 9/12/01, p.A6,10,12)(WSJ, 9/12/01, p.A1)(SFC, 11/6/01, p.A6)(WSJ, 9/12/01, p.A1,3) (WSJ, 2/24/05, p.A1)
2001 Sep 11, Rick Rescorla, security chief at Morgan Stanley, evacuated 2,700 MS employees from the WTC and was killed trying to save others. In 2002 James B. Stewart authored "Heart of a Soldier," a biography of Rescorla.
(WSJ, 9/11/02, p.D10)
2001 Sep 11, World leaders expressed outrage at terrorist attacks in NYC and the Pentagon and pledged solidarity with the US. In the West Bank town of Nablus, some 3,000 people celebrated the attacks and chanted "God is great." Later the estimates of the WTC dead dropped to 4,396. In 2004 the count was reduced to 2,749.
(SFC, 9/12/01, p.A14)(SFC, 11/3/01, p.A3)(SFC, 11/21/01, p.A2)(USAT, 10/30/03, p.7A)(WSJ, 1/26/04, p.A1)
2001 Sep 11, Peter Alderman (25) was among those murdered by terrorists while attending a conference at the World Trade Center. His parents later established the Peter C. Alderman Foundation in his name to alleviate the suffering of victims of terrorism and mass violence in post-conflict countries by providing physicians and other indigenous caregivers with the tools to treat mental anguish using Western medical therapies combined with local healing traditions.
(www.petercaldermanfoundation.org/about/index.html)
2001 Oct 2, Cash-strapped Swissair shut down flight operations and stranded thousands of passengers around the globe.
(SFC, 10/3/01, p.D3)
2001 Oct 4, Reagan National Airport re-opened.
(SFC, 10/5/01, p.A15)
2001 Oct 4, Swissair resumed flying following a 2-day shut down propped by a $281 million Swiss government loan. [see Jan 31, 2002]
(SFC, 10/5/01, p.B4)
2001 Dec 22, Passengers and flight attendants subdued Richard Colvin Reid on AA Flight 63 from Paris to Miami. He appeared to have explosive materials in his shoes. The flight was diverted to Boston and the FBI confirmed that his shoes were packed with explosives. Reid had trained with Lashkar-e-Taiba. French police identified the man as Tariq Raja (28), a Sri Lankan traveling on a British passport. The sneakers contained pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) and triacetone triperoxide (TATP). On Jan 30, 2003 Reid was sentenced to life in prison. A 2nd plot involved Saajid Badat, who backed out of similar plan on a different flight. In 2005 a British judge sentenced Badat (25) to 13 years in prison.
(SSFC, 12/23/01, p.A1)(SFC, 12/24/01, p.A1,6)(SFC, 1/31/03, p.A1)(SFC, 4/23/05, p.A4)(WSJ, 12/8/08, p.A6)
2001 Dec, Airbus announced the development of a huge double-decker jet, the A-380, capable of carrying up to 1,000 passengers.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)
2001 Tony Fernandez (b.1964), Malaysian entrepreneur, acquired AirAsia and soon re-launched it as a low-cost domestic carrier with 2 B737 planes purchased from a Malaysian conglomerate. Ryanair signed on with a 5% stake. By 2009 the company had 76 planes. By the end of 2004 the low cost airline planned to have 30 planes.
(Econ, 3/13/04, p.63)(Econ, 2/7/09, p.35)(Econ, 3/21/09, p.72)(http://tinyurl.com/cxf3hz)
2001 Braathens, a Norwegian airline, was taken over by the SAS Group, partly owned by the governments of Sweden, Denmark and Norway. It merged with SAS in 2004.
(Econ, 4/27/13, p.61)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braathens)
2002 Jan 31, Crossair, a regional carrier and successor airline to the bankrupt Swissair, announced plans that will make it Europe's 4th largest international airline, under the new name Swiss.
(EB, 2002, p.11)(Econ, 2/14/04, p.10)
2002 Jul 10, A unified US Senate approved harsh new penalties for corporate fraud and document-shredding as part of an accounting oversight bill. The House approved, 310-113, a measure to allow pilots to carry guns in the cockpit to defend their planes against terrorists. President George W. Bush later signed the measure into law.
(AP, 7/10/07)
2002 Aug 11, US Airways, the 6th largest US airline, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
(SFC, 8/12/02, p.A1)
2002 Aug 13, American Airlines said it would eliminate 7,000 and cut flights.
(AP, 8/13/03)
2002 Sep 2, Glenn Tilton was named chairman, president and chief executive officer of United Airlines parent UAL Corp.
(AP, 9/2/03)
2002 Nov 28, In Kenya 3 suicide bombers attacked an Israeli-owned hotel, killing 13 other people. Gunmen fire two MANPADS at a Boeing jet carrying 271 passengers and crew as it took off from Mombasa, Kenya. Both missiles missed.
(AP, 11/28/02)(SFC, 11/29/02, p.A1)(SFC, 11/30/02, p.A1)(AP, 6/11/13)
2002 Dec 4, A US federal board rejected a 1.8 billion loan guarantee for United Airlines.
(SFC, 12/5/02, p.A1)(WSJ, 12/5/02, p.A1)
2002 Dec 9, United Airlines filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and reported losses of $20 million a day.
(SFC, 12/9/02, p.A1)(SFC, 12/10/02, p.A1)
2002 Christopher Chant authored "A Century of Triumph: The History of Aviation."
(WSJ, 11/1/02, p.W10)
2002 Losses for the 9 biggest US airlines totaled 11.2 billion for the year.
(WSJ, 1/2/04, p.R8)
2002 PT Dirgantara Indonesia won a contract to produce wing parts for the Airbus A380.
{Indonesia, Aviation}
(Econ, 2/15/14, p.57)
2003 Jan 15, Lufthansa introduced Internet access to passengers on a flight from Germany to Washington DC.
(SFC, 1/15/03, p.B1)
2003 Mar, Hooters Air started flying between Atlanta and Myrtle Beach.
(Econ, 6/28/03, p.65)
2003 Mar 19, A Cuban airliner was hijacked to Key West. 6 hijackers took control of the plane without telling the 25 passengers and six crew members about their asylum plans. The six were later convicted of federal hijacking charges.
(SFC, 3/20/03, p.A15)(AP, 3/19/04)
2003 Mar 24, The National Transportation Safety Board concluded that Boeing 737 rudder problems caused two fatal airline crashes and nearly triggered a third.
(AP, 3/24/04)
2003 Apr 1, In the second hijacking of a Cuban plane in as many weeks, a hijacker claiming to have two grenades surrendered an hour after forcing the aircraft to land in Florida with 32 people aboard. Adermis Wilson Gonzalez was convicted of air piracy and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
(AP, 4/2/03)(AP, 3/24/14)
2003 Apr 1, Air Canada filed for bankruptcy protection.
(WSJ, 1/2/04, p.R9)
2003 May 31, Air France planned to ground its last 5 Concorde airplanes. The Air France Concorde, the world's fastest and most luxurious passenger jet, flew from New York to Paris for the last time.
(SFC, 4/11/03, p.B5)(AP, 5/30/03)(SSFC, 6/1/03, p.A2)
2003 Jun 12, Air France turned the oldest of its Concordes over to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.
(AP, 6/12/04)
2003 Aug 12, A balsa-mylar model airplane set a long distance flight record of 1,888.3 miles as it landed in Ireland from Newfoundland.
(WSJ, 8/13/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 29, The board of Air France approved a deal to combine with Dutch KLM under a holding company to form the world's #3 airline.
(WSJ, 1/2/04, p.R12)
2003 Aug, Vietnam took possession of the 1st of 4 new Boeing 777-200 ER jetliners purchased in part with a loan from the Export-Import Bank of the US.
(SSFC, 8/24/03, p.I6)
2003 Oct 8, Vietnam and the United States tentatively agreed to allow the first commercial flights between the two countries since the end of the Vietnam War.
(AP, 10/8/03)
2003 Oct 24, British Airways retired the Concorde. 3 Concordes swooped into Heathrow Airport, joining in a spectacular finale to the era of luxury supersonic jet travel.
(WSJ, 10/2/03, p.A1)(AP, 10/24/03)
2003 Nov 22, A DHL Airbus cargo jet transporting mail in Iraq was struck and damaged by a MANPAD. Though hit in the left fuel tank, the plane was able to return to the Baghdad airport and land safely.
(AP, 6/11/13)
2003 Dec 1, Boeing Company chairman and CEO Phil Condit resigned unexpectedly. Boeing was involved in a series of procurement violations that also led to the firing of CFO Michael Sears, who ended up serving time in prison for illegal employment negotiations. In 2006 Boeing agreed to pay $615 million to end 3 years of Justice Department investigations.
(AP, 12/1/04)(WSJ, 5/15/06, p.A1)
2003 Dec, Dennis Montgomery, a California computer programmer, reported that hidden in the crawl bars broadcast by Al Jazeera, someone had planted information about specific American-bound flights from Britain, France and Mexico that were hijacking targets. CIA officials rushed the information to Pres. Bush, who ordered those flights to be turned around or grounded before they could enter American airspace. Montgomery had patented computer codes that he claimed could find terrorist plots hidden in broadcasts of Al Jazeera. His codes were later believed to be fake. In 2011 Montgomery faced charges of trying to pass $1.8 million in bad checks at Las Vegas casinos.
(SSFC, 2/20/11, p.A8)(http://tinyurl.com/5rur55y)
2003 The Int’l. Civil Aviation Association (ICOA) issued technical specifications for passports to contain an integrated circuit to be activated by a radio signal to broadcast stored data.
(Econ, 2/19/05, p.75)
2003 The cost of ultralights fell to under $20,000.
(Econ, 8/9/03, p.66)
2003 Abu Dhabi launched its Etihad airline by royal decree. In 2004 it made an $8 billion order for new airplanes.
(Econ, 6/5/10, p.76)
2003 Afghanistan 1st private airline, Kam Air, was launched.
(Econ, 8/21/04, p.35)
2003 Captain G.R. Gopinath launched Air Deccan, India’s 1st low-cost airline.
(Econ, 3/10/07, p.59)
2004 Jan 12, It was reported that a new US Homeland Security program planned to screen airline passengers according to a color code based on computerized data.
(SFC, 1/13/04, p.A1)
2004 Feb 3, Singapore Airlines began 18½ hour non-stop flights to Los Angeles.
(USAT, 2/5/04, p.1B)
2004 Jun 4, Virgin USA chose SFO as its home base.
(SFC, 6/5/04, A1)
2004 Sep 12, US Airways filed for bankruptcy protection.
(AP, 9/13/04)
2004 Sep 30, Officials at US 115 int’l. airports and 14 seaports began photographing and electronically fingerprinting travelers from 27 industrialized nations.
(SFC, 10/1/04, p.A3)
2004 Dec 24, The Comair computer system crashed after it was overwhelmed by cancellations and delays due to winter storms in the Ohio Valley. Comair was forced to cancel all of its 1,100 flights the next day. US AIR cancelled numerous flights and baggage problems rippled through its system for days.
(SFC, 12/27/04, p.A3)
2004 Dana Bell and Norman Polmar authored “One Hundred Years of World Military Aircraft."
(www.historynet.com/one-hundred-years-of-world-military-aircraft-book-review.htm)
2004 Stephen Budiansky authored "Air Power," a history of military aviation.
(WSJ, 4/12/04, p.D8)
2004 Alastair Gordon authored “Naked Airport: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Revolutionary Structure."
(SSFC, 9/5/04, p.M1)
2004 In India the low-cost GoAir airline was founded. By 2014 it had 19 aircraft and a 9.2% national market share.
(Econ, 11/29/14, p.58)
2005 Jan 18, In France Airbus unveiled the 840-passenger A380, the world's biggest passenger jet, in a glitzy ceremony in which the leaders of France, Britain, Germany and Spain hailed Europe's victory over the US as the new king of the commercial skies.
(AP, 1/18/05)
2005 Jan 20, Delta Airlines reported a record $5.2 billion loss for 2004.
(SFC, 1/21/05, p.C1)
2005 Feb 15, The Falcon 7X, a business jet designed and built by the French aviation company Dassault, was displayed for the first time. It was the first plane to be digitally modeled in 3-dimensions and required no prototype.
(Econ, 6/18/05, p.78)(http://tinyurl.com/lxlgt2)
2005 Mar 11, Canada’s Jetsgo announced in the dead of night that it was going out of business and grounding all flights immediately as thousands of passengers prepared to jet away for March break, one of the busiest travel periods of the year.
(AP, 3/11/05)
2005 Mar 17, Italian airline Alitalia SpA said that the latest strike by flight attendants could plunge the struggling carrier into bankruptcy.
(AP, 3/17/05)
2005 May 20, US Airways and America West merged in a $1.5 billion deal.
(SFC, 5/20/05, p.C1)
2005 Jun 13, The Paris Air Show opened. The Russian Lavochkin Association demonstrated a new escape pod for people trapped in tall, burning buildings.
(Econ, 6/11/05, p.60)(Econ, 6/25/05, p.81)
2005 Jun 19, A new, domestic French low-cost airline, Air Turquoise, took to the skies, opening budget routes from the northeast city of Reims to Bordeaux, Marseille and Nice.
(AP, 6/19/05)
2005 Jul 21, Airbus said it has received an order for 20 of its twin-aisle A330 passenger jets from Air China, in a deal worth about 3.2 billion euros ($3.9 billion) at list prices.
(AP, 7/21/05)
2005 Oct 10, Japan's space agency conducted a test flight of a supersonic jet prototype in the Australian Outback.
(AP, 10/10/05)
2005 Nov 19, President Bush arrived in Beijing for talks with Chinese leaders following the APEC meeting in South Korea. A US official said China will buy 70 Boeing 737 airliners as President Bush arrived on a visit expected to include discussion of Beijing's surging trade surplus with the US.
(AP, 11/19/05)(AP, 11/19/06)
2005 Nov 29, CINTRA sold Mexicana airlines and its subsidiary, Click Mexicana, to the Mexican hotel chain Grupo Posadas for USD$165.5 million.
(Econ, 8/14/10, p.53)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexicana_de_Aviaci%C3%B3n)
2005 In India Vijay Mallya, chairman of Bangalore based United Breweries, launched Kingfisher Airlines, named after UB’s best-selling beer.
(Econ, 7/16/05, p.64)
2006 Feb 9, Sir Freddie Laker (83), pioneer of low-cost airline travel, died in Florida.
(WSJ, 2/11/06, p.A1)
2006 Feb 11, Adventurer Steve Fossett completed the longest nonstop flight in aviation history, flying 26,389 miles in about 76 hours, but he had to land early in southern England because of mechanical problems.
(AP, 2/11/06)
2006 Mar 27, Malaysia’s government said it will end subsidies to flag carrier Malaysia Airlines and let it operate only 19 domestic routes, in competition with budget carrier AirAsia, under a major restructuring that will shed thousands of jobs.
(AP, 3/27/06)
2006 Apr 10, Mexican soldiers seized 128 suitcases packed with 5.6 metric tons of cocaine worth more than $100 million from a commercial plane arriving from Venezuela. Smugglers had purchased the DC-9 plane with laundered funds transferred through US banks Wachovia Corp. and Bank of America. In 2010 court papers said a gang under Walid Makled operated the DC-9 and flew the cocaine from Simon Bolivar International to Campeche, Mexico. Makled was arrested Aug 19, 2010 in Colombia in the border city of Cucuta. In Nov 2010 Colombia denied an extradition request for Makled by the US, saying that the suspect will be sent back to face charges in his home country.
(AP, 4/12/06)(SFC, 6/30/10, p.D1)(AP, 11/17/10)
2006 Jul, In Spain employees of the airline Iberia blocked Barcelona runways over a new baggage check arrangement. In 2011 Spain’s Supreme Court confirmed 2-year prison sentences for 23 employees whose actions affected some 600 flights leaving 100,000 passengers stranded.
(SFC, 1/29/11, p.A2)
2006 Oct 3, A Turkish Airlines plane carrying 113 people from Albania to Istanbul landed in Italy where a Turkish man surrendered and released all the passengers unharmed. The Turkish army deserter who hijacked the airliner sought asylum because he feared persecution in his Muslim homeland after his conversion to Christianity and wanted Pope Benedict XVI's protection.
(AP, 10/4/06)(AP, 10/3/07)
2006 Oct 29, Libya took delivery of a Boeing jetliner for the first time in 30 years after the privately owned Buraq Air airline bought six of the US-made aircraft.
(AFP, 10/28/06)
2006 Nov 15, US Airways Group Inc. made an $8 billion cash and stock bid for Delta Air Lines Inc., a deal that would create one of the world's largest carriers. The move came despite Delta's repeated statements it isn't interested in a merger.
(AP, 11/15/06)
2006 Representatives of twenty or more airlines were caught conspiring to fix prices on int’l. cargo services. The airlines were forced to pay over $3 billion in penalties.
(SFC, 4/21/14, p.67)
2006 Boeing developed its Large Cargo Freighter, a converted 747, to handle large cargo for its new 787 Dreamliner. The makeover was performed in Taiwan.
(WSJ, 1/8/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 15, JetBlue Airways Corp. tried to calm a maelstrom of criticism, after passengers were left waiting on planes at a NY airport for as long as 11 hours during a snow and ice storm.
(AP, 2/15/07)
2007 Feb 15, A fast-thinking pilot with passengers in cahoots fooled hijacker Mohamed Abderraman, a 32-year-old Mauritanian, by braking hard upon landing in Gran Canaria, then accelerating to knock the man down. When he fell, flight attendants threw boiling water in his face, and about 10 people pounced on him.
(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 28, European airliner maker Airbus told unions that it would dispose of six factories and switch some work from France to Germany under a plan costing some 10,000 jobs.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, Indonesia said it is planning to ban local carriers from operating jetliners more than 10 years old as part of a safety campaign following a string of crashes and accidents.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Mar 1, India’s government approved a proposal to merge 4 state-owned air-carriers in order to make them more competitive.
(Econ, 3/10/07, p.59)
2007 Mar 16, JetBlue canceled 215 flights because of a winter storm on the East Coast. The storm was blamed for as many as a dozen deaths and forced more than 3,600 flight cancellations.
(AP, 3/16/07)(WSJ, 3/19/07, p.A1)
2007 Mar 30, Authorities arrested a man armed with a knife who hijacked a Sudan Airways plane while flying from Libya to Sudan.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2007 Apr 15, Airlines canceled over 400 flights in the NYC area as a hard-blowing nor'easter gathered strength along the East Coast. The storm out of the Great Plains was already blamed for 5 deaths.
(AP, 4/15/07)(SFC, 4/16/07, p.A4)
2007 Apr 30, Delta Air Lines emerged from bankruptcy after 19 months in Chapter 11.
(Econ, 5/5/07, p.84)
2007 Jun 2, Four Muslim men were arrested and in connection to a plan to set off explosives in a jet fuel line that feeds John F. Kennedy International Airport and runs through residential neighborhoods. Two men allegedly involved in a plot to attack New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport were in custody in Trinidad and Tobago and the police commissioner said authorities were scouring the Caribbean country for a third suspect still at large. In 2011 Kareem Ibrahim (65) of Trinidad was found guilty of convincing plotters to seek aid from Iran.
(AP, 6/2/07)(AP, 6/3/07)(AP, 6/2/08)(SFC, 5/27/11, p.A6)
2007 Jun 9, Boeing and Aeroflot signed a deal for the Russian carrier to acquire 22 Dreamliner jets from the American plane maker.
(AP, 6/9/07)
2007 Jun 18, In France Airbus racked up a series of big orders at the opening of the Paris Air Show. Airbus announced that it had booked firm orders or letters of intent to order for 339 aircraft, a record figure, for a value of 45.7 billion dollars (34.1 billion euros) at catalogue prices.
(AP, 6/18/07)(AFP, 6/19/07)
2007 Jun 19, International Lease Finance Corp., the world's largest airline leasing company, ordered 63 Boeing jets with a total list price of $8.8 billion.
(AP, 6/19/07)
2007 Jul 9, The EU's top justice official said EU citizens will be protected by the US Privacy Act under an anti-terror deal with Washington on the sharing of trans-Atlantic air passenger data.
(AP, 7/10/07)
2007 Jul 7, In Oregon Kent Couch (47) in his lawn chair with some snacks and a parachute rose to the sky under 105 large helium balloons. Nearly 9 hours later the gas station owner came back to earth in a farmer's field near Union, 193 miles from home. In September he had got off the ground for six hours.
(AP, 7/10/07)
2007 Aug 1, A financial watchdog said British Airways has been fined a record 121.5 million pounds (180 million euros, $246 million) after admitting collusion with Virgin Atlantic over fuel surcharges on tickets. British Airways and Korean Air (for collusion with Lufthansa) agreed to pay $300 million each in fines and plead guilty to federal charges that they colluded with other airlines to set ticket prices. In 2012 the fine against BA was reduced to £58.5 million.
(AFP, 8/1/07)(SFC, 8/2/07, p.C2)(Econ, 8/4/07, p.48)(AFP, 4/19/12)
2007 Aug 8, Virgin America, part of Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, made its inaugural flight from JFK to San Francisco. For the first nine months of 2008 Virgin announced a $174.5 million loss on $259 million in revenue.
(SFC, 1/3/11, p.D2)
2007 Aug 27, Opera Romana Pellegrinaggi, a Vatican-backed charter airline service, made its inaugural flight, aiming to carry pilgrims to such Catholic shrines as Lourdes, Fatima, Santiago de Compostela and the Holy Land.
(AP, 8/27/07)
2007 Aug 28, Paul MacCready (b.1925), designer of the Gossamer Albatross, died in California. His bicycle powered plane crossed the English Channel in 1979. He founded AeroVironment in 1971 to monitor air pollution.
(www.sas.org/maccready.htm)(Econ, 9/8/07, p.88)
2007 Sep 2, Temasek, Singapore’s state-owned investment company, said it would take a 8.3% stake in China Eastern Airlines and Singapore Airlines announced a 15.7% stake.
(Econ, 9/29/07, p.68)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Eastern_Airlines)
2007 Sep 4, Steve Fosset (63), tycoon turned record seeker, disappeared in Nevada after flying from the Flying M Ranch, owned by billionaire Baron Hilton. In 2002 Fosset became the 1st person to fly around the world in a balloon.
(SFC, 9/5/07, p.A8)(SFC, 9/15/07, p.A1)
2007 Sep 8, It was reported that China has 126 airports, 57 of which can handle private planes. This was compared to 500 airports in the US that can handle big commercial airliners, and some 10,000 that handle smaller planes.
(Econ, 9/8/07, p.69)
2007 Sep 26, Russia unveiled its regional 95-seat Superjet-100, a government-backed effort to re-energize the country's ailing aviation industry and get into a market now dominated by Bombardier and Embraer.
(AP, 9/26/07)
2007 Sep 28, Traveler Carol Anne Gotbaum of New York died in a holding cell at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix; authorities say Gotbaum accidentally asphyxiated herself after being chained to a bench.
(AP, 9/28/08)
2007 Oct 3, Tony Ryan (b.1936), Irish-born aviation entrepreneur and co-founder of Ryanair (1985), died.
(WSJ, 10/6/07, p.A17)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryanair)
2007 Oct 15, Airbus finally delivered its first A380 superjumbo jet. Singapore Airlines took delivery of the double-decker jet, the world's largest passenger plane, almost two years late. In 2020 the first A380 to fly was sent to the scrapheap as the COVID-19 pandemic cast a pall on the future of globe-trotting.
(AP, 10/15/07)(Econ., 8/15/20, p.59)
2007 Oct 25, An Airbus 380, the world's largest jetliner, made aviation history, completing its first commercial flight from Singapore to Sydney with 455 passengers, some of them ensconced in luxury suites and double beds.
(AP, 10/25/07)
2007 Oct 27, Queues of frustrated, angry passengers built up at main French airports as Air France cancelled scores of flights on the third day of a strike by cabin staff.
(AP, 10/27/07)
2007 Nov 12, Airbus said it was building a custom, 380 VIP double-decker jet for Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal with a price tag of over $320 million.
(AP, 11/12/07)
2007 Nov 27, Cessna said it will turn over complete production of its new Cessna 162 SkyCatcher to a Chinese partner. The base price of the plane will be $109,500.
(WSJ, 11/28/07, p.A14)
2007 Dec 13, Lufthansa AG said it is paying $300 million for a 19% stake in JetBlue Airways.
(SFC, 12/14/07, p.D3)
2007 Dec 21, China's first fully homegrown commercial aircraft, the 70-seat ARJ21, rolled off the production line, marking a potential milestone for the country's aviation program. Its first test flight was set for 2008.
(AP, 12/21/07)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACAC_ARJ21)
2007 Kathleen M. Barry authored “Femininity in Flight: A History of Flight Attendants."
(Econ, 5/5/07, p.105)
2008 Feb 8, In New Zealand a knife-wielding woman (33), originally from Somalia, tried to hijack a regional domestic flight, stabbing both pilots and threatening to blow up the twin-propeller plane before she was subdued.
(AP, 2/8/08)
2008 Feb 14, Boeing and India's Tata Industries announced an agreement to set up a joint venture company to handle an initial 500 million dollars of defense-related aerospace component work in India.
(AFP, 2/14/08)
2008 Feb 24, The first flight by a commercial airline to be partly powered by biofuels took off from London on a short trip to Amsterdam billed as heralding a new eco-friendlier era of airline travel.
(AFP, 2/24/08)
2008 Mar 15, Alitalia, Italy’s state-owned national airline, accepted a takeover offer worth $217 made by air France-KLM, a French-Dutch airline group. The Italian government accepted the offer on March 17.
(Econ, 3/22/08, p.73)
2008 Mar 25, Air travel between Georgia and Russia resumed, more than 17 months after Moscow suspended flights because of tension between the ex-Soviet neighbors.
(AP, 3/25/08)
2008 Mar 28, British Airways Plc cancelled a fifth of flights from its new $8.6 billion terminal at London's Heathrow airport as chaos from its shambolic opening spilled into a second day.
(AP, 3/28/08)
2008 Mar 29, British Airways said that it was canceling more flights to and from London Heathrow airport's new Terminal 5 for a third day running because of logistical problems.
{Britain, Aviation}
(AFP, 3/29/08)
2008 Mar 31, Hawaii’s Aloha Airlines ended passenger service after today due to competition and rising fuel prices.
(SFC, 3/31/08, p.A1)
2008 Apr 1, In France the stockmarket watchdog Autorite des Marches Financiers (AMF) filed a formal complaint against the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company, the parent company of Airbus, and more than a dozen current and former executives. It confirmed evidence of massive insider trading in shares of EADS in late 2005 and early 2006 in the knowledge that the A380 airbus program was in deep trouble.
(Econ, 6/21/08, p.80)(http://tinyurl.com/3kd8vh)
2008 Apr 3, ATA Airlines discontinued all flights and filed for bankruptcy.
(AP, 4/3/08)
2008 Apr 3, Alitalia edged closer to bankruptcy protection after Air France-KLM abruptly broke off talks to buy the struggling national airline and Alitalia's chairman of seven months resigned in frustration.
(AP, 4/3/08)
2008 Apr 5, Skybus Airlines, a low-cost carrier based in Columbus, Ohio, shut down and filed for bankruptcy protection, becoming the latest of the nation's airlines to fall because of rising fuel costs and a slowing economy.
(AP, 4/5/08)(SFC, 4/8/08, p.D3)
2008 Apr 7, The EU opened the way for air travelers to use mobile phones to talk, text or send e-mails on planes throughout Europe's airspace.
(AP, 4/7/08)
2008 Apr 9, Oasis Hong Kong Airlines cancelled all flights and went into liquidation as a result of high fuel costs.
(SFC, 4/10/08, p.C4)
2008 Apr 10, American Airlines canceled more than 900 flights to fix faulty wiring in hundreds of jets, marking the third straight day of mass groundings as company executives offered profuse apologies and travel vouchers to calm angry customers.
(AP, 4/10/08)
2008 Apr 14, Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines announced an agreement to a $17.7 billion merger creating the world’s largest carrier.
(SFC, 4/15/08, p.A1)
2008 Apr 22, Alitalia flew into the unknown after Air France-KLM withdrew its takeover offer, leaving Italy's long-struggling flagship airline with little choice but to contemplate bankruptcy or receivership. The outgoing center-left government allowed a loan of €300 million to Alitalia.
(AP, 4/22/08)(Econ, 4/26/08, p.68)
2008 Apr 26, Eos Airlines, a Business-class carrier launched in 2005, filed for bankruptcy. It ceased operations the next day.
(SFC, 4/28/08, p.A4)
2008 May 11, China PM Wen Jiabao launched Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (CACC), in an effort to challenge the duopoly of Airbus and Boeing.
(Econ, 5/17/08, p.82)
2008 May 14, A Swiss pilot strapped on a jet-powered wing and leaped from a plane for the first public demonstration of the homemade device, turning figure eights and soaring high above the Alps.
(AP, 5/15/08)
2008 May 21, American Airlines said it will remove 75 of 954 aircraft in its fleet and start charging some domestic passengers $15 to check a suitcase due to rising fuel costs. Oil futures closed at a record $133.17.
(SFC, 5/22/08, p.C1)(WSJ, 5/22/08, p.A1)
2008 May 31, President Manuel Zelaya said that Honduras would create a civilian airport for commercial jets on a US military airfield, diverting traffic from Tegucigalpa's notoriously dangerous airport following a deadly crash.
(AP, 6/1/08)
2008 Jun 3, UAL Corp's United Airlines announced plans to slash jobs and flights, following a similar move by AMR Corp's American Airlines last month.
(Reuters, 6/5/08)
2008 Jun 5, Continental Airlines Inc said it would cut 3,000 jobs, or about 6.5 percent of its work force, and retire 67 older planes as it scales down in the face of soaring fuel prices.
(Reuters, 6/5/08)
2008 Jun 13, In London, administrators said a takeover deal to rescue small business-class airline Silverjet has collapsed. The airline employed 370 pilots and cabin crew and 50 administrative staff in Luton, where it operated flights to New York and Dubai.
(AFP, 6/13/08)(http://tinyurl.com/56mjgg)
2008 Jun 18, The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) upheld Boeing’s protest of a refueling tanker contract and recommended a new competition.
(SFC, 6/19/08, p.A8)
2008 Jun 21, A Sudanese official said Sudan is grounding its national carrier Sudan Airways from June 23 for at least a month for breaking civil aviation rules, mainly over administration. On June 23 the Civil Aviation Authority agreed to a one month reprieve.
(AP, 6/21/08)(AFP, 6/24/08)
2008 Jun 26, Four international airlines (Air France-KLM, Cathay Pacific Airways, Martinair Holland and SAS Cargo Group) agreed to pay $504 million in fines to the US Justice Dept. to settle charges they conspired to fleece consumers by driving up cargo shipping prices.
(AP, 6/26/08)
2008 Jul 14, At Britain’s Farnborough International Airshow Etihad Airways, the national carrier of the United Arab Emirates, said it had agreed to buy 45 Boeing passenger jets worth 9.4 billion dollars (5.9 billion euros).
(AFP, 7/14/08)
2008 Jul 26, Brazil's Embraer (EMBR3.SA), the world's third-biggest commercial jet maker, said it would invest 148 million euros in two new plants in Portugal -- its first industrial units in Europe that will make wings and tailpieces for exports.
(AP, 7/26/08)
2008 Aug 20, International and domestic flights were disrupted across India as thousands of airport employees went on strike to protest plans to privatize airports.
(AP, 8/20/08)
2008 Jul 28, The propeller-driven "Zephyr" aircraft, owned by QinetiQ Group PLC, began a flight over the Arizona desert and continued for an unofficial record of 83 hours and 37 minutes, more than doubling the official world record set by Northrop Grumman's "Global Hawk" in 2001. The 66 pound- (30 kilogram-) plane was launched by hand and flown by autopilot and via satellite.
(AP, 8/24/08)
2008 Aug 26, Sudanese hijackers commandeered the Boeing 737 jetliner, which was carrying 95 passengers and crew, soon after it took off from the southern Darfur town of Nyala, not far from a refugee camp that the Sudanese military attacked a day earlier.
(AP, 8/27/08)
2008 Aug 27, Two hijackers, who commandeered a jetliner from Sudan's Darfur region and diverted it to a remote desert airstrip in southern Libya, surrendered after a 22-hour standoff.
(AP, 8/27/08)
2008 Sep 19, Alitalia cancelled flights and regulators said they might soon ground the troubled flag-carrier as it hurtles toward bankruptcy after the failure of another rescue plan.
(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 26, Yves Rossy of Switzerland leapt from a plane and into the record books, crossing the English channel in 13 minutes on a homemade jet-propelled wing.
(AP, 9/26/08)
2008 Oct 15, Turkish media say a hijacker attempted to commandeer a Turkish Airlines plane over Belarus but he was overpowered by passengers.
(AP, 10/15/08)
2008 Oct 21, EU lawmakers joined US civil liberty campaigners in criticizing a new scanner that allows airport security to see through passengers' clothes, calling it a virtual strip search that should only be used as a last resort.
(AP, 10/21/08)
2008 Oct 30, In Germany the last flight lifted off from Berlin's Tempelhof Airport, bringing an end to an era of aviation that spanned World War II, the Cold War and the rebirth of the German capital. The grounds reopened in 2010 as a public park.
(AP, 10/30/08)(SSFC, 12/16/12, p.P6)
2008 Oct 31, Airship Ventures began operating zeppelin flights from Moffett field in Mountain View, Ca. Passenger tickets were set at $495 per person for one hour and $950 for 2 hours.
(SFC, 10/28/08, p.A1)
2008 Nov 7, European planemaker Airbus said that Spanish tourism company Grupo Marsans has signed a firm order for 61 aircraft worth almost $9 billion at list prices.
(AP, 11/7/08)
2008 Nov 14, Nearly half of Air France's flights were grounded by a pilots' strike expected to last through the weekend.
(AP, 11/14/08)
2008 Nov 25, In Thailand Bangkok's main international airport halted all flight operations after anti-government protesters stormed the departures area.
(AFP, 11/25/08)
2008 Nov 25, Indochina Airlines, Vietnam’s first privately owned airline, began operations.
(www.india-server.com/news/vietnam-launches-indochina-airlines-4811.html)
2008 Nov 27, Thailand's government prepared to crack down on protesters occupying the capital's two airports, but called on the public not to panic as rumors of a coup swept through the city.
(AP, 11/27/08)
2008 Dec 3, In Thailand the first commercial flight in a week arrived in Bangkok as anti-government protesters ended their siege of the country's two main airports, declaring victory after PM Somchai Wongsawat was ousted by a court ruling.
(AP, 12/3/08)
2008 Dec 6, Okay Airways, China's first private airline, began a planned one-month suspension of passenger service 10 days early after skittish airports insisted on cash to refuel its planes. The airline suffered from financial and management woes.
(AP, 12/6/08)
2008 Dec 9, The European Union and Canada reached a deal to open their aviation markets to each other by removing restrictions on direct flights and foreign ownership in airlines.
(AP, 12/9/08)
2008 Dec, Russia’s Finance Leasing Co. (FLC), a subsidiary of United Aircraft Corp., defaulted on $250 million of bonds, the first default by a state-owned company on foreign debt since the country’s 1998 financial meltdown.
(WSJ, 3/23/09, p.A1)
2008 Cameroon airline Camair ceased trading. Yves Michel Fotso and Paul Gamo Hamani, two former bosses of the airline were detained and placed under formal investigation for embezzlement of public funds: Hamani in 2009 and Fotso in 2010.
(AFP, 4/17/12)
2008 Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC) was founded to develop a range of aircraft. Its first airplane, a regional jet called ARJ21, entered into service in June 2016.
(Econ, 11/5/16, p.58)
2009 Jan 5, Boeing signed a $2.1 billion deal with India for eight P-81 maritime patrol aircraft.
(WSJ, 1/6/09, p.B4)
2009 Jan 9, Lithuania’s FlyLAL airline, privatized in 2005, announced that SCH Swiss Capital Holdings, a Switzerland-based firm, has purchased it for $1 million and debt of about 1 million euros. On Jan 17 FlyLAL airline said it has suspended its operations after a buyout deal by Swiss investment firm SCH Swiss Capital Holdings failed.
(AP, 1/9/09)(AP, 1/17/09)
2009 Jan 12, Alitalia's board accepted Air France-KLM's offer to buy 25 percent of the company and become its international partner.
(AP, 1/12/09)
2009 Jan 13, Nancy Bird-Walton (93), Australian aviation pioneer, died from natural causes. She was the first woman in Australia to operate a commercial aircraft. Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith, the first man to fly across the mid-Pacific, taught Watson how to fly in 1933, when she was just 17 years old. Two years later, she obtained a commercial pilot's license and began taking paying passengers for joyrides around the country.
(AP, 1/13/09)
2009 Jan 15, A US Airways Airbus A320 jetliner, piloted by Chesley B. Sullenberger and bound for Charlotte, NC, landed in the Hudson River after both engines failed shortly after takeoff from LaGuardia and an encounter with a flock of geese. All 155 people aboard Flight 1549 survived.
(AP, 1/16/09)(WSJ, 1/16/09, p.A3)
2009 Jan 15, The British government announced its support for a controversial third runway at London's chronically overcrowded Heathrow Airport, despite angry opposition from green groups and locals.
(AP, 1/15/09)
2009 Feb 2, Guyana banned nighttime flights because of a strike by air traffic controllers. The strike began the night of Jan 30 over union demands for salary increases of 5 percent. The government says it cannot grant the pay hikes because it needs to upgrade airport safety equipment.
(AP, 2/2/09)
2009 Feb 18, Iran’s Deputy Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi said in published remarks that Iran has built an unmanned surveillance aircraft with a range of more than 600 miles, enough to reach Israel. Iran announced two years ago that it had built an unmanned aircraft, but Vahidi's comments were the first by a top official revealing its range.
(AP, 2/18/09)
2009 Feb 8, Sigurdur Helgason (b.1921), former Icelandic airline CEO (1974-1984), died on the Caribbean private island of Mustique. He pioneered cheap flights that carried legions of backpackers between Europe and the United States in the 1960s and '70s.
(AP, 2/21/09)
2009 Feb 24, The United Arab Emirates' official news agency said US firms Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. have been awarded almost $3 billion in contracts to supply transport aircraft for the country's military.
(AP, 2/24/09)
2009 Feb 27, A court ordered the Japanese government to pay 5.6 billion yen ($57.7 million) to compensate people whose lives are disrupted by the noise of warplanes at a US air base on the southern island of Okinawa. The Fukuoka High Court ruling doubled the 2.8 million yen compensation awarded in 2005 to the people living around Kadena Air Base, and upheld the appeals of 5,540 residents.
(AP, 2/27/09)
2009 Mar 26, In Brazil engine pieces from a US plane fell from the sky, hitting 22 houses and a car but sparing passengers and residents on the ground. Arrow Cargo's station manager in Manaus, Rai Marinho, said the company will pay local residents for damages to their property.
(AP, 3/26/09)
2009 Apr 19, In Jamaica Stephen Fray (20) forced his way through Montego Bay airport security and hijacked a Canadian jet, holding six crew members hostage. He fired his father's licensed .38-caliber revolver into the air, stole money from some of the 167 passengers aboard and demanded to be flown off the island. After 6 hours police and soldiers stormed the aircraft and captured Fray. On October 8 Fray was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
(AP, 4/20/09)(AP, 10/9/09)
2009 Apr 20, In Jamaica police and soldiers stormed an aircraft and captured a hijacking suspect, identified as Stephen Fray (20). The gunman had forced his way though airport security and hijacked a Canadian jet near Montego Bay, holding six crew members hostage for eight hours.
(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 29, In Cuba a statement published in state newspapers said that effective midnight, flights from Cuba to Mexico would be grounded due to swine flu. After that, airlines can fly presumably empty planes to the island and pickup Mexico travels. This amended a blanket 48-hour ban on flights between Mexico and Cuba announced a day earlier.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 May 6, Canada and the EU signed an "open skies" pact under which airlines from the two trading partners will be able to fly freely between any airport in the 27-country EU and any in Canada.
(Reuters, 5/6/09)
2009 Jun 26, In Switzerland Solar Impulse, a project run by aviators Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg, unveiled a prototype solar powered airplane, the HB-SIA.
(AP, 6/26/09)(Econ, 6/13/09, p.83)
2009 Aug 8, Continental Express Flight 2816, en route with 47 passengers to Minneapolis from Houston, was stranded overnight at Rochester, Minn., after being forced to land due to storms. On Nov 24 the Dept. of Transportation levied $175,000 in fines against Continental, ExpressJet and Mesaba Airlines for keeping the plane on the tarmac.
(SFC, 11/25/09, p.A6)
2009 Aug 22, The EU published a list of nearly 4,000 airlines that it says should reduce their impact on the environment from 2012 or face being banned from European airports.
(AP, 8/22/09)
2009 Sep 3, In the US Virgin Islands two ticket agent contractors who worked for Delta Airlines and an airport employee were arrested after being indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of conspiracy to smuggle illegal immigrants into the US.
(AP, 9/5/09)
2009 Sep 9, In Mexico a Bolivian-born man, clutching a Bible and claiming a divine mission, hijacked a plane with more than 100 people aboard after takeoff from Cancun. The incident ended quickly and without bloodshed when police arrested Jose Flores (44) in Mexico City. Police in Morelia said that they had seized eight counterfeit police and rescue vehicles including an intensive care ambulance with official-looking logos and paint jobs. The vehicles belonged to gang members who planned to use them to conduct illegal activities. In 2011 Josmar Flores was sentenced to seven years, seven months and 15 days in prison.
(Reuters, 9/10/09)(AP, 9/10/09)(AP, 5/19/11)
2009 Sep 15, In Puerto Rico several employees of American Airlines were among a group of at least 20 people arrested on suspicion of aiding a smuggling ring that shipped drugs from Puerto Rico's main airport to the US mainland.
(AP, 9/15/09)
2009 Oct 21, Security guards thwarted an attempted hijacking on an EgyptAir flight from Istanbul to Cairo by overpowering a Sudanese man who threatened crew members with a plastic knife. The man told flight attendants he wanted to "liberate Jerusalem."
(AP, 10/21/09)
2009 Oct 21, Northwest Airlines Flight 188 overflew its Minneapolis destination by 150 miles. Air traffic controllers and pilots tried for more than an hour night to contact pilot Richard Cole (54) of Salem, Oregon, and the flight's captain, Timothy B. Cheney (53), of Gig Harbor, Wash., using radio, cell phone and data messages. The pilots said they had been having a heated discussion about airline policy. On Oct 27 the FAA revoked the licenses of the two pilots saying they had been out of radio contact for 91 minutes.
(AP, 10/24/09)(SFC, 10/28/09, p.A6)
2009 Nov 6, British Airways revealed a quadrupling of net losses in its first half, and axed an extra 1,200 jobs in an "essential" cost-reduction program.
(AP, 11/6/09)
2009 Nov 12, British Airways PLC and Spanish airline Iberia SA confirmed they are holding separate board meetings about a long-awaited merger, responding to feverish speculation that has sent the companies' shares soaring.
(AP, 11/12/09)
2009 Nov 13, A Somali man was arrested by African Union peacekeeping troops before a Daallo Airlines flight took off from Mogadishu. It was scheduled to travel from Mogadishu to the northern Somali city of Hargeisa, then to Djibouti and Dubai. The man was carrying powdered chemicals, liquid and a syringe that could have caused an explosion. The case bore chilling similarities to a later Dec 25 terrorist plot to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner.
(AP, 12/30/09)
2009 Nov 19, US air travelers scrambled to revise their travel plans after an FAA computer glitch caused widespread cancellations and delays for the second time in 15 months.
(AP, 11/19/09)
2009 Nov 23, UOP LLC, a Honeywell company, announced today that its renewable jet fuel process technology was used to convert second-generation, renewable feedstocks to green jet fuel for a biofuel demonstration flight by KLM Royal Dutch Airlines.
(http://tinyurl.com/yb877n3)(SFC, 11/24/09, p.A2)
2009 Nov 25, Yves Rossy, a Swiss adventurer, landed in the Atlantic after trying to soar from Morocco to Spain on jet-powered wings.
(SFC, 11/27/09, p.A2)
2009 Nov 28, French Transport Minister Dominique Bussereau said Russia has given the green light for Air France's A380 superjumbo to overfly Siberia, opening the way for a projected Paris-Tokyo service. The accord was approved by PM Vladimir Putin at the end of a two-day visit to France which saw a number of business deals concluded. Putin's trip also secured a deal for French investment in a key pipeline project and the struggling Avtovaz car maker, as well as a promise that France will consider selling Moscow a huge amphibious assault ship.
(AFP, 11/28/09)
2009 Nov 2, In Mali the burned debris of a Boeing cargo plane was discovered on Nov. 2 in the Gao region. It was assumed to have landed on a clandestine landing strip and either failed to take off again or was destroyed on purpose. Ample traces of cocaine were found on board.
(AP, 12/3/09)
2009 Dec 11, German officials said Berlin's new airport will be named after Willy Brandt (1913-1992), the former West German leader who championed East-West relations and won the Nobel Peace Prize (1971).
(AP, 12/11/09)
2009 Dec 11, In Spain the A400M military transport plane, that has been causing Airbus and European defense ministers budgetary and logistical headaches, finally took to the skies for its maiden flight.
(AP, 12/11/09)
2009 Dec 12, In Thailand 5 foreigners were detained and their foreign-registered aircraft impounded after it landed in the Thai capital with tons of war weaponry on board that originated in North Korea. The aircraft, an Ilyushin 76 transport from Kazakhstan, was allegedly traveling from North Korea to Sri Lanka when it asked to land in Bangkok to refuel. According to a flight plan seen by arms trafficking researchers, the aircraft was chartered by Hong Kong-based Union Top Management Ltd. to fly oil industry spare parts from Pyongyang to Tehran, Iran, with several other stops, including Bangkok, Colombo in Sri Lanka, Azerbaijan and Ukraine.
(AP, 12/12/09)(AP, 12/23/09)
2009 Dec 15, Boeing’s new 787 jetliner made its inaugural flight from Everett’s Paine Field, beginning an extensive testing program to obtain FAA certification.
(SFC, 12/15/09, p.A12)
2009 Dec 15, British Airways sought a court injunction to prevent a 12-day strike by cabin crew that would cause havoc for one million travelers over the Christmas and New Year's holidays.
(AP, 12/15/09)
2009 Dec 21, The Obama administration took aim at tarmac horror stories, ordering airlines to let passengers stuck in stranded airplanes to disembark after three hours.
(AP, 12/21/09)
2009 Dec 22, Budget airline EasyJet cancelled about 180 flights due both to the "significant snowfall" and airport closures across Britain, in a fresh blow to passengers hoping to travel for the Christmas holidays.
(AFP, 12/22/09)
2009 Dec 22, American Airlines Flight 331 carrying 154 people skidded across a Jamaican runway in heavy rain, bouncing across the tarmac and injuring more than 40 people before it stopped just short of the Caribbean Sea.
(AP, 12/23/09)(SFC, 12/24/09, p.A2)
2009 Dec 25, An attempted bombing took place as Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam prepared to land in Detroit just before noon. Law enforcement officials identified the suspect as Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (23), a Nigerian man, who claimed to be acting on orders from al-Qaida to blow up the airliner with a bomb sewed into his underwear. Abdulmutallab later told US investigators he had received training and instructions from al-Qaida operatives in Yemen. On Oct 12, 2011, Abdulmutallab pleaded guilty to all federal counts against him.
(AP, 12/26/09)(AFP, 12/29/09)(AP, 1/2/10)(SFC, 10/13/11, p.A8)
2009 Dec 30, The Netherlands announced it will immediately begin using full body scanners for flights heading to the United States, issuing a report that called the failed Christmas Day airline bombing a "professional" terror attack.
(AP, 12/30/09)
2009 Dec 30, A Nigerian official says the nation will purchase 3-D, full body scanners after Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab passed through Nigeria's biggest airport before trying to bring down a US-bound flight on Christmas Day.
(AP, 12/30/09)
2009 Zambian Airways was liquidated. The government refused to let foreign airlines use Lusaka as a hub in the unlikely event that the airline would one day fly again.
(Econ, 8/16/14, p.55)
2010 Jan 19, Japan Airlines filed for one of the country's largest bankruptcies ever, entering a restructuring that will shrink Asia's top carrier and its presence around the world.
(AP, 1/19/10)
2010 Feb 8, Boeing Co.’s 250-foot 747-8 freighter, the biggest plane it has ever built, successfully completed its first flight from Paine Field, in Everett, Wash.
(SFC, 2/9/10, p.A4)
2010 Feb 15, British Airways said it would use low-carbon fuel to power part of its fleet from 2014 once Europe's first sustainable jet-fuel plant was built by US biofuels specialist Solena Group. A plant to be built in London will convert 500,000 tons of waste into 16 million gallons of green jet fuel annually.
(AFP, 2/15/10)
2010 Feb 19, Two Muslim women were stopped from boarding a flight at Manchester airport from Britain to Pakistan for refusing to go through new body scanners, citing religious and medical reasons.
(AFP, 3/4/10)
2010 Feb 22, German airline Lufthansa went to court in a bid to halt a strike by some 4,000 pilots that disrupted more than one third of its flights. Later in the day Lufthansa pilots agreed to suspend for two weeks a strike that grounded about 900 flights, just as rival British Airways' cabin crew voted to join the fray to protest harsh cost cuts.
(AP, 2/22/10)(Reuters, 2/22/10)
2010 Feb 25, Rajib Karim, a British Airways computer specialist, was arrested at his BA desk in Newcastle. On Feb 28, 2011, he was convicted after a trial at Woolwich crown Court in London of plotting with US-born extremist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki to blow up an airplane. He pleaded guilty to helping produce a terrorist group's video, fundraising and volunteering for terror abroad, but insisted he never planned an attack in Britain.
(www.globaljihad.net/view_news.asp?id=1400)(AP, 2/28/11)
2010 Feb 26, In France a strike by air traffic controllers disrupted flight for a 4th day and some Air France pilots walked off the job to protest cost cutting measures.
(SFC, 2/27/10, p.A2)
2010 Mar 19, In London last-ditch talks aimed at preventing a strike by some 12,000 British Airways (BA) cabin crew collapsed, leaving thousands of passengers facing chaos within hours.
(AFP, 3/19/10)
2010 Mar 20, British Airways canceled more than 1,000 flights after its cabin crew launched a three-day strike, wreaking havoc on the plans of tens of thousands of passengers just before the busy spring holiday season. .
(AP, 3/20/10)
2010 Mar 21, British Airways cabin crews walked off the job for a second day, upsetting travel plans for scores of customers, but the airline said its contingency plans were working well and more planes were taking off than expected.
(AP, 3/21/10)
2010 Mar 22, British Airways cabin crew held a 3rd day of strike action, prolonging travel misery for thousands. A business group warned the action threatens Britain's global reputation.
(AP, 3/22/10)
2010 Mar 27, British Airways cabin crew launched a four-day strike, the second wave of action in a week as part of a bitter, long-running dispute over pay and conditions.
(AFP, 3/27/10)
2010 Mar 28, British Airways cabin crew entered the second day of a four-day strike, bringing further travel disruption with no end in sight for a dispute that has become increasingly political.
(AFP, 3/28/10)
2010 Apr 7, In Switzerland the Solar Impulse aircraft, a pioneering Swiss bid to fly around the world on solar energy, successfully completed its first test flight.
(AFP, 4/7/10)
2010 Apr 10, French explorer Jean-Louis Etienne (63) made the first Arctic crossing by balloon, landing in the tundra of eastern Siberia five days after taking off in Norway.
(AP, 4/10/10)
2010 Apr 15, British airport operator BAA Ltd. said all flights at London's Heathrow Airport have been suspended for the rest of the day, causing travel chaos as ash clouds from Iceland's spewing volcano halted air traffic across Europe.
(AP, 4/15/10)
2010 Apr 16, Volcanic ash blanketed parts of rural Iceland and left a widening arc of grounded aircraft across Europe, as thousands of planes stayed on the tarmac to avoid the hazardous cloud. Travel chaos engulfed major European cities and the UN warned of possible health risks from falling ash.
(AP, 4/16/10)
2010 Apr 17, A lingering volcanic ash plume forced extended no-fly restrictions over much of Europe, as Icelandic scientists warned that volcanic activity had increased and showed no sign of abating, a portent of more travel chaos to come. Nearly 17,000 flights to and from Europe were cancelled out of about 22,000 on a normal day.
(AP, 4/17/10)(Econ, 4/24/10, p.63)
2010 Apr 19, The chief of British Airways said test flights have proven that the blanket restrictions EU governments have imposed on flights because of volcanic ash are unnecessary. The airline industry said it has lost at least $1 billion due to five days of closed airports. A senior Western diplomat says several NATO F-16 fighters suffered engine damage after flying through the volcanic ash cloud covering large parts of Europe.
(AP, 4/19/10)
2010 Apr 20, Airplanes gradually took to the skies after five days of being grounded by a volcanic ash cloud that has devastated European travel. Only limited flights were allowed to resume at some European airports and UK authorities said London airports would remained closed for at least another day due to new danger from the invisible ash cloud.
(AP, 4/20/10)
2010 Apr 22, European airports sent thousands of planes into the sky after a week of unprecedented disruptions, with airlines piling on more flights and bigger planes to try to get as many people home as possible.
(AP, 4/22/10)
2010 Apr 25, Kifah Hassan, chief executive of Iraqi Airways, had his passport seized and the plane he arrived on was impounded at Gatwick Airport in a long-running legal dispute with Kuwait Airways. The dispute dated back to Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, when, according to the oil-rich emirate, 10 of its planes and aircraft parts were plundered after its airport was seized.
(AFP, 4/30/10)
2010 May 2, United Airlines said it has agreed to buy Continental in a $3 billion-plus deal that would create the world's largest carrier with a commanding position in several top US cities.
(AP, 5/3/10)(SFC, 5/3/10, p.D1)
2010 May 4, Iceland's volcanic ash renewed its threat to European air space, forcing Ireland to shut services temporarily for the first time in 12 days. Ireland and Britain lifted flight restrictions after temporarily closing airspace due to the return of ash.
(AP, 5/4/10)(AFP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 5, Britain and Ireland grounded flights again after a fresh cloud of ash swept in from the Icelandic volcano which sparked unprecedented air travel chaos in Europe last month.
(AFP, 5/5/10)
2010 May 7, It was reported that JetBlue has formed a partnership with South African Airways that will allow travelers to fly on both airlines with a single ticket. Starting May 12 JetBlue customers will be able to travel to 40 international cities served by South African Airways.
(AP, 5/7/10)
2010 May 8, Hundreds of flights between Europe and North America were either delayed or canceled due to the spreading cloud of volcanic ash stretching across much of the northern Atlantic. Spain shut 19 northern airports including Barcelona because of the cloud of ash.
(AP, 5/8/10)(Reuters, 5/8/10)
2010 May 9, A plume of volcanic ash snaked its way through southern France, Switzerland, Italy and Germany, shutting down airports and disrupting flights across Europe.
(AP, 5/9/10)
2010 May 11, Volcanic ash from Iceland wound its way down to North Africa and curled over to Turkey, forcing authorities to shut down Casablanca airport in Morocco as well as airports in Spain and airspace over Turkey.
(AP, 5/11/10)
2010 May 11, Mohamed Ibrahim, an Egyptian-American university botany professor teaching in the United States, was arrested at Cairo airport after arriving on a direct flight from New York carrying two pistols, 250 bullets, two swords and 11 knives in his luggage.
(Reuters, 5/12/10)
2010 May 16, Aviation officials closed airports in northern England, Scotland and Northern Ireland due to a drifting, dense cloud of volcanic ash from Iceland.
(AP, 5/16/10)
2010 May 24, British Airways cabin crew started a five-day strike, throwing travel plans for thousands of passengers into disarray after last-ditch efforts to avert the action collapsed.
(AP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 26, Iraq's government dissolved state-owned Iraqi Airways over a decades-old financial dispute dating back to Saddam Hussein's invasion of his oil-rich neighbor Kuwait. A lawyer for Kuwait Airways called the Iraqi government's strategy a "cynical tactic" and said it will not end the dispute because Kuwait will still hold the government accountable for the debt.
(AP, 5/26/10)
2010 May 27, Authorities closed Guatemala's international airport after the nearby Pacaya volcano showered as much as 3 inches (8 centimeters) of ash over parts of the city. A television reporter was killed by a shower of burning rocks when he got too close to the volcano, about 15 miles (25 km) south of Guatemala City.
(AP, 5/28/10)(AP, 5/29/10)
2010 May 28, Jonathan Trappe (36) of Raleigh, North Carolina, crossed the English Channel carried by a bundle of helium balloons, ending a quiet and serene flight by touching down in a French cabbage patch.
(AP, 5/28/10)
2010 May 30, British Airways cabin crew started a fresh five-day strike with little sign of a breakthrough in the long-running dispute between their union and the airline.
(AFP, 5/30/10)
2010 Jun 14, An Iranian airport official said 71 Iranian women "improperly" dressed were prevented from boarding flights in recent months, as a police crackdown on the behavior of young people intensified.
(AFP, 6/14/10)
2010 Jul 6, The EU banned most of Iran Air's jets from flying to Europe because of safety concerns, emphasizing that the move was not related to UN sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.
(AP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 8, In Switzerland an experimental solar-powered plane completed its first 24-hour test flight successfully, proving that the aircraft can collect enough energy from the sun during the day to stay aloft all night.
(AP, 7/8/10)
2010 Jul 14, British Airways and Iberia won the EU's regulatory approval to merge and to team up with American Airlines to share more of their lucrative trans-Atlantic routes.
(AP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 14, An Air India plane carrying more than 200 passengers from New York became the first commercial flight to land at New Delhi's new Terminal 3, part of a $2.7-billion airport upgrade.
(AFP, 7/14/10)(Econ, 7/10/10, p.72)
2010 Jul 18, In England plane manufacturers, airlines, government ministers and military top brass gathered for the Farnborough International Airshow amid hopes that the two-year downturn in the aviation and defense industry is nearing a bottom.
(AP, 7/18/10)
2010 Jul 19, In England Boeing Co. and Airbus announced new orders worth almost $13 billion at the start of the Farnborough International Airshow, raising hopes that the aviation industry is on the way back up after a dire two-year slump.
(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 19, David Warren (b.1925), an Australian scientist who invented the "black box" flight data recorder, died. He designed and constructed a black box prototype in 1956, but it took several years before officials understood just how valuable the device could be and began installing them in commercial airlines worldwide. In 2002, Warren was awarded the Order of Australia, among the nation's highest civilian honors, for his work.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Aug 2, Compania Mexicana de Aviacion filed for bankruptcy.
(Econ, 8/14/10, p.53)
2010 Aug 21, A consortium of Mexican investors said they have acquired 95 percent of Mexicana de Aviacion airline, which earlier this month filed for bankruptcy protection. The Tenedora K group was formed "to capitalize" and "save" Nuevo Grupo Aeronautico, the holding company that controls Mexicana de Aviacion and two domestic airlines, Mexicana Click and Mexicana Link.
(AFP, 8/22/10)
2010 Aug 23, Officials said the United States has granted Nigerian airlines permission for direct US flights.
(AFP, 8/24/10)
2010 Aug 23, Saudi low-cost private airline Sama, launched in 2007 to serve Gulf and other Arab states, said it is to suspend services from Aug 24 due to financial problems.
(AP, 8/23/10)
2010 Sep 3, Britain and France announced they are talking about sharing the cost of military aircraft programs, but rejected reports that they plan to merge their aircraft carrier fleets.
(AFP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 13, Staff at Israel's Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv went on strike, grounding all flights and leaving arriving passengers without their luggage.
(AP, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 14, Zimbabwe's state airline said it has fired 40 striking pilots for failing to meet a deadline to return to their posts. The pilots said the indebted airline has not paid out operational allowances for nearly 20 months. They earned up to $2,500 a month, about one third of the international pay scale for airline pilots.
(AP, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 15, The new X2 helicopter, developed by Sikorsky, flew at 290mph during a test flight in Florida, setting a new helicopter speed record.
(Econ, 9/11/10, p.98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_X2)
2010 Oct 3, Egyptian and Iranian airlines agreed to resume direct flights between the two countries for the first time since 1979.
(SFC, 10/4/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 6, American Airlines, British Airways and Iberia launched their transatlantic joint business, unveiling new routes and detailing benefits for customers that include a shared frequent flyers program.
(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 10, Virgin Galactic’s space tourism rocket, SpaceShip Two, achieved its first solo glide flight. Manned by 2 pilots it flew for 11 minutes before landing in Mojave, Ca.
(SFC, 10/11/10, p.A5)(Econ, 10/16/10, p.100)
2010 Oct 19, Iran said some Western companies were refusing to refuel its planes in Europe and warned it would "confront" such measures, which it deemed illegal under international law.
(AFP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 21, In central Mexico Canadian industrial giant Bombardier and Mexican President Felipe Calderon opened a new 250-million-dollar plant where it will produce components for the Learjet 85 business aircraft.
(AFP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 29, Authorities on three continents thwarted the attacks when they seized explosives on cargo planes in the United Arab Emirates and England. The plot sent tremors throughout the US, where after a frenzied day searching planes and parcel trucks for other explosives, officials temporarily banned all new cargo from Yemen. The next day police in Dubai said that the bomb discovered there contained the powerful explosive PETN and bore the hallmarks of al-Qaida. One of the two powerful bombs mailed from Yemen to Chicago-area synagogues traveled on two passenger planes within the Middle East.
(AP, 10/30/10)(AP, 10/31/10)
2010 Oct 31, A French airliner landed at Baghdad International Airport, becoming one of the first passenger planes to fly into the Iraqi capital direct from western Europe since the Gulf War and opening a potential new route to stronger international business ties.
(AP, 10/31/10)
2010 Nov 4, A Qantas A380 with more than 450 people on board made a dramatic forced landing in Singapore, trailing smoke from a blackened engine after the Airbus superjumbo's first mid-air emergency. In response Qantas Airways and Singapore Airlines suspended flights of the Airbus A380 superjumbos. In 2013 the engine failure was traced to an oil pipe that failed to conform to design specifications.
(AFP, 11/4/10)(Reuters, 11/4/10)(AP, 6/27/13)
2010 Nov 6, Airlines cancelled at least 36 flights to and from Jakarta, affecting international carriers from Europe to Asia, because of ash from the Mount Merapi volcano.
(AFP, 11/6/10)
2010 Nov 8, Qantas extended the grounding of its Airbus A380 superjumbos for at least three more days after finding oil leaks in some engines, heightening safety fears after two mid-air blow-outs last week.
(AFP, 11/8/10)
2010 Nov 8, Video posted on the CBS News website showed an object flying through the evening sky over southern California that left a large contrail, or vapor trail. A news helicopter owned by KCBS, a CBS affiliate in Los Angeles, shot the video. Pentagon officials were stumped by the event.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 9, The United Arab Emirates said it will force Canadians to get a visa to travel to the Persian Gulf federation as of Jan 2, as ties soured between the once-close countries. Emirati officials have ratcheted up the pressure on Ottawa after failing to secure additional landing rights for their growing government-backed airlines.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 14, Delvonte Tisdale (16) apparently fell from the sky after stowing away in an airplane’s wheel well at the Charlotte-Douglas International Airport in Charlotte, NC. His mutilated body was found in a Boston suburb.
(SFC, 12/11/10, p.A4)(http://tinyurl.com/2dmblgm)
2010 Nov 17, In Namibia a suspected explosive device was found on a conveyor belt with luggage on a Germany-bound flight. On Nov 22 a court said that Nehemia Shafuda, chief inspector of the Namibian police aviation security, faces charges for smuggling a suspected explosive device, using the device in an airport and giving false information that interfered with airport operations.
(AP, 11/22/10)
2010 Nov 22, India gave the green light for the construction of a second international airport in the commercial capital Mumbai, a two billion dollar project that was ten years in the making.
(AFP, 11/22/10)
2010 Nov 27, Australia's Qantas Airways resumed flights of its Airbus A380 superjumbos, after a mid-flight engine failure grounded all six of the planes earlier this month.
(Reuters, 11/27/10)
2010 Dec 2, Heavy snow caused travel chaos across much of northern Europe, keeping London's Gatwick airport closed for a second day and disrupting road and rail travel in France, Germany and Switzerland. Freezing temperatures and often blinding snowfall killed 12 people, 10 in Poland and 2 in Germany. Poland had already reported 8 dead due to the cold. Some of the worst floods in a century devastated parts of the Balkans. Authorities declared a state of emergency in Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro.
(Reuters, 12/2/10)(AP, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 3, Negotiators for the US and Brazil initialed a text in Rio de Janeiro for a new air transport agreement. Once formally approved, the pact will establish an Open Skies air transportation relationship between the two countries that will expand services and could bring down prices.
(AFP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 4, Spain placed striking air traffic controllers under military authority and threatened them with jail terms in an unprecedented emergency order to get planes back in the skies and clear chaotic airports clogged with irate travelers.
(AP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 6, Saudi Arabia's Rani Investment Group said it would break ground on a 100-million-dollar (75-million-euro) resort on a Mozambique island next year, aiming to cash in on foreign tourists.
(AFP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 8, In France heavy snowfall forced the closure of Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport and shut down the Paris bus system.
(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 10, It was reported that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is missing key information on who owns one-third of the 357,000 private and commercial aircraft in the US, a gap the agency fears could be exploited by terrorists and drug traffickers.
(AP, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 20, Snow and frigid temperatures caused disruption across northern Europe for a third day, stranding travelers, snarling traffic and shutting schools, and the bad weather is likely to run through Christmas.
(Reuters, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 24, Heavy snow stranded thousands of Christmas travelers in Europe, with Belgium's main airport closed for landing and icy roads in Sweden choked with traffic.
(AP, 12/24/10)
2010 Dec 26, In Russia icy rain shut down Moscow's largest airport for nearly 15 hours, coated roads with ice and left more than 300,000 people and 14 hospitals without electricity.
(AP, 12/26/10)
2010 Dec 27, Hundreds of passengers were stuck at airports up and down the US East Coast as a blizzard menaced travelers trying to get home after the holidays.
(AP, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 27, Alfred Kahn (93), US airline deregulator, died. In 1977 he took over the Civil aeronautics Board for Pres. Carter. His academic efforts included the 2-volume work: “The Economics of Regulation: Principles and Institutions" (1988).
(Econ, 1/22/11, p.101)
2010 Dec 29, Spain's government formally launched the privatization of air traffic control in 13 airports, just weeks after clamping down on a wildcat strike by controllers.
(AFP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 29, The UAE embassy in Ottawa said on its website that Canadians would be charged $250 for a 30-day single entry visa while a six-month multiple entry visa would cost $1000, with a maximum stay of 14 days during each visit. Tensions have risen between the two countries since Canada denied expanded landing rights for UAE airlines flying to Canada. That triggered a UAE government decision to end access to a military base used by the Canadian military to support troops in Afghanistan.
(Reuters, 12/29/10)
2010 Macedonia’s MAT airline went bankrupt.
(Econ, 5/19/12, p.73)
2011 Jan 2, Russia's transport oversight agency ordered the country's airlines to stop using Tu-154B planes until the cause of a passenger jet fire and explosion that killed three people is determined.
(AP, 1/2/11)
2011 Jan 11, China's radar-eluding stealth fighter, the J-20, made its first-known test flight, marking dramatic progress in the country's efforts to develop cutting-edge military technologies.
(AP, 1/11/11)(Econ, 1/15/11, p.43)
2011 Jan 19, President Barack Obama announced a deal to step up cooperation with China on nuclear security. The United States and China reached agreement on export deals worth $45 billion. The agreements included a $19 billion deal with Boeing in which China will purchase 200 Boeing aircraft. The deals were announced at the formal start of a four-day state visit to the US by Chinese President Hu Jintao. President Barack Obama issued a finely tuned call for greater respect for human rights in his speech to welcome his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao.
(AP, 1/19/11)(Reuters, 1/19/11)
2011 Jan 24, Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura sued the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration, alleging full-body scans and pat-downs at airport checkpoints violate his right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.
(AP, 1/24/11)
2011 Jan 24, In Russia 37 people were killed and 180 injured in a suicide bombing at Moscow's Domodedovo airport. An autopsy later showed "a huge amount of highly potent narcotic and psychotropic substances in parts of the suicide bomber's body." On Feb 6 unnamed officials in the North Caucasus region said they believed Magomed Yevloyev (20) of Ingushetia, was the suicide bomber. On Feb 9 Itar-TASS reported that Yevloyev’s brother Akhmed (16) and sister Fatima (22) have been arrested. Also detained was Akhmed Aushev, a resident of the same village, Ali-Yurt, Ingushetia. On March 29 Russian investigators charged Doku Umarov, a Chechen warlord, and another militant with organizing the airport bombing. Media reports said that Umarov might be among 17 militants killed in a security raid in the province of Ingushetia west of Chechnya on March 28. On Nov 11, 2013, brothers Islam and Ilez Yandiyev and Bashir Khamkhoyev received life sentences in maximum security penal colonies on terrorism and other charges. Akhmed Yevloyev was sentenced to 10 years in a penal colony.
(Reuters, 1/24/11)(Reuters, 1/25/11)(AP, 1/29/11)(AP, 2/3/11)(Reuters, 2/6/11)(Reuters, 2/9/11)(AP, 3/29/11)(AP, 11/11/13)
2011 Jan 26, The European Union's top competition regulator blocked the merger between Greek airlines Olympic Air and Aegean Airlines SA, saying a combined carrier could monopolize Greek air travel.
(AP, 1/26/11)
2011 Jan 28, Mexican soldiers seized nearly 200 pounds (90 kg) of drugs from the cargo area of an Aeromexico commercial plane scheduled to fly to the northern border city of Tijuana.
(AP, 1/29/11)
2011 Jan 31, The EU said that the World Trade Organization found US aid to Boeing violated international rules, confirming a preliminary ruling in the long-running subsidy battle between the Chicago-based plane maker and European rival Airbus.
(AP, 1/31/11)
2011 Feb 1, China Harbor Engineering Company, a subsidiary of state-owned China Communications Construction Company, signed a 1.2-billion-dollar contract to build Khartoum's new international airport.
(AFP, 2/15/11)
2011 Feb 4, The US X-47B jet, which looks like a smaller version of the B-2 stealth bomber, stayed in the air for 29 minutes and climbed to 5,000 feet in a test flight at Edwards Air Force Base, Ca. The robotic, bat-winged bomber was designed to take off from an aircraft carrier. Northrop was building the navy bomber under a $636 million contract awarded in 2007.
(AFP, 2/6/11)
2011 Feb 8, In Pakistan strike action forced ailing state carrier Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) to cancel flights to Britain and Turkey, affecting some 1,500 passengers.
(AFP, 2/8/11)
2011 Feb 9, In Pakistan strike action forced Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) to ground or delay all flights, affecting thousands of passengers and heaping further woes on the troubled state carrier.
(AFP, 2/9/11)
2011 Feb 10, A new Thai airline reported the hiring of transsexual ladyboys as flight attendants, aiming at a unique identity to set itself apart from competitors as it sets out for the skies. PC Air, a charter airline set to start operations on Asian routes in April, has thus far chosen 4 ladyboys, along with 19 female and 7 male flight attendants.
(Reuters, 2/10/11)
2011 Feb 11, Pakistani police baton charged Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) employees, detaining 20 of them, following violent protests as all of the carrier's flights remained grounded for a second day.
(AFP, 2/11/11)
2011 Feb 20, Iran finally withdrew its entire fleet of Soviet era Tupolev aircraft after a series of fatal accidents involving the planes.
(AP, 2/20/11)
2011 Feb 24, In New Jersey Transportation Security Administration officer Al Raimi (29) of Woodbridge pleaded guilty in Newark federal court to theft by a government officer. Federal prosecutors say Raimi stole between $10,000 and $30,000 cash over nearly a year from travelers passing through his checkpoint. He gave a cut of the cash to his supervisor, Michael Arato, who pleaded guilty to related charges this month. 2 TSA agents at a NYC airport were arrested earlier this month on charges of stealing $40,000 from passengers' luggage.
(AP, 2/24/11)
2011 Mar 8, The US government gave permission to eight more airports to offer direct charter flights to and from Cuba in the latest small opening in the 49-year-long trade embargo against the communist island.
(AP, 3/9/11)
2011 Mar 25, In India Pradeep Kumar, a government aviation official, and 3 other people were arrested in a widening investigation of corruption in awarding flying licenses to airline pilots.
(AP, 3/26/11)
2011 Mar 31, It was reported that the World Trade Organization has ruled that some US government aid to aircraft maker Boeing Co. is illegal. The WTO's report detailed findings first issued in private to the EU and US in January.
(AP, 3/31/11)
2011 Apr 1, Southwest Airlines Flight 812 lost cabin pressure following a fuselage rupture just after takeoff from Phoenix. The Boeing 737-300 landed safely in Yuma with no injuries. Inspectors later found small cracks in 3 more Southwest planes. Some 300 flights were cancelled over the next 2 days as Southwest examined 79 similar planes.
(SFC, 4/4/11, p.A6)
2011 Apr 6, Virgin America Flight VX2001 became the first to land at San Francisco’s newly remodeled Terminal 2. The 1954 structure had just undergone a $383 million upgrade.
(SFC, 4/7/11, p.A1)
2011 Apr 11, Australia fined Japan Airlines (JAL) Aus$5.5 million (US$5.8 million) after the carrier admitted its role in a long-running cargo cartel case involving 15 airlines. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said JAL admitted to "making and giving effect to illegal price-fixing understandings with other international airlines" on fuel, insurance and security surcharges.
(AFP, 4/11/11)
2011 Apr 13, Iran’s first vice-president was quoted as saying in the governmental newspaper that Iran has stopped refueling "western passenger planes" since Europe-bound Iranian commercial planes were refused fuelling there.
(AFP, 4/13/11)
2011 Apr 14, Mozambique announced that it is building a $102 million (€70 million) airport in the northern city Nacala in an effort to expand infrastructure to attract tourists and investment.
(AFP, 4/14/11)
2011 Apr 17, The US government said air traffic controllers would have more time to rest between shifts under new work rules announced today, while Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood made clear he won't tolerate sleeping on duty despite studies and expert recommendations that suggest scheduled shut-eye can help combat fatigue.
(AP, 4/17/11)
2011 Apr 18, Two airline employees came to the aid of a woman that was being raped at Denver Int’l. Airport. Noel Bertrand (26) was later charged with sexual assault.
(www.truecrimereport.com/2011/04/ex-marine_noel_alexander_alleg.php)
2011 May 6, Nearly 800 Air India pilots demanding more pay ended their 10-day-old strike, which cost the state-run airline around 12 million rupees ($2.7 million) a day.
(AP, 5/6/11)
2011 May 13, Pioneering Swiss solar-powered aircraft Solar Impulse landed in Brussels after a 12-hour flight from Switzerland, the futuristic aircraft's first international sortie.
(AP, 5/13/11)
2011 May 22, Iceland closed its main international airport and canceled all domestic flights as the Grimsvotn volcano sent a plume of ash, smoke and steam 12 miles (20 km) high.
(AP, 5/22/11)
2011 May 24, About 250 flights to northern Britain were canceled over concerns about the ash cloud spewing from an Icelandic volcano, but British and Irish officials dismissed fears of a mass shutdown of airspace.
(Reuters, 5/24/11)
2011 May 27, Air India was forced to cancel some flights after oil companies refused to give the cash-strapped state-run carrier fuel because of a failure to pay bills.
(AFP, 5/27/11)
2011 Jun 11, Chile’s Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcano continued to sporadically spew a cloud of ash, disrupting airline travel from Brazil and Argentina to as far away as Australia and New Zealand.
(AP, 6/11/11)
2011 Jun 14, In Chile The cloud of ash spewing from an erupting volcano grounded more flights in countries from Uruguay to Australia and threatened to delay next month's start of the Copa America football tournament in Argentina.
(AP, 6/14/11)
2011 Jun 16, In SF Deshon Marman (20), a college football player, was arrested and thrown off a US Airways jet in a dispute over his sagging pants. Marmon was in the city attending the funeral of his best friend, David Henderson, who was fatally wounded last month.
(SFC, 6/18/11, p.C4)
2011 Jun 16, Indian budget airline GoAir said it had placed a $7.2-billion order for 72 new Airbus aircraft as local carriers continue an aircraft shopping spree to meet booming demand on the subcontinent.
(AFP, 6/16/11)
2011 Jun 18, A five-hour computer outage virtually shut down United Airlines Friday night and early Saturday, a stark reminder of how dependent airlines have become on technology.
(AP, 6/18/11)
2011 Jun 21, In Australia Hundreds of flights were grounded in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Canberra as the Chilean ash cloud returned to Australia with a vengeance.
(AFP, 6/21/11)
2011 Jun 22, In France European plane maker Airbus won a slew of orders for its A320 medium-haul workhorse, including a record deal for 180 from Indian budget carrier IndiGo at a rainy Paris Air Show.
(AFP, 6/22/11)
2011 Jun 23, The US blacklisted a major Iranian port operator and the country's national airline, Iran Air, to increase pressure on Tehran to curtail its alleged nuclear weapons program.
(Reuters, 6/23/11)
2011 Jul 2, Australian aviation regulators grounded budget carrier Tiger Airways Australia, a subsidiary of Singapore's Tiger Airways, because it posed a "serious and imminent risk to air safety", throwing the travel plans of thousands of people into chaos.
(AFP, 7/2/11)
2011 Jul 7, Ash from a Chilean volcano grounded flights across much of South America again, disrupting travel for thousands of people just as the continent's premier football tournament got going in Argentina.
(AP, 7/7/11)
2011 Jul 11, Air Algerie cabin crew went on strike. They wanted a 106-percent pay rise and left thousands of angry travelers stranded in Paris, Marseille and Nice airports.
(AFP, 7/13/11)
2011 Jul 12, In Germany a plane being used by Thailand's Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn was been impounded as part of a long-running battle over payments for a building project in Thailand. The Thai government allegedly owed the now-bankrupt German construction firm Walter Bau AG builder 30 million euros because of a contract agreed to more than 20 years ago to build and operate a toll highway to Bangkok's Don Muang airport. On July 20 a German court ordered the release of the impounded jet upon receipt of a hefty bank guarantee. On July 21 Thailand's foreign minister ruled out paying a multi-million dollar bank guarantee to secure the release of the prince's jet.
(AP, 7/13/11)(AFP, 7/20/11)(AFP, 7/21/11)
2011 Jul 13, In Colorado a hail storm took almost a third of the Frontier Airlines Airbus fleet out of service forcing the airline to cancel numerous flights over the next week.
(SSFC, 7/17/11, p.A7)
2011 Jul 14, In France thousands of angry travelers were still stranded in airports and in Algiers as a strike by Air Algerie cabin crew, who want a 106% pay rise, went into its 4th day. Air Algerie staff ended their four-day strike after mediation by the office of PM Ahmed Ouyahia.
(AFP, 7/14/11)
2011 Jul 19, Britain's competition watchdog reiterated its ruling for Spanish-owned airports operator BAA to sell two more airports including London Stansted followed by Edinburgh or Glasgow Airport.
(AFP, 7/19/11)
2011 Aug 2, The US Senate recessed and left without resolving a partisan standoff over a bill to end the partial shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration. This left the FAA unable to collect taxes on airline ticket sales and already cost the government over $200 million.
(SFC, 8/3/11, p.A2)
2011 Aug 4, US Congressional leaders struck a deal to resolve a partisan dispute and end a partial shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that has halted airport projects and threatened thousands of jobs. Congress adjourned earlier this week for its August recess but Democratic aides said the Senate will finalize the deal on Aug 4 by approving a version of the spending measure already passed by the U.S. House of Representatives.
(Reuters, 8/4/11)
2011 Aug 9, In Malaysia budget carrier AirAsia and state-owned Malaysia Airlines formed an alliance through a share swap deal to end their long rivalry and boost business.
(AP, 8/9/11)
2011 Aug 10, Australian aviation authorities lifted a 6-week flying ban on the local unit of Tiger Airways after the budget carrier agreed to new conditions including extra training for pilots.
(AFP, 8/10/11)
2011 Aug 18, Spanish authorities arrested Aeromexico co-pilot Ruben Garcia Garcia for attempting to smuggle 93 pounds of cocaine into the European country.
(AP, 8/23/11)
2011 Aug 27, National carrier Egyptair resumed direct flights to Iraq after a break of 21 years.
(AFP, 8/27/11)
2011 Aug 27, The Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents 6,800 Air Canada flight attendants, said Air Canada flight attendants have rejected a tentative contract that union bargainers negotiated with the country's largest air carrier. The union has scheduled a strike vote for next month.
(Reuters, 8/27/11)
2011 Sep 27, In Australia thousands of international air travelers faced delays as Customs and Border Protection officers walked off the job at airports across the country after workers rejected a 9 percent pay rise over three years.
(AP, 9/27/11)
2011 Sep 28, ANA, a Japanese airline, flew the first commercial Dreamliner into Tokyo. Its first passenger flight was made on Oct 26 from Tokyo to Hong Kong.
(Econ, 10/1/11, p.42)(SFC, 10/27/11, p.A16)
2011 Oct 4, It was reported that NASA has awarded a Pennsylvania company, Pipistrel-USA.com of State College, a $1.35 million prize for developing an ultra-efficient electric airplane. Wired Magazine reported that the winning airplane "was developed and built in Slovenia as a technology demonstrator for the airplane maker."
(http://tinyurl.com/3nk4ndh)
2011 Oct 13, Air traffic between Senegal and Mauritania resumed after a three-month pause, ending a row over onward flights.
(AFP, 10/13/11)
2011 Oct 24, In Portugal an overnight storm tore part of the roof off Faro airport in the southern Algarve region, injuring five people and disrupting flights.
(AP, 10/24/11)
2011 Oct 29, Australian flag carrier Qantas grounded its entire fleet indefinitely in a bitter industrial dispute. Months of strikes by baggage handlers, engineers and pilots have been costing Qantas Aus$15 million (£9.9 million) per week, with the total financial impact so far hitting Aus$68 million.
(AFP, 10/29/11)
2011 Oct 29, Phoenix-based US Airways flight attendant Nick Aaronson (33) was found dead in a Mexico City hotel room while on a layover. Authorities were investigating the death as a homicide.
(AP, 10/30/11)
2011 Oct 31, An Australian court ended the strikes and employee lockout that had abruptly grounded Qantas Airways and stranded tens of thousands of passengers worldwide. The government referred the dispute to Fair Work Australia, which ordered both sides into 21 days of talks.
(AP, 10/31/11)(Econ, 11/5/11, p.75)
2011 Nov 1, Senegal shut its airspace to all planes coming or going to Guinea after a Senegal Airlines flight was blocked in Conakry due to a spat over payments.
(AFP, 11/1/11)
2011 Nov 4, British Airways owner IAG said it has agreed to buy Lufthansa's UK unit bmi in a bid to squeeze more growth from its capacity constrained Heathrow hub and expand services to emerging markets in Asia and Latin America.
(Reuters, 11/4/11)
2011 Nov 13, Emirates Airlines launched the Dubai Airshow with a record $18-billion order for 50 Boeing 777s, giving the US company a flying start on its European rival Airbus at the prestigious event.
(AFP, 11/13/11)
2011 Nov 14, Kuwait-based leasing company ALAFCO signed an agreement with Airbus to buy 50 A320neo aircraft, valued at $4.6 billion at list price, the two sides announced at Dubai Airshow.
(AFP, 11/14/11)
2011 Nov 15, Nigerian airport officials fined British Airways $135 million and Virgin Atlantic $100 million amid a dispute over ticket prices. The airlines were given 14 days to respond and were ordered to compensate passengers. In 2012 a panel "cancelled the fines because at the time of the offence between 2004 and 2006, there was no law to make them culpable."
(AFP, 11/17/11)(AFP, 2/10/12)
2011 Nov 18, Indonesia’s Lion Air said it is planning to buy 230 planes from Boeing Co. The list price of $21.7 billion will be paid over 12 years though bank financing.
(AP, 11/18/11)
2011 Nov 29, AMR Corp., the parent of American Airlines, filed for bankruptcy and replaced CEO Gerard Arpey. The company still had some 8 billion in cash to keep operating.
(SFC, 11/30/11, p.D5)
2011 Dec 4, Pilots at Lebanese national carrier Middle East Airlines (MEA) ended a five-day strike in protest at the dismissal of a cancer-stricken colleague which grounded dozens of flights at Beirut airport.
(AFP, 12/4/11)
2011 Dec 6, Antigua-based LIAT airline said all of its pilots have called in sick, likely disrupting all flights. The pilots were protesting the firing of a captain for undisclosed reasons.
(AP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 15, Air Zimbabwe chairman Jonathan Kadzura said the government has raised $1.5 million (1.2 million euros) to pay off the national airline's debt and have an impounded airplane released in London.
(AFP, 12/15/11)
2011 Dec 16, Zimbabwe state media said the national airline has suspended flights to South Africa over a debt of $500,000, fearing creditors might impound more of its planes.
(AFP, 12/16/11)
2011 Dec 18, Spanish airline Iberia cancelled a third of its flights because of a strike by pilots fearing job losses when company planes are diverted for a planned new budget carrier.
(SFC, 12/18/11, p.A2)
2011 Dec 19, The Air Berlin group, Germany's 2nd-largest airline, said United Arab Emirates airline, Etihad, is to pay 72.9 million euros ($95 million) to become its biggest shareholder.
(AP, 12/19/11)
2011 Air Tanzania stopped flying after its last aircraft was grounded for repairs.
(Econ, 6/8/19, p.45)
2012 Jan 1, As of today the EU began billing all the world’s airlines for the carbon emissions into and out of the EU.
(Econ, 1/7/12, p.58)
2012 Jan 16, A hacker network that claims to be based in Saudi Arabia paralyzed the websites of Israel's stock exchange and national airline. El Al Israel Airlines took down its website after hacker OxOmar, who has been linked to the Saudi group, warned that both sites would be targeted by allied pro-Palestinian hackers.
(AP, 1/16/12)
2012 Jan 25, Boeing won its largest ever order from Europe as Norwegian Air Shuttle ordered 122 planes. The deal was worth $11.4 billion at list prices. NAS also planned to buy some 100 Airbuses. The total package for 222 planes was about $10 billion.
(Econ, 1/28/12, p.65)(Econ, 4/27/13, p.61)
2012 Jan 31, South African Airways launched non-stop flights to Beijing. China became South Africa's top trade partner in 2009.
(AFP, 1/31/12)
2012 Feb 1, TSA agent Alexandra Schmid (31) took $5000 in cash from the jacket of a Bangladeshi passenger as it went along an X-ray conveyor belt at JFK airport. Schmid was arrested on a charge of grand larceny and suspended pending an investigation.
(AP, 2/3/12)
2012 Feb 3, A storm swept across Colorado forcing the cancellation of some 600 flights at Denver’s airport. The storm dumped up to 6 feet of snow in some areas of eastern Colorado.
(SFC, 2/4/12, p.A5)
2012 Feb 5, Britain’s Heathrow Airport cut around half of the 1,300 flights scheduled for today after snow and freezing temperatures hit much of England a day earlier.
(Reuters, 2/5/12)
2012 Feb 6, In Brazil the wining $9.4 billion bid was announced for the privatization of Guarulhos, Sao Paulo’s main int’l. airport. The winning bid was by a consortium led by Petrobras, the state-owned oil company, and Banco do Brasil, the state-development bank. This was nearly $2 above the 2nd highest bid.
(Econ, 2/11/12, p.40)
2012 Feb 6, Air France pilots and other personnel began a 4-day walkout to protest a bill requiring air transport workers to give 48 hours notice before striking.
(SFC, 2/6/12, p.A2)
2012 Feb 17, Budget carrier Air Australia collapsed, stranding thousands of passengers as its domestic flights and international services to Honolulu, Bali and Phuket were all grounded.
(AFP, 2/17/12)
2012 Feb 24, Zimbabwe's national airline suspended all its flights indefinitely, after the latest revival effort collapsed this week. The struggling carrier battled against debts reported in December at $140 million.
(AFP, 2/24/12)
2012 Feb, Malev, Hungary’s flag air carrier, went bankrupt.
(Econ, 5/19/12, p.73)
2012 Mar 6, Turkish Airlines started flying into Somalia's war-torn capital, becoming the first international company to fly passenger planes into Mogadishu in more than 20 years. Flights were scheduled for twice a week.
(AP, 3/6/12)
2012 Mar 12, India's cash-strapped Kingfisher Airlines cancelled nearly a fifth of its flights, including at least one international route, after its staff staged a strike over unpaid wages.
(AFP, 3/12/12)
2012 Mar 14, India's beleaguered Kingfisher Airlines said it had curtailed its overseas flights to avoid losing further cash as it struggles to keep flying amid mounting operational difficulties.
(AFP, 3/14/12)
2012 Mar 22, India said it has barred its airlines from complying with the EU’s carbon taxation scheme, with the government saying no Indian carrier would share emissions data with the EU. The EU has directed Indian carriers to submit emission details of their aircraft by March 31, 2012. China decided last month to ban its airlines from complying with the EU directive. Over two dozen countries, including Russia and the United States, have opposed the EU move, calling it a violation of international law.
(AFP, 3/23/12)
2012 Mar 28, Fiji's military regime said it had seized control of national carrier Air Pacific from Australia's Qantas because it did not want foreigners to own or control Fijian airlines.
(AFP, 3/28/12)
2012 Apr 3, The European Commission prohibited Conviasa, Venezuela’s state airline, from flying into the EU due to safety concerns. Venezuela called the decision unfair.
(SFC, 4/4/12, p.A2)
2012 Apr 4, Iraq approved a request from Kuwait's Jazeera Airways to operate services to Baghdad and Najaf, more than 20 years after direct flights between the neighbors were halted.
(AFP, 4/5/12)
2012 Apr 6, The Transition Roadable Aircraft, developed by Terrafugia, Inc., made its auto show debut at the 2012 New York International Auto Show. The Massachusetts firm priced the commercial flying car at $279,000.
(Econ, 3/3/12, TQp.3)(www.terrafugia.com/news_media.html)
2012 Apr 9, Airlines cancelled flights from Sudan to the newly independent South, after new rules treating the route as international took effect.
(AFP, 4/9/12)
2012 Apr 11, Indonesian carrier Garuda International and European plane manufacturer Airbus signed a $2.5 billion deal in Jakarta, as British PM David Cameron visited Southeast Asia's biggest economy.
(AFP, 4/11/12)
2012 Apr 13, Australia's Qantas launched the nation's first commercial flight using a mixture of refined cooking oil, saying it would not survive if it relied solely on traditional jet fuel. Australia's tax on carbon emissions comes into force on July 1.
(AFP, 4/13/12)
2012 Apr 23, Ferrovial-owned BAA said it had agreed to sell Edinburgh airport to Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) for 807 million pounds ($1.3 billion), adding the Scottish hub to an investment portfolio that includes London's Gatwick and City airports.
(Reuters, 4/23/12)
2012 Apr 25, US federal officials announced that multiple airport screeners have been arrested for allegedly taking handsome bribes to look the other way while loads of illegal drugs slipped through security at Los Angeles International Airport.
(ABCNews, 4/25/12)
2012 Apr 28, North Korea began sending electronic GPS jamming signals affecting civilian flights in South Korea amid simmering cross-border tensions.
(AFP, 5/3/12)
2012 May 8, At least 100 pilots from India's debt-laden national carrier Air India failed to turn up to work in a move the civil aviation minister described as an "illegal" strike. The pilots were protesting against former Indian Airlines flyers -- who moved to Air India when the two firms merged -- also being trained for new Boeing 787 Dreamliner airplanes, claiming that would threaten their own career prospects.
(AFP, 5/8/12)
2012 May 9, In India the number of pilots involved in a wildcat strike at national carrier Air India rose to 150, as the walkout forced the cancellation of more international flights.
(AFP, 5/9/12)
2012 May 9, Palestinian Airlines resumed operations, starting with biweekly flights between El-Arish and Marka Airbase in the Jordanian capital of Amman. The new route means Gazans no longer have to travel to Cairo, some 350 km (215 miles) from their territory, to board planes.
(AFP, 5/27/12)
2012 May 13, North Korea stopped transmitting signals which jammed the GPS systems of hundreds of civilian aircraft and ships in South Korea for two weeks. The signals originated from the North's border city of Kaesong and began on April 28.
(AFP, 5/15/12)
2012 May 16, The new $1.4 billion int’l. air terminal opened at Hartsfeld-Jackson Atlanta Int’l. Airport.
(SFC, 5/16/12, p.A8)
2012 May 24, The jumbo jet-size Solar Impulse, an experimental solar-powered airplane, took off from Switzerland on its first transcontinental flight, aiming to reach North Africa next week.
(AP, 5/24/12)
2012 Jun 4, A militia of Libyan ex-rebels entered Tripoli International airport with tanks and armored vehicles and completely blocked air traffic, a day after their leader Abu Ajila al-Habshi was arrested. By the evening authorities wrested back control of the airport.
(AFP, 6/4/12)
2012 Jun 5, The Solar Impulse, an experimental solar-powered plane, took off from Madrid en route to Morocco for the 2nd leg of a bid to complete its first transcontinental flight.
(AP, 6/5/12)
2012 Jun 6, In Puerto Rico US federal agents swept through the main airport and other areas, arresting dozens of baggage handlers, airline workers and others suspected of smuggling millions of dollars' worth of cocaine aboard commercial flights for at least a decade.
(AP, 6/6/12)
2012 Jun 7, Qatar Airways completed its first flight to Baghdad since Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, a month after launching services to Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region.
(AFP, 6/7/12)
2012 Jun 21, In Morocco the Swiss-made solar-powered plane, Solar Impulse, took off from Rabat airport in a fresh bid to cross the Moroccan desert, after being foiled by rough conditions last week.
(AFP, 6/21/12)
2012 Jun 26, Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer and U.S. company Boeing said they've agreed to share technical knowledge and market assessments on the development of a Brazilian military cargo plane.
(AP, 6/26/12)
2012 Jun 29, In China Passengers and crew foiled an alleged hijacking attempt by six people on a plane in the far-western Xinjiang region. Local sources said that the plane turned back after Uighurs and Hans began fighting after a disagreement over seat assignments.
(AP, 6/29/12)
2012 Jul 2, Europe’s Airbus said it would open its first jet assembly line in America in Mobile, Alabama.
(Econ, 7/7/12, p.63)
2012 Jul 5, Colin Marshall (78), who guided British Airways on its transition from state ownership to privatization, died. He was appointment as chief executive of British Airways in 1983 and was given a knighthood after the airline was privatized in 1987.
(AFP, 7/11/12)
2012 Jul 9, Boeing Co. clinched the first big deal of this year's Farnborough Airshow with a firm order from Air Lease Corp. for 75 of its redesigned 737 aircraft worth $7.2 billion.
(AP, 7/9/12)
2012 Jul 10, Boeing Co. revealed a further large order for its remodeled short-haul 737 aircraft, a $9.2 billion with GE Capital Aviation Services. Rival Airbus announced its first billion-dollar order at this year's Farnborough Airshow.
(AP, 7/10/12)
2012 Jul 12, Airbus, a subsidiary of EADS, said it booked a potential $6.35 billion worth of orders. The four deals, if completed, take Airbus' total by the fourth day of the UK airshow to $16.9 billion for a total of 115 aircraft.
(AFP, 7/12/12)
2012 Jul 14, India's struggling Kingfisher Airlines cancelled more than three dozen flights when frustrated pilots and other workers walked off the job to protest about long-overdue pay.
(AFP, 7/14/12)
2012 Jul 15, Sewing needles were found in 5 sandwiches on flights originating in Amsterdam. One passenger on a flight to Minneapolis was injured. The other needles were on two flights to Atlanta and one to Seattle. The sandwiches were made in the Amsterdam kitchen of catering company Gate Gourmet.
(AP, 7/17/12)
2012 Jul 30, In Canada a passenger found what appeared to be a sewing needle in a pre-prepared sandwich on board an Air Canada flight from Victoria, British Columbia to Toronto. On July 14 sewing needles were found in food on four Delta flights from Amsterdam to the United States, injuring one passenger.
(Reuters, 8/2/12)
2012 Jul 30, A Canadian government-appointed arbitrator chose to enforce Air Canada's final offer over one proposed by the union representing its 3,000 pilots, ending a long and bitter contract dispute but angering the pilots.
(Reuters, 7/30/12)
2012 Aug 12, In Italy Hundreds of Wind Jet airline passengers became stranded due to the failure of Alitalia's deal to purchase the Sicily-based low-cost carrier.
(AP, 8/12/12)
2012 Aug 17, Ethiopian Airlines received Africa's first Boeing 787 Dreamliner, making Ethiopia the only country aside from Japan to operate the innovative aircraft. Ethiopian Airlines has purchased ten 787 Dreamliners from Boeing.
(AFP, 8/17/12)
2012 Aug 31, In Germany Lufthansa flight attendants walked off the job for eight hours at Frankfurt airport, causing the cancellation of more than 220 flights. Their union warned of more stoppages unless the airline gives in to its demands.
(AP, 8/31/12)
2012 Sep 7, Egypt's national air carrier said it will resume international flights after the airline's flight attendants suspended a 12-hour strike pending negotiations to meet their grievances.
(AP, 9/8/12)
2012 Sep 7, Lufthansa canceled hundreds of flights after flight attendants walked off the job at airports around the country in an escalating battle with Germany's largest airline. Signs emerged that the two sides may be prepared to return to the negotiating table.
(AP, 9/7/12)
2012 Sep 7, In Nigeria more than 60 workers from Air Nigeria protested at Lagos' Murtala Muhammed International Airport's domestic wings, demanding four-months-worth of unpaid salaries from the company. The airline's owner, business tycoon Jimoh Ibrahim, fired nearly all of the company's 800 employees for "disloyalty" earlier this month.
(AP, 9/7/12)
2012 Sep 9, In England a man fell to the ground in the Mortlake neighborhood of West London when a jet passing overhead lowered its landing gear as it neared the runway at Heathrow Airport. The apparent stowaway had no identification papers, just some currency from Angola. The man was later identified as Jose Matada of Mozambique.
(AP, 12/10/12)(SFC, 4/12/13, p.A2)
2012 Sep 10, Japan Airlines (JAL) emerged from bankruptcy (2010) in an initial public offering (IPO) at $8.5 billion.
(Economist, 9/15/12, p.64)
2012 Sep 14, India agreed to open its huge market to foreign retailers such as Wal-Mart in a surprising decision that was part of a flurry of economic reforms aimed at sparking new growth in the country's sputtering economy. The reforms would also allow foreign airlines to invest in Indian carriers for the first time.
(AP, 9/14/12)(Economist, 9/29/12, p.69)
2012 Sep 16, The CEO of EL AL Airlines said Israel's national airline will stop flying to Cairo, even though the Israel-Egypt peace treaty mandates flights to the country. Eliezer Shkedi said that flights are nearly empty, and the airline cannot afford the high security and operating costs.
(AP, 9/16/12)
2012 Sep 20, Nigeria's largest airline Arik Air Ltd. halted all its domestic flights indefinitely as its leaders alleged government corruption made it impossible for the carrier to fly. Domestic flights resumed on Sep 23.
(AP, 9/20/12)(SSFC, 9/23/12, p.A6)
2012 Sep 21, Nigeria's Central Bank barred the nation's top two airlines from receiving any additional loans over their massive outstanding debts.
(AP, 9/21/12)
2012 Oct 10, A deal to create a European defense and aerospace giant to rival Boeing Co. collapsed when Britain's BAE Systems and EADS NV called off their merger discussions because of conflicting interests between the British, French and German governments.
(AP, 10/10/12)
2012 Oct 10, A Syrian Air A320 from Moscow that was forced to land in Ankara. Turkish state-run television TRT reported the next day that the passenger plane was carrying military communications equipment. Damascus branded the incident piracy amid growing tensions between the two countries. The plane's 37 passengers and crew were allowed to continue to Damascus after several hours, without the cargo.
(AP, 10/11/12)
2012 Oct 13, Syria's state-run news agency SANA says Syria has decided to ban Turkish Airlines flights from Syrian airspace.
(AP, 10/13/12)
2012 Oct 14, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu announced that Turkey is barring Syrian civilian flights from Turkey's airspace, a day after Syria issued such a ban for Turkish commercial aircraft.
(AP, 10/14/12)
2012 Oct 27, In France several hundred striking Air France workers, protesting a restructure plan to cut 10% of the work force, clashed with police at Paris’ Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport.
(SSFC, 10/28/12, p.A3)
2012 Oct 29, Category one Hurricane Sandy grounded thousands of flights in the US northeast and upended travel plans across the globe, stranding passengers from Hong Kong to Europe. Public transport in NYC shut down and the stock market suffered its first weather-related closure in 27 years. The storm made landfall in New Jersey with 80 mph sustained winds. The Hurricane Center later attributed 72 US deaths to Sandy and estimated damages from the storm at $50 billion.
(AP, 10/29/12)(Reuters, 10/29/12)(AP, 10/30/12)(SFC, 2/13/13, p.A6)
2012 Oct 30, Virgin Australia, the second largest airline in Australia, announced a 99 million Australian dollar ($102 million) takeover offer for regional carrier Skywest and said it bought a 60 per cent stake in budget domestic rival Tiger Airways Australia for AU$35 million.
(AP, 10/30/12)
2012 Oct 31, Spanish infrastructure company Ferrovial said an arm of China's sovereign wealth fund has taken a 10 percent stake in the holding company controlling Britain's largest airport Heathrow.
(AP, 10/31/12)
2012 Nov 2, In South Africa low cost 1Time Airline said that all of its operations have been grounded with immediate effect after it applied for business liquidation.
(AP, 11/3/12)
2012 Nov 18, In Mozambique pilots and crew members at the national airline went on strike, grounding the carrier.
(AP, 11/18/12)
2012 Nov 24, In western France protesters squatting in treetop tents and makeshift shelters battled for a 2nd day with French riot police trying to expel them from the site of a planned airport near Nantes.
(AP, 11/24/12)
2012 Sep 9, In England a man fell to the ground in the Mortlake neighborhood of West London when a jet passing overhead lowered its landing gear as it neared the runway at Heathrow Airport. The apparent stowaway had no identification papers, just some currency from Angola.
(AP, 12/10/12)
2012 Dec 11, Delta Airlines agreed to buy a 49% stake in Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. For $360 million.
(SFC, 12/12/12, p.D3)
2012 Scientists at the Harvard robotics laboratory performed a successful flight of hovering robots the size of crane flies.
(Econ, 5/4/13, p.77)(http://wyss.harvard.edu/viewpressrelease/110/)
2012 India’s Kingfisher airline company was grounded with debts of more than $1.5 billion.
(Econ, 11/21/15, p.61)
2013 Jan 16, The US federal government grounded Boeing’s new 787s until the risk of battery fires is addressed. The FAA emergency order affected only United Airlines, the lone US carrier to operate the 787 Dreamliners.
(SFC, 1/17/13, p.A7)
2013 Jan 16, Japan's two leading airlines grounded their fleets of Boeing 787s after one of the Dreamliner passenger jets made an emergency landing.
(AP, 1/16/13)
2013 Jan 17, Ethiopian Airlines grounded its four Boeing 787 Dreamliners following a decision by the Federal Aviation Administration to take the planes out of service in the United States because of a risk of fire from its lithium batteries.
(AP, 1/17/13)
2013 Jan 20, London's Heathrow Airport cancelled a fifth of flights and airlines scrapped 40 percent of flights to Paris's main airports as snow continued to blanket parts of Europe, with more forecast.
(AP, 1/20/13)
2013 Jan 21, London's Heathrow airport cancelled 10 percent of flights, a day after it cut its capacity by a fifth, and said services could face further delays with more snowfall expected.
(Reuters, 1/21/13)
2013 Jan 21, In Germany passengers suffered delays and flight cancellations at Frankfurt airport, Europe's third busiest, after freezing rain had forced the airport to shut late on Jan 20.
(Reuters, 1/21/13)
2013 Feb 13, The boards of American Airlines and US Airways approved their merger. This will create the world’s biggest airline.
(SFC, 2/14/13, p.C2)
2013 Feb 26, Puerto Rico's Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla approved turning over the operations of the country’s largest airport to a private company as part of an estimated $2.6 billion deal that began under his predecessor and has been fiercely protested.
(AP, 2/27/13)
2013 Feb 27, An Iraqi plane landed in Kuwait for the first time since Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of the tiny emirate.
(AP, 2/27/13)
2013 Mar 13, In Nigeria a strike at Aero Contractors Co. of Nigeria Ltd., halted flights "temporarily."
(AP, 3/16/13)
2013 Mar 16, Nigeria's aviation ministry asked Dana Air to suspend all flights. A Dana Air crash on June 3 left more than 160 people dead, leading the carrier to lose its license. It resumed its operations two months ago. The suspension came days after another major airline halted its operations over a strike. The general suspension on Dana was lifted March 18, but one plane remained grounded.
(AP, 3/17/13)(AP, 3/19/13)
2013 Mar 22, The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it will close 149 air traffic control towers at small airports across the country beginning on April 7 as it copes with automatic federal spending cuts.
(Reuters, 3/22/13)
2013 Mar 22, In Alabama Luke Bresette (10) was killed at the Birmingham-Shuttlesworth Int’l. Airport when a flight information panel fell on a family from Kansas.
(SSFC, 3/24/13, p.A8)
2013 Apr 3, Samoa Air planned to start pricing its first international flights based on the weight of its passengers and their bags. Depending on the flight, each kg (2.2 pounds) would cost 93 cents to $1.06. The new airline was launched last June.
(AP, 4/4/13)
2013 Apr 15, In France clashes again erupted over the construction on a new airport near the city of Nantes. 3 demonstrators were reported injured as anarchists and beret-wearing farmers joined against the project.
(AP, 4/16/13)
2013 Apr 23, Australia's competition regulator approved the takeover by Virgin Australia of budget rival Tiger Airways Australia.
(AP, 4/23/13)
2013 Apr 27, Ethiopian Airlines flew a Boeing 787 from Ethiopia to Nairobi, Kenya, the first commercial flight of the Dreamliner since it was grounded for smoldering batteries.
(SSFC, 4/28/13, p.A5)
2013 Apr 28, US air traffic controllers resumed normal operations after lawmakers rushed through a bill to withdraw furloughs that resulted from automatic spending cuts in the sequester. Pres. Obama signed the legislation on May 1.
(SSFC, 4/28/13, p.A7)(SFC, 5/2/13, p.A5)
2013 Apr 28, Japan's All Nippon Airways successfully conducted its first test flight of the Boeing 787 aircraft since battery problems grounded the planes earlier this year.
(AP, 4/28/13)
2013 May 1, An experimental US aircraft, the unmanned X-51A WaveRider sped over 3,000 mph in a test flight above the Pacific Ocean. It used a scramjet engine and reached Mach 5.1 riding its own shock wave before plunging into the ocean as planned.
(SFC, 5/4/13, p.A10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-51)
2013 May 3, The Solar Impulse, a solar-powered airplane, that developers hope to eventually pilot around the world, took off from Moffet Field, south of San Francisco, on the first leg of an attempt to fly across the US with no fuel but the sun's energy.
(Reuters, 5/3/13)
2013 May 3, Italian police said they have arrested 29 airport baggage handlers accused of stealing cameras, cellphones and other loot from passengers' luggage, a bust made possible after hidden cameras were installed in airplane cargo holds where the thefts occurred.
(AP, 5/3/13)
2013 May 14, Croatia Airlines pilots and flight attendants went on strike over planned salary cuts and layoffs that are part of efforts to restructure the loss-making state carrier ahead of the country's EU entry.
(AP, 5/14/13)
2013 May 16, Flights in Greece were halted for four hours as the country's two largest labor unions staged work stoppages to protest austerity measures and the government decision to cancel a teachers' strike.
(AP, 5/16/13)
2013 May 18, In Egypt baggage handlers in Cairo went on strike after a baggage handler who works for EgyptAir died when a conveyer belt used to unload luggage fell on his head. The strike did not disrupt flights.
(AP, 5/18/13)
2013 May 22, Croatian Airlines’ staff accepted a 9% wage cut and returned to work after 8 days of strikes.
(Econ, 5/25/13, p.52)
2013 Jun 5, In Egypt striking workers at the Cairo international airport's largest terminal blocked airplanes on the tarmac and disrupting flights.
(AP, 6/5/13)
2013 Jun 12, A strike by French air traffic controllers forced cancellations of more than 60% of flights and disrupted travel elsewhere in Europe.
(AP, 6/12/13)
2013 Jun 13, Egyptian pilots working for the national carrier staged a 10-hour sit-in protest, delaying 22 flights in an effort to press their demands for management changes and bonus payments.
(AP, 6/13/13)
2013 Jun 14, In France the Airbus A350's maiden flight ended with a safe landing, setting the stage for intensifying competition with US rival Boeing in the long-haul wide-body aircraft market.
(AP, 6/14/13)
2013 Jun 17, In France Airbus and Boeing both won pledges for big purchases of long-haul, wide-body jets, as the Paris Air Show got off to a robust, if rainy start.
(AP, 6/17/13)
2013 Jun 24, Some $1.2 million was reported to have disappeared from a shipment of cash on Flight 17 from Switzerland to NYC as part of a banking transaction.
(SFC, 6/26/13, p.A4)
2013 Jul 6, A solar-powered aircraft, completed the final leg of a history-making cross-country flight this evening, gliding to a smooth stop at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. The Solar Impulse left San Francisco in early May and made stopovers in Phoenix, Dallas-Fort Worth, St. Louis, Cincinnati and Dulles.
(AP, 7/7/13)
2013 Jul 10, The US Navy successfully landed theX-47B experimental drone aircraft, the size of a fighter jet, on the George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier. Off the coast of Virginia.
(SFC, 7/11/13, p.A4)
2013 Jul 12, In Britain a fire erupted on a Boeing Dreamliner at London's Heathrow airport. The fire broke out on the plane, operated by Ethiopian Airlines, when it was parked at a remote stand with no passengers on board, eight hours after arriving from Addis Ababa.
(Reuters, 7/13/13)
2013 Jul 25, In Niger the body of a suspected stowaway fell from an Air France plane and was discovered lifeless in a western suburb of the capital, Niamey.
(AP, 7/25/13)
2013 Aug 1, Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways said it plans to acquire a 49% stake in Serbia's JAT Airways in a wide-ranging deal that will bring a new name and expanded routes for the struggling Belgrade-based carrier.
(AP, 8/1/13)
2013 Aug 7, A fire engulfed Kenya's Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, forcing the indefinite suspension of international passenger flights and choking a vital travel gateway to east Africa. First responders looted electronics, a bank and an ATM during and after the blaze.
(Reuters, 8/7/13)(AP, 8/8/13)
2013 Aug 9, In Lebanon gunmen abducted a Turkish Airlines pilot and his assistant in Beirut, forcing them from a bus as it took them from the airport in the early hours of the morning. A group claimed responsibility for the abduction in the name of nine Lebanese Shi'ite Muslims kidnapped last year in Azaz near the Turkish-Syrian border. On Aug 20 a Lebanese prosecutor charged 13 people in connection with the kidnapping.
(Reuters, 8/9/13)(AP, 8/20/13)
2013 Aug 13, The US Justice Dept. filed suit to stop a $14 billion union of American Airlines and US Airways.
(SFC, 8/14/13, p.C1)
2013 Sep 16, Bombardier of Canada launched the maiden flight of its new cSeries narrow-body plane with 100-150 seats.
(Econ, 9/21/13, p.66)
2013 Oct 11, Alitalia’s board of directors approved a €500m salvage package. €300m would come from fresh capital and €200m from new credit lines. The government planned to involve the state-owned postal service in the rescue.
(Econ, 10/19/13, p.56)
2013 Oct 13, Companies involved in a $1.27 billion project to develop a business district around Britain’s Manchester airpor announced that Chinese construction giant Beijing Construction Engineering Group (BCEG) has signed a deal with British firms to develop the area.
(AFP, 10/13/13)
2013 Oct 27, Dubai opened passenger operations at its second airport, Al-Maktoum International, touted to be the world's largest once it is completed.
(AFP, 10/27/13)
2013 Nov 1, The US Federal Aviation Administration said it is relaxing restrictions on the use of smartphones and other electronics inside flights by American carriers.
(AP, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 1, In California Paul Ciancia (23) walked into LAX’s terminal 3 near the security checkpoint and began shooting, sending thousands of passengers scattering onto tarmacs other parts of the airport. TSA agent Gerardo Hernandez (39) was killed.
(Reuters, 11/2/13)
2013 Nov 6, William Potts (56), a former US militant who hijacked a plane to Cuba in 1984, flew home to the United States where he faced federal charges for air piracy. On July 16, 2014, Potts was sentenced to 20 years in prison. The sentence effectively gave him credit for serving 13 years in Cuba making him eligile for parole in 7 years.
(AP, 11/6/13)(SFC, 7/18/14, p.A6)
2013 Nov 11, Struggling low-cost British airline Flybe said it plans to axe another 500 jobs as it pursues a round of cost-cutting measures.
(AFP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 17, The Dubai Airshow took off with huge aircraft orders and commitments worth around $100 billion for Boeing and $40 billion for Airbus from Gulf carriers.
(AFP, 11/17/13)(SFC, 11/18/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 23, China declared an Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) bolstering its claim to islands that Japan says it owns. China warned that it would take "defensive emergency measures" against aircraft that failed to identify themselves properly in airspace over them.
(Reuters, 11/23/13)(Econ, 11/30/13, p.12)
2013 Nov 28, South Korean and Japanese flights through China's new maritime air defense zone added to the international defiance of rules Beijing says it has imposed in East China Sea but that neighbors and the US have vowed to ignore.
(AP, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 29, Officials said the Obama administration has decided to tell US commercial airlines to comply with China’s deamnds to be notified of any flights through a broad swath of int’l. airspace that China has claimed as part of an air defense zone.
(SFC, 11/30/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 11, Air Canada announced it had placed a firm $6.5 billion order for 61 Boeing 737 MAX narrow-body aircraft, with options on 18 more planes and purchase rights for 30 others.
(AFP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 12, Iraq signed a $1.1 billion deal to buy 24 multi-role light fighters from South Korea. Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) said it would deliver the T-50IQ, a variant of its T-50 supersonic aircraft, to Baghdad between 2015 and 2016.
(AFP, 12/12/13)
2013 Dec 13, In Kansas airport worker Terry Lee Loewen (58) was arrested at Wichita’s Mid-Continent Regional Airport as part of an FBI sting. He planned to attack the airport with what he thought were explosives loaded in a car in as plot aiming to support al-Qaida. On June 8, 2015, Loewen admitted to plotting a suicide bomb attack.
(SFC, 12/14/13, p.A7)(SFC, 6/9/15, p.A6)
2013 Dec 26, In France a surprise strike by Lufthansa workers at the main Paris airport prompted flight cancellations and brought a new headache to holiday travel. Lufthansa said in statement that only two flights were officially canceled, and that travel was resuming in the afternoon.
(AP, 12/26/13)
2013 Richard Holmes authored “Falling Upward: How We Took to the Air."
(Econ, 5/11/13, p.89)
2014 Jan 3, A major snowstorm producing blizzard-like conditions hammered the northeastern United States, causing 2,000 US flight delays and cancellations.
(Reuters, 1/3/14)
2014 Jan 5, In Saudi Arabia human body parts fell from the sky in the city of Jeddah, with police saying they could be the remains of a person trapped in an airplane's wheel bay.
(AFP, 1/5/14)
2014 Jan 6, Airlines canceled more than 4,400 flights as extreme cold in the US Midwest and Northeast froze fuel lines to airplanes and posed exposure hazards for employees working on the tarmac.
(Reuters, 1/6/14)
2014 Jan 10, India's overcrowded financial capital unveiled its long-awaited $2 billion new airport terminal. Mumbai’s renovated Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport was delayed for nearly two years and overran its construction budget by 25 percent.
(AP, 1/10/14)
2014 Jan 23, Ecuadorean airline Tame suspended its once-daily flights to and from Venezuela until that country's cash-strapped government pays it $43 million owed for ticket sales.
(AP, 1/23/14)
2014 Jan 30, In France about 20 percent of flights in and out of Paris' airports were canceled because air traffic controllers are on strike over plans to combine European air space. Controllers in several other European countries also plan work stoppages.
(AP, 1/30/14)
2014 Feb 17, Ethiopian Airlines co-pilot Hailemedehin Abera Tagegn (31) locked his colleague out of the cockpit, hijacked a Rome-bound plane and landed in Geneva, all in an attempt to seek asylum in Switzerland. On March 16, 2015, Tagegn was convicted in absentia by Ethiopia’s high court.
(AP, 2/17/14)(AFP, 2/17/14)
2014 Feb 19, Europe's largest defense contractor BAE Systems says the governments of the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia have agreed on new pricing for a massive sale of 72 Eurofighter Typhoon jets.
(AP, 2/19/14)
2014 Feb 19, Kuwait’s loss-making state-owned Kuwait Airways Co signed contracts with Airbus to buy 25 planes, its first order for new aircraft in more than 20 years.
(AFP, 2/19/14)
2014 Feb 21, In Germany a strike by security staff at Frankfurt airport caused nearly 50 flight cancellations and delayed thousands of passengers, bringing chaos to Europe's third largest hub.
(Reuters, 2/21/14)
2014 Mar 9, A Sierra Leone airport official said International airlines have cancelled flights to and from Sierra Leone after a UN aviation regulator discovered that the only functioning fire engine at its main airport had broken down.
(Reuters, 3/9/14)
2014 Mar 21, In Libya two rockets struck a runway at the international airport in Tripoli, forcing the suspension of flights. Since October, 2011,the airport has been under the control of former insurgents from Zintan, 170 km (105 miles) southwest of Tripoli.
(AFP, 3/21/14)
2014 Mar 27, Germany's main airports were hit by a strike as public sector workers raised pressure on the government in pay talks.
(Reuters, 3/27/14)
2014 Mar 31, Germany's Lufthansa said it will cancel some 3,800 flights because of a three-day strike by the pilots' union later this week (April 2-4), hitting more than 425,000 passengers.
(AP, 3/31/14)
2014 Mar, Swaziland’s King Mswathi III cut the ribbon for a new airport named after himself.
(Econ, 10/3/15, p.49)
2014 Apr 2, Lufthansa canceled almost 900 domestic and intercontinental flights after the pilots' union started a three-day strike in a wage dispute with Germany's largest airline.
(AP, 4/2/14)
2014 Apr 8, The defense chiefs of China and the US faced off over Beijing's escalating territorial disputes in the region, with US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel telling his Chinese counterparts they do not have the right to unilaterally establish an air defense zone over disputed islands with no consultation.
(AP, 4/8/14)
2014 Apr 10, Europol, the EU police organization, said law enforcement authorities have arrested 70 people at airports around the world in a meticulously coordinated crackdown targeting criminals using fake or stolen credit cards to buy airline tickets.
(AP, 4/10/14)
2014 Apr 30, Qatar opened its vast new Hamad International Airport in Doha following years of delays.
(AP, 4/30/14)
2014 May 21, China’s state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corp. said it is reqady to deliver the country’s first homegrown regional airliner, the ARJ21-700, to Chengdu Airlines.
(SSFC, 5/25/14, p.D2)
2014 May 31, Some flights between Australia and southeast Asia and all domestic flights operating out of Darwin airport in the country’s north were canceled after the eruption a day earlier of Sangeang Api in Indonesia’s south produced a large cloud of ash.
(Reuters, 5/31/14)
2014 Jun 2, The Swiss-made Solar Impulse 2 airplane made a successful inaugural flight as its makers prepare for what they hope will be the first round-the-world solar flight.
(AP, 6/2/14)
2014 Jun 5, Peru's counter-narcotics police said they have broken up a ring that shipped cocaine from Lima's international airport to Mexico on commercial flights by swapping out unsuspecting passengers' luggage with identical suitcases.
(AP, 6/6/14)
2014 Jun 10, The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it has granted the first permission for commercial drone flights over US land. The BP energy corporation and drone maker AeroVironment of California have been given permission to use a Puma drone to survey pipelines, roads and equipment at Prudhoe Bay in Alaska. The first flight took place on June 8.
(AP, 6/10/14)
2014 Jun 10, Russia’s PM Dmitry Medvedev gave the government's blessing to Aeroflot’s new low-cost airline serving newly-annexed Crimea, as he inspected a Dobrolyot (Good Flight) Boeing-737 ahead of its maiden flight from Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport.
(Reuters, 6/10/14)
2014 Jun 13, The Spanish government said it has approved legislation to sell 49 percent of the national aviation authority AENA and also open up one of the country's passenger rail routes to a private operator.
(AP, 6/13/14)
2014 Jun 17, American Airlines said that it will cut nearly 80 percent of its flights to Venezuela in a dispute over revenue being held by the South American country.
(AP, 6/17/14)
2014 Jun 24, In Pakistan one woman was killed and three crew members were wounded by gunmen shooting at an Airbus 310 plane carrying 178 passengers from Saudi Arabia as it landed in Peshawar.
(Reuters, 6/25/14)
2014 Jun 25, Abu Dhabi-based airline Etihad Airways said it had reached a deal in principle to buy a 49 percent stake in struggling Italian carrier Alitalia. In return Alitalia agreed to cut 20% of its work force.
(AP, 6/25/14)(Econ, 6/28/14, p.58)
2014 Jul 3, A China-based tour operator said North Korea will reopen some of its domestic scheduled air routes for the first time in years, another sign of moves to bolster tourism in the isolated country.
(Reuters, 7/3/14)
2014 Jul 17, Airbus said that its orders and commitments for 496 aircraft at England’s Farnborough International Airshow. Boeing, meanwhile, secured business for 201 airplanes.
(AP, 7/17/14)
2014 Jul 18, In eastern Ukraine emergency workers, police officers and even off-duty coal miners searched the wreckage of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 shot down a day earlier as it flew miles above the country's battlefield. Ukraine's state aviation service closed the airspace over two regions currently gripped by separatist fighting.
(AP, 7/18/14)
2014 Jul 22, A Hamas rocket exploded near Israel's main airport, prompting a ban on flights from the US and many from Europe and Canada as aviation authorities responded to the shock of seeing a civilian jetliner shot down over Ukraine. The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) banned flights to Tel Aviv for at least 24 hours.
(Reuters, 7/23/14)
2014 Jul 23, Air France and Germany's two largest airlines canceled more flights to Tel Aviv because of ongoing safety concerns amid the fighting between Israel and Hamas.
(AP, 7/23/14)
2014 Jul 23, Polish state airline LOT suspended its flights to Israel from Warsaw until July 28 because of concern for passengers' safety.
(Reuters, 7/23/14)
2014 Jul 23, Late today the US FAA lifted its ban on commercial flights to Tel Aviv.
(Reuters, 7/24/14)
2014 Jul 24, Europe's aviation regulator said it will cancel its warning that recommends airlines do not fly to Israel, after the Federal Aviation Authority cleared US carriers to resume flights.
(Reuters, 7/24/14)
2014 Aug 2, Air France cancelled some of its short and medium-haul flights from airports across France due to a strike by ground staff on one of the busiest travel days of the year.
(AFP, 8/2/14)
2014 Aug 8, Malaysia Airlines will be taken over by the country's state investment fund and de-listed, as part of plans announced today for a "complete overhaul" to rescue the company from oblivion after two crippling air disasters.
(AFP, 8/8/14)
2014 Aug 8, Etihad, the flag carrier of the United Arab Emirates, agreed to inject a further $750 million into Alitalia in return for a 49% stake.
(Econ, 8/16/14, p.55)
2014 Aug 9, In Portugal dozens of flights were cancelled as pilots from the national TAP airline took strike action over working conditions.
(AFP, 8/9/14)
2014 Aug 11, The US Federal Aviation Authority began imposing flight restrictions on more than 37 square miles of airspace surrounding Ferguson, Mo. The restrictions were lifted after 12 days and it was later reported that they had been imposed to keep away news helicopters during Ferguson’s violent street protests over the death of Michael Brown (18).
(SFC, 11/3/14, p.A7)
2014 Aug 11, The Ivory Coast announced that it has banned all flights from countries hit by Ebola as part of steps to prevent the deadly virus from reaching the west African nation.
(AFP, 8/11/14)
2014 Aug 12, Argentina halted a brief pilot strike that stranded thousands of passengers in Buenos Aires as the Labor Ministry ordered the two sides to accept mediation.
(SFC, 8/13/14, p.A2)
2014 Aug 14, South Korea’s Korean Air Lines Co. said will suspend flights to Kenya in a measure to prevent the spread of Ebola.
(AP, 8/14/14)
2014 Aug 19, Air France said some of its flight crews were refusing to board planes bound for Guinea, Sierra Leone and Nigeria over fears of the Ebola outbreak.
(AFP, 8/19/14)
2014 Aug 21, Egypt's Cairo airport and Tunisia cancelled most flights to and from Libya, days after the Libyan government said unidentified war planes had attacked positions of armed groups in Tripoli.
(Reuters, 8/21/14)
2014 Aug 29, Malaysia Airlines said it will cut 6,000 workers as part of a $1.9 billion overhaul to revive its damaged brand after being hit by double passenger jet disasters.
(AP, 8/29/14)
2014 Sep 2, Mexico’s president Enrique Peña Nieto an nounced a new Mexico City international airport in his State of the Union address. The estimated cost was 169 billion pesos ($11 billion)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Mexico_City_international_airport)(Econ., 5/2/15, p.29)
2014 Sep 15, French flag carrier Air France scrapped half of its flights as pilots began a strike against the company's plan to develop its low-cost subsidiary.
(AFP, 9/15/14)
2014 Sep 16, In France a pilots strike at Air France entered its second day, with the two sides appearing no closer to resolving a dispute over cost cuts that has forced the airline to cancel 60 percent of flights.
(Reuters, 9/16/14)
2014 Sep 20, French air pilots voted to extend their walkout until at least Sep 26 to protest Air-France-KLM’s new strategy to shift much of its European operation to Transavia, a low-cost subsidiary.
(SSFC, 9/21/14, p.A3)
2014 Sep 25, Airbus sent its latest jet up for its first flight above the skies of southern France, amid high demand for the single-aisle A320neo and its promised fuel economy.
(AP, 9/25/14)
2014 Sep 26, In Illinois Brian Howard (36), an FAA contract employee, set fire at the Aurora air traffic control center bringing Chicago’s Midway and O’Hare airports to a halt with over 2,000 flights cancelled. On May 28, 2015, Howard pleaded guilty to setting the fire during a failed suicide attempt.
(SFC, 9/27/14, p.A7)(SFC, 9/29/14, p.A6)(SFC, 5/29/15, p.A9)
2014 Sep 28, Air France's leading pilots union announced an end to a 14-day strike that grounded roughly half of the airline's flights, stranded passengers worldwide and led to stern shows of frustration by the French prime minister. The union was ending the walkout so that service could resume and negotiations continue peaceably.
(AP, 9/28/14)
2014 Sep 30, In Germany pilots on Lufthansa's long-haul fleet started a 15-hour walkout at the airline's main Frankfurt hub in a festering contract dispute.
(AP, 9/30/14)
2014 Oct 1, Greek police said an airline pilot and a ground crew staff member were among seven people arrested on suspicion of participating in a ring smuggling migrants onto flights from the city of Thessaloniki to other EU countries.
(AP, 10/1/14)
2014 Oct 6, Richard Branson's Virgin Atlantic said it will shut its short-haul domestic service in Britain, partly owing to a lack of demand for connections with its long-haul operations.
(AFP, 10/6/14)
2014 Oct 9, Britain said it will start screening travelers coming from Ebola-hit parts of west Africa at Heathrow and Gatwick airports and on Eurostar trains from Belgium and France.
(AFP, 10/10/14)
2014 Oct 13, US plane giant Boeing said Indonesian flag carrier Garuda has placed an order for 50 planes worth almost $5 billion.
(AFP, 10/13/14)
2014 Oct 18, Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries unveiled first passenger aircraft to be made in Japan in nearly four decades as Mitsubishi pushed into the booming regional jet sector with an eye to taking on industry giants Embraer and Bombardier.
(AFP, 10/18/14)
2014 Oct 20, Lufthansa pilots launched a strike, deepening Germany's travel chaos after train drivers stopped work at the weekend just as school holidays began in much of the country.
(AFP, 10/20/14)
2014 Nov 14, Virgin America shares began trading in an IPO priced at $23. Shares began trading at $24 and closed the day at $30 per share.
(SFC, 11/15/14, p.D1)
2014 Nov 28, European Union police coordination agency Europol said police around the world have arrested 118 suspects in a global investigation into online fraud that targets the travel industry, a crime said to cost airlines $1 billion a year.
(AP, 11/28/14)
2014 Dec 1, German airline Lufthansa cancelled about half of its flights after pilots went on strike in an ongoing dispute over retirement benefits.
(AP, 12/1/14)
2014 Dec 2, Pilots at German airline Lufthansa extended their two-day strike to long-haul flights in an ongoing dispute over retirement benefits.
(AP, 12/2/14)
2014 Dec 2, Portugal's national airline endured its fifth walkout this year, with a 24-hour strike by cabin crew grounding around 200 flights.
(AP, 12/2/14)
2014 Dec 11, The EU banned Libya's seven airlines from operating in European skies, citing safety concerns linked to the ongoing fighting there.
(AP, 12/11/14)
2014 Dec 11, South Africa said its loss-making national airline will be placed under the control of the Treasury, as the carrier battles to turn around its fortunes.
(AFP, 12/11/14)
2014 Dec 12, In Britain a system failure affecting air traffic control workstations was to blame for disruption to thousands of passengers coming in and out of Britain's biggest airports.
(Reuters, 12/13/14)
2014 Dec 17, Low-cost Indian airline SpiceJet grounded all flights after oil companies stopped supplies of jet fuel to the financially beleaguered carrier.
(AP, 12/17/14)
2014 Dec 22, France-based Airbus delivered its first next-generation A350-900 plane to Qatar Airways in a formal ceremony that kickstarts its bid to erode rival Boeing's dominance in the lucrative long-haul market.
(AFP, 12/22/14)
2014 Dec 25, In Russia a massive snowstorm in Moscow caused delays to more than 150 flights and brought traffic to a standstill.
{Russia, Aviation}
(AP, 12/25/14)
2014 Dubai airport overtook Heathrow in London this year to become the world’s busiest int’l. airport with 68.9 million annual passengers.
(Econ, 1/10/15, p.44)
2015 Jan 6, Turkish Airlines, the last foreign airline still flying to Libya, suspended flights to Libya.
(Econ, 1/10/15, p.23)
2015 Jan 15, Canadian manufacturer Bombardier suspended its business jets program due to "weak market demand," resulting in layoffs of 1,000 employees in Mexico and the United States.
(AFP, 1/15/15)
2015 Jan 15, In Qatar the world's newest jetliner, the Airbus A350, took to the skies carrying its first paying passengers from the Gulf Arab nation.
(AP, 1/15/15)
2015 Jan 26, Hackers defaced the website of Malaysia Airlines and threatened to dump stolen information online after posting a glimpse of customer data obtained in the attack.
(AP, 1/26/15)
2015 Jan 27, In Iraq a bullet hit the fuselage of a Flydubai airliner on its descent into Baghdad, lightly wounding a young girl and prompting many carriers to suspend their flights.
(AFP, 1/27/15)
2015 Jan 29, In Germany dozens of flights were canceled at Duesseldorf and Cologne-Bonn airports after private security workers walked off the job in a dispute over wages.
(AP, 1/29/15)
2015 Jan 30, Qatar Airways said it has bought nearly 10 percent of the parent company of British Airways and Spain's Iberia, deepening its business ties to Europe.
(AP, 1/30/15)
2015 Feb 5, Libya's only commercial flight link to mainland Europe was severed when the state carrier said its foreign partner had pulled out of the country after a deadly attack last week on a Tripoli hotel. Georgia-based Afriqiyah had only just restarted the route to Duesseldorf last month.
(Reuters, 2/5/15)
2015 Feb 12, In South Korea an onboard tantrum dubbed "nut rage" culminated in a one-year prison sentence for Korean Air heiress Cho Hyun-ah, the daughter of Korean Air's chairman.
(AP, 2/12/15)
2015 Feb 18, In Turkey a snowstorm in Istanbul grounded planes, halted traffic and forced the closure of the Bosphorus Strait shipping channel.
(Reuters, 2/18/15)
2015 Feb 27, Scandinavian Airlines canceled some 60 flights out of Copenhagen after members of a Danish cabin crew union walked out to protest the carrier's plan to move 147 employees to a domestic airline that SAS acquired last year. 30 more flights were canceled the next day.
(AP, 2/28/15)
2015 Mar 1, A first Iranian flight landed in the Yemeni capital, a day after officials from the Shiite militia-controlled city signed an aviation agreement with Tehran. The plane delivered medical and other supplies to Sanaa.
(AFP, 3/1/15)(SFC, 3/2/15, p.A4)
2015 Mar 2, Scandinavian Airlines said some 50 flights have been canceled to and from Denmark after members of a Danish cabin crew union walked out to protest the carrier's plan to transfer employees to a domestic airline acquired by SAS.
(AP, 3/2/15)
2015 Mar 2, In Norway flights by a subsidiary of low-cost airline Norwegian Air Shuttle — Norwegian Air Norway — were partly disrupted after pilots continued a walkout begun Feb 28, causing the company's share price to crash 5 percent in Oslo.
(AP, 3/2/15)
2015 Mar 4, Thousands of passengers were stranded in Denmark, Norway and Sweden as a strike by pilots of Norwegian Air Shuttle continued for a fifth day.
(AP, 3/4/15)
2015 Mar 4, In Nepal a Turkish Airlines jet skidded off the wet surface at Kathmandu's Tribhuwan International Airport. Thousands of passengers were left stranded as the plane partially blocked the only runway.
(AP, 3/5/15)
2015 Mar 8, China-based Da-Jiang Innovations (DJI) launched its new Phantom 3 range of drones with prices starting at $1,000.
(SFC, 5/14/15, p.58)
2015 Mar 8, United Arab Emirates airlines Emirates, flydubai and Etihad Airways said they have suspended flights to Erbil, citing security concerns as Islamic State razes ancient cities in Iraq's north.
(Reuters, 3/8/15)
2015 Mar 9, The Solar Impulse 2 aircraft set off from Abu Dhabi on a bid to make the first round-the-world tour. Swiss pilot Andre Borschberg (63) will trade flying the Si2 with Bertrand Piccard. The epic journey was scheduled to spread over five months, with a total flight time of around 25 days.
(AFP, 3/9/15)(SFC, 3/9/15, p.A2)
2015 Mar 18, In Germany hundreds of flights were canceled in a strike by Lufthansa pilots at the airline's short- and medium-haul operations.
(AP, 3/18/15)
2015 Mar 19, Lufthansa, Germany's largest airline, had to cancel 84 of 153 of its long-haul flights, affecting 18,000 passengers as a strike by pilots was extended to long-haul flights.
(AP, 3/19/15)
2015 Mar 20, Germany-based Lufthansa canceled hundreds more flights as pilots went on strike for the third consecutive day and announced they would continue the walk-out over the weekend.
(AP, 3/20/15)
2015 Mar 25, A number of pilots at Lufthansa's low-cost subsidiary Germanwings refused to fly following the deadly crash a day earlier in the French Alps, saying they were mourning the victims of the doomed aircraft.
(AFP, 3/25/15)
2015 Mar 26, Airlines rushed to change their rules so as to require a second crew member in the cockpit at all times, hours after French prosecutors suggested co-pilot Andreas Lubitz (27) had barricaded himself alone at the controls of a German jetliner and crashed it on purpose.
(Reuters, 3/26/15)
2015 Mar 29, An Air Canada flight crash landed and slid off the runway in the east coast city of Halifax, with the airline confirming 23 passengers and crew suffered non-life threatening injuries.
(Reuters, 3/29/15)
2015 Apr 4, Sri Lanka PM Ranil Wickremesinghe's office said an inquiry, led by an anti-corruption lawyer, had found "shocking details of corruption running into billions of dollars" at Sri Lankan Airlines, as well as "irregularities" in its $2.3 billion 2013 deal to buy 10 Airbus aircraft.
(Reuters, 4/5/15)
2015 Apr 8, French air traffic controllers launched a two-day strike over working conditions. Hundreds of flights were cancelled in and out of the country.
(AFP, 4/8/15)
2015 Apr 9, In France the Eiffel Tower closed, many school kids had no classes and air traffic controllers were staying off work in a nationwide day of protests and strikes to air an array of grievances against the government.
(AP, 4/9/15)
2015 Apr 17, Nigeria air traffic controllers suspended a strike that had grounded all domestic flights, but warned that a more damaging work stoppage would be launched next week if their demands were not met.
(AFP, 4/17/15)
2015 Apr 25, Some airlines cancelled flights to the capitals of Argentina, Chile and Uruguay as ash from the Chilean volcano Calbuco, which erupted without warning this week, reached as far as southern Brazil.
(Reuters, 4/25/15)
2015 Apr 30, Portugal's government appealed to pilots at flag carrier TAP to call off a 10-day strike that it says would damage tourism and could ruin the airline, scuppering a privatization process scheduled to start next month.
(Reuters, 4/30/15)
2015 Apr, In Sweden the conventional control tower at Ornskoldsvik was closed and controllers moved to a remote tower at Sundsvall. It was built by LFV, Sweden’s air navigation agency, and became the first airport to deploy a virtual control tower.
(Econ 5/27/17, p.70)
2015 May 7, In Italy a fire badly damaged part of Rome's Fiumicino airport and closed it to most traffic.
(AP, 5/7/15)
2015 May 23, Nigerian airlines grounded flights and radio stations were silenced as a months-long fuel shortage worsened, aggravated by a strike disrupting fuel deliveries in Africa's biggest oil producer.
(AP, 5/23/15)
2015 May 26, Libya's three main airports canceled flights because of strikes by ground staff complaining they have not been paid for two months.
(Reuters, 5/26/15)
2015 May 27, Belgian airports were at a standstill after an electrical failure at air traffic control in Brussels caused Belgium-bound flights to be diverted.
(AFP, 5/27/15)
2015 May 31, Swiss pilot Andre Borschberg took off from Nanjing, China, for a six day flight to Hawaii in the solar powered Solar Impulse. This was the 7th of twelve flights in the round the world journey. Borschberg made an unscheduled stop in Japan on June 1 to wait out bad weather.
(SFC, 6/1/15, p.A2)(SFC, 6/2/15, p.A2)
2015 Jun 1, Iran’s Fars news agency reported that Iranian Mahan Air, that acquired nine passenger jets in defiance of US sanctions, will begin using them on international routes this week. Mahan Air acquired eight second-hand Airbus A340s and one Airbus A321 in early May. The US Treasury imposed sanctions on two firms based in Iraq and the United Arab Emirates on suspicion of helping the purchase.
(Reuters, 6/1/15)
2015 Jun 8, Spain's air traffic controllers began four days of partial strikes that could cause major traffic disruptions as the summer vacation season gets underway.
(AP, 6/8/15)
2015 Jul 1, North Korea opened a new terminal building at Pyongyang's international airport, underscoring an effort to attract more tourists.
(AP, 7/1/15)
2015 Jul 2, Saudi Arabia officially opened a billion-dollar aviation gateway aimed at Muslim pilgrims, in the kingdom's first airport privatization.
(AFP, 7/2/15)
2015 Jul 10, European plane-maker Airbus flew its E-fan plane from Lydd, England, to the French port of Calais. About 12 hours before Airbus' Channel flight, French pilot Hugues Duval took his two-engine, one-seat Cricri electric plane from Calais to Dover and back.
(AP, 7/10/15)
2015 Jul 10, In northeastern Nigeria commercial flights resumed into Maiduguri, nearly 18 months after the airport was shut in the wake of a daring Boko Haram raid.
(AFP, 7/11/15)
2015 Jul 12, In Indonesia the airport on Bali reopened after the erupting Mount Raung volcano forced its closure for the second time in just a few days and caused fresh travel misery for stranded holidaymakers.
(AFP, 7/12/15)
2015 Jul 15, The Solar Impulse team said it is suspending its journey in Hawaii to at least next April after the plane suffered battery damage during its flight from Japan.
(SFC, 7/16/15, p.A5)
2015 Jul 16, In Indonesia eruptions at Mount Raung and Mount Gamalama caused closures at three airports, including Juanda International serving Surabaya, the country's 2nd-largest city.
(AP, 7/16/15)
2015 Jul 22, In Indonesia eruptions of ash at five volcanoes shrouded the skies over parts of the archipelago, forcing three airports to close.
(AP, 7/22/15)
2015 Jul 27, Delta said it will pay $450 million to buy a stake in China Eastern Airlines as the Atlanta-based airline seeks to expand into China's fast-growing travel industry.
(AP, 7/27/15)
2015 Aug 3, US airlines Delta and American banned the shipment of big game trophies on flights, in the wake of outrage over the killing of Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe.
(AFP, 8/4/15)
2015 Aug 17, Indian budget airline IndiGo finalized an exceptionally large order for 250 single-aisle Airbus A320neo jets to keep up with rapid growth in the country's air travel.
(AP, 8/17/15)
2015 Aug 18, The Greek government gazette said reported an agreement to sell to a German company the rights to operate 14 regional airports.
(AP, 8/18/15)
2015 Aug 28, Nigeria's domestic intelligence agency warned travelers to be ready for an attack on the capital's airport after announcing it had smashed a spy network run by the radical Islamist group Boko Haram. The Department of State Services (DSS) said in a statement that it had arrested a 14-year-old at Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja who admitted he had been ordered to spy on security procedures.
(AFP, 8/29/15)
2015 Sep 8, United Airlines CEO Jeff Smisek and two other top executives resigned amid a federal corruption investigation.
(Econ, 9/12/15, p.30)
2015 Sep 9, A German court issued an injunction ordering a halt to a strike by pilots at Lufthansa, that caused the cancelation of 1,000 flights affecting 140,000 travelers.
(AP, 9/9/15)
2015 Sep 15, In Chile a 24-hour strike by civil aviation workers grounded departing flights.
(AP, 9/15/15)
2015 Sep 23, Chinese media reported that local companies have agreed with Boeing to buy 300 jets and build an aircraft assembly plant in China in deals signed during President Xi Jinping's visit to the United States.
(AP, 9/23/15)
2015 Sep 25, Ukraine said it is banning flights by Russian airlines from Oct. 25 as part of a wave of sanctions against Russia over its support for separatists in the east of the country. PM Arseny Yatseniuk added that any Russian planes carrying military hardware or troops had also been banned from flying over Ukrainian territory. The government statement also forbade Ukrainian state companies from using Russian software, particularly from the Russian anti-virus giant Kaspersky Lab. Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov said that Russia would be forced to take retaliatory measures.
(Reuters, 9/25/15)
2015 Oct 5, Air France executives fled an angry mob after having their shirts ripped off by striking workers. Seven people were hurt, including a security guard who was knocked unconscious. The company has proposed job cuts, believed to involve 300 pilots, 900 air hostesses and stewards, and 1,700 ground staff.
(AFP, 10/6/15)
2015 Oct 9, In Congo DRC a new airline was launched in a bid to revolutionize air transport within the vast country where flights are currently operated only by the UN and small carriers blacklisted by the EU.
(AFP, 10/9/15)
2015 Oct 12, In France police arrested several Air France workers at their homes as investigators tracked down protesters who hounded executives from a meeting about mass job cuts last week and tore the clothes of two fleeing managers.
(Reuters, 10/12/15)
2015 Oct 23, Philippine aviation authorities said haze from Indonesian forest fires has spread to the southern and central Philippines, disrupting air traffic and prompting warnings for residents to wear face masks.
(AFP, 10/23/15)
2015 Oct 25, Direct flights between Russia and Ukraine stopped as a result of continuing tensions over Russia's annexation of Crimea and backing of separatists in eastern Ukraine.
(AP, 10/2515)
2015 Nov 4, In Indonesia thousands of tourists were stranded on three islands after ash from Mount Rinjani on Lombok Island forced the closure of airports and blanketed villages and farmlands.
(AP, 11/4/15)
2015 Nov 6, Germany's flagship airline, Lufthansa, canceled 290 flights as cabin crew workers went on strike at Frankfurt and Duesseldorf airports.
(AP, 11/6/15)
2015 Nov 6, A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin said all flights to Egypt will be suspended until proper security is in place there.
(AP, 11/6/15)
2015 Nov 6, Turkish Airlines canceled flights to Sharm al-Sheikh in Egypt on Friday and Saturday nights over security concerns.
(Reuters, 11/6/15)
2015 Nov 7, Estonia's flagship airline announced its bankruptcy after the European Union ruled it would have to pay back 85 million euros plus interest of state aid pumped into the struggling business to keep it flying. Authorities in Tallinn moved to absorb the shock by immediately setting up a new carrier to take over key routes.
(AFP, 11/8/15)
2015 Nov 7, Russian Federal Air Transport Agency said it will send 44 planes to repatriate its nationals from two Egyptian Red Sea resorts. Around 80,000 Russians were stranded in Egypt.
(AFP, 11/7/15)(Reuters, 11/7/15)
2015 Nov 7, Cabin crew at Lufthansa staged a second day of strikes, forcing the German airline to cancel some 520 short- and medium-haul flights.
(AP, 11/7/15)
2015 Nov 7, Russian Federal Air Transport Agency said it will send 44 planes to repatriate its nationals from two Egyptian Red Sea resorts. Around 80,000 Russians were stranded in Egypt.
(AFP, 11/7/15)(Reuters, 11/7/15)
2015 Nov 8, In Nepal more than 70% of domestic flights were canceled due to fuel shortages as members of the Madhesi ethnic community continued to block the southern border with India in protest of the country’s new Constitution.
(SFC, 11/10/15, p.A2)
2015 Nov 10, In the first major commercial deal at the Dubai Airshow Airbus and Vietnamese air carrier Vietjet announced a deal for 30 new aircraft easily worth over $3 billion at list prices.
(AP, 11/10/15)
2015 Nov 11, A UN conference agreed to dedicate part of the radio spectrum to a global flight tracking system, to avoid a repeat of the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 in March last year.
(Reuters, 11/11/15)
2015 Nov 13, Russia said it has banned incoming flights by Egypt's state-owned airline effective as of Nov 14.
(Reuters, 11/13/15)
2015 Nov 17, More than 100 flights were canceled at Denver International Airport early as a powerful storm system dropped snow over the Rocky Mountains.
(Reuters, 11/17/15)
2015 Nov 21, A heavy fall snowstorm hit the Midwestern United States, blanketing states from South Dakota to Wisconsin with as much as 16 inches (40 cm) of snow. The storm affected air travel, with 514 US flights canceled by morning, with Chicago's O'Hare International and Midway International airports the hardest hit.
(Reuters, 11/22/15)
2015 Nov 22, More than 130 flights were cancelled in and out of Chicago’s O’hare Int’l. Airport as a deep freeze set in across the Midwest.
(SFC, 11/23/15, p.A5)
2015 Dec 4, The European Union agreed on a system to share airline passenger information, paving the way for closer scrutiny of extremists.
(AP, 12/4/15)
2015 Dec 8, Air France said it will resume flights to Tehran for the first time in more than seven years, as part of resuming European trade with Iran following a hard-fought deal to curb its nuclear activities.
(AP, 12/8/15)
2015 Dec 10, EU lawmakers backed plans to track airline passenger names as part of efforts to prevent a repeat of the Paris attacks.
(AFP, 12/10/15)
2015 Dec 15, In Colorado a storm dropped up to two feet snow in the mountains before hitting the plains prompting airlines to cancel 425 flights at the Denver airport.
(SFC, 12/16/15, p.A8)
2015 Dec 16, In India a maintenance technician was accidentally sucked into an aircraft engine at an airport in Mumbai.
(SFC, 12/18/15, p.A2)
2015 Dec 17, The United States and Cuba said they have agreed to restore scheduled commercial airline service between the two countries, the first anniversary of the Cold War foes' announcement they would normalize relations. The deal would allow as many as 110 regular flights a day.
(Reuters, 12/17/15)(SFC, 12/18/15, p.A8)
2015 Dec 17, China's biggest airline said it is buying more than a hundred Boeing 737 jets in a deal worth about $10 billion that comes just months after the US plane maker announced plans to build a Chinese finishing plant for the aircraft type.
(AP, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 19, Ten of Chile's airports remained closed as striking workers tied to the civil aviation authority and officials failed to reach an agreement.
(Reuters, 12/19/15)
2015 In China some 20,000 workers at the Zhengzhou Airport Economic Zone worked to complete a 2nd terminal and runway. Officials expected the planned aerotropolis to have five runways by 2030 serving some 70 million passengers annually.
(Econ., 3/14/15, p.47)
2016 Jan 6, China landed two civilian test flights on an island it has built in the South China Sea, four days after it angered Vietnam with a landing on the same runway in the disputed territory.
(Reuters, 1/6/16)(AP, 1/7/16)
2016 Jan 22, Thousands of flights were cancelled and supermarket shelves were left bare as millions of Americans hunkered down for a winter storm expected to dump historic amounts of snow in the eastern United States.
(AFP, 1/22/16)
2016 Jan 24, Iran said it will buy 114 Airbus planes to revitalize its ageing fleet, in the first major commercial deal announced since the lifting of sanctions under its nuclear agreement.
(AFP, 1/24/16)
2016 Jan 26, The United States said it would further ease restrictions on its Cuba sanctions regime involving exports and authorized airline travel. The changes will facilitate travel to Cuba by allowing blocked space, code-sharing, and leasing arrangements with Cuban airlines.
(Reuters, 1/26/16)
2016 Jan 26, Czech airline Travel Service said it has signed deals to buy 16 new Boeing 737 MAX jets.
(AP, 1/26/16)
2016 Jan 26, In France one in five flights were canceled at Paris airports and other flights faced delays as air traffic controllers staged a walkout and taxi drivers disrupted roads. Paris police fired tear gas and taxi drivers lit bonfires on a major highway amid nationwide strikes and protests over working conditions and competition from non-traditional services such as Uber.
(AP, 1/26/16)
2016 Feb 2, In Somalia a suspected suicide bomber was sucked out of a Daallo Airlines plane. Investigators believed a bomb probably caused the onboard explosion that forced the Airbus A321 to return to Mogadishu for an emergency landing. On May 30 a Somali military court sentenced 10 people it said were behind the bomb blast.
(Reuters, 2/3/16)(Reuters, 5/30/16)
2016 Feb 3, Most flights by Pakistan's ailing national airline were grounded, as striking employees disrupted operations to protest against a government privatization plan.
(Reuters, 2/3/16)
2016 Feb 8, The Montreal-based UN aviation agency said global aviation experts agreed to the first emissions-reduction standards for aircraft in a deal that will take effect with new models in four years, but environmental groups said the carbon dioxide cuts did not go far enough.
(Reuters, 2/8/16)
2016 Feb 16, The United States signed a bilateral agreement authorizing up to 110 scheduled daily flights to Cuba.
(AFP, 2/16/16)
2016 Feb 17, At the Singapore Airshow Airbus and Boeing announced modest aircraft orders that indicated a lull in demand for the big manufacturers.
(AP, 2/17/16)
2016 Feb 19, Virgin Galactic rolled out a new version of its SpaceShipTwo space tourism rocket at Southern California's Mojave Air & Space Port, as it prepared to return to flight testing for the first time since a 2014 accident destroyed the original craft, killing a pilot and setting back the nascent industry.
(AP, 2/19/16)
2016 Mar 23, In Colorado more than 300 flights were canceled at Denver International Airport on Wednesday after freezing snow on power lines from a blizzard triggered a power outage.
(Reuters, 3/23/16)
2016 Mar 28, In Britain some 100,000 homes were left without power due to Storm Katie. High winds caused some 130 flights at Gatwick and Heathrow airports to be diverted or cancelled.
(SFC, 3/29/16, p.A2)
2016 Mar 29, EgyptAir flight MS181 took off from Bourg el-Arab airport just outside Alexandria on a regular route to Cairo when it was hijacked to Cyprus. Hijacker Seif Eldin Mustafa wore a fake explosives belt and was taken into custody after he released all the passengers and crew.
(AP, 3/29/16)(Reuters, 3/29/16)
2016 Apr 3, Brussels Airport reopened with three "symbolic" flights and strict additional checks for passengers, marking a new high-security era for air travel in Belgium after the March 22 attacks by Islamic State suicide bombers.
(AFP, 4/3/16)
2016 Apr 4, Air France decided to allow female flight attendants to refuse to work the company's new route to Iran, beginning April 17, for which they must wear a headscarf.
(AP, 4/4/16)
2016 Apr 14, The European Parliament voted to force airlines to share passenger information with EU countries to help detect jihadists, ending five years of debate that intensified after the Paris and Brussels attacks.
(AFP, 4/14/16)
2016 Apr 15, India said it had suspended the diplomatic passport of embattled tycoon and lawmaker Vijay Mallya, who left the country last March 2 amid pressure from lenders to repay about $1.4 billion in debt owed by his defunct Kingfisher Airlines. On April 18 a Mumbai court issued a warrant for his arrest. In July the airline said its books had vanished.
(Reuters, 4/15/16)(Econ, 4/23/16, p.56)(Econ, 7/9/16, p.55)
2016 Apr 21, The Swiss-made Solar Impulse took off from Hawaii on course to land in Mountain View, Ca. in about 3 days on the 9th leg of its circumnavigation.
(SFC, 4/22/16, p.A8)
2016 Apr 23, Solar Impulse 2, an experimental plane flying around the world without consuming a drop of fuel, landed in California, one leg closer to completing its trailblazing trip. Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard piloted the craft from Hawaii to California.
(AFP, 4/24/16)
2016 Apr 26, German government workers called short-term strikes in the run-up to wage discussions later this week. Lufthansa said it has cancelled 895 flights scheduled for April 27 from six German airports as public-sector workers doing ground handling and security checks were expected to walk off the job.
(AP, 4/26/16)
2016 May 2, Solar Impulse 2 completed the 10th leg of its journey, landing in Arizona after a 16-hour flight from California. The solar-powered airplane was midway through a historic bid to circle the globe.
(AP, 5/3/16)
2016 May 7, In Nevada Airbus completed a test flight of a glider set to eventually travel to the edge of space, in a pioneering step into the stratosphere.
(AFP, 5/7/16)
2016 May 12, In Oklahoma the Swiss-made Solar Impulse 2 landed in Tulsa after taking off from Arizona on the latest leg of its around-the-world journey.
(SFC, 5/14/16, p.A6)
2016 May 21, The Swiss-made Solar Impulse 2 took off from Tulsa and landed at Ohio’s Dayton Int’l. Airport on the latest leg of its around-the-world journey.
(SSFC, 5/22/16, p.A11)
2016 May 23, Boeing Co. said it is selling 100 aircraft worth about $11.3 billion at list prices to Vietnam's VietJet as the airline seeks to expand its international and domestic flights.
(AP, 5/23/16)
2016 May 25, In Pennsylvania the Swiss-made Solar Impulse 2 landed in Allentown 17 hours after taking off from Dayton in the latest leg of its journey around the world.
(SFC, 5/26/16, p.A6)
2016 May 29, German airline Lufthansa said it is suspending its flights to Caracas, citing the difficult economic situation in Venezuela.
(AP, 5/29/16)
2016 Jun 11, The Swiss-made Solar Impulse 2, on a globe-circling voyage that began more than a year ago in the United Arab Emirates, reached a milestone, completing a trip across the United States with a Statue of Liberty fly-by before landing at John F. Kennedy International Airport.
(AP, 6/11/16)
2016 Jun 11, About a quarter of Air France pilots went on strike to demand better working conditions. Up to a fifth of flights were canceled, both domestic and international. Among those affected were flights carrying spectators to cities holding matches for the European Championship soccer tournament. Train drivers and garbage collectors continued their strikes.
(AP, 6/11/16)
2016 Jun 16, The European Commission said Iran's state airline, which has just reached an agreement with Boeing Co to purchase new jetliners, can resume flights in the EU.
(Reuters, 6/16/16)
2016 Jun 19, Iran said it has reached an agreement with American aerospace giant Boeing to purchase 100 aircraft to renew its ageing fleet, though the deal must still be approved by the US government.
(AFP, 6/19/16)
2016 Jun 20, The Solar Impulse 2 aircraft took off from New York's JFK airport and soared over the western Atlantic, one of the most difficult legs of its record-breaking bid to fly across the globe using only solar energy.
(AFP, 6/20/16)
2016 Jun 21, The US FAA announced new aviation rules designed for drones weighing less than 55 pounds. The new rules allow commercial operators to fly drones without special permission. A set of rules known as “part 107" were issued in August.
(SFC, 6/22/16, p.A8)(Econ 6/10/17, TQ p.4)
2016 Jun 23, The Solar Impulse 2 landed in Spain after completing a 71-hour flight from New York in the first "magical" solo transatlantic crossing in a solar-powered airplane.
(AFP, 6/23/16)
2016 Jun 28, China’s first locally produce regional jet made its debut flight carrying 70 passengers. The ARJ21 initiative was launched in 2002 and was scheduled to deliver its first plane in 2007, but that was pushed back due to technical problems.
(AP, 6/28/16)
2016 Jul 7, The US government gave tentative approval for scheduled commercial airline service to Havana from 10 American cities, advancing President Barack Obama's effort to normalize relations with Cuba.
(AP, 7/7/16)
2016 Jul 12, A Chinese civilian aircraft successfully carried out calibration tests on two new airports in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.
(Reuters, 7/12/16)
2016 Jul 13, Two Chinese civilian aircraft landed at two new airports on reefs controlled by China in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. The aircraft then returned to the southern Chinese island province of Hainan.
(Reuters, 7/13/16)
2016 Jul 13, The Solar Impulse 2 landed in Cairo for its penultimate stop as the solar-powered plane nears the end of its marathon tour around the world.
(AFP, 7/13/16)
2016 Jul 14, Qatar Airways announced an agreement to purchase a 49-percent stake in Italy's second largest carrier, Meridiana.
(AP, 7/14/16)
2016 Jul 17, Malaysia Airlines struck a deal to settle damages claims for most victims of its MH17 flight that was shot down over eastern Ukraine two years ago.
(Reuters, 7/17/16)
2016 Jul 20, Southwest Airlines was forced to cancel more than 700 flights because of a faulty router that brought its systems down for 12 hours. Some 2,300 flights were cancelled over the next 24 hours.
(http://tinyurl.com/gmta4ek)(Econ, 8/13/16, p.46)
2016 Jul 25, Turkish Airlines said it has terminated the contracts of 211 employees, joining a government purge of people suspected of links to a US-based cleric. Turkey also ordered the detention of 42 journalists, drawing fire from the European Union.
(AP, 7/25/16)(Reuters, 7/25/16)
2016 Jul 26, In Abu Dhabi Solar Impulse 2 made history as the first airplane to circle the globe powered only by the sun, opening up new possibilities for the future of renewable energy.
(AFP, 7/26/16)
2016 Jul 27, India signed a contract to buy four maritime spy planes from Boeing Co for about $1 billion, aiming to bolster the navy as it tries to check China's presence in the Indian Ocean.
(Reuters, 7/27/16)
2016 Jul 29, Air France cancelled 10 percent of its long-distance flights, during a period of high traffic due to summer vacations, because of a strike by cabin crew.
(AP, 7/29/16)
2016 Jul 29, In Vietnam screens displaying flight information at two major airports were hacked to contain distorted information about the South China Sea and insult Vietnam and the Philippines.
(AP, 7/29/16)
2016 Jul 30, Pakistan arrested at least 12 staff of its national carrier following the discovery of 6 kg (13.23 lb) of heroin in the toilet of an aircraft bound for Dubai.
(Reuters, 8/1/16)
2016 Jul, Natasha Ednan-Laperouse (15), who was allergic to sesame seeds, collapsed on a British Airways flight from London to Nice after eating a baguette from the British sandwich chain Pret A Manger.
(AP, 9/28/18)
2016 Aug 8, Delta canceled more than 700 flights and had 2,600 others delayed, some for hours, after a power outage at its Atlanta headquarters caused many computer systems to crash. The company later blamed a malfunctioning power-control system at its data center.
(AP, 8/9/16)(Econ, 8/13/16, p.46)
2016 Aug 10, Delta fliers faced delays, cancellations and more headaches as the Atlanta-based airline struggled with its computer systems for the third straight day.
(AP, 8/10/16)
2016 Sep 20, Air France canceled its morning flight to Kinshasa amid an escalation of street violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo capital over opposition claims the president wants to extend his mandate.
(Reuters, 9/20/16)
2016 Sep 21, Aviation sources said the United States has started issuing license unblocking the sale of Western passenger jets to Iran.
(Reuters, 9/21/16)
2016 Sep, Turkmenistan opened a new falcon-shaped airport in Ashgabat.
(Econ, 12/17/16, p.36)
2016 Oct, A new 67-meter control tower opened at the San Francisco Int’l. Airport at a cost of $120 million.
(Econ 5/27/17, p.70)
2016 Oct, In California 104 tiny Perdix drones, with a wingspan of 30 cm, were launched from three American fighters and performed a series of maneuvers.
(Econ 6/10/17, TQ p.8)
2016 Nov 17, The US Republican-led House acted to bar the sale of commercial aircraft to Iran. The legislation prohibited the Treasury Department from issuing the licenses US banks would need to complete transactions potentially valued in the billions of dollars.
(SFC, 11/17/16, p.A7)
2016 Nov 22, In Germany cabin crew at Lufthansa's budget unit Eurowings launched a 15-hour strike, causing dozens of flight cancelations, as the German carrier warned customers to prepare for a larger walk-out by pilots the next day.
(AP, 11/22/16)
2016 Nov 23, German airline Lufthansa canceled nearly 900 flights and scrapped another 912 scheduled for Nov 24 after pilots launched a 2-day strike in a pay dispute.
(AP, 11/23/16)
2016 Nov 24, German flagship carrier Lufthansa said it is scrapping 830 flights for tomorrow, grounding more than 100,000 passengers, as a strike by pilots over wages extends to a third day.
(AFP, 11/24/16)
2016 Nov 25, Germany's Lufthansa airline canceled 830 short- and medium-haul flights affecting 100,000 passengers after a pilots' strike entered its third day in a long-running dispute over wages.
(AP, 11/25/16)
2016 Nov 26, In Germany pilots at Lufthansa staged a fourth consecutive day of strikes, with chances of an immediate resolution to the pay dispute looking slim after their union rejected a new offer from the company. The Cockpit union targeted Lufthansa's long-haul services, prompting 137 flight cancellations and affecting some 30,000 passengers.
(AP, 11/26/16)
2016 Nov 28, The World Trade Organization (WTO) ruled that US plane maker Boeing received major illegal tax breaks from Washington state, adding that the federal government should now take action to end that support within months.
(AP, 11/28/16)
2016 Nov 28, The first commercial flight from the US in more than 50 years arrived in Cuba.
(SFC, 11/29/16, p.A2)
2016 Nov 28, Germany-based Lufthansa said it is canceling more than 1,700 flights scheduled for the next two days as a union representing the airline's pilots resumes a campaign of strikes.
(AP, 11/28/16)
2016 Nov 30, German airline Lufthansa said it has made a modified pay offer to pilots as it seeks to put an end to a long-running dispute that's seen a succession of strikes over recent days.
(AP, 11/30/16)
2016 Dec 1, The Bolivian Civil Aviation Authority indefinitely suspended permission for LaMia airline to operate following the deadly crash of one its charter planes in Colombia.
(AP, 12/1/16)
2016 Dec 5, German airline Air Berlin said it is selling its stake in Austrian carrier NIKI to Abu Dhabi-based Etihad for 300 million euros ($319 million).
(AP, 12/5/16)
2016 Dec 5, Polish authorities said Lufthansa and General Electric will jointly invest some 250 million euros ($270 million) in Poland to build a plant that will service aircraft engines starting in 2018.
(AP, 12/5/16)
2016 Dec 8, The Canadian government said its air force will buy 16 Airbus C295W aircraft modified for search and rescue to replace its aging fleet, at a cost of Can $2.4 billion (USD$1.8 billion).
(AFP, 12/8/16)
2016 Dec 8, The European Union banned Iran's Aseman Airlines from operating within the EU due to safety concerns, in a blow to Tehran which is buying new jets to renew the country's ageing fleet following the lifting of long-term sanctions.
(Reuters, 12/8/16)
2016 Dec 11, Iran's flag carrier finalized a major deal with US plane maker Boeing Co. to buy $16.6 billion worth of passenger planes in one of the most tangible benefits yet for the Islamic Republic from last year's landmark nuclear agreement.
(AP, 12/11/16)
2016 Dec 12, FlightAware said 190 US flights were canceled today after 1,800 were grounded a day earlier, mostly at Chicago's two main airports.
(Reuters, 12/12/16)
2016 Dec 14, Alaska Airlines completed its purchase of Virgin America.
(SFC, 12/15/16, p.C1)
2016 Dec 14, The Unite union said thousands of cabin crew working for British Airways have voted overwhelmingly in favor of strike action in a pay dispute and could walk out after Dec 21.
(Reuters, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 16, German airline Lufthansa said it is launching a code-sharing agreement with Abu Dhabi-based Etihad, a key financial backer of troubled rival Air Berlin, from which Lufthansa will lease 38 aircraft for two of its subsidiaries.
(AP, 12/16/16)
2016 Dec 18, Chinese authorities in Tianjin grounded dozens of flights and closed most highways after severe smog blanketed the city, one of more than more than 40 in China's northeast to issue pollution warnings in the past 48 hours.
(Reuters, 12/18/16)
2016 Dec 23, Czech airline Travel Service signed a deal to buy five more new Boeing 737 MAX jets. This brought to 30 the total number of such Boeing aircraft that Travel Service has recently agreed to buy.
(AP, 1/4/17)
2016 Dec 23, An Airbus A320 on an internal flight in Libya was diverted to Malta. Hijackers forced the airliner to land in Malta then freed all their hostages unharmed and surrendered after declaring their loyalty to Libya's late leader Muammar Gaddafi.
(Reuters, 12/23/16)
2016 Dec 28, Qatar Airways said it has purchased a 10-percent stake in Chile's LATAM Airlines Group for $608 million.
(AP, 12/29/16)
2017 Jan 6, In Florida US Army National Guard veteran Esteban Santiago (26) of Anchorage, Alaska, shot and killed five people and wounded six at the Fort Lauderdale airport. He opened fire with a 9mm semiautomatic handgun that he appears to have legally checked on a flight from Alaska. In May, 2018, Santiago pleaded guilty to 11 of 22 counts. Santiago avoided a death penalty and was sentenced to life in prison.
(AP, 1/7/17)(SFC, 5/23/18, p.A6)(SFC, 8/18/18, p.A7)
2017 Jan 7, In Turkey a heavy snowstorm paralyzed life in Istanbul, with hundreds of flights cancelled and the Bosporus closed to shipping traffic.
(AFP, 1/7/17)
2017 Jan 9, Turkish Airlines canceled 277 domestic and international flights to and from Istanbul's two airports due to heavy snow.
(AP, 1/9/17)
2017 Jan 12, Dozens of flights at London's Heathrow Airport were canceled amid forecasts of snow and strong winds in Britain.
(AP, 1/12/17)
2017 Jan 16, Low-cost Saudi carrier flynas signed an $8.6-billion deal with European plane manufacturer Airbus to purchase 80 A320neo single-aisle jets.
(AFP, 1/16/17)
2017 Jan 19, In France it was announced that aircraft-engine company Safran has agreed to buy seat and cabin manufacturer Zodiac Aerospace in a deal worth 8.5 billion euros ($9.1 billion).
(AP, 1/19/17)
2017 Jan 29, An American Airlines flight arrived in Miami from Bogota, Colombia. It was flagged for maintenance and sent to Tulsa where seven bricks of cocaine were found in the nose gear.
(SFC, 1/31/17, p.A5)
2017 Feb 1, In the Netherlands a major computer malfunction crippled traffic at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport for hours, causing delays or cancellations of more than 100 flights at one of Europe's largest transportation hubs. The outage was caused by faulty hardware.
(Reuters, 2/1/17)
2017 Feb 2, American Airlines formally opened an office in Havana, and an executive said the company will move ahead with its plans for Cuba despite uncertainty over what President Donald Trump's administration will bring.
(AP, 2/2/17)
2017 Feb 9, The Federal Aviation Administration canceled all inbound and outbound flights at John F. Kennedy Airport amid a winter storm that barreled its way through the northeastern United States. More than 3,500 flights were canceled across the region.
(Reuters, 2/9/17)(SFC, 2/10/17, p.A9)
2017 Feb 13, In New England some 675 US flights were canceled, scores of vehicle crashes reported and schools and government offices shuttered as the third winter storm in five days slammed the area.
(Reuters, 2/13/17)
2017 Feb 15, German airline Lufthansa said it has struck a deal to solve a bitter labor dispute with pilots that over five years has cost it an estimated half a billion dollars and more than a dozen strikes.
(AP, 2/15/17)
2017 Feb 16, In Germany a union representing ground staff has called on its members to go on strike at Berlin's two airports, leading to the cancelation of some 210 flights.
(AP, 2/16/17)
2017 Mar 8, Nigeria's capital was cut off by air, as Abuja airport closed for at least six weeks for repairs, forcing flights to divert and lengthening travel times for passengers.
(AFP, 3/8/17)
2017 Mar 14, Winter Storm Stella dumped snow and sleet across the northeastern United States, forcing airlines to ground flights and schools to cancel classes. Airlines canceled about 5,700 flights across the United States. Airports in New York, Boston, Baltimore, Washington and Philadelphia were hit the hardest.
(AP, 3/14/17)(AFP, 3/14/17)
2017 Mar 14, Canada's Pearson International Airport canceled more than a hundred flights as a late winter storm brought more snow to southern Ontario, forcing several colleges to suspend classes.
(Reuters, 3/14/17)
2017 Mar 14, Berlin's airports remained paralyzed after ground staff extended a strike, stepping up pressure in a dispute over pay that has already caused the cancellation of more than 1,000 flights since March 10.
(Reuters, 3/14/17)
2017 Mar 17, The European Union re-imposed a fine on 11 air cargo companies totaling $835 million after the original decision was thrown out by a high court on a procedural issue.
(AP, 3/17/17)
2017 Mar 21, The United States imposed restrictions on carry-on electronic devices bigger than cellphones on planes coming from 10 airports eight in Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East and North Africa, in response to unspecified security threats. Britain soon followed with similar measures to become effective on March25.
(Reuters, 3/21/17)(AP, 3/22/17)
2017 Mar 21, EgyptAir said it has received instructions from US transport authorities imposing restrictions on electronic devices carried by incoming travelers and will bring them into effect on March 24.
(Reuters, 3/21/17)
2017 Mar 27, Lufthansa announced a code-sharing deal with Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific under which the German airline and its Swiss and Austrian Airlines units will offer new connections to Australia and New Zealand.
(AP, 3/27/17)
2017 Mar 27, Fraport Greece said the European Union is clearing a 280 million euro loan from the European Investment Bank to the company, which won the tender to upgrade and operate 14 regional Greek airports.
(AP, 3/28/17)
2017 Mar 28, Air Koryo, North Korea's national carrier, connected Pyongyang with the northeastern Chinese city of Dandong on a twice-weekly inaugural flight.
(Reuters, 3/28/17)
2017 Apr 9, Dr. David Dao (69) was yanked out of Flight 3411 at Chicago O'Hare Int’l. Airport by airport security to make way for United employees. Dao lost two front teeth and suffered a broken nose and a concussion. Video of the incident went viral. Worldwide backlash hit the airline's share price and prompted an apology from the company chief executive.
(Reuters, 4/12/17)(SFC, 4/14/17, p.A6)
2017 Apr 11, In Puerto Rico federal law enforcement broke up a $4 million drug-trafficking ring. Most of the 26 indicted suspects were arrested before dawn at the Luis Munoz Marin airport in San Juan.
(SFC, 4/12/17, p.A2)
2017 Apr 19, The Dubai government-owned Emirates airline slashed its flights to the United States by 20%, blaming a drop in demand on tougher US security measures a Trump administration attempts to ban travellers from some Muslim majority nations.
(SFC, 4/20/17, p.C3)
2017 Apr 20, Lilium, a German startup, completed a successful test over Bavaria of a small electric plane capable of flying up to 300 km per hr.
(Econ, 4/29/17, p.51)
2017 Apr 24, In Italy some two-thirds of Alitalia employees in a referendum nixed the industrial plan the government had linked to the airline’s survival. Alitalia has been losing 2 million euros ($2.2 million) daily and faced bankruptcy.
(AP, 4/25/17)
2017 Apr 26, South African Airways cancelled nearly three dozen flights, most of them domestic, because of a strike by some cabin crew. A labor court ruled that the strike was not allowed under terms of the crewmembers' contracts.
(AP, 4/26/17)(AP, 4/27/17)
2017 Apr 27, United Airlines said it will raise the payment limit to customers who give up seats on oversold flights to $10,000. Lawyers said United has reached a settlement with passenger David Dao (69), who was injured when he was yanked from a United flight on April 9.
(SFC, 4/28/17, p.C1)
2017 May 5, The first large Chinese-made passenger jetliner, the single-aisle C919, completed its maiden test flight, a milestone in China's long-term goal to break into the Western-dominated market. The plane can be configured for 155-175 passengers.
(AP, 5/5/17)
2017 May 9, In Florida Spirit Airlines cancelled nine flights blaming the decision on pilots’ failure to show up at Fort Lauderdale.
(SFC, 5/10/17, p.A5)
2017 May 11, In Portugal thousands of angry passengers who were stranded in Lisbon's international airport by a refueling system failure a day earlier and had to sleep on the floor and luggage belts were finally able to travel.
(Reuters, 5/11/17)
2017 May 22, Pakistani authorities found 20 kg (44 lbs.) of heroin on a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight bound for London during a search at Islamabad airport.
(Reuters, 5/22/17)
2017 May 27, British Airways canceled all flights from London's Heathrow and Gatwick airports as a global IT failure caused severe disruption for travelers on a busy holiday weekend. BA refunds were later estimated to cost as much as £150m ($192m)
(AP, 5/27/17)(Econ 6/3/17, p.58)
2017 May 27, Airbus began building its first helicopter assembly plant in China, and the European plane maker planned to produce 18 machines a year there in hopes the country will soon open up its low-altitude airspace.
(AFP, 5/28/17)
2017 May 28, British Airways resumed some flights from Britain's two biggest airports after a global computer system failure a day earlier created chaos, but hundreds of passengers were still waiting for hours at London Heathrow.
(Reuters, 5/28/17)
2017 May 30, Romanian air traffic controllers staged a four-hour strike to demand better working conditions, leading to some cancellations and delays. The strike ended after officials struck an agreement with trade unions.
(AP, 5/30/17)
2017 Jun 5, US Pres. Donald Trump called for separating air traffic control operations from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Opponents worried the plan would give too much power to the airline industries.
(SFC, 6/6/17, p.A7)
2017 Jun 10, Boeing said Iran's Aseman Airlines has finalized an agreement to buy 30 Boeing 737 MAX jets for $3.0 billion, with an option to buy 30 more.
(AFP, 6/10/17)
2017 Jun 16, Italians and tourists alike struggled to get around as a nationwide transport strike forced the cancellation of Alitalia flights, the closure of subway stations and the suspension of bus service.
(AP, 6/16/17)
2017 Jun 19, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani inaugurated the first Afghanistan-India air corridor during a ceremony at the Kabul International Airport — a direct route that bypasses Pakistan and is meant to improve commerce.
(AP, 6/19/17)
2017 Jun 19, The European Union approved 377 million euros ($420 million) in state aid from France and Germany for the development of a new Airbus helicopter.
(AP, 6/19/17)
2017 Jun 21, In Israel an 83-year-old woman won a lawsuit against the national airline after being asked to move seats on a transatlantic flight because an ultra-Orthodox man did not want to sit next to her.
(AFP, 6/22/17)
2017 Jun 22, American Airlines said state-owned Qatar Airways is attempting to buy a 10 percent stake, triggering US antitrust oversight of deals that size.
(AP, 6/22/17)
2017 Jun 29, Tighter restrictions on travel to the US from six mostly Muslim nations took effect this evening after the Supreme Court gave its go-ahead for a limited version of President Donald Trump's plans for a ban. Visa applicants from the six countries — and all refugees — will need to show close family or business ties to the United States.
(AP, 6/29/17)
2017 Jul 2, Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, became the first city to be exempt from a US ban on laptop computers being in airplane cabins.
(AP, 7/2/17)
2017 Jul 4, Saudi Arabian Airlines (Saudia) said it expects the in-cabin ban on laptops and other large electronics on direct flights to the United States to be lifted by July 19.
(Reuters, 7/4/17)
2017 Jul 4, Turkish Transport Minister Ahmet Arslan said the United States is set to lift a ban on carrying large electronic devices, such as laptops, in the cabin of US-bound flights from Turkey's main international airport.
(AFP, 7/4/17)
2017 Jul 5, Airbus said it has won a major order from China of 140 planes for $22.8 billion, during a visit by President Xi Jinping to Berlin.
(AP, 7/5/17)
2017 Jul 5, Turkish and Emirates Airlines said the United States has lifted the in-cabin ban on laptops and other large electronic devices on US-bound flights from Dubai and Istanbul.
(Reuters, 7/5/17)
2017 Jul 6, Qatar Airways said passengers traveling to the United States can now carry their laptops and other large electronics on board, ending a three month in-cabin ban on devices for the Doha-based airline.
(Reuters, 7/6/17)
2017 Jul 9, Jordan’s national airline joined other Middle Eastern countries in lifting a ban on laptops in airplane cabins after complying with US security guidelines.
(AP, 7/9/17)
2017 Jul 10, Spain's Iberia airline said it has decided to scrap a pregnancy test for new employees after it was fined 25,000 euros ($29,000) by a regional government for discrimination.
(AP, 7/10/17)
2017 Jul 12, American Airlines notified Qatar Airways and Abu Dhabi's Etihad of its decision to no longer share flights with them over what it described as "illegal subsidies".
(AFP, 7/13/17)
2017 Jul 13, Lithuanian aviation officials said that hundreds of thousands of airline passengers will be diverted for more than a month as the country's main airport near the capital will be shut for a major renovation as of August 17.
(AP, 7/13/17)
2017 Jul 14, London-based budget airline easyJet said it is opening a base in Vienna, Austria, to prepare for the potential effects of Brexit.
(AP, 7/14/17)
2017 Jul 15, Libya’s Benina international airport officially reopened for commercial flights amid a heavy security presence after a three-year closure due to fighting in Benghazi.
(Reuters, 7/15/17)
2017 Jul 17, The US Transportation Security Administration said it was lifting a ban on passengers on Saudi Arabian Airlines carrying large electronics like laptops onboard US-bound flights, the last carrier under the restrictions.
(Reuters, 7/17/17)
2017 Jul 19, Saudi Arabia's national carrier said a US ban on laptops and tablets in the cabins of its US-bound planes has been lifted.
(AFP, 7/19/17)
2017 Jul 28, Britain lifted a ban on passengers carrying electronic devices in the cabin on some flights to the UK from Turkey after new security measures were introduced, saying other restrictions would be looked at on a case by case basis.
(Reuters, 7/28/17)
2017 Jul 29, Australian police foiled "Islamic-inspired" plans for a bomb attack on an aircraft during counter-terrorism raids in which two Lebanese-Australian fathers and their sons were arrested in several Sydney suburbs. Police later said one man sent his unsuspecting brother to Sydney airport to catch an Etihad Airways flight carrying a home-made bomb disguised as a meat-mincer built at the direction of a senior Islamic State commander. On August 8 Khaled Merhi (39) one of the four arrested men, was charged with possession of a prohibited weapon and granted bail.
(AP, 7/29/17)(Reuters, 7/30/17)(SFC, 8/1/17, p.A2)(Reuters, 8/4/17)(AP, 8/6/17)
2017 Jul, Australian-Lebanese dual citizen Amer Khayat was arrested in Lebanon days after Australian authorities foiled an alleged plot to down an Etihad flight bound for Abu Dhabi. He was released in 2019 after a military court said he was innocent in the case. Two of Khayat's brothers were on trial in Australia for the plot. The plan involved detonating a bomb concealed in a meat grinder on a flight from Sydney on July 15, 2017, to the United Arab Emirates capital Abu Dhabi, but it was abandoned when a bag with the bomb inside was too heavy to be taken aboard as carry-on luggage.
(AP, 9/20/19)
2017 Aug 3, Australian police charged two men with planning a terrorist act, over their role in a foiled "Islamic-inspired" plot to bring down an airplane.
(Reuters, 8/3/17)
2017 Aug 4, Britain lifted a ban on personal electronic devices for flights from Amman's Queen Alia International Airport to the United Kingdom.
(AFP, 8/4/17)
2017 Aug 4, In Spain holidaymakers faced delays and long queues at Barcelona's El Prat airport, the first day of strikes by security staff that may be stepped up in coming weeks.
(Reuters, 8/4/17)
2017 Aug 6, In Spain workers handling carry-on luggage checks at Barcelona's airport staged a second day of partial strikes, causing long lines for passengers at one of Europe's most popular airports.
(AP, 8/6/17)
2017 Aug 15, Germany's second largest airline, Air Berlin, filed for bankruptcy protection after its main shareholder, Abu Dhabi-based Etihad, said it would make no more financing available following years of unsuccessful turnaround attempts.
(AP, 8/15/17)
2017 Aug 15, In Iraq a spokesman for the Supreme Judicial Council said Samir Kubba, the director general of Iraqi Airways, has been arrested and referred to trial on graft charges.
(Reuters, 8/15/17)
2017 Aug 18, South Africa grounded an Air Zimbabwe flight at Johannesburg's main international airport after South African authorities concluded it was not in compliance with civil aviation rules.
(AP, 8/19/17)
2017 Aug 19, Zimbabwe blocked flights by South Africa's government-owned airline amid tensions over allegations that Zimbabwe's first lady assaulted a young model at a luxury hotel in Johannesburg.
(AP, 8/19/17)
2017 Aug 20, Saudi Arabia media said Qatar has blocked Saudi planes from transporting hajj pilgrims, after Riyadh reopened the border despite a major diplomatic crisis roiling the Gulf.
(AFP, 8/20/17)
2017 Sep 1, Egypt's Ministry of Civil Aviation said British authorities have lifted a ban on carry-on electronic devices on planes arriving from Cairo airport.
(Reuters, 9/1/17)
2017 Sep 12, Bankrupt German airline Air Berlin said its existence is threatened by an apparent wildcat strike, after 200 pilots called in sick at short notice.
(AP, 9/12/17)
2017 Sep 14, In Luxembourg Ryanair lost an EU court battle in which the airline had sought to continue forcing cabin crew based outside Ireland to take their disputes to Irish courts, in a case with implications across the low-cost airline sector.
(Reuters, 9/14/17)
2017 Sep 17, Russia and Iraq restored scheduled commercial airline services for the first time since 2004, in what officials hailed as a sign of stability returning to the war-torn country.
(AFP, 9/17/17)
2017 Sep 17, State-owned Saudi Air Navigation Services (SANS) announced that it was offering theoretical and practical training to 80 women per year to prepare them for work in the air traffic control sector.
(Reuters, 9/18/17)
2017 Sep 18, Irish budget airline Ryanair was under pressure to provide more information to travelers after canceling up to 50 flights a day over the next six weeks because it "messed up" its pilots' holiday schedules.
(AP, 9/18/17)
2017 Sep 27, Irish budget airline Ryanair cancelled another 18,000 flights, deepening its woes over its mismanagement of pilots' holiday schedules.
(AP, 9/27/17)
2017 Sep 27, Turkey said it will suspend flights to the northern Iraqi cities of Erbil and Sulaimaniya starting on 1500 GMT on Sep 29, in response to a Kurdish independence referendum held earlier this week.
(Reuters, 9/27/17)
2017 Sep 28, British PM Theresa May warned of growing protectionism in the global economy, slamming plane maker Boeing for its role in the US government proposal to impose a massive tariff that could cost thousands of jobs in Northern Ireland.
(AP, 9/28/17)
2017 Sep 29, In Iraq the last international flight left Erbil airport as the Baghdad government imposed an air ban in retaliation for an independence vote by Iraqi Kurds that has drawn widespread opposition from foreign powers.
(Reuters, 9/29/17)
2017 Oct 1, Qatar Airways said it has completed the acquisition of a 49 percent stake in Italy's AQA Holding, the new parent company of Italy's second largest carrier Meridiana.
(AP, 10/1/17)
2017 Oct 2, British authorities scrambled to bring home 110,000 travelers after Monarch Airlines collapsed, cancelling all flights by what had been Britain's fifth biggest carrier with 2,100 employees. Monarch Chief Executive Andrew Swaffield said the airline's troubles stemmed from recent terror attacks in Egypt and Tunisia and the "decimation" of the tourist trade in Turkey.
(AP, 10/2/17)
2017 Oct 6, Czech airline Travel Service said it has acquired a majority stake in the national carrier, Czech Airlines, known as CSA. Travel Service reached a deal with the Czech state and Korean Air to buy their CSA stakes.
(AP, 10/6/17)
2017 Oct 10, Vietnam's flag carrier and Air France signed an agreement to deepen their cooperation to tap the growing travel market between Vietnam and Europe.
(AP, 10/10/17)
2017 Oct 12, In Germany Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr said that the airline will sign an agreement to buy large parts of the bankrupt carrier Air Berlin.
(AP, 10/12/17)
2017 Oct 14, The first commercial flight arrived in St. Helena, a South Atlantic island that until recently was only accessible by boat and where Napoleon Bonaparte spent his last years in exile. The SA Airlink plane conducted 13 flight trials at the St. Helena airport in August. Some charter and medical evacuation flights have used the airport in the past year. The population of more than 4,000 people is now heavily dependent on British government support.
(AP, 10/14/17)
2017 Oct 16, Turkey announced that it is closing its airspace to flights to and from Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region and have Baghdad take control of the Iraqi side of its main border crossing.
(AP, 10/16/17)(Reuters, 10/16/17)
2017 Oct 18, Saudi budget carrier flynas made the first commercial flight from Riyadh to Baghdad since 1990, as ties with neighboring Iraq show signs of improvement.
(AFP, 10/18/17)
2017 Oct 26, New security screenings for all passengers on US-bound flights began today, with airlines worldwide questioning flyers about their trip and their luggage in the latest Trump administration decision affecting global travel.
(AP, 10/26/17)
2017 Oct 27, Air Berlin, Germany's second-biggest airline, ended operations after 38 years with an evening Munich-to-Berlin flight.
(AP, 10/28/17)
2017 Oct 28, British budget airline easyJet said it has reached an agreement with Air Berlin to buy parts of the bankrupt German airline as part of a 40-million euro ($46 million) deal.
(AP, 10/28/17)
2017 Oct 31, In Argentina a strike by workers of its two largest airlines caused the cancellation of dozens of flights and the grounding of tens of thousands of passengers. Unions representing state-run carrier Aerolineas Argentinas and sister company Austral Lineas Aereas demanded a 26 percent salary hike in line with the inflation rate.
(AP, 10/31/17)
2017 Nov 1, Bangladesh Biman pilot Sabbir Enam (31) was formally arrested a day after being detained for suspected of terrorism offences, including plotting to keep passengers hostage and flying a plane into the houses of top government leaders.
(Reuters, 11/1/17)
2017 Nov 12, Long-haul carrier Emirates purchased 40 American-made Boeing 787-10 Dreamliners at the start of the biennial Dubai Air Show, a $15.1 billion deal.
(AP, 11/12/17)
2017 Nov 14, Rebel authorities in Yemen said that a Saudi-led air strike had destroyed a navigation station at Sanaa international airport, which is critical to receiving already limited aid shipments.
(AFP, 11/14/17)
2017 Nov 15, At the Dubai Air Show Airbus signed a $49.5 billion deal to sell 430 airplanes to the Phoenix-based private equity firm that owns Frontier Airlines. Boeing reached an agreement with low-cost carrier FlyDubai to sell 225 Boeing 737 MAX 10 aircraft — a deal valued at $27 billion.
(AP, 11/15/17)
2017 Nov 17, Lebanon's national carrier Middle East Airlines (MEA) lifted restrictions on carry-on electronic devices on planes traveling from Beirut to London.
(AP, 11/17/17)
2017 Nov 21, China’s state-owned airline Air China suspended flights between Beijing and North Korea due to a lack of demand.
(AP, 11/24/17)
2017 Nov 24, A UN official said the Saudi-led coalition has authorized the resumption of UN flights to the Yemeni capital starting Nov. 25.
(AP, 11/24/17)
2017 Nov 28, Airbus, Siemens and Rolls-Royce said they are teaming up to develop a hybrid passenger plane that would use a single electric turbofan along with three conventional jet engines running on aviation fuel.
(AP, 11/28/17)
2017 Dec 2, Airlines canceled more flights departing the Indonesian holiday island of Bali, citing forecasts of deteriorating flying conditions due to a risk of volcanic ash from the erupting Mount Agung volcano.
(Reuters, 12/2/17)
2017 Dec 10, The heaviest snowfall to hit Britain in four years caused widespread disruption, with roads becoming hazardous and flights grounded following runway closures.
(AFP, 12/10/17)
2017 Dec 14, Delta said that it will order 100 Airbus A321neo jets with a sticker price of $12.7 billion and take an option to buy another 100 jets.
(AP, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 15, Russia and Egypt signed a deal in Moscow to resume flights between Moscow and Cairo starting from February, after more than a two-year break.
(AP, 12/15/17)
2017 Dec 17, A fire caused an 11-hour power outage at Atlanta’s airport in Georgia leading to the cancellation of more than 1,500 flights.
(SFC, 12/20/17, p.A5)
2017 Dec 17, A second prototype of China's home-built C919 passenger jet took off for a test flight in Shanghai, another step forward in the country's ambitions to muscle in to the global jet market.
(Reuters, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 21, The EU approved a deal that will see Lufthansa take over part of defunct Air Berlin, formerly the second-largest carrier in Germany.
(AP, 12/21/17)
2017 Dec 21, Cho Hyun-ah, the former Korean Air executive, will avoid jail as South Korea's top court upheld her suspended prison term for her onboard "nut rage" tantrum that delayed a flight in 2014.
(AP, 12/21/17)
2017 Dec 24, China's domestically developed AG600, the world's largest amphibious aircraft, performed its maiden flight from an airport on the shores of the South China Sea, the latest step in a military modernization program.
(Reuters, 12/24/17)
2017 Dec 24, Tunisia suspended all flights by Emirates to and from Tunis after the Dubai-based airline barred Tunisian women from boarding its flights last week. UAE's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash soon replied on Twitter that the ban was temporary and due to security reasons.
(Reuters, 12/25/17)(AP, 12/25/17)
2017 Dec 25, The union of Egyptian flight attendants angrily responded to criticism by lawmaker Galila Othman over the weight and age of some female attendants employed by the national carrier, saying her comments amounted to discrimination.
(AP, 12/25/17)
2017 Dec 29, British Airways owner IAG announced it will snap up bankrupt Austrian airline Niki, outlining plans to keep on hundreds of the carrier's staff.
(AP, 12/29/17)
2018 Jan 4, Four people were reported killed in North Carolina and South Carolina after their vehicles ran off snow-covered roads. More than 5,000 flights were reported cancelled across the US.
(SFC, 1/5/18, p.A5)
2018 Jan 4, It was reported that Poland has created a new, state-owned aviation company, the Polish Aviation Group, based on the national airline, LOT, that aims to capitalize on a planned major airport and on the region's growing air travel market.
(AP, 1/4/18)
2018 Jan 4, Pres. Vladimir Putin authorized the resumption of regular Russian airline flights to Cairo, according to a document published on the Moscow government's website. It said the clearance for flights to resume was effective from Jan. 2.
(Reuters, 1/4/18)
2018 Jan 6, It was reported that Serbia's government has picked France's Vinci Airports for a 25-year concession to run the main Belgrade airport, the biggest in western Balkans.
(AP, 1/6/18)
2018 Jan 8, A bid by International Airlines Group, the parent of British Airways and Iberia, to acquire much of bankrupt Air Berlin's Niki division hit a legal stumbling block with an appeals court ruling. The Berlin state court decided that a Berlin administrative court did not have the jurisdiction to handle the insolvency of Austria-based Niki and that it's up to an Austrian court to decide.
(AP, 1/8/18)
2018 Jan 17, The French government abandoned plans for a new 580 million euro ($710 million) airport in western France in favor of expanding an existing airport in Nantes, a sensitive decision that past governments had shirked for decades.
(Reuters, 1/17/18)
2018 Jan 17, Air France-KLM canceled 228 European flights to and from Amsterdam's Schiphol airport planned for Jan. 18, as a storm is expected to disrupt traffic at the Dutch national airport.
(Reuters, 1/17/18)
2018 Jan 18, The Dubai-based Emirates said it struck a deal with Airbus to buy 20 of its A380 double-decker jets, with the option to buy 16 more, in a deal worth $16 billion.
(AP, 1/18/18)
2018 Jan 20, In Afghanistan gunmen in army uniforms stormed Kabul's Intercontinental Hotel late today and battled Afghan Special Forces through the night killing at least 22 people and wounding 12 more. All five attackers were killed. Afghanistan's Kam Air was left reeling after nine personnel including five pilots were killed in the Taliban attack.
(Reuters, 1/21/18)(AFP, 1/22/18)
2018 Jan 20, In Libya the Mitiga airport serving the capital resumed flights following a five-day suspension after deadly clashes around the facility that also damaged planes on the tarmac.
(AFP, 1/20/18)
2018 Jan 29, The African Union announced it has launched a new aviation deregulation scheme as more than 40 leaders from across the continent meet in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa for their annual summit.
(AP, 1/29/18)
2018 Jan 30, The United States and Qatar inked a deal to resolve a years-old quarrel over alleged airline subsidies, as Qatar's government works to defuse tensions with the Trump administration.
(AP, 1/30/18)
2018 Jan 30, Dublin-based Ryanair said it has signed an agreement to recognize the British Airline Pilots Association that reverses its historic hostility towards trade unions.
(AFP, 1/30/18)
2018 Jan 27, Dominican Republic officials announced that they were suspending Pawa Dominicana's operations at the Santo Domingo airport for at least 90 days because the company owes $3 million in taxes and airport fees to the government and $5 million to private contractors. Passengers arriving on other airlines for connections with Pawa soon found themselves without a way to reach their final destinations
(AP, 2/2/18)
2018 Feb 6, Boeing announced more than $900 million in orders at the Singapore Airshow from companies in the region and beyond.
(AP, 2/6/18)
2018 Feb 6, Belgium's foreign ministry said the Democratic Republic of Congo has ordered Belgium to close a consulate and cut flights by Brussels Airlines, in a further deterioration of relations between Belgium and its former colony.
(Reuters, 2/6/18)
2018 Feb 9, A major winter storm pounded the US Midwest and forced cancellation of hundreds of flights as heavy snow and plummeting temperatures threatened to bring travel to a standstill across the region. Winter weather this week killed several people in accidents in the Midwest, including six in Iowa, two in Missouri and one in Montana.
(Reuters, 2/9/18)
2018 Feb 11, In Dubai Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, the Emirates chairman and CEO of Emirates, and Mikhail Houari, president of Airbus Middle East signed a $16 billion purchase of the Airbus A380 superjumbo commercial airliner.
(AFP, 2/11/18)
2018 Feb 14, Two airport vehicles collided on the airfield at London's Heathrow Airport, killing a British Airways engineer and injuring another man.
(AP, 2/14/18)
2018 Feb 26, Two presumed stowaways died in Ecuador after they fell from the landing gear of a New York-bound plane.
(AP, 2/26/18)
2018 Mar 1, Heavy snowfall and deadly blizzards lashed Europe. Exceptional snow and wind forced airports to close in Scotland, Switzerland and France and stranded several hundred drivers in their cars.
(AFP, 3/1/18)
2018 Mar 7, The second winter storm within a week crept into New York and surrounding states. New York’s three major airlines reported a total of 1,431 canceled flights, about 40 percent of their normally scheduled flights. The governors of New Jersey and Pennsylvania declared states of emergency.
(Reuters, 3/7/18)
2018 Mar 7, Air India said Saudi Arabia has given it permission to fly between New Delhi and Tel Aviv over Saudi airspace, ending a 70-year ban and marking a diplomatic shift.
(Reuters, 3/7/18)
2018 Mar 9, Turkish Airlines confirmed plans to buy at least 50 wide-body aircraft from Airbus and Boeing as the flag carrier ramps up its ambitions ahead of a move to a new Istanbul airport.
(AFP, 3/10/18)
2018 Mar 10, Direct flights between Iran and Serbia resumed when an IranAir jet touched down at Belgrade's Nikola Tesla airport following a gap of 27 years.
(AFP, 3/10/18)
2018 Mar 16, Egypt's national carrier EgyptAir said it would resume direct flights between Cairo and Moscow, three years after they were halted following the bombing of a Russian charter jet over the Sinai.
(AFP, 3/16/18)
2018 Mar 17, In New York a Fly Jamaica Airways crew member Hugh Hall was arrested at JFK airport and agents seized about 9 pounds of cocaine taped to his legs, with a street value of about $160,000.
(AP, 3/22/18)
2018 Mar 18, A second day of icy weather led London's Heathrow Airport to cancel more than 100 flights and disrupted the homecoming celebrations of Ireland's all-conquering rugby team.
(AFP, 3/18/18)
2018 Mar 20, Direct international flights resumed from Sulaimaniyah airport in Iraqi Kurdistan, a week after Baghdad lifted an almost six-month-long blockade on the region's foreign air links.
(AFP, 3/20/18)
2018 Mar 23, Turkey opened its airspace to flights from northern Iraq's Erbil. Flights from Sulaimaniya were not included in the plan.
(Reuters, 3/23/18)
2018 Mar 25, The maiden flight of a new non-stop regular passenger service between Australia and Britain touched down at London's Heathrow Airport. The new link with Perth, a 14,498-km (9,009-mile) journey, is around three hours quicker than routes that involve stopovers in the Middle East to change planes or refuel.
(AP, 3/25/18)
2018 Mar 29, In Lebanon the world's largest passenger jet, an Airbus A380, landed at Beirut's international airport, bringing with it hope for a revival of Lebanon's vital tourism sector.
(AP, 3/28/18)
2018 Mar 30, Air France staff went on strike for the third time in a month, forcing the airline to cancel a quarter of flights. Lawyers were also set to strike nationwide against reforms that they say will over-centralize France's court system.
(AFP, 3/30/18)
2018 Apr 3, It was reported that Timothy J. Cislo, a former US Federal Aviation Administration safety inspector, pleaded guilty in Guam last week to three counts of honest services wire fraud. Cislo was accused of issuing certificates to Hansen Helicopters Inc. without inspecting the helicopters in exchange for an airplane for his personal use.
(AP, 4/3/18)
2018 Apr 7, Air France cancelled hundreds of its flights as pilots, cabin crew and ground staff pursued a fifth day of strikes aimed at securing higher pay.
(AFP, 4/7/18)
2018 Apr 10, In France air traffic was severely disrupted as the country's biggest airline Air France was forced to cancel one in four flights, in the sixth round of strikes launched by its employees since February.
(AFP, 4/10/18)
2018 Apr 10, In Germany tens of thousands of air passengers were stranded as workers at airlines Lufthansa staged strikes that crippled traffic.
(AFP, 4/10/18)
2018 Apr 11, Striking Air France pilots and cabin staff insisted they weren't backing down, as their latest walkout forced the cancellation of some 30 percent of the airline's flights worldwide.
(AP, 4/11/18)
2018 Apr 12, Egypt and Russia resumed direct flights, more than two-and-a-half years after they were suspended in the wake of a bombing that brought down a Russian passenger plane over the Sinai Peninsula.
(AP, 4/12/18)
2018 Apr 12, It was reported that Hassan al-Kontar, a Syrian man, said he has been stranded at the main airport serving the Malaysian capital for over a month after being denied entry to several countries, and begged for help to escape.
(AFP, 4/12/18)
2018 Apr 16, In South Korea Korean Air Lines said it has suspended Cho Hyun-min, aka Emily Cho, one of its chairman's daughters from her marketing work after she threw a tantrum at a business meeting last month, triggering public outrage and a police investigation. She is the younger sister of another Korean Air executive whose onboard "nut rage" outburst delayed a flight in 2014.
(AP, 4/16/18)
2018 Apr 17, A Southwest Airlines Co. jet landed in Philadelphia after an engine blew up in mid air, killing a passenger in the first deadly US commercial airline accident in nine years. The engine explosion occurred about 20 minutes after the Dallas-bound Southwest Flight 1380 with 149 on board took off from New York's LaGuardia Airport.
(Reuters, 4/18/18)(SFC, 4/17/18, p.A7)
2018 Apr 19, The head of the consular section of the US Embassy in Moscow told Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper that it was having difficulties issuing urgent visas to Russian pilots because of a shortage of staff.
(Reuters, 4/20/18)
2018 Apr 23, Florida-based Silver Airways said it has bought Puerto Rico-based Seaborne Airlines, the Caribbean's largest regional airline.
(AP, 4/24/18)
2018 Apr 23, South Korea-based Korean Air Lines said that two daughters of its chairman will resign from their executive positions amid mounting public criticism over the women's behavior and allegations that the family engaged in smuggling.
(AP, 4/23/18)
2018 May 1, Pakistani PM Shahid Khaqan Abbasi inaugurated the long-delayed new airport in the capital, Islamabad, replacing the cramped Benazir Bhutto airport often criticized by travelers.
(Reuters, 5/1/18)
2018 May 4, Hundreds of Korean Air Lines Co. pilots, cabin crew and other workers staged a rally in Seoul saying they can't take any more abuse from the company's founding family.
(AP, 5/4/18)
2018 May 7, Air France's share price dived after its CEO quit and the French government warned that the country's flagship carrier might collapse. A new strike over wage demands, meanwhile, prompted the cancellation of about 15 percent of Air France flights worldwide as the airline enters its 14th day of walkouts this year.
(AP, 5/7/18)
2018 May 10, Polish lawmakers approved divisive legislation paving the way for the construction of what is intended to be one of Europe's largest airports, and China's gateway to the continent.
(AP, 5/11/18)
2018 May 17, Italy's anti-establishment 5-Star Movement and the far-right League planned to halt the sale of Italy's insolvent national airline Alitalia.
(Reuters, 5/17/18)
2018 May 24, The United States imposed sanctions on several Iranian and Turkish companies and a number of aircraft in a move targeting four Iranian airlines.
(Reuters, 5/24/18)
2018 May 27, British meteorologists said thousands of lightning strikes hit the UK during a powerful overnight thunderstorm, and the London-area Stansted Airport reported flight disruptions after an aircraft refueling system was damaged.
(AP, 5/27/18)
2018 May 28, Serge Dessault (93), French business executive, died in Paris. He was known for the development of the French Mirage jet fighter and equipping the French Air Forces and other militaries through global sales. His father, Marcel Dassault, founded the aviation company at the core of the Dassault Group.
(SFC, 5/29/18, p.C3)
2018 May 30, Environmental campaigners said a hidden shipment of shark fins including some from endangered species had been shipped to Hong Kong via Singapore Airlines, despite a ban by the carrier.
(AFP, 5/30/18)
2018 Jun 3, In Germany the international airport in Hamburg suspended all flights because of a power outage, leaving hundreds of passengers stranded.
(AP, 6/3/18)
2018 Jun 5, Britain's government gave the go-ahead to building a third runway at London Heathrow, Europe's biggest airport by passenger numbers, a long-awaited decision that has stoked decades of division and debate.
(AFP, 6/5/18)
2018 Jun 19, In Maine Marcin Urbanski, a Polish pilot on a Saudi Arabian royal family jet, was taken into custody during a stop in Bangor. He was wanted for accepting $9,000 to help a Florida resident become a licensed pilot, but never providing the services.
(AP, 6/21/18)
2018 Jun 22, Aviation giant Airbus threatened to leave Britain if the country exits the European Union without an agreement on trade relations, underscoring the concerns of business leaders who say the government is moving too slowly.
(AP, 6/22/18)
2018 Jun 22, Greece's dominant Aegean Airlines said it has signed a 5 billion-euro ($5.8 billion) deal with Airbus to buy up to 42 new A320 neo passenger aircraft. Aegean was founded 19 years ago and serves 150 destinations in 44 countries.
(AP, 6/22/18)
2018 Jun 24, Officials acknowledged that Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways will loan pilots to competing Dubai-based carrier Emirates under a new program, marking a rare cooperation between the two state-owned carriers who operate only 115 km (70 miles) apart.
(AP, 6/24/18)
2018 Jul 5, Boeing and the Brazilian jet maker Embraer said they will attempt to form a joint venture that would push the US aerospace giant more aggressively into the regional aircraft market.
(AP, 7/5/18)
2018 Jul 10, In France Airbus unveiled its new A220 aircraft, a rebranded Bombardier C Series plane that the company picked up in a deal last year.
(AP, 7/10/18)
2018 Jul 18, At Britain's Farnborough airshow European air giant Airbus unveiled a solar-powered drone called Zephyr that will fly at a high altitude and fulfil the same functions as a satellite.
(AFP, 7/18/18)
2018 Jul 18, Eritrea and Ethiopia resumed commercial airline flights for the first time in two decades. Two flights left Addis Ababa within minutes of each other and an hour and a half later touched down in the Eritrean capital Asmara.
(AFP, 7/18/18)
2018 Jul 19, Flight space over Belgium was closed due to a problem with a flight data processing system at Belgium air traffic controller Belgocontrol.
(Reuters, 7/19/18)
2018 Jul 19, At England's Farnborough airshow US aviation giant Boeing announced 676 orders, totaling $92 billion at list prices, while Airbus, its European competitor, unveiled 431 orders worth $70 billion.
(AFP, 7/21/18)
2018 Jul 22, Typhoon Ampil hit Chinese financial hub Shanghai around midday, bringing heavy rainfall and disrupting transport and shipping. More than 600 flights from the city's two airports were canceled and high-speed rail services also impacted.
(Reuters, 7/22/18)
2018 Jul 24, Heavy rains pummeled parts of the US Southwest and mid-Atlantic, swelling floods that have forced evacuations, disrupted air travel and cut power.
(Reuters, 7/24/18)
2018 Jul 25, China applauded international airlines for bending to its demand that they stop referring to Taiwan as an independent country on their websites after the issue generated friction between Beijing and Washington. Many airlines now simply list Taiwan's capital, Taipei, as a destination while omitting Taiwan.
(AP, 7/25/18)
2018 Jul 26, Yemen's Iranian-aligned Houthi movement said it had attacked Abu Dhabi airport in the United Arab Emirates with a drone, though it was not immediately clear if there was any damage or casualties.
(Reuters, 7/26/18)
2018 Aug 5, Iranian news agency IRNA reported that IranAir has taken delivery of five more ATR turboprop aircraft, shortly before Washington imposes new sanctions on Iran after exiting a nuclear pact between Tehran and major world powers.
(Reuters, 8/5/18)
2018 Aug 10, Ryanair pilots in several European countries staged a strike over work conditions that prompted the budget carrier to cancel 400 flights. Walkouts called by German and Belgian unions accounted for many of the cancelations, with strikes also called in Sweden and Ireland.
(AP, 8/10/18)
2018 Aug 18, In Chile, Argentina and Peru false bomb threats caused up to 11 commercial flights to take emergency measures. Chilean authorities soon arrested Franco Sepulveda Robles (29) for making false bomb threats in anger over an airline not returning his suitcase.
(SSFC, 8/19/18, p.A4)
2018 Aug 16, Air France-KLM was tipped to name its first non-French chief executive, with Ben Smith, chief operating officer at Air Canada, set to be unveiled. Nine out of 10 Air France unions opposed the selection.
(AP, 8/16/18)
2018 Aug 21, Ethiopian Airlines said it is teaming up with four African airlines and has inked a deal to set up a fifth, as it continues its expansion on the continent.
(AFP, 8/22/18)
2018 Aug 21, Hawaiian Airlines announced that nonstop service between Honolulu and Beijing will end in October, citing low demand. The service, launched in 2014, flew three days a week between the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport and the Beijing Capital International Airport.
(AP, 8/23/18)
2018 Aug 23, British Airways said it is suspending flights between London and Tehran because they are not commercially viable.
(Reuters, 8/23/18)
2018 Aug 27, Ethiopian air traffic controllers began a strike after disputes over pay and calls for more employment benefits. Their average monthly salary was around $540.
(AP, 9/1/18)
2018 Sep 5, A plane was quarantined at New York's Kennedy Airport when about 10 passengers became ill aboard a flight from Dubai. The double-decker Emirates aircraft held 520 passengers.
(AP, 9/5/18)(SFC, 9/6/18, p.A4)
2018 Sep 12, Irish budget carrier Ryanair was defiant as dozens of flights were disrupted in a walkout by German pilots and cabin crew, the latest flare-up in a bitter Europe-wide battle for better pay and conditions.
(AFP, 9/13/18)
2018 Sep 17, Libyan authorities closed Tripoli's only functioning airport, diverting traffic to another one at the nearby militia-controlled city of Misrata after the UN-backed Tripoli government handed control of the facility from one militia to another, prompting the Transport Ministry to order its closure on security concerns.
(AP, 9/17/18)
2018 Sep 17, It was reported that Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan has defended his decision to accept a luxury plane from Qatar at a time of economic hardship, saying it was a gift, not a purchase, and that it had been donated to the Turkish state, not to him personally.
(Reuters, 9/17/18)
2018 Sep 28, Dublin-based Ryanair canceled scores of European flights, but downplayed the impact of the strike. Unions hoped the strike would be the biggest in the airline's history. A key complaint of workers based in countries other than Ireland is the fact that Ryanair has been employing them under Irish legislation.
(AFP, 9/28/18)
2018 Oct 8, Qatar Airways' boss Akbar al-Baker said US sanctions on Iran will not impact its flights to the Islamic republic.
(AFP, 10/8/18)
2018 Oct 24, Poland's national airline LOT cancelled some flights as some crew members struck to protest layoffs and demand better working conditions. Almost 70 flight crew members have been fired for participating in the strike that started Oct. 18 and that the management says is illegal.
(AP, 10/24/18)
2018 Oct 26, In Belgium hundreds of passengers were left stranded at Brussels international airport after luggage handlers went on strike over workload and pay demands.
(AP, 10/26/18)
2018 Oct 28, Japan Airlines pilot Katsutoshi Jitsukawa (42) was arrested after the driver of a Heathrow Airport crew bus smelled alcohol and reported it to security officials. Tests later found the first officer had 189 milligrams of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood in his system, almost 10 times the 20 milligrams limit for a pilot.
{Britain, Japan, Aviation}
(AP, 11/29/18)
2018 Oct 28, Mexican voters in a referendum rejected the completion of a new, partly constructed Mexico City airport by a 70 to 29 percent margin. This effectively ended the $13 billion project that was already one-third built.
(SFC, 10/30/18, p.A2)
2018 Oct 29, In Belgium a strike by baggage handlers disrupted flights to and from the main airport for a fifth day.
(AP, 10/29/18)
2018 Oct 29, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan inaugurated Istanbul's new airport, a megaproject that he has pushed to meet its symbolic deadline. Human Rights has cited at least 38 workplace deaths over the past three years.
(AP, 10/29/18)
2018 Nov 1, A court in the Netherlands banned Ryanair from transferring 16 pilots overseas following the closure of its Dutch base in Eindhoven, saying that the move appeared to be a reprisal by the budget carrier for strikes by Dutch employees.
(AP, 11/1/18)
2018 Nov 6, The 6-day biennial Airshow China opened in the coastal city of Zhuhai. It is traditionally an event for Beijing to parade its growing aviation prowess.
(Reuters, 11/6/18)
2018 Nov 25, A winter storm blanketed much of the US central Midwest. Some 1200 flights were reported canceled.
(SFC, 11/26/18, p.A4)
2018 Nov 26, State-owned Qatar Airways said it will add more flights to Iran from January, just weeks after the United States re-imposed sanctions aimed at crippling Tehran's economy.
(Reuters, 11/26/18)
2018 Dec 10, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said Oman will let Israeli planes fly through its airspace. The permission however provides Israel with little immediate practical use since its planes cannot fly over Oman's neighbor Saudi Arabia.
(AFP, 12/10/18)
2018 Dec 14, A Berlin court said the insolvency administrator for bankrupt airline Air Berlin has sued its former largest shareholder, UAE-based airline Etihad, for 2 billion euros ($2.26 billion) in damages.
(AP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 17, US plane maker Boeing and Brazil's Embraer said they have approved the terms of a partnership to create a joint venture now worth $5.26 billion -- more than when they first announced it in July.
(AFP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, Switzerland and Britain signed an agreement guaranteeing that flights between the two countries can continue uninterrupted even if London opts to leave the European Union without a deal with Brussels.
(AFP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 20, Drones flying near London’s Gatwick airport grounded flights for at least 15 hours, causing chaos for tens of thousands of Christmas travelers in what authorities said was a reckless attempt to cripple Britain’s second busiest airport.
(Reuters, 12/20/18)
2018 Dec 20, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said that the armed forces would build a new airport he plans for Mexico City at a military air base in the town of Santa Lucia north of the capital.
(Reuters, 12/20/18)
2018 Dec 21, British police arrested two people late today over the suspected "criminal use of drones" at London's Gatwick Airport. A damaged drone was soon found near the airfield perimeter. On Dec. 23 Paul Gait (47) and his wife Elaine Kirk (54), arrested over the drone disruption, were released without charge.
(AFP, 12/22/18)(AFP, 12/23/18)(SFC, 12/23/18, p.A4)
2018 Dec 22, A Brazilian court shot down a fresh injunction by a judge over a plan by plane makers Boeing of the US and Embraer of Brazil to create a $5.26-billion joint venture.
(AP, 12/22/18)
2018 Dec 27, French conglomerate Vinci said it had bought control of Gatwick airport, Britain's second-busiest, for nearly three billion pounds only months before Brexit.
(AFP, 12/27/18)
2019 Jan 2, Qatar Airways said it now holds a 5 percent share in China Southern Airlines, helping expand the Gulf carrier's reach in one of the world's fastest growing aviation markets.
(AP, 1/2/19)
2019 Jan 3, Texas lawyer Herb Kelleher (b.1931), co-founder of Southwest Airlines, died. He became chairman of the airline in 1978 and CEO in 1982.
(SFC, 1/4/19, p.D2)
2019 Jan 3, Mexico's government said construction on a partly-built $13 billion new Mexico City airport which the new president wants to cancel has been officially suspended.
(Reuters, 1/3/19)
2019 Jan 5, Heavy snow caused travel chaos in parts of Austria and Germany as authorities closed roads and train routes because of avalanche danger and airports reported weather-related cancelations.
(AP, 1/5/19)
2019 Jan 9, Nepal and Japan agreed to allow state-run Nepal Airlines to resume flights between the two Asian nations at the beginning of a two-day visit to Nepal by Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono.
(AP, 1/9/19)
2019 Jan 10, In Germany almost 640 flights were cancelled as security staff went on strike at three airports, meaning disruption for around 100,000 passengers.
(AFP, 1/10/19)
2019 Jan 11, The share price in Brazilian airplane manufacturer Embraer soared as markets reacted favorably to the country's President Jair Bolsonaro approving a merger with us giant Boeing. Embraer will only retain control of its military division.
(AFP, 1/11/19)
2019 Jan 11, In Germany airlines canceled around 120 flights at Frankfurt Airport and 90 at Munich Airport because of concerns about snow.
(AP, 1/11/19)
2019 Jan 21, Germany said it has banned Iran's Mahan Air from landing in the country with immediate effect, citing security concerns and the airline's involvement in Syria. The airline had several weekly flights between Tehran and German cities.
(AP, 1/21/19)
2019 Jan 21, Israel inaugurated a new international airport near the Red Sea. Jordan hit out at Israel's move to open the new Ramon International Airport along their shared border close to the Red Sea, saying it would threaten the kingdom's airspace.
(AFP, 1/21/19)
2019 Jan 28, Blizzard-like conditions in the US Midwest caused the cancellation of some 1,000 flights at Chicago's airports and the closure of hundreds of schools.
(SFC, 1/29/19, p.A10)
2019 Jan 30, US governors in Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin declared emergencies as bitter cold due to a split polar vortex caused temperature drops to as low as minus 57 degrees. More than 2,600 flights to and from regional airports were cancelled.
(SFC, 1/31/19, p.A7)
2019 Feb 8, Pilots from Taiwan's China Airlines went on strike in the middle of the Lunar New Year travel rush, forcing the cancellation of at least 18 flights over coming days and stranding thousands of passengers.
(AP, 2/8/19)
2019 Feb 10, A strike among pilots at Taiwan's flag carrier China Airlines dragged into a third day, resulting in further flight cancellations.
(AP, 2/10/19)
2019 Feb 14, European plane maker Airbus said it will stop making its superjumbo A380 in 2021 for lack of customers, abandoning the world's biggest passenger jet and one of the aviation industry's most ambitious and most troubled endeavors.
(AP, 2/14/19)
2019 Feb 15, A top Airbus official said Germany's halt in exports to Saudi Arabia is preventing Britain from completing the sale of 48 Eurofighter Typhoon warplanes to Riyadh, and has delayed potential sales of other weapons such as the A400M military transport. The Eurofighter is built by a consortium of four founding countries: Germany, Britain, Italy and Spain.
(Reuters, 2/15/19)
2019 Feb 16, Hundreds of passengers throughout Europe were stranded by the abrupt collapse of the British regional airline Flybmi.
(AP, 2/17/19)
2019 Feb 20, Dubai budget carrier flydubai said it chalked up a loss of $43.5 million in 2018, as airlines across the Gulf struggle with mounting costs and political tensions.
(AFP, 2/20/19)
2019 Feb 23, In India a fire at the Aero India airshow in Bengaluru, run by the country's defence ministry, destroyed three hundred cars.
(AP, 2/23/19)
2019 Feb 27, The Bahrain-based long-haul carrier Gulf Air acknowledged it is cancelling and delaying flights without explaining why.
(AP, 2/27/19)
2019 Feb 28, British Airways announced a multi-billion dollar order for up to 42 Boeing 777 fuel-efficient passenger jets, just two weeks after Airbus said it would no longer make its A380 superjumbo.
(AFP, 2/28/19)
2019 Feb 28, A temporary closure of air space over Pakistan snarled air traffic, especially between Asia and Europe, though some airlines adjusted by rerouting their flights.
(AP, 2/28/19)
2019 Mar 6, In Kenya thousands of air passengers were stranded after a strike by aviation workers at the main Nairobi airport led to the cancellation and delay of scores of flights and the use of riot police to break up the industrial action. By the end of the day however, most scheduled arrivals had been processed while the departures backlog was being cleared.
(Reuters, 3/6/19)
2019 Mar 11, Authorities in China, Ethiopia and Indonesia grounded all Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft following the March 10 crash of an Ethiopian Airlines jetliner that killed 157 people.
(AP, 3/11/19)
2019 Mar 12, The US aviation regulator said it would not ground Boeing Co 737 MAX planes after a crash in Ethiopia that killed 157 people, bucking a trend of countries around the world that have suspended the aircraft's operations.
(Reuters, 3/13/19)
2019 Mar 12, Britain, Germany and France joined a wave of suspensions of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft as US President Donald Trump fretted over modern airplane design following the March 10 crash in Ethiopia that killed 157 people.
(Reuters, 3/12/19)
2019 Mar 12, Malaysia suspended all Boeing 737 Max 8 flights in and out of the country following two recent fatal crashes.
(AP, 3/12/19)
2019 Mar 12, Norwegian Air said it will temporarily ground its Boeing 737 MAX 8 passenger jets at the advice of European regulators.
(Reuters, 3/12/19)
2019 Mar 12, Oman said it was "temporarily suspending" all flights by Boeing 737 MAX aircraft in the sultanate following the March 10 crash of an Ethiopian Airlines jetliner, becoming the first nation on the Arabian Peninsula to ground the planes.
(AP, 3/12/19)
2019 Mar 13, The United States grounded Boeing's money-spinning 737 MAX aircraft over safety fears after an Ethiopian Airlines plane crash that killed 157 people, leaving the world's largest plane maker facing its worst crisis in years.
(Reuters, 3/14/19)
2019 Mar 13, US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson added 3½ years in prison to Paul Manafort (69), Donald Trump's former campaign manager, for misleading the government about his lucrative foreign lobbying and for encouraging witnesses to lie on his behalf. He was then hit with state charges in New York related to mortgage loan applications.
(SFC, 3/14/19, p.A5)
2019 Mar 13, A winter storm brought blizzards, rain or floods to more than 25 US states. About 1,000 flights were cancelled at Denver Int'l. Airport and nearly 40 more at Colorado Springs.
(SFC, 3/14/19, p.A5)
2019 Mar 13, Egypt barred the passage, takeoff and landing of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft. No Egyptian airlines had Boeing 737 MAX jets in their fleets.
(Reuters, 3/13/19)
2019 Mar 13, Iraq banned US plane maker Boeing Co's 737 MAX aircraft from entering or transiting its airspace.
(AP, 3/13/19)
2019 Mar 13, Norwegian Air said it will seek compensation from plane maker Boeing for costs and lost revenue after grounding its fleet of 737 MAX 8 aircraft in the wake of the Ethiopian Airlines crash.
(Reuters, 3/13/19)
2019 Mar 14, Flight recorders from a doomed Ethiopian Airlines flight arrived in France for analysis as frustrated relatives of the 157 people killed stormed out of a meeting with airline officials in Addis Ababa.
(AP, 3/14/19)
2019 Mar 14, Japan followed other countries on multiple continents in banning the Boeing 737 Max 8 and 9 aircraft from its airspace following the March 10 Ethiopian Airlines' crash.
(AP, 3/14/19)
2019 Mar 14, Mozambique cancelled flights to several domestic destinations as a tropical cyclone, potentially the strongest to hit the country in nearly two decades, approached. Cyclone Idai hit Mozambique late today and continued on to Zimbabwe and Malawi. Over the next two days killed more than 140 people, left hundreds more missing and stranded tens of thousands who are cut off from roads and telephones in mainly poor, rural areas.
(AFP, 3/14/19)(AP, 3/16/19)
2019 Mar 14, The United Nations said that no UN staff should travel on the Boeing 737 Max 8 planes.
(AP, 3/14/19)
2019 Mar 18, The world's biggest plane maker faced escalating pressure after Ethiopia pointed to parallels between its crash and one in Indonesia, sharpening focus on the safety of software installed in Boeing's 737 MAX planes.
(Reuters, 3/18/19)
2019 Mar 22, Indonesian airline Garuda said it plans to cancel a $6 billion order for Boeing 737 MAX jets, saying some passengers would be frightened to board the plane after two fatal crashes. Analysts said the deal had long been in doubt.
(Reuters, 3/22/19)
2019 Mar 25, The board of India's private Jet Airways accepted the resignations of Chairman Naresh Goyal, his wife and a nominee of Gulf carrier Etihad Airways. Goyal quit amid mounting financial woes which have forced Jet Airways to suspend 14 international routes and ground more than 80 planes. The board approved the setting up of an interim management committee to oversee daily operations and cash flow of the company.
(AP, 3/25/19)
2019 Mar 28, Icelandic budget airline WOW Air collapsed under its financial problems, leading it to ground planes and leave passengers stranded across two continents.
(AP, 3/28/19)
2019 Apr 5, Turkey began the relocation of Ataturk International Airport to Istanbul Airport on the Black Sea shores. The move is expected to end tomorrow.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 6, Malaysia and Singapore reached an agreement to end their months-long airspace dispute. Under the deal, Singapore will halt instrument landing system procedures at its Seletar Airport, while Malaysia will open up a restricted area near the countries' border.
(AP, 4/6/19)
2019 Apr 6, In Turkey the last commercial passenger flight took off from Istanbul's Ataturk airport and convoys of trucks ferried thousands of tons of equipment across the city to a giant new airport which Turkey plans to make the biggest in the world.
(Reuters, 4/6/19)
2019 Apr 8, Cho Yang-ho (70), Korean Air's chairman, died of an illness in Los Angeles. His leadership included scandals such as his daughter's infamous incident of "nut rage". He had been indicted on multiple charges, including embezzlement and tax evasion.
(AP, 4/8/19)
2019 Apr 9, President Donald Trump said he'll put tariffs on $11 billion worth European Union cheese, wine and other goods to retaliate for what Washington says are improper subsidies to Airbus.
(AP, 4/9/19)
2019 Apr 10, Japan grounded its F-35A fighter jets, built by US-based Lockheed Martin, following the crash of a Japanese F-35 in the Pacific Ocean a day earlier.
(Reuters, 4/10/19)
2019 Apr 13, The twin-fuselage Stratolaunch, designed to launch rockets into space, took off on its first flight from the Mojave Air and Space Port in Kern Ct., Ca. It was created by the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.
(SSFC, 4/14/19, p.A12)
2019 Apr 15, In India Jet Airways pilots demonstrated in Mumbai, saying they had not received a salary in four months.
(AP, 4/16/19)
2019 Apr 16, Indian airline Jet Airways' stock fell sharply after its former chairman reportedly withdrew plans to bid for a controlling stake in the company and news media said its flight operations might be temporarily halted. Naresh Goyal had founded Jet Airways in 1992. Etihad Aviation Group purchased a 24% stake in Jet Airways in 2013.
(AP, 4/16/19)
2019 Apr 17, India's debt-stricken Jet Airways halted all of its operations after failing to secure emergency funding from lenders, leaving it teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.
(AFP, 4/17/19)
2019 Apr 23, Uganda accepted delivery of the first two Bombardier CRJ900 jet airliners purchased in a bid to relaunch Uganda Airlines, nearly two decades after the East African country's national carrier collapsed.
(AFP, 4/23/19)
2019 Apr 26, Scandinavian airline SAS pilots went on strike as wage talks broke down, grounding around 70 percent of the airline's flights and hitting some 170,000 people over the weekend alone. SAS is part-owned by the Swedish and Danish governments.
(Reuters, 4/27/19)
2019 Apr 27, Scandinavian airline SAS canceled hundreds of flights scheduled for April 28 as a pilot strike entered its second day, disrupting the travel plans of tens of thousands of passengers.
(Reuters, 4/27/19)
2019 Apr 28, Scandinavian Airlines (SAS), the flag carrier of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, announced further flight cancellations for the next week on the third day of a pilots strike as the parties have failed to resume talks on a new collective bargaining agreement.
(AP, 4/28/19)
2019 Apr 29, A strike among pilots at Scandinavian Airlines, flag carrier of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, entered its fourth day.
(AP, 4/29/19)
2019 May 1, Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) canceled 504 flights today as talks with the pilots resumed in Norway.
(AP, 5/1/19)
2019 May 18, Syria's transport ministry says Iraqi Airways flights to Damascus expected for the first time since the war erupted in 2011 have been postponed indefinitely. The delay was relayed by the Iraqi embassy.
(AP, 5/18/19)
2019 May 21, Italy's struggling airline Alitalia canceled over 300 flights because of a 24-hour strike called to protest deteriorating conditions in the sector, including the government's failure to relaunch the carrier.
(AP, 5/21/19)
2019 May 28, In the Netherlands around 80 flights to and from Amsterdam Schiphol were canceled as a 24-hr nationwide public transport strike made it hard for passengers and staff to get to Europe's third largest airport.
(Reuters, 5/28/19)
2019 May 29, A nationwide strike in Argentina protesting austerity measures under President Mauricio Macri brought the country's airports to a standstill and halted work at key grains ports, the latest sign of tension in the recession-hit nation.
(Reuters, 5/29/19)
2019 Jun 3, British Airways resumed flights to Pakistan, over a decade after they were suspended in the wake of a truck bombing of a hotel in the capital, which killed dozens.
(AP, 6/3/19)
2019 Jun 3, An Indian air force aircraft with 13 people on board went missing in remote northeastern mountains bordering China.
(Reuters, 6/3/19)
2019 Jun 4, Scandinavian Airlines said it will stop selling duty-free goods on planes to reduce weight and save fuel as part of a wider range of measures to cut emissions.
(AP, 6/4/19)
2019 Jun 19, In Singapore one of two runways at the main airport closed for short periods over the last 24 hours because of "confirmed sightings of unauthorized drone flying.
(Reuters, 6/19/19)
2019 Jun 20, A strike by flight attendants at EVA Air, Taiwan's second-largest airline, left thousands of passengers scrambling for alternative transport.
(AP, 6/21/19)
2019 Jun 21, Marlene Mizzi (55), a former supervisor at Kennedy Airport, admitted that she took bribes to allow Qatar and other countries to park their planes overnight during the United Nations General Assembly.
(AP, 6/21/19)
2019 Jun 21, Major airlines from around the world began rerouting their flights to avoid areas around the Strait of Hormuz following Iran's shooting down of a US military surveillance drone there.
(AP, 6/21/19)
2019 Jun 21, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree banning Russian airlines from flying to pro-Western Georgia from July 8 late today in response to anti-government rallies in the ex-Soviet neighbor.
(AFP, 6/22/19)
2019 Jun 21, In South Africa cleaners found an abandoned fetus blocking the toilet of a domestic FlySafair plane, prompting the offloading of passengers and a police investigation.
(AFP, 6/21/19)
2019 Jun 22, Russia's travel industry and ordinary Russians hit out at a decision by the Kremlin to suspend flights to Georgia as a politically motivated move that has little to do with safety concerns.
(AFP, 6/22/19)
2019 Jun 25, Canadian aerospace company Bombardier announced the sale of its regional jet program to Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. for $550 million.
(AP, 6/25/19)
2019 Jun 27, Canada's flagship airline Air Canada announced that it has reached a deal to buy tour operator Transat for Can$520 million (US$396 million) in cash or Can$13 per share.
(AFP, 6/27/19)
2019 Jul 2, Aeroflot and two other Russian airlines canceled several flights to and from the Czech Republic after the Czech Transport Ministry withdrew permits for the flights. The Czech ministry said it took action after Russia limited the right of national carrier Czech Airlines to use routes across Siberia on its flights from Prague to Seoul. A Russian decision early today to grant temporary access to the transit routes until July 7, enabled the Czech ministry to authorize Russian carriers' flights to the Czech Republic until that date to provide time for negotiations.
(Reuters, 7/2/19)
2019 Jul 11, Former astronaut Terry Virts landed back at NASA's Kennedy Space Center after helping to shatter a pair of records for a round-the-world airplane flight over the North and South poles. Virts' former space station crewmate, Russian Gennady Padalka, was on the first two legs of the flight.
(AP, 7/11/19)
2019 Jul 17, Boeing Co said it will dedicate half of a $100 million fund it created to address two crashes of its 737 MAX planes to financial relief for the families of those killed, with compensation expert Ken Feinberg hired by the world's largest plane maker to oversee the distribution.
(Reuters, 7/17/19)
2019 Jul 19, The US Department of Transportation (DOT) granted American Airlines Group Inc and Qantas Airways Ltd final approval to operate a joint venture after a prior effort was rejected in 2016.
(Reuters, 7/19/19)
2019 Jul 20, British Airways said it was suspending flights to Cairo for seven days for unspecified reasons related to safety and security. Lufthansa also suspended flights to Cairo but resumed service the next day.
(AP, 7/20/19)(SFC, 7/22/19, p.A2)
2019 Jul 22, Pilot union BALPA said British Airways pilots overwhelmingly voted for strike action, in a dispute over pay that could disrupt the peak summer holiday season of the British flag carrier.
(AP, 7/22/19)
2019 Jul 23, Kenya's parliament voted to nationalize the country's main airline Kenya Airways to save it from mounting debts.
(AP, 7/23/19)
2019 Jul 24, Boeing Co posted its largest-ever quarterly loss, diving nearly $3 billion into the red as it wrestles with a longer-than-expected grounding of its best-selling 737 MAX.
(Reuters, 7/24/19)
2019 Aug 7, British Airways canceled almost 100 flights to and from London airports after its check-in systems were hit by computer problems.
(AP, 8/7/19)
2019 Aug 12, All flights were cancelled at Hong Kong airport after thousands of demonstrators entered the arrivals hall to protest at police use of force in a night of violent scenes in the city.
(SFC, 8/13/19, p.A3)
2019 Aug 13, Protests forced Hong Kong’s airport to suspend check-ins for departing flights -- its second straight day of major service disruptions -- as embattled local leader Carrie Lam warned that the city risked sliding into an “abyss".
(Bloomberg, 8/13/19)
2019 Aug 14, Unions representing Ryanair cabin crew in Spain announced plans to hold 10 days of strikes in September unless the Irish airline changes its plans to close several bases in the country.
(Reuters, 8/14/19)
2019 Aug 14, Japan advised more than 300,000 people to evacuate their homes and airlines cancelled hundreds of scheduled flights as tropical storm Krosa bore down on the archipelago.
(Reuters, 8/14/19)
2019 Aug 14, Unions representing Ryanair cabin crew in Spain announced plans to hold 10 days of strikes in September unless the Irish airline changes its plans to close several bases in the country.
(Reuters, 8/14/19)
2019 Aug 15, Iraqi PM Abdul-Mahdi issued a ban on all unauthorized flights throughout the country, including reconnaissance, fighter jets, helicopters and drones of all kinds.
{Iraq, Aviation}
(AP, 8/16/19)
2019 Aug 16, Cathay Pacific Airways CEO Rupert Hogg resigned in a shock move, amid mounting Chinese regulatory scrutiny of the Hong Kong carrier over the involvement of its employees in the city's anti-government protests. Cathay Pacific, which has already terminated two pilots for engaging in illegal protests at the behest of the Chinese aviation regulator, named Augustus Tang as its new CEO.
(Reuters, 8/16/19)
2019 Aug 16, The US-led coalition against the Islamic State group in Iraq says it will comply with new orders issued by the country's prime minister regarding unauthorized flights in Iraqi airspace.
(AP, 8/16/19)
2019 Aug 19, It was reported that Norwegian Air has agreed to sell its stake in banking company Norwegian Finans Holding for 2.22 billion crowns ($246.7 million), boosting the loss-making airline's finances and sending its shares sharply higher.
(Reuters, 8/19/19)
2019 Aug 21, Ireland's high court granted Ryanair an injunction to prevent its Dublin-based pilots from going on strike this week in a setback to union hopes for a wave of industrial action against Europe's biggest budget airline.
(Reuters, 8/21/19)
2019 Aug 23, South African authorities impounded an Airbus 220-300 aircraft leased by Tanzania's national flag carrier.
(Reuters, 8/24/19)
2019 Aug 28, United Airlines said it is starting to move its 14 Boeing 737 MAX jets to short-term storage in Phoenix, Arizona, which has better weather for stored aircraft and where it will be easier to prepare them for commercial flight again.
(Reuters, 8/28/19)
2019 Aug 28, In Hong Kong hundreds of people protested to denounce Cathay Pacific Airways for dismissing crew taking part in or supporting anti-government rallies that have swept the Chinese-ruled city for weeks.
(Reuters, 8/28/19)
2019 Aug 28, Russia unveiled its new passenger plane MC-21, billed as a competitor to Boeing and Airbus even as the project was overshadowed by sanctions and setbacks with its predecessor, the Superjet. An MC-21 prototype made its maiden flight in 2017 but serial manufacturing has been delayed, in part due to US sanctions affecting the production of its carbon composite wings.
(AFP, 8/28/19)
2019 Aug 29, Ireland-based Ryanair said it has cancelled less than one percent of its daily schedule of flights to and from Spain over the first two days of planned strikes by Spanish cabin crew.
(Reuters, 8/29/19)
2019 Sep 1, In France a computer breakdown briefly disrupted all air traffic and caused a cascade of delayed flights in multiple countries, the last day of European summer holidays.
(AP, 9/1/19)
2019 Sep 1, Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters obstructed access to the Hong Kong airport after police arrested dozens the night before and deployed water cannon and tear gas in response to activists lobbing petrol bombs and bricks.
(AP, 9/1/19)
2019 Sep 1, Libya's only functioning Mitiga airport in Tripoli was closed after being struck by artillery fire overnight.
(Reuters, 9/1/19)
2019 Sep 5, Shares in Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd fell nearly 4% in early trade following the resignation of its chairman after the market closed on the previous day. The departure of John Slosar was announced less than three weeks after mounting Chinese regulatory scrutiny led to the shock exit of its chief executive, Rupert Hogg.
(Reuters, 9/5/19)
2019 Sep 5, Tanzania's national carrier suspended its flights from the commercial capital Dar es Salaam to Johannesburg, citing ongoing violence that was a risk to its passengers.
(Reuters, 9/5/19)
2019 Sep 6, Dozens of flights were canceled and parks were closed in South Korea as powerful Typhoon Lingling gained momentum on its path toward the Korean Peninsula.
(AP, 9/6/19)
2019 Sep 7, In San Francisco flights delays began to accumulate at the SF Int'l. Airport as a three-week, $17.2 million construction project began on the airport's busiest runway.
(SFC, 9/9/19, p.C4)
2019 Sep 9, British Airways canceled almost all its flights for 48 hours, affecting as many as 195,000 travelers, due to a strike by pilots over pay.
(AP, 9/9/19)
2019 Sep 11, Ryan Air and its pilot's union said pilots in Germany have reached a wage agreement with Ryanair for the first time, a boost to the budget carrier which is facing industrial unrest elsewhere in Europe.
(Reuters, 9/11/19)
2019 Sep 19, All flights into Houston's international airport, were halted as Tropical Depression Imelda inundated southeastern Texas with heavy rains and triggered flash flood warnings. More than 900 flights were cancelled or delayed. Tropical Storm Imelda left four people dead in the Houston area.
(Reuters, 9/19/19)(SFC, 9/20/19, p.A6)(SFC, 9/21/19, p.A6)
2019 Sep 24, In NYC $258,000 was stolen at JFK Int'l. Airport. Quincy Thorpe, a Delta Airlines baggage handler, was soon arrested on charges of stealing the cash in one of eight bags being loaded onto a Miami-bound Delta flight.
(SFC, 9/28/19, p.A5)
2019 Sep 24, Slovenia's Adria Airways cancelled almost all of its flights for today and tomorrow, potentially affecting around 3,700 passengers, because it has been unable to access cash to continue flying.
(Reuters, 9/24/19)
2019 Sep 25, China's President Xi Jinping opened a futuristic new airport in Beijing, which is expected to become one of the busiest in the world.
(AFP, 9/25/19)
2019 Sep 27, Slovenia's debt-laden Adria Airways said it was cancelling most of its weekend flights and many scheduled for Sept. 30 as it battles to hang on to its operating license.
(Reuters, 9/27/19)
2019 Oct 1, United Parcel Service Inc said it won the US government's first full approval to operate a drone airline, which gave it a lead in the nascent US drone delivery business over rivals Amazon.com Inc and Alphabet Inc.
(AP, 10/1/19)
2019 Oct 2, The United States won approval to impose tariffs on $7.5 billion worth of European goods over illegal EU subsidies handed to Airbus, threatening to trigger a tit-for-tat transatlantic trade war as the global economy falters. Tariffs were set to begin on Oct. 18.
(Reuters, 10/2/19)(SFC, 10/3/19, p.D1)
2019 Oct 2, The US Federal Aviation Administration said that aircraft operators must inspect 165 Boeing 737 NG airplanes for structural cracks within seven days after the issue was found on a small number of planes.
(Reuters, 10/2/19)
2019 Oct 2, It was reported that the United States is withholding its dues to the UN's aviation agency, arguing the body needs to move quickly with reforms like expanding public access to documents and giving greater protections to whistleblowers.
(Reuters, 10/2/19)
2019 Oct 9, Southwest Airlines Co and Brazil's Gol Linhas Aereas said they have grounded a total of 13 Boeing Co 737 NG airplanes, after US regulators ordered urgent inspections.
(Reuters, 10/9/19)
2019 Oct 9, British Airways announced the launch of a new flight from London's Gatwick Airport to the Turkish resort of Antalya, once one of Thomas Cook's most popular routes, as airlines jostle to fill the void left by its collapse.
(Reuters, 10/9/19)
2019 Oct 17, In Alaska a commuter plane carrying 42 people overshot a runway in Unalaska. One of two passengers, who suffered critical injuries, soon died.
(SFC, 10/19/19, p.A6)
2019 Oct 20, Australia's Qantas airline completed the first nonstop commercial flight from New York to Sydney. The flight lasted 19 hours and16 minutes.
(SFC, 10/21/19, p.A2)
2019 Oct 20, In Chile any flights into Santiago airport were suspended as crew were unable to get to work. A curfew, a public transport shutdown and continued rioting left flight crews struggling to get to work.
(Reuters, 10/20/19)
2019 Oct 23, South African Airways (SAA) and Comair began returning grounded planes to service a day after South Africa's air safety regulator flagged maintenance problems.
(Reuters, 10/23/19)
2019 Oct 26, Remnants of Tropical Storm Olga caused soggy conditions in Mississippi and Alabama and dozens of flights were canceled or delayed at New Orleans' main airport after two power outages.
(AP, 10/26/19)
2019 Oct 28, Zimbabwe's national airline resumed flights to South Africa, after a halt last week when South Africa's state-run airports management firm barred the airline from using the country's airports over unpaid fees.
(Reuters, 10/28/19)
2019 Oct 29, Indian budget carrier IndiGo said it has placed an order for 300 Airbus A320neo-family jets worth at least $33 billion at recent catalog prices, handing the European plane maker what could be its biggest ever order from a single carrier.
(Reuters, 10/29/19)
2019 Oct 30, Boeing Co Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg acknowledged the company made mistakes in the development of a key safety system known as MCAS at the center of two fatal 737 MAX crashes, at a US House hearing.
(Reuters, 10/30/19)
2019 Nov 5, Air France-KLM outlined plans to expand its budget Transavia business and push the core French carrier upmarket, while overhauling its fleet in pursuit of improved sales and profitability.
(Reuters, 11/5/19)
2019 Nov 5, Norwegian Air said it is planning a share issue and a $175 million bond, raising enough cash to meet the struggling budget airline's needs through 2020 and beyond.
(Reuters, 11/5/19)
2019 Nov 7, Germany's Lufthansa airline announced plans for more cost cuts and delivered better-than-expected results, sending shares higher even as a cabin crew strike posed a further challenge to its efforts to revive profits.
(Reuters, 11/7/19)
2019 Nov 11, The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) downgraded Malaysia's air safety rating, restricting the country's airlines from adding new flights to the United States.
(Reuters, 11/11/19)
2019 Nov 12, South Africa's struggling state-owned airline South African Airways (SAA) said it could cut more than 900 jobs as it restructures to stem severe financial losses.
(Reuters, 11/12/19)
2019 Nov 13, South African Airways (SAA) said it might never recover if a strike by labor unions goes ahead this week, underscoring how close the state-owned company is to collapse. Unions representing around 3,000 of SAA's 5,000-strong workforce said that cabin crew and other workers at SAA would go on strike on Nov. 15 over the airline's refusal to give in to salary hikes and its plan to cut more than 900 jobs.
(Reuters, 11/13/19)
2019 Nov 15, South African Airways (SAA) said its future is hanging in the balance after its workers went on strike to demand higher wages and protest planned job cuts, forcing the struggling state-owned carrier to cancel all flights.
(Reuter, 11/15/19)
2019 Nov 17, Authorities at Libya's Misrata airport seized a Libyan Airlines aircraft operating from Benghazi in the east of the country.
(Reuters, 11/17/19)
2019 Nov 19, South African Airways (SAA) resumed some regional flights but warned that only a deal with striking unions can resolve its current crisis, with no prospect of more money from the government.
(Reuters, 11/19/19)
2019 Nov 22, South African Airways (SAA) signed a wage deal with trade unions to end an eight-day strike that brought the cash-strapped state airline to the brink of collapse.
(Reuters, 11/22/19)
2019 Nov 23, Tanzania's government said it has summoned Canada's envoy to protest after a DHC Dash 8-400 turboprop, set to be delivered to state-owned Air Tanzania, was impounded earlier this week in a land compensation dispute. A retired Tanzanian farmer claimed compensation over what he says was the expropriation of his land several decades ago.
(Reuters, 11/23/19)
2019 Dec 2, Norwegian Air became the first airline to sign the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) pledge, committing to become climate neutral by 2050.
(Travel+Leisure, 12/5/19)
2019 Dec 4, Loss-making budget airline Norwegian Air said it is selling its Argentinian subsidiary Norwegian Air Argentina (NAA) to JetSMART Airlines for an undisclosed sum.
(Reuters, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 11, The United States imposed new sanctions on Iran's biggest airline and its shipping industry, accusing them of transporting lethal aid from Iran to Yemen and weapons of mass destruction proliferation.
(AP, 12/11/19)
2019 Dec 12, Libyan authorities re-opened the capital's main airport, after closing it nearly three months ago amid heavy fighting between rival militias.
(AP, 12/12/19)
2019 Dec 16, Boeing Co suppliers, customers and financiers braced for a possible freeze in Boeing 737 production for the first time in more than 20 years as the grounding of the best-selling MAX looks set to last well into 2020.
(Reuters, 12/16/19)
2019 Dec 23, Boeing Co ousted Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg as the world's biggest plane maker sought to control an escalating crisis that has seen it halt production of its best-selling 737 MAX jetliner following two fatal crashes.
(Reuters, 12/23/19)
2020 Jan 31, The Iranian government banned flights to and from China. An analysis of flight tracking data by BBC Arabic later found that Mahan Air, a privately owned airline, flew between Iran and China 157 times between early February and March.
(The Telegraph, 5/5/20)
2019 Dec 31, Turkish Airlines said it has agreed a compensation deal with plane maker Boeing Co over the grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX following two fatal crashes.
(Reuters, 12/31/19)
2020 Jan 6, American Airlines Group Inc said it had reached a confidential agreement with Boeing Co to address damages the airline incurred in 2019 due to the ongoing grounding of its fleet of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft.
(Reuters, 1/6/20)
2020 Jan 7, In France the lifeless body of a young African stowaway was found in the landing gear of an Air France flight from Ivory Coast.
(SFC, 1/9/20, p.A2)
2020 Jan 10, It was reported that Boeing Co's ousted chief executive officer, Dennis Muilenburg, is leaving the company with $62 million in compensation and pension benefits but will receive no severance pay in the wake of the 737 MAX crisis.
(Reuters, 1/10/20)
2020 Jan 10, Boeing Co's biggest supplier, Spirit AeroSystems Holdings Inc, said it plans to lay off more than 20% of the workforce at its Wichita-Kansas base as it grapples with halted production and uncertainty over when 737 MAX jets will return to service.
(Reuters, 1/10/20)
2020 Jan 14, In southern California Delta Airlines Flight 89 enroute to China turned back to Los Angeles Int'l. Airport minutes after takeoff and dumped fuel that fell on fie elementary schools. The FAA soon promised an investigation.
(SFC, 1/16/20, p.A7)
2020 Jan 20, Kosovo and Serbia agreed to launch direct commercial flights after a two-decade interval in a deal mediated by the United States in an attempt to push the two former foes closer to normalizing relations.
(Reuters, 1/20/20)
2020 Jan 22, In Libya the only functioning airport in Tripoli reopened after coming under attack, despite a tenuous truce that world powers have pushed warring parties to respect. Authorities at Mitiga airport said six Grad missiles had crashed into the tarmac.
(AP, 1/22/20)
2020 Jan 24, More airports began to screen passengers arriving from China amid growing concerns over the outbreak of a new virus there that has already killed more than two dozen people and sickened hundreds.
(AP, 1/24/20)
2020 Jan 28, A team overseeing SAA's bankruptcy protected restructuring said that cash-strapped state carrier South African Airways (SAA) will receive 3.5 billion rand ($244 million) of emergency funding from the Development Bank of Southern Africa.
(Reuters, 1/28/20)
2020 Jan 29, American Airlines said it is suspending two routes to China, citing "significant decline in demand for travel to and from China."
(Good Morning America, 1/29/20)
2020 Jan 29, British Airways announced that it has suspended all flights to and from mainland China "with immediate effect," as the country struggles to contain the outbreak of the new coronavirus.
(Good Morning America, 1/29/20)
2020 Jan 29, Germany-based Lufthansa said it is suspending its own, Swiss and Austrian Airlines flights to and from China until Feb. 9.
(Reuters, 1/29/20)
2020 Jan 29, Tanzania’s national carrier said it will have to postpone its maiden flights from commercial capital Dar es Salaam to China, citing concerns over the spread of a coronavirus that has killed 133 people.
(Reuters, 1/29/20)
2020 Jan 30, Ethiopian Airlines said that its flights to China are operating normally, hours after its passenger call center told Reuters that all flights were suspended.
(Reuters, 1/30/20)
2020 Jan 30, Cash-strapped state carrier South African Airways (SAA) said it would "cancel and consolidate selected flights" to lower costs, days after it received a 3.5 billion rand ($244 million) government bailout to ease a mounting cash-flow crunch.
(Reuters, 1/30/20)
2020 Jan 31, French prosecutors said that European plane maker Airbus bribed public officials and hid the payments as part of a pattern of corruption that led to a record $4 billion bribery settlement with France, Britain and the United States.
(Reuters, 1/31/20)
2020 Jan 31, Vietnam Airlines said it will suspend its flights to destinations in China from next week over coronavirus concerns.
(Reuters, 1/31/20)
2020 Feb 1, Delta Air Lines said it will accelerate the suspension of flights in and out of China from the United States after the White House said it was imposing new restrictions on visitors starting on February 2.
(Reuters, 2/1/20)
2020 Feb 1, Three Philippine airlines cancelled flights to China, joining many others around the world that have done the same, after health officials confirmed the Philippines' first case of coronavirus.
(Reuters, 2/1/20)
2020 Feb 2, Vietnam Airlines and Vietjet Air resumed flights to Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau, after the Hanoi government eased restrictions over virus concerns.
(Reuters, 2/2/20)
2020 Feb 3, Pakistan, a close Chinese ally, said it was resuming air travel to China after a three-day suspension.
(Reuters, 2/3/20)
2020 Feb 11 Japan's Mitsubishi Aircraft Corp unannounced commitments from customers to buy hundreds of its SpaceJet M100 regional jets, but its first focus is on certifying its larger introductory model, the M90.
(Reuters, 2/11/20)
2020 Feb 15, The US Federal Aviation Administration said that American civilian flights can resume operations over much of the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman region, loosening restrictions announced five weeks ago amid heightened tensions between the US and Iran.
(AP, 2/15/20)
2020 Feb 15, European aerospace group Airbus said it deeply regretted the US decision to increase tariffs on aircraft imported from the European Union and said it would hurt US airlines and their customers.
(Reuters, 2/15/20)
2020 Feb 19, A Syrian passenger jet landed in Aleppo from Damascus, marking the resumption of domestic flights between the two cities for the first time since 2012. The government's onslaught continued nearby with airstrikes reported in several rebel-held towns and villages.
(AP, 2/19/20)
2020 Feb 20, Iraqi Airways suspended flight service to neighboring Iran as a protective measure against the coronavirus outbreak.
(Reuters, 2/20/20)
2020 Feb 21, Boeing Co said it has found debris in the fuel tanks of dozens of undelivered 737 MAX jets amid ongoing inspections as the Chicago-based plane maker struggles to restore the trust of airlines and the wider public in the grounded fleet.
(Reuters, 2/22/20)
2020 Feb 22, A South Korean Air flight with 188 passengers that landed at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport was taxied away from the allotted terminal while authorities allowed only 11 Israelis to enter the country. The next day the plane returned to South Korea with the rest of the passengers.
(AP, 2/23/20)
2020 Feb 25, American Airlines Group Inc said it has signed a strategic partnership deal with Qatar Airways and is reviving its codeshare agreement.
(Reuters, 2/25/20)
2020 Feb 25, Japan's ANA Holdings Inc said it will buy 15 Boeing Co 787 Dreamliners worth $5 billion at list prices, the first commercial order announcement for the US plane maker this year as it wrestles with the grounding of the smaller 737 MAX.
(Reuters, 2/25/20)
2020 Feb 25, The United Arab Emirates became the latest to clamp down on Iran, halting all passenger and cargo flights to and from the country due to the coronavirus outbreak, a similar move to other nearby countries including Armenia, Kuwait, Iraq and Turkey.
(AP, 2/25/20)
2020 Feb 27, The British Court of Appeal ruled that a plan to build a third runway at London's Heathrow Airport was unlawful because it violated Britain's commitments to climate change.
(SFC, 2/28/20, p.A2)
2020 Mar 3, UAE major international airline Emirates said it is asking staff to take unpaid leave for up to a month at a time due to the rapidly spreading coronavirus that has led to flight cancellations around the world.
(Reuters, 3/3/20)
2020 Mar 4, In Florida veteran airline mechanic Abdul-Majeed Marouf Ahmed Alani (60) was sentenced to three years in prison for sabotaging an American Airlines jetliner with 150 people aboard in a bid to earn overtime fixing the plane.
(AP, 3/4/20)
2020 Mar 4, Germany-based Lufthansa said it has cut its flight capacity in a move equivalent to grounding almost a fifth of its fleet, response to the coronavirus epidemic.
(AP, 3/4/20)
2020 Mar 4, In Libya the only civilian airport in Tripoli came under direct attack late today by eastern-based opposition forces. There were no reports of causalities.
(AP, 3/5/20)
2020 Mar 5, Portugal's flag carrier TAP said it has cancelled a total of around 1,000 flights this month and next due to a fall in demand over concerns about the spreading coronavirus.
(Reuters, 3/5/20)
2020 Mar 6, Boeing's proposal to leave wiring bundles in place on the grounded 737 MAX failed to get the backing of US aviation regulators, potentially delaying the plane's return to service.
(Reuters, 3/9/20)
2020 Mar 6, Iraq said it will halt border trade with Iran and Kuwait between March 8 and 15 to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
(AP, 3/7/20)
2020 Mar 11, Lebanon suspended flights from countries hit hardest by the novel coronavirus after announcing its second death from the pandemic in two days.
(AFP, 3/11/20)
2020 Mar 14, The Dominican Republic said it will suspend all flights from Europe and the arrival of all cruise ships for a month in order to prevent the spread of coronavirus. So far 11 cases of coronavirus have been detected.
(Reuters, 3/15/20)
2020 Mar 14, Saudi Arabia said it would halt all flights to the kingdom for two weeks beginning March 15.
(AP, 3/14/20)
2020 Mar 15, Airlines called on the British government to help ensure their survival during the coronavirus crisis after the US extended restrictions on European travelers to include Britain.
(Reuters, 3/15/20)
2020 Mar 17, It was reported that a TSA officer at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport has tested positive for COVID-19. This marked the 8th TSA officer to test positive for COVID-19. The other cases were in California, Florida and Georgia.
(Good Morning America, 3/17/20)
2020 Mar 20, South Africa said coronavirus cases have jumped to 202, the most in the sub-Saharan region, while the continent's busiest airport said foreigners cannot disembark. State-owned South African Airways suspended all international flights until June.
(AP, 3/20/20)
2020 Mar 21, Nigeria announced it is closing airports as of March 23 to all incoming international flights for one month due to the coronavirus pandemic.
(AP, 3/21/20)
2020 Mar 22, Albania said it will suspend all commercial flights to and from the country from midnight, allowing only flag carrier Air Albania to fly to Turkey and operate humanitarian flights. There have been 76 coronavirus cases in Albania and two deaths.
(Reuters, 3/22/20)
2020 Mar 23, Boeing Co. said it is temporarily shuttering its Seattle-area factories, compounding hurdles for a company already reeling from the grounding of its top-selling plane. The shutdown will begin March 25 and last 14 days.
(Bloomberg, 3/23/20)
2020 Mar 23, The United Arab Emirates, home to the world's busiest international airport in Dubai, announced it was suspending all passenger flights and the transit of airline passengers in the country for two weeks to stymie the spread of the new coronavirus.
(AP, 3/23/20)
2020 Mar 25, Air Namibia said that all domestic and inter-African flights will be suspended effective March 27 until April 20. The airline said it will remain available to offer charter flights for humanitarian purposes, as well as airlifts of pharmaceutical supplies and consumables.
(Reuters, 3/25/20)
2020 Mar 26, The Russian government ordered the grounding of all international flights as part of new measures against the coronavirus pandemic, with the exception of flights evacuating Russian citizens from abroad. Kremlin spokesman Dmitri S. Peskov told reporters: “There is de facto no epidemic" in Russia.
(Good Morning America, 3/26/20)(NY Times, 4/14/20)
2020 Mar 27, Russian low-cost airline Pobeda, a subsidiary of flagship carrier Aeroflot, said it will suspend all its domestic flights and stop flying altogether from April 1 until the end of May.
(Reuters, 3/27/20)
2020 Mar 28, Turkey halted all intercity trains and limited domestic flights, as the number of coronavirus cases jumped by a third in a day to 5,698, with 92 dead.
(Reuters, 3/28/20)
2020 Mar 28, Vietnam began limiting domestic flights and stop public gatherings for two weeks, as it aimed to keep down the number of coronavirus cases. The health ministry reported an additional 11 coronavirus cases, bringing the total number in the country to 174. There are 1,729 suspected cases in the country.
(Reuters, 3/28/20)
2020 Mar 29, American Airlines Group Inc said it is set to sharply increase the number of jets it is planning to retire beyond its announced plans as it accelerates a fleet transformation to respond to the coronavirus crisis.
(Reuters, 3/31/20)
2020 Mar 30, Israel said it is offering its second-biggest airport as a place for foreign carriers to park planes grounded by the coronavirus outbreak.
(Reuters, 3/30/20)
2020 Mar 30, United Arab Emirates carrier flydubai said it will reduce pay for its employees for three months from April due to the impact of the global coronavirus crisis on its business.
(Reuters, 3/30/20)
2020 Mar 31, Southwest Airlines Co said it will cut more than 40% of flights from May 3 through June 5 amid a sharp decline in travel demand from the coronavirus pandemic.
(Reuters, 3/31/20)
2020 Mar 31, Air Canada announced it will temporarily lay off nearly half of its employees -- affecting some 15,200 staff and about 1,300 managers -- and reduce activity by up to 90 percent.
(AFP, 3/31/20)
2020 Mar, The government of Somalia banned international flights, including khat planes, as part of its efforts to contain coronavirus.
(BBC, 5/13/20)
2020 Apr 1, Swedish airline BRA said it was pausing all traffic as demand had ground to a halt amid the coronavirus pandemic. Privately held BRA said it was cancelling all flights between April 6 and May 31.
(Reuters, 4/1/20)
2020 Apr 6, Sweden's government said it will act to keep vital domestic airline routes open, despite the impact on travel caused by the coronavirus.
(Reuters, 4/6/20)
2020 Apr 7, The Trump administration granted a license to General Electric Co to supply engines for China's new COMAC C919 passenger jet.
(Reuters, 4/7/20)
2020 Apr 8, JetBlue Airways Corp said it is consolidating flights in five US metropolitan areas into just one or two airports and also asking the US Department of Transportation to exempt it from flying at other airports where current demand does not support its service.
(Reuters, 4/8/20)
2020 Apr 14, The US Transportation Department awarded nearly $10 billion to US airports struggling with a massive falloff in travel demand because of the coronavirus pandemic.
(Reuters, 4/14/20)
2020 Apr 14, Boeing Co reported another 75 cancellations for its 737 MAX jetliner in March, as the coronavirus crisis worsened disruptions from the grounding of its best-selling jet.
(Reuters, 4/14/20)
2020 Apr 14, Industry sources said Delta Air Lines has taken over an order worth roughly $3 billion at list prices for 10 Airbus A350 jetliners from Latam Airlines Group.
(Reuters, 4/14/20)
2020 Apr 15, Greece said it is extending a temporary ban on all flights to and from Italy, Spain, Turkey, the U.K. and the Netherlands by a month to May 15 to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Exceptions included cargo and humanitarian flights.
(Bloomberg, 4/15/20)
2020 Apr 28, Airline Icelandair said it would cut 2,000 jobs across its entire operation to stop the outflow of cash primarily going to salaries, as the firm struggles to keep going during the coronavirus pandemic.
(Reuters, 4/28/20)
2020 Apr 29, It was reported that BP is donating 3 million gallons of jet fuel to FedEx and Alaska Airlines to help with the distribution of personal protective equipment in the battle against the new coronavirus.
(Reuters, 4/29/20)
2020 Apr 29, Austria and Switzerland pledged to help Lufthansa with state-backed loans as the German airline pursues talks with Berlin over a 9 billion euro ($9.8 billion) rescue package.
(Reuters, 4/29/20)
2020 May 1, Hungarian budget carrier Wizz Air flew into London's Luton airport from Sofia, becoming one of the first European airlines to restart routes during the coronavirus pandemic.
(Reuters, 5/1/20)
2020 May 1, Kazakh airlines made their first regular domestic flights in more than a month, with rows of passengers seated alongside empty middle seats, after the vast Central Asian nation eased coronavirus lockdown rules.
(Reuters, 5/1/20)
2020 May 3, Norwegian Air said it had secured support from enough bondholders for a $1.2 billion debt-for-equity swap, a vital step in helping it survive the coronavirus crisis.
(Reuters, 5/3/20)
2020 May 6, Nigeria said it will extend a ban on all flights by four weeks as part of measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
(Reuters, 5/6/20)
2020 May 7, In Texas Junin Ko (22) was struck and killed late today on a landing strip at Austin-Bergstrom Int'l. Airport after being hit by Southwest Airlines Flight 1392.
(SFC, 5/9/20, p.A3)(SFC, 5/13/19, p.A4)
2020 May 7, Portugal's flag carrier TAP resumed some of its international operations with a flight to London as lockdown measures imposed to combat the spread of the coronavirus are slowly being lifted in the tourism-dependent country.
(Reuters, 5/7/20)
2020 May 9, It was reported that the British government has told airlines it will introduce a 14-day quarantine period for most people arriving from abroad to try to avoid a second peak of the coronavirus pandemic.
(Reuters, 5/9/20)
2020 May 10, Colombian airline Avianca filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in a court in New York City, and liquidated its subsidiary Avianca Peru, becoming one of the major airlines to filed for bankruptcy due to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis.
{Colombia, Aviation, Bankruptcy}
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avianca)
2020 May 18, Qatar Airways said its cabin crew will begin wearing protective suits and passengers will have to wear face masks on board.
(Reuters, 5/18/20)
2020 May 19, Britain's EasyJet said that hackers had accessed the email and travel details of around nine million customers, as well as the credit card details of more than 2,000 of them, in a "highly sophisticated" attack. Hacking tools and techniques used to access the travel records of millions of customers of easyJet pointed to a group of suspected Chinese hackers thought to be behind multiple attacks on airlines in recent months.
(Reuters, 5/19/20)
2020 May 20, England-based airline engine maker Rolls-Royce announced plans to cut 9,000 workers as it grapples with the collapse in air travel due to the pandemic.
(AP, 5/20/20)
2020 May 21, The Trump administration notified international partners that it is pulling out of a treaty that permits 30-plus nations to conduct unarmed, observation flights over each other’s territory, because Russia is violating the pact, and imagery collected during the flights can be obtained quickly at less cost from US or commercial satellites. The treaty entered into force in January 2002. Currently, 34 nations have signed it.
(AP, 5/21/20)
2020 May 22, Ten EU countries expressed concern over US plans to withdraw from the 2002 international treaty that allowed nations to conduct unarmed, observation flights over each other’s territory.
(SFC, 5/23/19, p.A2)
2020 May 26, Chile's LATAM Airlines Group filed for US bankruptcy protection, becoming the world's largest carrier so far to seek an emergency reorganization due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Chile was averaging 4,000 new coronavirus cases daily.
(Reuters, 5/26/20)(SFC, 5/27/19, p.A4)
2020 May, ATSG-owned charter airline company, Omni Air, secured a $67 million bailout as part of the US congressional coronavirus relief package. That came on the heels of a $77.65 million contract with the Department of Defense for “international charter airlift services." ATSG donates exclusively to Republican candidates through its political action committee. When ATSG released its first-quarter earnings, it noted that “revenues were up 12 percent, or $41.1 million, to $389.3 million." The increased revenue was the result “mainly from growth in Omni Air" and another subsidiary, Air Transport International.
(Yahoo News, 6/23/20)
2020 Jun 3, The Trump administration moved to block Chinese airlines from flying to the US starting June 16. This followed China's failure to allow United and Delta Airlines to resume flights this week to China.
(SFC, 6/4/20, p.A3)
2020 Jun 9, Cyprus reopened its airports following an 11-week ban aimed at curbing the spread of COVID-19. Cyprus permitted 19 countries with low coronavirus infection rates for commercial flights.
(AP, 6/9/20)
2020 Jun 24, Pakistan's aviation minister Ghulam Sarqar Khan said 262 out of 860 Pakistani pilots had "fake" licenses. The following day Pakistan Int'l. Airlines (PIA) said it will ground 150 pilots accusing them of obtaining licenses by having others take exams for them.
(SFC, 6/26/20, p.A4)
2020 Jun 30, The EU announced that it will reopen its borders to travelers from 14 countries and possibly China soon, but most Americans would be refused entry for at least another two weeks due to soaring coronavirus infections in the US.
(SFC, 7/1/20, p.A5)
2020 Jun 30, The European Union's aviation safety agency said that Pakistan’s national airline will not be allowed to fly into Europe for at least six months after the country’s aviation minister revealed that nearly a third of Pakistani pilots had cheated on their pilot’s exams.
(AP, 6/30/20)
2020 Jul 8, Pakistan's national carrier said it is firing 28 pilots found to have tainted licenses. 262 pilots are currently grounded in the country.
(SFC, 7/9/20, p.A2)
2020 Jul 22, The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it was proposing the first US emissions standards for commercial aircraft. The proposed regulation seeks to align the United States with the 2016 International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) standards.
(Reuters, 7/22/20)
2020 Jul 22, Long-haul carrier Qatar Airways said it has launched international arbitration seeking at least $5 billion from four boycotting Arab countries for blocking its flights from their airspace and their markets.
(AP, 7/22/20)
2020 Jul 23, Baghdad International Airport reopened for scheduled commercial flights after months of closure during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has hit Iraq especially hard in recent weeks. The country has recorded 102,226 coronavirus infections and 4,122 deaths. Today's tally was 2,361 new cases.
(Reuters, 7/23/20)
2020 Jul 24, Europe's Airbus said it would increase loan repayments to France and Spain in a "final" bid to reverse US tariffs and jog the United States into settling a 16-year-old dispute over billions of dollars of aircraft subsidies.
(Reuters, 7/24/20)
2020 Jul 29, Berlin's Tegel airport began large scale coronavirus testing, as airports across Germany prepared for the advent of free, compulsory testing for many passengers from next week.
(Reuters, 7/29/20)
2020 Aug 20, American Airlines Group Inc said it plans to suspend flights to 15 US airports in October as travel demand remains low as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
(Reuters, 8/20/20)
2020 Aug 23, American Airlines said it is preparing to begin spraying its airplane cabins with a disinfectant proven to fight COVID-19 on surfaces for up to seven days that has been granted emergency approval by the US Environmental Protection Agency for use in Texas.
(Reuters, 8/24/20)
2020 Aug 25, American Airlines said it will eliminate 19,000 jobs in October as it struggles with a sharp downturn in travel because of the pandemic.
(AP, 8/25/20)
2020 Aug 28, Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport announced that it will cut hundreds of jobs as it warned that air traffic likely will not return to pre-coronavirus pandemic levels until 2023-25.
(AP, 8/28/20)
2020 Aug 30, United Airlines announced that it was permanently eliminating a $200 fee for changing tickets for domestic travel, a move expected to put pressure on other carriers to drop the fees too.
(The Week, 8/31/20)
2020 Aug 31, An Israeli airliner made a historic first flight from Tel Aviv to the United Arab Emirates, emphasizing new diplomatic ties between the two countries.
(The Telegraph, 8/31/20)
2020 Sep 2, United Airlines said it is preparing to furlough 16,370 workers on Oct. 1 as the coronavirus pandemic continues to devastate the airline industry.
(Reuters, 9/2/20)
2020 Sep 2, Saudi Arabia announced that flights to and from the United Arab Emirates “from all countries" will now be able to use its airspace — a statement apparently allowing flyovers by Israel following a deal to normalize UAE-Israel relations.
(AP, 9/2/20)
2020 Sep 4, Virgin Atlantic announced 1,150 more job cuts due to the coronavirus crisis, saying its 1.2 billion pound ($1.6 billion) rescue deal alone was not enough to secure its future.
(Reuters, 9/4/20)
2020 Sep 23, The first known direct commercial flight between Israel and Bahrain landed in the island kingdom, just a week after it signed a deal alongside the UAE to normalize relations.
(AP, 9/23/20)
2020 Oct 1, South Africa reopened to international flights, ending a more than six-month ban on international travel that was part of its restrictions to combat the spread of COVID-19.
(AP, 10/1/20)
2020 Oct 2, Qatar Airways examined a number of female passengers bound for Sydney and nine other unnamed destinations after a newborn baby was found abandoned. The forced vaginal examination triggered outrage in Australia.
(AP, 10/30/20)
2020 Oct 13, Int'l. arbitrators said the EU can impose tariffs and other penalties on up to $4 billion of US goods and services over illegal American support for plane maker Boeing.
(SFC, 10/14/20, p.A2)
2020 Oct 23, Lufthansa's Austrian Airlines said it is offering rapid pre-boarding coronavirus tests free to passengers on one of its routes as part of a group-wide plan to make such tests standard.
(Reuters, 10/23/20)
2020 Oct 31, In Germany the new Berlin Brandenburg Airport Willy Brandt opened, nine years late and far above its original budget.
(SSFC, 11/1/20, p.A6)
2020 Oct 31, The Dutch government put on hold its plan to bail out KLM, the Dutch arm of Air France, after pilots rejected a wage-freeze until 2025.
(Reuters, 11/1/20)
2020 Nov 9, The EU said it would begin imposing sweeping tariffs on around $4 billion worth of American aircraft, food, drinks and other products beginning Nov. 10.
(SFC, 11/10/20, p.C1)
2020 Nov 18, The Federal Aviation Administration cleared Boeing’s 737 Max to fly again. The plane had been grounded for 20 months after two fatal crashes.
(NY Times, 11/19/20)
2020 Nov 26, The low-cost carrier FlyDubai began regular flights to Tel Aviv, the latest sign of the normalization deal taking hold between the United Arab Emirates and Israel.
(AP, 11/26/20)
2020 Dec 2, The US Transportation Dept. issued a final rule saying only dogs can be service animals on airlines, and companions used for emotional support don't count.
(SFC, 12/3/20, p.A6)
2020 Dec 2, Boeing Co's 737 MAX took off on its first public appearance with media onboard since being grounded over fatal crashes, as one of its biggest customers, American Airlines, seeks to prove it is safe for passengers.
(Reuters, 12/2/20)
2020 Dec 9, Brazil’s Gol Airlines became the first in the world to return the Boeing 737 Max jetliners to its active fleet, using a 737 MAX 8 on a flight from Sao Paulo to Porto Alegre.
(AP, 12/9/20)
2020 Dec 12, The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it had approved the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine by pilots and air traffic controllers.
(Reuters, 12/12/20)
2020 Dec 16, Britain's Supreme Court overturned a Court of Appeal judgement that had stopped the expansion of Heathrow Airport.
(Econ., 12/19/20, p.89)
2020 Dec 19, The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it had approved the use of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine by pilots and air traffic controllers.
(Reuters, 12/19/20)
2020 Dec 20, Lockheed Martin said it is buying rocket engine manufacturer Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings for $4.4 billion in a deal that brings together companies that already had been working together in the aeronautics industry.
(AP, 12/20/20)
2020 Dec 20, Canada joined a growing number of European countries late today and banned passenger flights from Britain, effective as of midnight, as southern England grapples with a new variant of COVID-19. The ban will be in place for 72 hours.
(The Week, 12/20/20)
2020 Dec 20, Several European countries, including Germany, France, Italy, Ireland, Belgium, and the Netherlands, imposed bans on flights and ferries from the United Kingdom, after reports that a new, more infectious variant of the coronavirus is spreading in southeast England.
(The Week, 12/20/20)
2020 Dec 20, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Oman said they are closing their borders and suspending commercial flights over fears about a new coronavirus strain.
(Reuters, 12/21/20)
2020 Dec 21, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said British Airways has agreed to allow only passengers who test negative for the novel coronavirus to fly to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, as international leaders reacted to news of a highly infectious new strain.
(AP, 12/21/20)
2020 Dec 22, Iraq said it is banning air travel to or from eight countries to guard against the spread of a new variant of the coronavirus, and is ordering public venues like shopping malls and restaurants to close.
(Reuters, 12/22/20)
2020 Dec 26, Montenegro Airlines ceased its operations after the small country’s new government refused to continue financing the indebted national carrier. The government said it plans to form a “completely new" airline in the months to come.
(AP, 12/26/20)
2020 Dec 28, The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said it was finalizing the first-ever proposed standards regulating greenhouse gas emissions from airplanes.
(Reuters, 12/28/20)
2020 Dec 29, Boeing's 737 MAX resumed passenger flights in the United States for the first time after a 20-month safety ban was lifted last month.
(Reuters, 12/29/20)
2021 Jan 7, The US government said Boeing will pay $2.5 billion to resolve a Justice Department investigation into safety issues with its 737 MAX plane.
(NY Times, 1/7/21)
2021 Jan 12, Egypt reopened its airspace to Qatar flights after regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia reopened its airspace and border with the Gulf Arab state last week.
(AP, 1/12/20)
2021 Jan 14, Low-cost carrier Norwegian Air Shuttle said it will focus on European destinations and close its long-haul operations as it struggles with the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic and debt restructuring.
(AP, 1/14/20)
2021 Jan 15, Russia said that it will withdraw from an international treaty allowing surveillance flights over military facilities after the US exit from the pact, compounding the challenges faced by the incoming administration of president-elect Joe Biden.
(AP, 1/15/21)
2021 Jan 15, Syrian Air conducted its first flight in a decade between the northern city of Aleppo and Lebanon’s capital Beirut early today, resuming a round-trip route that's been halted since Syria’s conflict began in 2011.
(AP, 1/15/21)
2021 Jan 21, Norway’s government said it will help ailing low-cost carrier Norwegian Air Shuttle - a U-turn from its previous refusal to do so - as long as the company manages to raise 4.5 billion kroner ($529 million) from other investors.
(AP, 1/21/21)
2021 Jan 29, United Airlines said it has warned some 14,000 employees that they might be furloughed, and aviation unions made a new request to Congress and Pres. Joe Biden for another $15 billion in government assistance to keep workers on the payroll through at least Sept. 30.
(Reuters, 1/29/21)
2021 Jan 29, The UK instituted a travel ban barring direct flights to the UAE over the spread of a South African variant of the coronavirus.
(AP, 1/29/21)
2021 Feb 15, The government of Namibia closed the southern African country's state-owned airline, Air Namibia, saying that it can no longer afford the financial losses.
(AP, 2/15/21)
2021 Feb 17, The United Arab Emirates, a key international travel hub, announced it has lifted its ban on Boeing’s 737 Max, allowing the plane to return to its skies after being grounded for nearly two years following a pair of deadly crashes.
(AP, 2/17/21)
2021 Feb 20, A Boeing 777-200, headed from Denver to Honolulu with 231 passengers and 10 crew aboard, suffered a catastrophic failure in its right engine and flames erupted under the wing as the plane began to lose altitude. The plane landed safely at Denver International Airport, and no one on board or on the ground was hurt.
(AP, 2/20/21)
2021 Feb 21, Boeing recommended the grounding of its 777 jets with a particular engine model until the Federal Aviation Administration determines how best to inspect them.
(NY Times, 2/22/21)
2021 Mar 5, Albania's government selected a Swiss-based corporation to build a 104-million-euro ($125 million) new international airport near the southwestern town of Vlore in an effort to promote tourism and economic development.
(AP, 3/5/21)
2021 Mar 9, Boeing Co. said that it received more new orders than cancellations for commercial airplanes in February for the first time in 15 months.
(AP, 3/9/21)
2021 Mar 14, In Colorado more than 2,000 flights were cancelled over the last 24 hours as a major snow storm struck the region.
(SSFC, 3/14/21, p.A7)
2021 Mar 23, Frontier Airlines said it expects to raise about $630 million from an initial public offering of a small portion of its stock, a deal that it hopes will value the budget airline at about $4.5 billion.
(AP, 3/23/21)
2021 Mar 29, US budget carrier Southwest Airlines Co said it had reached a deal with plane maker Boeing Co for an order for 100 aircraft of 737 Max variant, with the first 30 jets scheduled for delivery in 2022.
(Reuters, 3/29/21)
2021 Apr 1, Denver-based Frontier Airline and its private owners hoped to raise $570 million before costs from their IPO after pricing 30 million shares at $19.
(AP, 4/1/21)
2021 Apr 7, United Parcel Service said it has agreed to buy 10 electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft from Vermont-based startup Beta Technologies to speed up deliveries in small markets. The first 10 planes will start arriving in 2024.
(Reuters, 4/7/21)
2021 Apr 9, Airlines pulled dozens of Boeing Max 737s out of service for inspections after the aircraft maker told them about a possible electrical problem, the latest setback for plane.
(AP, 4/9/21)
2021 Apr 10, French lawmakers voted late today to abolish domestic flights on routes than can be covered by train in under two-and-a-half hours, as the government seeks to lower carbon emissions even as the air travel industry reels from the global pandemic.
(Reuters, 4/11/21)
2021 Apr 19, A travel bubble opened between Australia and New Zealand. Flights between the two countries jumped from 2-3 per day to 30.
(SFC, 4/20/21, p.A6)
2021 Apr 23, The Kremlin said Russia plans to resume direct flights to Egypt’s Red Sea resort towns after the 2015 downing of a Russian airliner over the Sinai Peninsula. In 2017, it started flying to Cairo again, but direct trips to the two Red Sea resort towns have remained halted.
(AP, 4/23/21)
2021 Apr 24, Alaska Airlines banned Alaska state Senator Lora Reinbold for refusing to follow mask requirements. Reinbold has been a vocal opponent to COVID-19 mitigation measures.
(AP, 4/25/21)
2021 May 1, It was reported that the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has extended a requirement that passengers on planes, trains and buses wear face masks. The rule was set to expire May 11 but will run through Sept. 13.
(AP, 5/1/21)
2021 May 2, Dubai's budget carrier flydubai reported a loss of $194 million in 2020 as revenue fell by more than 50% in what it described as one of the toughest years in the aviation industry.
(AP, 5/2/21)
2021 May 13, Delta Air Lines said it will require all new hires in the United States to be vaccinated against COVID-19, one of the first major companies to issue such a mandate.
(Reuters, 5/14/21)
2021 May 18, Air France-KLM said it is sending into the air what it calls its first long-haul flight with sustainable aviation fuel. The plane is said to be using petroleum mixed with a synthetic jet fuel derived from waste cooking oils.
(AP, 5/18/21)
2021 May 21, Start-up low-cost US airline Breeze Airways said it would begin service next week, focusing on flights between smaller US cities that don't have direct service from larger carriers.
(AP, 5/21/21)
2021 May 22, Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc, British billionaire Sir Richard Branson's private spaceship company, completed its first manned space flight from its new home port in New Mexico. Branson founded the company in 2004 and this is the third time his company reported reaching space.
(Reuters, 5/22/21)
2021 May 23, A Ryanair tourist flight from Athens to Vilnius was forced to land in Belarus by a MiG-29 fighter jet after a bogus bomb threat so authorities could arrest Roman Protasevich (26), a journalist opponent of hardman president Lukashenko.
(https://tinyurl.com/nzjefv5m)
2021 May 24, Britain barred Belarus’s national airline and instructed UK aircraft to avoid Belarussian airspace after a Ryanair passenger jet was forced to land in Minsk.
(AP, 5/24/21)
2021 May 25, The US Federal Aviation Administration said it has downgraded Mexico's aviation safety rating after finding that the country does not meet standards set by a United Nations aviation group.
(AP, 5/25/21)
2021 May 25, Belarus’ isolation deepened as commercial planes avoided its airspace, the European Union worked up new sanctions, and a senior UN official said he was concerned for the welfare of Raman Pratasevich, the opposition journalist arrested in Minsk after his plane was diverted there. The UN human rights watchdog demanded that Belarus release Protasevich.
(AP, 5/25/21)(Reuters, 5/25/21)
2021 May 26, CEO Jacob Schram said low-cost carrier Norwegian Air Shuttle “has been saved," adding it had “written history" as the ailing airline had struggled with fallout from the coronavirus pandemic and a debt restructuring plan.
(AP, 5/26/21)
2021 May 27, US federal officials said Boeing will pay at least $17 million and take steps to fix production problems on its 737 jets including the Max planes built between 2015 and 2019.
(SFC, 5/28/21, p.B2)
2021 May 27, Russia blocked at least two European planes from landing in Moscow because they planned to avoid Belarusian airspace.
(Axios, 5/27/21)
2021 May 27, A Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen acknowledged having equipment on an island in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait where a mysterious air base is now under construction.
(AP, 5/27/21)
2021 May 29, The head of Belarusian national airline Belavia condemned as "despicable" the decision by numerous EU countries to impose airspace restrictions on the carrier following the forced landing of a passenger jet in Minsk.
(Reuters, 5/29/21)
2021 Jun 3, United Airlines said that it plans to buy 15 jets from Boom Supersonic with an option for 35 more once the start-up company designs a plane that flies faster than the speed of sound while meeting safety and environmental standards.
(AP, 6/3/21)
2021 Jun 4, The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) said it and the European Union have concluded the world's first bloc-to-bloc air transport agreement, to allow their airlines to easier expand services to and within the respective regions.
(Reuters, 6/4/21)
2021 Jun 9, A top European Union court annulled the EU's approval of 550 million euros ($670 million) in state aid for German airline Condor, backing a challenge by budget carrier Ryanair but suspending the application of the ruling because of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
(AP, 6/9/21)
2021 Jun 15, The US and the EU reached a deal to end their long-running dispute over subsidies to Boeing and Airbus. This will mean the phase-out of billions in punitive tariffs and ease trans-Atlantic tensions.
(SFC, 6/16/21, p.B2)
2021 Jun 17, Germany-based Lufthansa said it will allow passengers to use new digital COVID-19 vaccination certificates at check-in for their flights.
(Reuters, 6/17/21)
2021 Jun 30, The Indonesian airline Garuda started administering free coronavirus vaccinations to holidaymakers and travelers, part of efforts to reduce the impact of the virus in one of Asia's worst-affected countries.
(AP, 6/30/21)
2021 Jul 8, Russia said its airlines can resume charter flights to Egyptian resorts, which had been banned for more than five years after the suspected bombing of a Russian airliner in which 224 people died.
(AP, 7/8/21)
2021 Jul 11, Richard Branson, the British billionaire who leads a galaxy of Virgin companies, took off from New Mexico as a crew member on a test flight for Virgin Galactic’s space plane.
(NY Times, 7/11/21)
2021 Jul 25, Two Israeli airlines launched their first commercial flights between Israel and Morocco, less than a year after the countries officially normalized relations.
(AP, 7/25/21)
2021 Jul 29, The US Association of Flight Attendants-CWA said more than 4,000 flight attendants had to deal with unruly passengers in the first half of 2021, with one in five facing physical altercations.
(Reuters, 7/29/21)
2021 Jul 31, Indonesia's biggest budget airline operator Lion Air Group announced plans to furlough around 8,000 employees as travel businesses suffer disruption due to COVID-19 restrictions.
(Reuters, 7/31/21)
2021 Aug 1, In Wisconsin the annual, week-long EAA AirVenture jamboree wrapped up in Oshkosh with a record attendance. It was reported that United Airlines plans to hire 350 pilots this year, 1,500 by 2022 and 3,000 by 2023.
(Reuters, 8/1/21)
2021 Aug 4, Israeli airline El Al said passengers on an El Al flight from New York to Tel Aviv will be tested for the coronavirus on the plane itself or before boarding on Aug. 5 to speed up procedures upon arrival in Israel, where infections are on the rise.
(AP, 8/4/21)
2021 Aug 5, In Alaska a sight-seeing plane crashed in the area of Misty Fyords National Monument near Ketchikan, killing all six people on board.
(SFC, 8/7/21, p.A5)
2021 Aug 5, Qatar Airways said it has grounded 13 Airbus A350s over what it described as fuselages “degrading at an accelerated rate" in the long-range aircraft, further escalating a months long dispute with the European airplane maker over the issue.
(AP, 8/5/21)
2021 Aug 6, United Airlines said it will require employees in the US to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by late October, perhaps sooner, joining a rising number of big corporations that are responding to a surge in virus cases.
(AP, 8/6/21)
2021 Aug 9, More than 300 flights were canceled at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago after severe weather prompted a ground stop and an evacuation of the airport’s control tower.
(NY Times, 8/10/21)
2021 Aug 9, Russia resumed flights to Egyptian Red Sea resorts, ending a ban that had lasted almost six years following the Oct. 2015 bombing of a Russian airliner that killed all 224 people onboard.
(AP, 8/9/21)
2021 Aug 10, Abu Dhabi’s national carrier Etihad reported core operating losses of $400 million for the first half of the year, driven by a 68% drop in passenger revenue.
(AP, 8/10/21)
2021 Aug 18, In Belgium pilot Zara Rutherford (19) took off at the start of a three-month bid to become the youngest woman to fly solo round the world.
(Reuters, 8/18/21)
2021 Aug 19, The FAA said that its latest round of fines are part of its crackdown against outlandish behavior on US flights. Rowdy airline passengers have now racked up more than $1 million in potential fines this year with federal officials announcing fines against 34 additional individuals.
(AP, 8/19/21)
2021 Aug 22, US Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III has ordered six commercial airlines to provide passenger jets to help with the growing US military operation evacuating Americans and Afghan allies from Kabul, the Afghan capital.
(NY Times, 8/23/21)
2021 Aug 25, Delta Air Lines said employees will have to pay $200 more every month for their company-sponsored healthcare plan if they choose to not vaccinate against COVID-19.
(Reuters, 8/25/21)
2021 Aug 26, India's air safety regulator said it had cleared Boeing Co's (BA.N) 737 MAX aircraft to fly with immediate effect, ending its nearly two-and-a-half-years of regulatory grounding in a key travel market for the plane maker.
(Reuters, 8/26/21)
2021 Sep 6, Philippine Airlines said it will return 22 aircraft, mostly Airbus and Boeing jets, to lessors as it pursues a financial restructuring program to survive after the pandemic has decimated global travel.
(Reuters, 9/6/21)
2021 Sep 9, The first international commercial flight, since the end of the chaotic Western airlift from Afghanistan last month, departed from Kabul Airport. It was about 90% ready for operations and full re-opening was planned gradually.
(Reuters, 9/9/21)
2021 Sep 10, A second charter flight left Afghanistan carrying foreigners and Afghans to Qatar in a sign the country's main airport was close to resuming commercial operations.
(AFP, 9/10/21)
2021 Sep 13, It was reported that the Biden administration is making $482 million available to aviation industry manufacturers to help them avert job or pay cuts in the pandemic.
(AP, 9/13/21)
2021 Sep 15, Iran resumed commercial flights to Afghanistan that had been halted after the Taliban assumed power.
(AP, 9/15/21)
2021 Sep 23, Jubilant South African Airways (SAA) staff at the country's biggest airport broke into song and dance as the airline took to the skies for the first time in around a year.
(Reuters, 9/23/21)
2021 Sep 24, In Italy hundreds of striking air workers blocked the highway to Rome's main airport as they called on the government to avoid job losses in the transition between Alitalia and a new carrier dubbed ITA.
(Reuters, 9/24/21)
2021 Sep 26, The Taliban government in Afghanistan appealed for international flights to be resumed, promising full cooperation with airlines and saying that problems at Kabul airport had been resolved.
(Reuters, 9/26/21)
2021 Oct 3, Egypt's national carrier made its first official direct flight to Israel since the two countries signed an historic 1979 peace treaty as an EgyptAir jet landed at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport. The airline's affiliate, AirSinai, has for decades operated flights to Israel without the company logo, out of fear of public backlash.
(AP, 10/3/21)
2021 Oct 6, Indonesia conducted its first test flight using jet fuel partially from palm oil, as the country plans to commercialize the fuel as it seeks creative ways to use the edible oil domestically.
(Reuters, 10/6/21)
2021 Oct 8, India's government said Tata Sons will resume control of Air India after bidding $2.4 billion, including equity and debt, marking the end of years of struggle to privatize the financially troubled airline.
(Reuters, 10/8/21)
2021 Oct 10, Southwest Airlines canceled more than 1,000 flights and just over 800 a day earlier, wreaking havoc on weekend travel plans for thousands of passengers. Air traffic control staffing shortage and weather in Florida was blamed. The disruption appeared to be limited to Southwest.
(NY Times, 10/10/21)
2021 Oct 11, Southwest Airlines canceled hundreds more flights following a weekend of major service disruptions.
(AP, 10/11/21)
2021 Oct 14, Reliable Robotics, a Silicon Valley startup aiming to automate conventional fixed-wing planes to ferry cargo and eventually passengers, said it has raised $100 million from investors.
(AP, 10/14/21)
2021 Oct 14, Italy's bankrupt Alitalia national airline made its final flights after 74 years of operations.
(SFC, 10/15/21, p.A5)
2021 Oct 14, Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) suspended flights to Kabul after what it called heavy-handed interference by Taliban authorities.
(Reuters, 10/14/21)
2021 Oct 19, Israeli startup AIR unveiled its first "easy-to-operate" electric, vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft that it aims to sell directly to consumers predominantly in the United States starting in 2024.
(Reuters, 10/19/21)
2021 Oct 26, In Japan startup A.L.I. Technologies, backed by soccer player Keisuke Honda, put their 77.7 million yen ($680,000) hoverbike on sale. It promised to fly for 40 minutes at up to 100 kph (62 mph).
(Reuters, 10/26/21)
2021 Oct 28, The US State Department said the Russian government last week approved US air carriers' requests for overflights. Some cargo and passenger airlines sought additional flights.
(Reuters, 10/28/21)
2021 Oct 30, American Airlines said it has canceled more than 1,400 flights over the weekend due to staff shortages and unfavorable weather.
(AP, 10/30/21)
2021 Oct 31, American Airlines canceled nearly 850 domestic and international flights, citing staffing shortages and unfavorable weather, pushing total cancellations to 1,739 and counting since Oct 29.
(Reuters, 10/31/21)
2021 Nov 8, A US federal judge ruled that United Airlines Holdings Inc can impose a COVID-19 vaccine mandate on its employees that only provides unpaid leave for workers who are exempted for medical or religious reasons.
(Reuters, 11/8/21)
2021 Nov 11, The European Commission said the EU will seek to blacklist airlines that transport to Belarus migrants who later attempt to cross the EU border and will coordinate its planned sanctions against Minsk with the United States.
(Reuters, 11/11/21)
2021 Nov 13, Syria’s private Cham Wings Airlines suspended flights between Damascus and the Belarus capital of Minsk because of the “critical circumstances" along the Belarus-Poland border where thousands of migrants have been trying to cross into the European Union.
(AP, 11/13/21)
2021 Nov 14, Dubai began banning travelers from Iraq from passing through the emirate on their way to Belarus, cutting off the last major air route from the Middle East to Minsk. The UAE barred Afghan, Syrian, Yemeni and Iraqi citizens from flights to Minsk.
(NY Times, 11/14/21)(Reuters, 11/15/21)
2021 Nov 15, Los Angeles-based Air Lease Corp. sealed a deal to acquire 111 new aircraft from European plane maker Airbus at the Dubai Air Show.
(SFC, 11/16/21, p.C2)
2021 Nov 16, India's Akasa Air placed an order for 72 Boeing 737 MAX jets, valued at nearly $9 billion at list prices - a deal that could help the US plane maker regain lost ground in one of the world's most promising markets.
(Reuters, 11/16/21)
2021 Nov 17, Indian budget airline SpiceJet said US plane maker Boeing had agreed to settle the outstanding claims related to the grounding of its 737 MAX aircraft.
(Reuters, 11/17/21)
2021 Nov 21, A cyberattack disrupted access to Iran's privately owned Mahan Air, marking the latest in a series of cyberattacks on Iranian infrastructure that has put the country on edge.
(Reuters, 11/21/21)
2021 Nov 29, It was reported that a dispute between Airbus and Qatar Airways over paint and surface flaws on A350 jets stretches beyond the Gulf, with at least five other airlines raising concerns since the high-tech model entered service.
(Reuters, 11/29/21)
2021 Dec 1, Japan's flag airlines halted new reservations and the government widened a travel ban amid escalating alarm over Omicron after a second case of the coronavirus variant was detected in the country. Japan's ban on incoming int'l. flights was retracted the next day.
(Reuters, 12/1/21)(SFC, 12/2/21, p.A6)
2021 Dec 2, China's aviation regulator cleared the Boeing 737 Max to return to flying with technical upgrades.
(SFC, 12/3/21, p.C2)
2021 Dec 10, The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority announced that it was restricting Emirates to just one weekly flight from 21 that had been initially approved. The Emirates airline in response said it will suspend all flights to Nigeria from next week.
(Reuters, 12/10/21)
2021 Dec 12, Nigeria said it plans to ban flights from Argentina, Britain, Canada and Saudi Arabia from this week in retaliation for being added to those countries' red lists over the detection of the Omicron coronavirus variant last month.
(Reuters, 12/12/21)
2021 Dec 13, A divided US appeals court rebuffed a request by six employees to block United Airlines from enforcing a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for workers that imposes unpaid leave on those who are granted religious or medical exceptions.
(Reuters, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 13, UK-based Virgin Atlantic said it has received 400 million pounds ($530 million) of new funding from its shareholders to help the airline ride out the coronavirus pandemic.
(AP, 12/13/21)
2021 Dec 13, The operator of Ghana's main international airport said it will fine airlines $3,500 for every passenger they fly in who is not vaccinated against COVID-19 or who tests positive for the coronavirus upon arrival.
(Reuters, 12/13/21)
2021 Dec 15, Citing high-quality filtration systems aboard planes, Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly stated that “masks don’t add much, if anything, in the air cabin environment." On Dec 17 Kelly tested positive for COVID-19 after returning home from the Senate hearing.
(AP, 12/17/21)
2021 Dec 16, Australia-based Qantas Airways picked Airbus as the preferred supplier to replace its domestic fleet, switching from Boeing in a major win for the European plane maker that also triggered an upheaval in engine supplies.
(Reuters, 12/16/21)
2021 Dec 20, Qatar Airways said it is taking Airbus to court charging the manufacturer of failing to correct what it says is accelerated surface degradation impacting the Airbus A350 aircraft.
(AP, 12/20/21)
2021 Dec 24, FlightAware, a flight tracking firm, said the current number of Christmas Eve flights canceled globally is 2,029, with 448 canceled in the United States, as the spreading COVID-19 Omicron variant takes a toll on its flight crews and other workers. Commercial airlines around the world canceled more than 4,500 flights over the Christmas weekend.
(Reuters, 12/24/21)
2021 Dec 25, US airlines canceled close to 900 flights, the second straight day of massive cancellations as surging COVID-19 infections have sidelined some pilots and other crew members, upending plans for tens of thousands of holiday travelers over the Christmas weekend.
(Reuters, 12/25/21)
2021 Dec 26, US airlines called off hundreds of flights for a third day in a row as surging COVID-19 infections due to the highly transmissible Omicron variant grounded crews and forced tens of thousands of Christmas weekend travelers to change their plans.
(Reuters, 12/26/21)
2021 Dec 26, In Japan more than 100 domestic flights were grounded due to heavy snow in the northern and western parts of the country.
(Reuters, 12/26/21)
2021 Dec 27, At least 2,300 more flights were canceled globally as travel disruptions from one of the year’s busiest weekends for flying spilled into the workweek. Rising COVID-19 cases, along with bad weather, caused US airlines to cancel more than 1,000 flights, and the spread of the Omicron variant prompted the US government's top infectious disease expert to suggest the government consider mandating vaccines for domestic flights.
(NY Times, 12/27/21)(Reuters, 12/27/21)
2021 Dec 28, US carriers Delta Air Lines and Alaska Air Group cancelled hundreds of flights due to adverse weather conditions and rising cases of the Omicron variant.
(Reuters, 12/29/21)
2021 Dec 28, Indonesia said it has lifted a ban on the Boeing 737 MAX, three years after the crash of one of the aircraft operated by domestic carrier Lion Air with the loss of all 189 people on board.
(Reuters, 12/28/21)
2021 Dec 31, Thousands of flights within the United States and internationally were delayed or canceled, adding to the travel disruptions during the holiday week due to adverse weather and rising cases of the Omicron coronavirus variant.
(Reuters, 12/31/21)
2022 Jan 1, Hong Kong flagship carrier Cathay Pacific Airways said two of its aircrew whom have tested positive for the Omicron variant were sacked for breaching medical surveillance regulations.
(Reuters, 1/1/22)
2022 Jan 2, More than 3,600 flights were cancelled around the world, more than half of them US flights, adding to the toll of holiday week travel disruptions due to adverse weather and the surge in coronavirus cases caused by the Omicron variant.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 5, Nevada-based low-cost carrier Allegiant Air confirmed plans to buy 50 new Boeing (BA.N) 737 MAX jets worth $5.5 billion at list prices in a switch of supplier and strategy as it gears up for a post-pandemic rebound in tourism.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 7, More than 400 flights were delayed or canceled at New York, Boston and Washington airports as a winter storm dumped more than a half a foot of snow in parts of the eastern United States.
(Reuters, 1/7/22)
2022 Jan 12, China ordered the suspension of six more US flights in coming weeks after a surge in passengers testing positive for COVID-19, rising to 70 cancellations mandated this year in a schedule that had already been cut back drastically.
(Reuters, 1/12/22)
2022 Jan 14, China suspended dozens of international flights amid a global surge in Omicron cases. Shanghai curbed tourist activity as it rushed to head off local COVID-19 infections as imported cases rose. Zhuhai city in the southern Guangdong province found seven coronavirus infections during testing schemes in local areas, with the Omicron variant detected according to preliminary sequencing result.
(Reuters, 1/14/22)
2022 Jan 15, Greece's largest carrier Aegean Airlines said it had suspended all flights to Beirut pending the results of an investigation into the cause of damage to one of its planes that flew to the Lebanese capital.
(Reuters, 1/15/22)
2022 Jan 16, The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it had cleared an estimated 45% of the U.S. commercial airplane fleet to perform low-visibility landings at many airports where 5G C-band will be deployed starting Jan. 19.
(Reuters, 1/16/22)
2022 Jan 17, Thousands of US flights were canceled and more than 100,000 homes and businesses lacked power as a snowstorm crept up the East Coast to New England and Canada, where forecasters said it could drop more than another foot (30 cm) of snow.
(Reuters, 1/17/22)
2022 Jan 18, AT&T said it would agree to temporarily defer turning on some wireless towers near key airport runways to avert a looming aviation crisis but the White House is still pushing Verizon Communications to follow suit.
(Reuters, 1/18/22)
2022 Jan 18, China's aviation regulator suspended another eight incoming US flights by US airlines, bringing the total cancellation this year to 84 over COVID-19 cases.
(Reuters, 1/18/22)
2022 Jan 19, Global airlines cancelled or rejigged dozens of flights as the on-off rollout of 5G mobile in the United States triggered what one airline pilot called a "nightmare" of scheduling for carriers grappling with fast-changing airplane restrictions.
(Reuters, 1/19/22)
2022 Jan 20, British-Belgian teenager Zara Rutherford (19) became the youngest woman to fly solo around the world and the first person to do so in a microlight plane after a five-month, five-continent odyssey in her Shark ultralight.
(Reuters, 1/20/22)
2022 Jan 20, It was reported that Turkey and Qatar have reached agreement on ensuring security at Kabul's main airport should they be awarded the mission amid ongoing talks with the Taliban government.
(Reuters, 1/20/22)
2022 Jan 20, Airbus revealed it was walking away from a contract with Qatar Airways for A321neos in skeletal arguments presented during a scheduling session over the A350 dispute at a division of Britain's High Court. Qatar has claimed for more than $600 million in compensation over A350 flaws penciled in for the week of April 26 in London.
(Reuters, 1/21/22)
2022 Jan 21, The US government said it would suspend 44 China-bound flights from the United States by four Chinese carriers in response to the Chinese government's decision to suspend some US carrier flights over COVID-19 concerns.
(Reuters, 1/22/22)
2022 Jan 24, Brazilian plane maker Embraer SA announced that US lessor Azorra has placed an order for 20 new E2 aircraft and has signed a deal for purchase rights on an additional 30 aircraft. The transaction was valued at $3.9 billion.
(Reuters, 1/24/22)
2022 Jan 24, Turkish authorities temporarily halted all flights at Istanbul Airport due to heavy snowfall in the city. Winter weather snarled transportation across the country.
(Reuters, 1/24/22)
2022 Jan 27, India's Tata Group took control of state-run carrier Air India, regaining ownership of the airline after nearly 70 years and marking a victory for PM Narendra Modi's privatization push.
(Reuters, 1/28/22)
2022 Jan 27, Taiwan's China Airlines Ltd said its board had approved the purchase of four more Boeing Co 777F freighters, adding to an earlier order for six of the same model as it steps up capacity to support the island's booming exports.
(Reuters, 1/27/22)
2022 Jan 28, US carriers canceled thousands of flights through the weekend in anticipation of a winter storm forecast to bring high winds and heavy snow across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic.
(Reuters, 1/28/22)
2022 Jan 29, Kuwait Airways said it has suspended its flights to Iraq due to "the current situation there".
(Reuters, 1/29/22)
2022 Feb 1, Ethiopian Airlines said it has resumed flights with the Boeing 737-Max nearly three years after a crash of one of the aircraft outside the country's capital killed 157 people.
(AP, 2/1/22)
2022 Feb 2, More than a dozen states were under some type of winter weather warning, as an enormous storm began its push across a large swath of the United States, with moderate snow falling from New Mexico to Illinois. Airlines canceled more than 1,300 flights.
(NY Times, 2/2/22)
2022 Feb 2, A Fly One Armenia plane, with 64 passengers on board, landed at Istanbul Airport as Charter flights between Istanbul and Yerevan resumed following a two-year hiatus amid efforts by Turkey and Armenia to normalize strained ties.
(AP, 2/2/22)
2022 Feb 3, Israel's flag carrier El Al Airlines, forced to slim down following a government bailout during the pandemic, said it has entered a non-binding memorandum of understanding to buy smaller local rival Arkia.
(Reuters, 2/3/22)
2022 Feb 4, Hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses were without power after a winter storm dumped sleet and heavy snow on a wide swath of the central United States this week. Airlines canceled nearly 3,000 flights. More treacherous weather threatened parts of the Plains and New England.
(Reuters, 2/4/22)
2022 Feb 7, Spirit Airlines and Frontier Airlines, two prominent budget carriers, announced plans to merge, a combination that would create the fifth-largest US airline by market share.
(NY Times, 2/7/22)
2022 Feb 16, The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said a total of 80 unruly airplane passengers have been referred to the FBI for potential criminal prosecution.
(Reuters, 2/16/22)
2022 Feb 16, Brazil-based Embraer said its electric aircraft subsidiary Eve has received orders from Australian charter firms Aviair, HeliSpirit and Microflite for up to 90 electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft (eVTOLs).
(Reuters, 2/16/22)
2022 Feb 18, Strong winds battered parts of Britain and Northern Europe, damaging buildings and severely disrupting travel. A total of 436 flights were cancelled across the United Kingdom amid record winds from storm Eunice. The 2nd major storm in three days, known in Germany as Storm Zeynep, smashed through northern Europe. At least 12 people were killed in Belgium, Britain, Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands
(NY Times, 2/18/22)(Reuters, 2/18/22)(SSFC, 2/20/22, p.A5)
2022 Feb 23, US airlines canceled more than 2,000 flights by the end of the day as a major storm disrupted travel from central Texas to the Great Lakes.
(SFC, 2/25/22, p.A5)
2022 Feb 24, Russia's Aeroflot was banned from flying to the United Kingdom after President Vladimir Putin ordered an invasion of Ukraine.
(Reuters, 2/25/22)
2022 Feb 25, British transport minister Grant Shapps said in a tweet that no Russian private jet can fly in UK airspace or touch down, effective immediately.
(Reuters, 2/25/22)
2022 Feb 26, British Airways canceled dozens of flights from Heathrow Airport as it struggled to fix “technical issues" that hobbled booking and check-in systems.
(AP, 2/26/22)
2022 Feb 25, It was reported that Virgin Atlantic has cancelled its cargo-only flights between London and Shanghai while it looks at ways to re-route the service following a decision to avoid Russian airspace for overflights.
(Reuters, 2/25/22)
2022 Feb 25, Russia said it has banned British airlines from landing at its airports or crossing its airspace. The move follows London's ban on the flights of Russian flag carrier Aeroflot imposed in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
(Reuters, 2/25/22)
2022 Feb 27, Canada closed its airspace to Russian aircraft operators effective immediately due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, joining other countries in announcing similar measures in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
(Reuters, 2/27/22)
2022 Feb 28, Russia closed its airspace to airlines from 36 countries, including all 27 members of the EU, in response Ukraine-related sanctions targeting its aviation sector.
(Reuters, 2/28/22)
2022 Mar 4, Canadian business jet maker Bombardier Inc said it has suspended all activities with Russian clients, as more companies cut ties in the country following the introduction of sweeping sanctions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
(Reuters, 3/4/22)
2022 Mar 7, United Airlines said it has indefinitely suspended two flights to India after halting flights that flew over Russia last week.
(Reuters, 3/7/22)
2022 Mar 9, Britain said it had impounded a plane connected to a Russian billionaire under new aviation sanctions which give authorities the power to detain any Russian aircraft and to ban exports of aviation or space-related goods to Russia. The private jet was linked to Eugene Shvidler, a billionaire business associate of Roman Abramovich.
(Reuters, 3/9/22)
2022 Mar 10, It was reported that China has refused to supply Russian airlines with aircraft parts, after Boeing and Airbus halted their supply of components.
(Reuters, 3/10/22)
2022 Mar 10, It was reported that Ethiopian Airlines has emerged as the unidentified buyer of five Boeing current-generation 777 freighters reported this week.
(Reuters, 3/10/22)
2022 Mar 10, Russia published a draft law that could prevent its airlines returning leased aircraft, raising the stakes in a showdown with Western finance over $10 billion of jets.
(Reuters, 3/10/22)
2022 Mar 13, Bermuda's aviation regulator said it is suspending certification of all Russian-operated airplanes registered in the British overseas territory due to international sanctions over the war in Ukraine, in a move expected to affect more than 700 planes.
(Reuters, 3/13/22)
2022 Mar 13, Serbia’s populist president, Aleksandar Vucic, said AirSerbia will go back to one flight to Moscow a day following “the witch hunt" against his country. Serbia has refused to introduce international sanctions against its ally Russia.
(AP, 3/13/22)
2022 Mar 13, South Africa's civil aviation regulator grounded Comair's planes indefinitely, saying the airline had not adequately addressed safety issues, in a move that also affects passengers of low-cost airline Kulula and British Airways.
(Reuters, 3/13/22)
2022 Mar 14, Australia and the Netherlands said they had begun joint legal action against Russia at the United Nations' aviation agency over the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 on July 17, 2014.
(Reuters, 3/14/22)
2022 Mar 14, A law allowing Russian airlines to register inside Russia planes leased from abroad came into force, creating a new obstacle for leasing firms and lenders seeking to repossess more than 500 jets before sanctions kick in.
(Reuters, 3/14/22)
2022 Mar 16, The US-based aircraft leasing firm owned by Japan's Marubeni Corp and Mizuho Leasing Co Ltd said has recovered two of the 12 aircraft it has been leasing to Russian airlines.
(Reuters, 3/16/22)
2022 Mar 16, Brazilian plane maker Embraer SA said that its electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft subsidiary Eve has signed a letter of intent with Global Crossing Airlines for the sale of up to 200 eVTOLs.
(Reuters, 3/16/22)
2022 Mar 17, Mexican airline Grupo Aeromexico said that it has emerged from bankruptcy protection, adding it now plans to spend $5 billion over the next five years on fleet modernization and other upgrades.
(Reuters, 3/17/22)
2022 Mar 18, The US Commerce Department said it will move to effectively ground 100 airplanes that have recently flown to Russia and are believed to violate US export controls, including a plane used by Russian businessman Roman Abramovich.
(Reuters, 3/18/22)
2022 Mar 21, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador inaugurated a new Mexico City airport, over three years after he scrapped a separate $13 billion hub under construction by the previous government that he cast as a symbol of corruption.
(Reuters, 3/21/22)
2022 Mar 23, Russia's PM Mikhail Mishustin said the government has transferred more than 50% of foreign aircraft to Russia's own registry as it takes measures to start using foreign aircraft located in Russia. Russian airlines have 515 jets leased from abroad.
(Reuters, 3/23/22)
2022 Mar 29, Carrier Air Canada and Mexico's Aeromar said they have signed an agreement to jointly market routes through Mexico.
(Reuters, 3/30/22)
2022 Mar 30, Air France-KLM and its Dutch subsidiary KLM lost their challenge against million-euro fines re-imposed by EU antitrust regulators five years ago for taking part in an air cargo cartel two decades ago.
(Reuters, 3/30/22)
2022 Apr 5, It was reported that Airbus has revoked the contract for a third A350 ordered by Qatar Airways after the Gulf carrier rejected delivery in an ongoing dispute over damage to the surface of the long-haul jets.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 8, Airbus took the rare step of reversing the two deliveries to Russia that contributed to forecast-beating 2021 results and put aside money to be refunded whenever sanctions allow. The jets, stored in central France, are back on sale.
(Reuters, 4/12/22)
2022 Apr 13, The Biden administration extended a US mandate requiring travelers to wear masks on airplanes, trains and in transit hubs through May 3. The United States renewed the COVID-19 public health emergency, allowing millions of Americans to keep getting free tests, vaccines and treatments for at least three more months.
(NY Times, 4/13/22)
2022 Apr 15, Tunisia offered for sale its shares in the Nouvlair airline company confiscated from a son-in-law of late President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali who was toppled in the 2011 uprising. The last date for submitting offers is May 19.
(Reuters, 4/15/22)
2022 Apr 17, China Eastern Airlines said it has started putting its Boeing 737-800 jetliners back in use for commercial flights less than a month since a crash killed 132 people and led the company to ground 223 of the aircraft.
(Reuters, 4/17/22)
2022 Apr 23, Amsterdam's Schiphol airport urged travelers to stay away for several hours as a strike by ground personnel at the start of a school holiday caused chaos at Europe's third-busiest airport.
(Reuters, 4/23/22)
2022 Apr 26, Delta Air Lines, which is facing another attempt to unionize its flight attendants, said it will begin paying cabin crews during boarding as of June 2, a first for a major US airline.
(AP, 4/26/22)
2022 Apr 26, A British judge denied a bid by Qatar Airways to reinstate a jet contract cancelled by Europe's Airbus in the latest twist to a dramatic feud playing out in UK courts.
(Reuters, 4/26/22)
2022 Apr 29, Flag-carrier Avianca said it has agreed to merge with Viva, another of Colombia's most important commercial airlines, while keeping separate branding and strategies.
(Reuters, 4/29/22)
2022 May 5, Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun said the company headquarters would be moving from Chicago to Arlington, Virginia.
(SFC, 5/7/22, p.A2)
2022 May 6, The Airline Operators of Nigeria association said Nigerian airlines will stop operations from May 9 until further notice due to the high cost of jet fuel. The plan to stop operations was scrapped on May 8.
(Reuters, 5/6/22)(Reuters, 5/8/22)
2022 May 14, China completed a test flight of the country's first C919 jetliner to be delivered.
(Reuters, 5/15/22)
2022 May 16, JetBlue said that it was taking its offer to acquire Spirit Airlines directly to that carrier’s shareholders, after Spirit’s board rejected a takeover proposal and decided to stick with its plan to merge with Frontier Airlines.
(NY Times, 5/16/22)
2022 May 16, Yemen's national airline operated its first commercial flight from the capital Sanaa since 2016, raising hopes a UN-brokered truce could be a stepping stone towards a lasting peace.
(Reuters, 5/16/22)
2022 May 19, Britain said it was introducing new sanctions against the Russian airline sector to prevent state-owned Aeroflot, Ural Airlines and Rossiya Airlines from selling their unused landing slots, valued at 50 million pounds ($61.9 million), at British airports.
(Reuters, 5/19/22)
2022 May 20, India's Jet Airways said the country's aviation regulator has cleared it to resume operation of commercial flights.
(Reuters, 5/20/22)
2022 May 24, The Taliban announced a deal allowing an Emirati company to manage three airports in Afghanistan after the fall of the country's US-backed government. The United Arab Emirates confirmed the deal the next day.
(AP, 5/24/22)(Reuters, 5/25/22)
2022 May 26, A British judge granted Qatar Airways a relatively quick trial against Airbus in a row over jetliner safety but dismissed several procedural claims including a bid by the airline to split the high-profile case into two parts.
(Reuters, 5/26/22)
2022 May 26, China's finance ministry said that it would offer subsidies to Chinese airlines from May 21 to July 20 to help carriers weather the coronavirus-induced downturn and higher oil prices.
(Reuters, 5/26/22)
2022 May 27, China's aviation regulator said it has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Solomon Islands on civil air transport, laying a foundation for airlines of both countries to open air routes.
(Reuters, 5/27/22)
2022 May 27, Congo's government spokesman Patrick Muyaya announced the suspension of flights from Rwanda's national carrier and the summoning of the ambassador late today in response to what it says is Kigali's support for M23 rebels carrying out a military offensive in its eastern borderlands.
(Reuters, 5/27/22)
2022 May 29, Ireland’s Dublin airport descended into chaos when more than a thousand passengers missed flights as staff shortages forced travelers to queue for hours to pass through security.
(Reuters, 5/31/22)
2022 May 30, US airlines, which are still rebuilding flight crews after the COVID-19 pandemic travel slowdown, canceled more than 2,500 flights over the four-day Memorial Day holiday that marks the traditional start of the busy summer travel season. Airlines worldwide canceled more than 1,500 flights today.
(Reuters, 5/30/22)
2022 May 31, Russian news outlet RBK reported that China has barred Russia’s airlines from flying foreign-owned jetliners into its airspace, after President Vladimir Putin threw the aircrafts' ownership into doubt by allowing them to be re-registered in Russia to avoid seizure under sanctions over Moscow’s attack on Ukraine.
(AP, 5/31/22)
2022 Jun 1, The administration of President Joe Biden revoked a series of restrictions on flights to Cuba imposed by his predecessor, including ending a prohibition on US airline flights to Cuban airports other than Havana.
(Reuters, 6/1/22)
2022 Jun 6, It was reported that Ryanair is requiring South African passengers to prove their nationality before traveling by completing a test in Afrikaans, a language used by just 12% of the population that has long been identified with apartheid and the white minority, due to what it described as a high prevalence of fraudulent South African passports.
(Reuters, 6/6/22)
2022 Jun 8, In Italy travelers faced disruption across the country as air traffic controllers went on strike and unions also called out workers from budget airlines on four-hour stoppages, prompting the cancellation of hundreds of flights.
(Reuters, 6/8/22)
2022 Jun 12, Iranian state media said that Argentinian authorities have impounded a Boeing 747 plane that the original owner, Iran's Mahan Air, said was sold to a Venezuelan airline a year ago. On June 17 Paraguay's intelligence chief said one of the men aboard the plane has ties to Iran's Quds Force.
(Reuters, 6/12/22)(AFP, 6/17/22)
2022 Jun 14, Britain's first scheduled flight taking asylum seekers to Rwanda was set to depart, with the government warning that anyone who avoided it through last-minute legal challenges would be put on a later plane despite an outcry from critics. The flight was grounded at the last minute, after the European Court of Human Rights intervened, citing a risk of harm to migrants on board.
(Reuters, 6/14/22)(AP, 6/15/22)
2022 Jun 14, Dublin-based CEO Michael O'Leary said Ryanair has dropped a requirement for South African passengers to prove their nationality before traveling by completing a test in Afrikaans, after the policy drew a backlash among South Africans.
(Reuters, 6/15/22)
2022 Jun 16, All international flights to and from Tunisia were cancelled due to a national public strike called by the powerful UGTT union.
(AP, 6/16/22)
2022 Jun 19, It was reported that Nigeria is withholding $450 million in revenue international carriers operating in the country have earned. Nigerian officials had blamed the foreign currency shortage for not repatriating the airline revenue.
(Reuters, 6/19/22)
2022 Jun 23, Staff at British Airways voted for a walkout amid warnings the country was facing a summer of industrial discontent.
(Reuters, 6/23/22)
2022 Jun 26, Pakistan’s aviation regulator made masks mandatory on domestic flights given a gradual rise in the number of COVID-19 cases across the country. Over the past 24 hours, the national COVID positivity ratio had risen to 2.85% with 382 positive cases and two deaths.
(Reuters, 6/27/22)
2022 Jun 27, Airlines canceled over 700 flights in the United States, as adverse weather and a shortage of staff hurt their ability to keep up with a surge in summer travel demand.
(Reuters, 6/27/22)
2022 Jul 1, French airports faced disruptions as workers held a strike to demand salary hikes to keep up with inflation.
(SFC, 7/1/22, p.A12)
2022 Jul 2, Travelers across the USA faced the prospect of canceled or delayed flights as airlines and airports dealt with a combination of high demand, bad weather and staffing shortages.
(NY Times, 7/2/22)
2022 Jul 5, British Airways said it is cancelling more flights scheduled for the summer holiday season, at a time of widespread disruption at airports caused by staff shortages and a surge in travel demand.
(Reuters, 7/5/22)
2022 Jul 5, Sweden-based Scandinavian Airlines filed for bankruptcy in the US as a walkout by 1,000 pilots a day earlier had put the future of the carrier at risk.
(SFC, 7/6/22, p.C2)
2022 Jul 7, The US Transportation Department awarded $968.6 million to 85 airport projects to address the country's aging and often mocked aviation infrastructure.
(Reuters, 7/7/22)
2022 Jul 9, It was reported that Dublin-based SMBC Aviation Capital has taken a $1.6 billion hit on 34 airplanes stuck in Russia that it does not expect to get back. CEO Peter Barrett said Russian airlines have continued to fly the planes within Russia and to countries from which repossession has not been possible. Sources at Lloyd's of London, which insures leased aircraft, told The Telegraph newspaper in May that it was ready for a dogfight over losses on leased planes totaling almost $10 billion.
(AP, 7/9/22)
2022 Jul 10, Flag carrier El Al Israel Airlines said it has reached a collective agreement with its pilots to restore their salaries to pre-COVID pandemic levels and end months of labor action that led to cancelled flights. Salaries will return to previous levels by the beginning of 2023.
(Reuters, 7/10/22)
2022 Jul 11, The United Arab Emirates carrier flydubai said it has suspended operations to Colombo, Sri Lanka, until further notice.
(Reuters, 7/11/22)
2022 Jul 12, London's Heathrow Airport asked airlines to stop selling tickets for summer departures, after it capped the number of passengers flying from the hub at 100,000 a day to limit queues, baggage delays and cancellations.
(Reuters, 7/12/22)
2022 Jul 13, The US Transportation Department approved American Airlines' request to resume service to some smaller Cuban airports after President Joe Biden reversed his predecessor's policy.
(Reuters, 7/13/22)
2022 Jul 15, Saudi Arabia announced it would allow unfettered access to its airspace.
(Reuters, 7/17/22)
2022 Jul 17, The British government launched an "Aviation Passenger Charter" to help passengers know their rights if they are faced with problems at airports after the widespread disruption seen this year.
(Reuters, 7/17/22)
2022 Jul 18, Delta Air Lines said it will buy 100 Boeing 737 MAX 10 jets worth about $13.5 billion at list prices and has options to buy another 30.
(Reuters, 7/18/22)
2022 Jul 19, Scandinavian airline SAS, the flag carrier of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, confirmed that it and pilot unions have reached a wage deal, ending a 15-day strike over a new collective bargaining agreement that had grounded 3,700 flights and put the carrier's future in doubt. The deal will allow the airline to finalize plans in the next few weeks to raise $700 million of fresh financing needed to see it through the bankruptcy protection process.
(Reuters, 7/19/22)
2022 Jul 21, Boeing secured a revived order for 25 of its 737 MAX 10 airliners from Qatar Airways, as the return of Britain's Farnborough Airshow this week offered hope for the largest version of the planemaker’s troubled best-seller.
(Reuters, 7/21/22)
2022 Jul 22, United Airlines Holdings Inc and Air Canada expanded their code-sharing agreement, as the carriers look to accelerate their post-pandemic recovery and cash in on the growing international travel market.
(Reuters, 7/22/22)
2022 Jul 23, State-owned manufacturer Commercial Aircraft Corp of China (COMAC) said its homegrown C919 narrow-body jet, designed to challenge the Airbus-Boeing duopoly, is nearing certification as its test planes completed all of the test flight tasks.
(Reuters, 7/23/22)
2022 Jul 26, State media said China has granted certification to the AC352 utility helicopter it is jointly producing with Airbus, even as the European plane maker awaits Beijing's nod to sell its foreign-made equivalent in the Asian nation.
(Reuters, 7/26/22)
2022 Jul 28, JetBlue Airways reached a deal to buy Spirit Airlines, a merger that could reshape the airline industry by putting pressure on the nation’s four dominant carriers.
(NY Times, 7/28/22)
2022 Jul 31, Pilots at German flagship carrier Lufthansa voted by a margin of 97.6% in favor of industrial action, threatening further disruption during the busy summer travel season.
(Reuters, 7/31/22)
2022 Aug 2, The US Commerce Department said it will add 25 Airbus airplanes operated by Russian airlines believed to violate US export controls as part of the Biden administration's sanctions over the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
(Reuters, 8/2/22)
2022 Aug 3, It was reported that Netherlands-based Airbus has revoked its entire outstanding order from Qatar Airways for A350 jets, severing all new jetliner business with the Gulf carrier in a dramatic new twist to a dispute clouding World Cup preparations.
(Reuters, 8/3/22)
2022 Aug 4, Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific Airways said its flights are currently not flying through designated airspace zones around Taiwan, as China launched unprecedented live-fire military drills in six areas that ring Taiwan.
(Reuters, 8/4/22)
2022 Aug 7, China’s aviation regulator said in a statement that inbound international flights on a route with an identified coronavirus case will be suspended for one week if 4% of passengers test positive, and two weeks if 8% of passengers test positive.
(Reuters, 8/7/22)
2022 Aug 7, India's newest budget carrier Akasa Air, which is backed by billionaire Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, began commercial operations with a maiden flight from the financial capital of Mumbai to the city of Ahmedabad.
(Reuters, 8/7/22)
2022 Aug 8, It was reported that Russian airlines, including state-controlled Aeroflot, are stripping jetliners to secure spare parts they can no longer buy abroad because of Western sanctions.
(Reuters, 8/8/22)
2022 Aug 10, The British embassy in China said China and Britain have agreed to resume direct passenger flights between them. Flights were suspended in late 2020 over fears of a new strain of the coronavirus.
(Reuters, 8/10/22)
2022 Aug 11, Airlines canceled more than 600 flights in the United States this morning, as thunderstorms in Texas disrupted operations at one of the busiest airports in the country for a second straight day.
(Reuters, 8/11/22)
2022 Aug 17, India's Akasa Air said it would keep adding one new aircraft every two weeks after the country's newest budget carrier received its third plane. Founder and CEO Vinay Dube said the airline was well-capitalized to induct 72 aircraft over the next five years.
(Reuters, 8/17/22)
2022 Aug 19, European budget carrier Wizz Air said it has suspended plans to resume flights from the Russian capital of Moscow to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, amid mounting criticism over the relaunch decision this month.
(Reuters, 8/19/22)
2022 Aug 24, British-Belgian teenager Muck Rutherford (17) became the youngest person to fly solo around the world after a five-month journey that saw him battle monsoon rains, searing heat and frustrating bureaucracy.
(Reuters, 8/24/22)
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
Subject = Aviation
End of file
Return to home
Boeing History: http://www.boeing.com/history
3500BC King Etena of Babylonia was pictured on a coin, flying on an eagle’s back.
(NPub, 2002, p.2)
1000BC The Chinese invented kites about this time that could carry scouts on reconnaissance missions.
(NPub, 2002, p.2)
1000-1100 Eilmer of Malmesbury (also known as Oliver due to a scribe's miscopying, or Elmer, was an 11th-century English Benedictine monk best known for his early attempt at a gliding flight using wings. He reportedly strapped wings to his hands and feet and jumped off a tower at England's Malmesbury Abbey gliding some 200 meters before crashing and breaking both legs.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eilmer_of_Malmesbury)(Econ., 10/10/20, p.75)
1162 A man in Constantinople fashioned sail-like wings from fabric into pleats and folds. He plummeted from the top of a tower and died.
(NPub, 2002, p.2)
1505 Leonardo da Vinci’s “Codex on the Flight of Birds" dated to about this time.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_on_the_Flight_of_Birds)
1740 Aug 26, Joseph-Michel Montgolfier, French inventor, born. He and his brother Jacques-Etienne invented the hot air balloon in 1783.
(RTH, 8/26/99)
1753 Jul 4, Jean-Pierre-Francois Blanchard (d.1809), 1st balloon flights in England and US, was born.
(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/AVblanchard.htm)
1783 Jun 4, The Montgolfier brothers launched their 1st hot-air balloon (unmanned) in a 10-minute flight over Annonay, France.
(http://inventors.about.com/od/astartinventions/ss/airship_2.htm)
1783 Aug 27, The 1st hydrogen balloon flight (unmanned), made by Professor Jacques Charles, successfully completed its inaugural flight in Paris.
(www.twinring.jp/english/balloon/what_balloon/)
1783 Sep 19, Jacques Etienne Montgolfier launched a duck, a sheep and a rooster aboard a hot-air balloon at Versailles, France.
(AP, 9/19/06)
1783 Oct 15, Francois Pilatre de Rozier (Jean Piletre de Rozier) made the first manned flight in a hot air balloon. The first flight was let out to 82 feet, but over the next few days the altitude increased up to 6,500 feet.
(HN, 10/15/98)(MC, 10/15/01)
1783 Nov 21, Jean-Francois Pilatre de Rozier (1754-1785) and the Marquis d’Arlandes made the first free-flight ascent in a balloon, to over 500 feet, in Paris.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Romain)(NPub, 2002, p.2)
1784 Apr 15, The first balloon flight occurred in Ireland. [see Jun 5, 1783 in France]
(HN, 4/15/98)
1784 Jun 4, Elizabeth Thible became the first woman to fly aboard a Montgolfier hot-air balloon, over Lyon, France.
(AP, 6/4/07)
1784 Jun 24, In a tethered flight from Baltimore, Maryland, Edward Warren (13) became the 1st to fly in a balloon on US soil.
(NPub, 2002, p.3)
1784 Nov 29, American Dr. John Jeffries paid Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard £100 pounds for a balloon flight in England during which he made some atmospheric measurements.
(ON, 10/03, p.6)
1785 Jan 7, The first balloon flight across the English Channel was made. Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and the American Dr. John Jeffries crossed the English Channel for the first time in a hydrogen balloon.
(HN, 5/15/98)(HN, 1/7/99)
1785 Jun 15, Two French balloonists died in the world's 1st fatal aviation accident.
(MC, 6/15/02)
1785 Major John Money (1752–1817) took off in a balloon from Norwich, in an attempt to raise money for the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. He passed over Lowestoft at 6pm and came down about 18 miles (29 km) into the North Sea and was saved by a revenue cutter about five hours later.
(Econ, 5/11/13, p.89)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_ballooning)
1785 Lt. Col. John Money set up a British balloon observation corps, but it did not gain much support.
(http://tinyurl.com/oe953qf)
1793 Jan 9, The first US manned balloon flight occurred as Frenchman Jean Pierre Blanchard, using a hot-air balloon, flew between Philadelphia and Woodbury, N.J. He stayed airborne for 46 minutes, traveled close to 15 miles and set down at the "old Clement farm" in Deptford, New Jersey. [see Jun 23, 1784, Mar 9, 1793]
(WSJ, 3/31/98, p.A1)(AP, 1/9/99)(ON, 6/09, p.2)
1794 Jun 26, The French defeated an Austrian army at the Battle of Fleurus. The French used a tethered balloon to observe the battlefield and direct artillery fire.
(www.historyofwar.org/articles/battles_fleurus_1794.html)(NPub, 2002, p.4)
1797 Oct 22, French balloonist Andre-Jacques Garnerin made the first parachute descent, landing safely from a height of about 3,000 feet; at some 2,200 feet over Paris.
(AP, 10/22/97)(HN, 10/22/98)
1804 Sir George Cayley, England’s “father of aeronautics," built and flew the world’s first successful model glider.
(NPub, 2002, p.4)
1819 Aug 2, The first parachute jump from a balloon was made by Charles Guille in New York City.
(HN, 8/2/01)
1838 Jul 8, Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin (d.1917), German designer and manufacturer of airships, was born.
(HN, 7/8/98)(WUD, 1994, p.1660)
1852 Sep 24, Henri Giffard, a French engineer, flew over Paris in the 1st dirigible flight.
(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/AVgifford.htm)
1861 Apr 20, Thaddeus Lowe landed in South Carolina only to be surrounded by a group of incredulous Carolinians who believed he was a spy. Lowe managed to persuade the crowd that his 500-mile trip from Cincinnati, Ohio, was merely an innocent aerial journey to test his strange craft. He later tried to convince the Union to use his skill as a balloonist.
(HNQ, 4/5/01)(ON, 2/05, p.7)
1861 Jun 10, Thaddeus Lowe demonstrated his balloon, the Enterprise, along with its telegraphy capabilities for Pres. Lincoln at the White House lawn.
(ON, 2/05, p.8)
1862 Jul 17, James Glaisher (52), British meteorologist, rose to some 22,000 over Wolverhampton with balloonist Henry Tracy Coxwell in an attempt to set an altitude record. They reached 24,000 feet in a 2nd attempt on Aug 18. On Sep 5 Glaisher passed out as they reached 29,000 feet. At a record 7 miles Coxwell managed to begin their descent.
(ON, 4/03, p.11)
1867 Apr 16, Wilbur Wright (d.1912), aeronautical inventor, was born in Dayton, Ohio.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers)
1868 Matthew Boulton obtained a British patent on a design for ailerons as control surfaces.
(NPub, 2002, p.5)
1869 Jul 4, Frederick Marriott flew his unmanned Aviator Hermes Jr. over a field near Millbrae and Burlingame. The machine was a gasbag filled with hydrogen, and a steam engine turning rotors with attached delta wings guided by men on the ground with ropes.
(SFC, 6/5/98, p.A23)(SFC, 10/11/14, p.C2)
1871 Aug 19, Orville Wright (d.1948), aviation pioneer, was born in Dayton, Oh. His birthday is celebrated as National Aviation Day.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers)(WUD, 1994, p.1647)
1873 Alberto Santos-Dumont (d.1932), aviation pioneer, was born.
(SSFC, 6/28/03, p.M1)
1878 May 1, James Graham was born. He was the inventor of the first naval aircraft-carrying ship and the first man to film a total eclipse of the Sun.
(HN, 5/1/99)
1878 May 21, Glenn Hammond Curtiss, aviation pioneer and contemporary of the Wright brothers, was born in Hammondsport, N.Y. He also originally made bicycles and invented the hydroplane. Curtiss` entrance into flying began in 1904 when Thomas Scott Baldwin, famous lighter-than-air devotee, asked Curtiss to make him a two-cylinder, air-cooled engine to power his airship. The first plane Curtiss had anything to do with was Red Wing, which Casey Baldwin lofted from the ice at Keuka Lake on March 12, 1908.
(HN, 5/21/98)(HNQ, 5/28/01)
1878 Jul 3, John Wise flew the first dirigible in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
(HN, 7/3/98)
1878 Bishop Wright gave his sons, Orville and Wilbur, a toy helicopter.
(NPub, 2002, p.5)
1883 Aug 28, John Montgomery (b.1858) made the first manned, controlled flight in the US in his "Gull" glider, whose design was inspired by watching birds. The craft weight 38 pounds and flew to 15 feet for at least 300 feet at Otay Mesa near San Diego, Ca. In 1911 Montgomery died in a glider crash.
(SFC, 6/5/98, p.A23)(SFCM, 2/6/05, p.3)(GenIV, Winter 04/05)
1884 Horatio Phillips of England designed a wing with a curved airfoil shape.
(NPub, 2002, p.5)
1890 Apr 6, Anthony Herman Gerard Fokker, aircraft pioneer, was born in Holland.
(MC, 4/6/02)
1892 Apr 6, Donald Wills Douglas, US aircraft pioneer (McConnell Douglas), was born.
(MC, 4/6/02)
1896 May 6, Samuel P. Langley (1834-1906), American physicist and aviation pioneer, launched the first reasonably large, steam-powered model aircraft.
(NPub, 2002, p.5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Pierpont_Langley)
1897 Jun 14, Dr. Karl Wolfert and his mechanic were killed in Germany when their dirigible, powered by a Daimler car engine, crashed on its 4th flight.
(ON, 3/03, p.10)
1897 Jul 14, Swede Saloman Andrée (b.1854)) and 2 accomplices, Knute Fraenkle and Nils Strindberg, in the Ornen balloon were forced down after 64 hours in the first expedition to fly by balloon from Spitsbergen across the North Pole. Their attempt to return ended on White Island. Their fate was only discovered Aug 5-6, 1930, by Norwegian whalers.
(HNQ, 5/22/01)(ON, 11/01, p.11)(Econ, 5/11/13, p.89)
1897 Jul 24, Amelia Earhart was born in Kansas. She was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic and disappeared in the South Pacific while trying to fly around the world. Her sister Muriel (d.1998 at 98) wrote a biography of Amelia titled: "Courage Is the Price."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelia_Earhart)(SFC, 3/6/98, p.E2)(HN, 7/24/02)
1897 Sep 18, Alberto Santos-Dumont crashed his 1st motorized dirigible into trees at the Zoological Gardens in Paris.
(ON, 3/03, p.10)
1897 Sep 20, Alberto Santos-Dumont successfully flew his repaired motorized dirigible around the Zoological Gardens in Paris.
(ON, 3/03, p.10)
1897 Nov 3, David Schwarz of Austria crashed his 156-foot aluminum powered airship with 2 propellers on its maiden flight.
(ON, 3/03, p.11)
1899 May 30, Wilbur Wright (1867-1912), Ohio bicycle mechanic, wrote the Smithsonian Institution and affirmed his belief that human flight was possible.
(NPub, 2002, p.5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_Brothers)
1900 Jul 2, Count Ferdinand Adolf Heinrich August von Zeppelin (1838-1917) made the 1st successful flight of his lighter-than-air ship LZ-1 in Friedrichshafen, Germany. The 400 foot craft stayed aloft 17 minutes before it crashed.
(AHM, 1/97)(WSJ, 2/120/00, p.A1)(ON, 3/03, p.11)
1900 Oct, The Wright Brothers began active flying experiments at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Their first glider was a biplane that soared for 300 feet.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D3)(NPub, 2002, p.5)
1901 Jul 13, Santos-Dumont flew his powered dirigible around the Eiffel Tower but failed to make it in an allotted half hour time frame to win a 100,000 franc prize.
(ON, 3/03, p.11)
1901 Aug 8, Santos-Dumont flew his powered dirigible around the Eiffel Tower a 2nd time but sprang a leak and caught suspension wires in his propeller blades.
(ON, 3/03, p.11)
1901 Oct 19, Alberto Santos-Dumont successfully circled Eiffel Tower in his Santos-Dumont No. 6 dirigible within a half hour and won a 100,000 franc prize. An initial ruling said that he failed by 40 seconds because the race wasn’t finished until he touched ground. A 2nd vote granted him the win. This proved the airship maneuverable.
(ON, 3/03, p.12)
1901 Gustave Whitehead, a German-born aviator and resident of Bridgeport, Conn., reportedly made the first powered airplane flight, two years before the Wright brothers. In 2013 Connecticut went on record acknowledging Whitehead’s flight. Ohio and North Carolina both disputed the Connecticut claim.
(SFC, 10/25/13, p.A8)
1901 The Wright Brothers constructed new wings for a large glider using existing aerodynamics tables. The flight was marginal so they tested the tables by analyzing model wings in a wind tunnel. The tables proved to be wrong and they painstakingly computer new ones.
(NPub, 2002, p.6)
1902 In Pittsburg, Texas, Rev. Burrell Cannon (d.1922), itinerant Baptist minister and inventor, built his Ezekial Airship and reportedly flew it for a short distance at a 12 foot altitude. The craft was destroyed on a rail car while enroute to the St. Louis World Fair.
(WSJ, 11/20/02, p.A1)
1902 The Wright Brothers built a glider based on their new aerodynamics tables. Efficiency was almost doubled and they made over 1,000 flights at Kill Devil Hills near Kitty Hawk, NC.
(NPub, 2002, p.6)
1903 Mar 23, The Wright brothers obtained an airplane patent.
(HN, 3/23/98)
1903 Mar 31, New Zealand aviator Richard Pearse flew a self-made, bamboo-framed, mono-winged airplane in Waitohi.
(NW, 3/17/03, p.20)
1903 Oct 18, In San Francisco Dr. August Greth flew his 80-foot-long American Eagle airship over the city. Its engine stalled and the wind carried it over the bay where it plummeted into the water. He and his assistant were recovered by soldiers from Fort Point.
(SFC, 10/11/14, p.C2)
1903 Dec 8, Samuel P. Langley’s man-carrying Great Aerodrome collapsed right after takeoff from a houseboat on the Potomac River.
(www.nasm.si.edu/research/arch/findaids/langley/langley_sec_6.html)
1903 Dec 17, The Wright brothers' Flyer I flew for 12 seconds in the first airplane flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The plane used an aluminum engine designed by their Dayton mechanic Charlie Taylor. The brothers were the sons of a Dayton, Ohio, bishop (Church of the United Brethren). Orville Wright made the first powered, controlled and sustained flight. Orville, lying prone at the 605-pound plane's controls, flew a distance of 120 feet in 12 seconds. Wilbur ran beside Flyer's wing tip until it was airborne to keep the wing from dragging in the sand. Four sustained flights were made on this day. The 4th flight lasted fifty-nine seconds. The day’s events received little press attention, since the reticent Wright brothers feared their ideas would be stolen by rival aviators. It was not until 1908, after making many refinements to their flying machine, that the Wrights embarked on a series of public demonstrations that finally earned them worldwide acclaim. A one-hour PBS documentary covered their life as part of "The American Experience." In 2015 David McCullough authored “the Wright Brothers."
(WSJ, 2/8/96, p.A-12)(AP, 12/17/97)(HNPD, 12/17/98)(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D3)(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D3)(SFEC, 9/26/99, p.B8)(Econ., 4/25/15, p.78)(Econ, 1/2/16, p.59)
1904 Sep 15, Wilbur Wright made his 1st controlled half-circle while in flight with Flyer II. On Sep 20 he flew a full circle for the first time.
(http://tinyurl.com/pkwd37)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_Flyer_II)
1904 Glenn Curtiss, a motorcycle builder in Hammondsport, NY, began making gasoline-burning aircraft engines for dirigibles that San Francisco daredevil Thomas Scott Baldwin was building in California. Baldwin flew a 54-foot dirigible equipped with a motorcycle engine and is credited with for building the first successful American dirigible.
(ON, 12/11, p.10)(SFC, 10/11/14, p.C2)
1905 Apr 12, French Dufaux brothers tested a helicopter.
(MC, 4/12/02)
1905 Apr 29, The Santa Clara, a heavier than air plane designed by Prof. John J. Montgomery, was flown by circus performer Daniel John Maloney. The glider was lifted by balloon to 4,000 feet and then cut loose over Santa Clara, Ca.
(GenIV, Winter 04/05)
1905 The Wright Brother’s Flyer III became the world’s first practical airplane, but attracted little attention.
(NPub, 2002, p.7)
1906 Mar 3, Vuia I aircraft, built by Romanian Traja Vuia, was tested in France.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1906 May 22, Orville and Wilbur Wright were awarded U.S. Patent 821,393 for "new and useful improvement in Flying Machines." They had hired a patent attorney to refine their 1903 application. The first successful powered flight of the Wright Flyer took place on December 17, 1903.
(HNQ, 3/19/01)
1907 Jun 1, Frank A. Whittle, England inventor (jet engine), was born. (MC, 6/1/02)
1907 Jul 1, World's 1st air force established as part of the US Army.
(MC, 7/1/02)
1907 Jul 29, The 1st helicopter ascent in Douai, France.
(MC, 7/29/02)
1907 Aug 1, The US Air Force had its beginnings as the US Army Signal Corps established an aeronautical division in charge of "all matters pertaining to military ballooning, air machines and all kindred subjects."
(AP, 8/1/07)
1907 Nov 13, The 1st helicopter was piloted by French engineer Paul Cornu (1881-1944). The copter hovered a foot off the ground for 20 seconds. [see Apr 12, 1905]
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Cornu)(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)
1907 Glenn Curtiss, of New York, joined with Alexander Graham Bell, F.W. Baldwin, Thomas Selfridge, and John McCurdy, working in Nova Scotia, to found the Aerial Experiment Association (AEA) to developing a practical flying machine.
(ON, 12/11, p.10)
1908 Mar 12, The Aerial Experiment Association (AEA) launched their new airplane, called Red Wing, from a frozen lake near Hammondsport, NY. Pilot F.W. Baldwin rose 20 feet and flew 319 feet before crashing. Newspapers hailed the test as the “first public flight" in the US.
(ON, 12/11, p.10)
1908 Mar 21, Frenchman Henri Farman carried a passenger in a bi-plane for the first time.
(HN, 3/21/98)
1908 May 14, 1st passenger flight in an airplane.
(MC, 5/14/02)
1908 May 21, The Aerial Experiment Association (AEA) launched their 2nd airplane, called White Wing, equipped with aelerons, a mechanism proposed by Alexander Graham Bell, to steer the craft. Pilot Glenn Curtiss flew over 1000 feet and landed safely.
(ON, 12/11, p.10)
1908 May 22, The Wright brothers registered their flying machine for a U.S. patent.
(HN, 5/22/98)
1908 May 23, In the SF Bay Area John Morrell and his crew boarded their 485-foot airship in a field near Berkeley High School. The ship’s gas bag burst at 300-feet and the 20 men aboard plunged to the ground. 9 were seriosuly injured but no one died.
(SFC, 10/11/14, p.C2)
1908 Jul 4, Glenn Curtiss flew a new airplane, called the June Bug, at a competition sponsored by Scientific American, for the first heavier than air machine to fly one kilometer. The Aero Club sent 22 members to Hammondsport, NY, to view the event. Curtiss easily covered the distance, angering the Wright Brothers, who felt that their patent was being infringed.
(ON, 12/11, p.11)
1908 Sep 3, Orville Wright began two weeks of flight trials that impressed onlookers with his complete control of his new Type A Military Flyer. In addition to setting an altitude record of 310 feet and an endurance record of more than one hour, he had carried aloft the first military observer, Lieutenant Frank Lahm.
(HNPD, 9/16/98)
1908 Sep 9, Orville Wright made the 1st 1-hr airplane flight at Fort Myer, Va.
(MC, 9/9/01)
1908 Sep 17, Orville Wright’s passenger on a test flight was Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge. They were circling the landing field at Fort Myer, Va., when a crack developed in the blade of the aircraft’s propeller. Wright lost control of the Flyer and the biplane plunged to the ground. Selfridge became powered flight’s first fatality, and Wright was seriously injured in the crash. But despite the tragic mishap, the War Department awarded the contract for the first military aircraft to Wright.
(HNPD, 9/16/98)
1908 Dec, The Aerial Experiment Association (AEA) took out patents on ailerons and in March 1809 the group disbanded.
(ON, 12/11, p.11)
1909 Jan 9, The Silver Dart made the 1st manned flight in Canada. It was funded by the Aerial Experiment Association, founded by Alexander and Mabel Bell.
(ON, 1/03, p.5)
1909 Jan 17, Wilbur and Orville Wright opened the world’s first flying school at Pau, France, and refused to accept women as students.
(ON, 4/10, p.11)
1909 Jul 17, Glenn Curtiss entered and won the Scientific American trophy for a 2nd year by flying a total of 25 km. in 12 circuits on Long Island. His Golden Flier was sponsored by the Aeronautic Society of New York.
(ON, 12/11, p.11)
1909 Jul 25, French aviator Louis Bleriot (1872-1936) made the first crossing of the English Channel from Calais to the grounds of Dover Castle in a powered aircraft, winning a £1,000 prize offered by the London Daily Mail. Piloting his Type XI monoplane at an average of 39 miles per hour, Blériot made the trip of 23.2 miles in just under 36 minutes.
(AP, 7/25/97)(HNPD, 7/25/98)(ON, 6/07, p.9)
1909 Jul 27, Orville Wright tested the U.S. Army's first airplane, flying himself and a passenger for 1 hour, 12 minutes and 40 seconds over Fort Myer, Virginia.
(AP, 7/27/97)(HN, 7/27/02)(MC, 7/27/02)
1909 Aug 2, The Wright Flyer was formally accepted by the US Army in exchange for $30,000. It was designated Signal Corps Airplane No. 1, the world’s first military airplane.
(www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Wright_Bros/Military_Flyer/WR11.htm)
1909 Aug 28, American Glenn Curtiss won the James Gordon Bennett Cup at the first major international air show held in Rheims France.
(www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Wright_Bros/Patent_Battles/WR12.htm)
1909 Oct 2, Orville Wright set an altitude record, flying at 1,600 feet. This exceeded Hubert Latham's previous record of 508 feet.
(HN, 10/2/98)
1909 Oct 2, Raymonde de Larouche (1918), Franch actress, flew a Voisin airplane during a taxiing lesson under Gabriel Voisin at Chalons, establishing the first recorded flight by a woman.
(ON, 4/10, p.11)
1909 Nov 22, Wright brothers formed a corporation for the commercial manufacture of airplanes. Cornelius Vanderbilt and other financiers backed them with one million dollars.
(http://tinyurl.com/7ymq7rq)(ON, 12/11, p.11)
1909 Dec 28, The first manned, controlled, powered flight in the whole continent of Africa and the entire southern hemisphere was successfully carried out by the Frenchman Albert Kimmerling (d.6/12/1912) at East London, South Africa using a Voisin bi-plane.
(http://tinyurl.com/o7cropv)
1909 The Wright brothers sold a Military Flyer to the Signal Corps for $30,000.
(WSJ, 5/20/03, p.D5)
1910 Jan 24, Louis Paulhan, French aviator, made an aerial display at the Tanforan Race Track in San Bruno, Ca., before a crowd of 75,000. He flew his biplane 1,300 (700) feet high at 70 mph. Earlier he took William Randolph Hearst for a ride.
(SFEC, 12/26/99, p.W4)(Ind, 8/17/02, 5A)(SSFC, 1/24/10, DB p.42)
1910 Mar 28, The first seaplane took off from water at Martinques, France.
(HN, 3/28/98)
1910 Apr 28, The first night air flight was performed by Claude Grahame-White in England.
(HN, 4/28/98)
1910 May 10, The 1st aircraft air display was held at Hendon, England.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1910 Jun 2, Charles Stewart Rolls, one of the founders of Rolls-Royce, becomes the first man to fly an airplane nonstop across the English Channel both ways. Tragically, he became Britain's first aircraft fatality the following month when his biplane broke up in midair.
(HN, 6/2/00)
1910 Aug 20, The 1st shot fired from an airplane was during a test flight over Brooklyn's Sheepshead Bay.
(WSJ, 5/20/03, p.D5)
1910 Sep 27, 1st test flight of a twin-engine airplane was made in France.
(MC, 9/27/01)
1910 Oct 11, During a visit to St. Louis, Theodore Roosevelt flew with pilot Arch Hoxsey, becoming the first US president to fly.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Louis_Lambert_International_Airport)
1910 Oct 11, The San Francisco Rotary Club offered a $10,000 prize to the aviator who first flies from SF to New York.
(SSFC, 10/10/10, DB p.50)
1910 Oct 23, Blanche S. Scott became the first woman to make a solo, public airplane flight, reaching an altitude of 12 feet at a park in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
(AP, 10/23/00)
1910 Nov 14, Lieutenant Eugene Ely, U.S. Navy, was the first to take off in an airplane from the deck of a ship. He flew from the Birmingham at Hampton Roads to Norfolk. It was a Curtiss plane flown by Eugene Ely, a company exhibition pilot, that made the first successful takeoff from a Navy ship.
(HN, 11/14/98)
1910 Dec 31, John B. Moisant and Arch Hoxsey, two of America's foremost aviators died in separate plane crashes. Moisant died in a plane crash in New Orleans.
(HN, 12/31/98)(HN, 7/31/01)
1911 Jan 7, Aviator James Radley, operating a French Bleriot airplane, performed over South San Francisco, skimmed the the West Virginia, the flagship of Rear-Admiral Barry, and checked the time of San Francisco Ferry Tower clock on both sides.
(SSFC, 1/2/11, DB p.42)
1911 Jan 15, An explosive bomb was dropped from an airplane during an aviation meet in South San Francisco. The plane was about 400 feet high and the bomb dropped within 10 feet of its target.
(SSFC, 1/16/11, DB p.42)
1911 Jan 18, Naval aviation was born when pilot Eugene B. Ely flew a Curtis Pusher biplane onto the deck of the USS Pennsylvania in San Francisco Bay.
(SFC, 7/2/96, p.a15)(SFC, 5/7/97, p.A15)(AP, 1/18/98)(SFC, 6/5/98, p.A19)
1911 Jan 26, Glenn Curtiss piloted the 1st successful hydroplane in San Diego.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1911 Jan, A pair of U.S. Army aviators dropped the first live bomb. The Mexican Revolution gave the opportunity to use the airplane in actual combat. Airplanes had already begun to replace balloons for battlefield observation.
(HNQ, 7/16/00)
1911 Feb 17, The 1st hydroplane flight to & from a ship was made by Glenn Curtiss in San Diego.
(MC, 2/17/02)
1911 Apr 12, Pierre Prier completed the first non-stop London-Paris flight in three hours and 56 minutes.
(HN, 4/12/99)
1911 May 16, Zeppelin "Deutschland" was wrecked at Dusseldorf.
(MC, 5/16/02)
1911 Jul, Glenn Curtiss sold a seaplane with retractable wheels to the US Navy.
(ON, 12/11, p.12)
1911 Aug 3, Airplanes were used for the first time in a military capacity when Italian planes reconnoitered Turkish lines near Tripoli.
(HN, 8/3/98)
1911 Aug 31, Anthony Fokker's demonstrated the aircraft "Snip."
(MC, 8/31/01)
1911 Sep 1, M. Fourny set a world aircraft distance record of 720 km (447 mls).
(SC, 9/1/02)
1911 Sep 9, An airmail route opened between London and Windsor.
(HN, 9/9/98)
1911 Aug, Calbraith Perry Rodgers stayed aloft longer than any other contestant at the Chicago International Aviation Meet. Rodgers had recently purchased a new Wright airplane, the 1st ever sold to a private citizen.
(ON, 10/06, p.10)
1911 Sep 17, Cigar-smoking Calbraith Perry Rodgers (1879-1912) set off from Sheepshead Bay, New York, on the first flight across America. Rodgers, sponsored by the Vin Fiz grape drink company, flew the fragile Wright B biplane in pursuit of a $50,000 prize offered to the first person to make a transcontinental flight in 30 days or less. Rodgers failed to win the prize because his 4,321-mile flight took 84 days—of which only 3 days, 10 hours and 4 minutes was actual flying time! His average speed was 51.56 miles per hour. By the time he landed at Long Beach, California, on November 5, Rodgers had made 70 crash landings, suffered numerous minor injuries and had rebuilt his Vin Fiz so completely that only one strut and the rudder were its original equipment.
(HNPD, 9/18/98)(ON, 10/06, p.12)
1911 Sep 29, Walter Brookins set an American record by flying 192 miles from Chicago to Springfield, Ill., making two stops.
(NPub, 2002, p.8)
1911 Oct 31, Prof. John J. Montgomery (b.1858) died when his glider crashed on his 56th flight at the Evergreen College campus south of San Jose.
(GenIV, Winter 04/05)
1911 Nov 1, Italian planes performed the first aerial bombing on Tanguira oasis in Libya. Lt. Giulio Cavotti dropped a hand grenade on an oasis outside of Tripoli. In 2001 Sven Lindqvist authored "A History of Bombing."
(HN, 11/1/98)(SFC, 4/22/01, BR p.3)
1911 Nov 5, Italy attacked Turkish North-Africa (Libya), and took Tripoli and Cyrenaica. First use of a plane dropping bombs. [see Nov 1]
(MC, 11/5/01)
1911 Dec 10, Cal Rodgers (1879-1912) completed the first US transcontinental flight in the Wright EX Vin Fiz.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calbraith_Perry_Rodgers)(NPub, 2002, p.8)
1911 Dec 19, Onetime race-car driver Weldon Cooke piloted the homemade Black Diamond airplane over Mount Tamalpais on a flight from Oakland, Ca., to Marin County.
(SFC, 12/18/11, p.A1)
1911 The first US experimental airmail flight took place on Long Island, a 3-mile journey between Garden City Estates and Mineola.
(SFC, 9/12/08, p.B5)
1911 The US Navy acquired its first airplane, the A-1 Triad.
(HT, 4/97, p.60)
1912 Jan 10, The World's first flying-boat airplane, designed by Glenn Curtiss (1878-1930), made its maiden flight at San Diego, Ca. The Curtiss Model D featured an electric starter. Curtiss had become the first licensed pilot in 1911.
(www.aerofiles.com/chrono.html)(SFC, 8/5/00, p.B4)
1912 Mar 5, The Italians became the first to use dirigibles for military purposes, using them for reconnaissance flights behind Turkish lines west of Tripoli.
(HN, 3/5/98)
1912 Mar 7, French aviator, Heri Seimet flew non-stop from London to Paris in three hours.
(HN, 3/7/98)
1912 Mar 12, Capt. Albert Berry performed the 1st parachute jump from an airplane.
(MC, 3/12/02)
1912 Apr 3, Calbraith Perry Rodgers (b.1879), American pioneer aviator, crashed and was killed while flying over the ocean near Long Beach, Ca.
(ON, 10/06, p.12)
1912 Apr 10, The first wireless transmission was received on an airplane.
(HN, 4/10/98)
1912 Apr 16, Harriet Quimby became the first woman to fly across the English Channel.
(AP, 4/16/97)
1912 May 13, In San Francisco aviator Roy Francis and artist Phil Rader made a 36 minute flight over the city.
(SSFC, 5/13/12, p.42)
1912 May 13, The Royal Flying Corps was established in England. It was the predecessor of the Royal Air Force.
(SS, Internet, 5/13/97)(HN, 5/13/99)
1912 May 30, Wilbur Wright (b.1867), aeronautical inventor, died of a typhoid infection.
(WUD, 1994, p.1647)(ON, SC, p.4)
1912 Jun 7, US army tested the 1st machine gun mounted on a plane.
(SC, 6/7/02)
1912 Jul 1, Drama critic Harriet Quimby (28) took a passenger up in her new Blériot monoplane from Boston to fly over Dorchester Bay at the Harvard-Boston Aviation Meet. As she descended for landing, the plane went into a dive and, without seat belts, she and her passenger were thrown out into the shallow water of the bay, where they struck the muddy bottom and were crushed to death. Quimby was the first licensed woman pilot in the United States. Her interest in flight was piqued at an aviation meet in 1910. Quimby promoted aviation for women and once wrote, "In my opinion, there is no reason why the aeroplane should not open up a fruitful occupation for women."
(HNPD, 7/31/98)(ON, 1/00, p.11)
1912 Jul 16, A Naval torpedo, launched from an airplane, was patented by B.A. Fiske.
(MC, 7/16/02)
1912 Aug 25, An aircraft recovered from a spin for the 1st time.
(chblue.com, 8/25/01)
1912 Sep 7, French aviator Roland Garros set an altitude record of 13,200 feet.
(HN, 9/7/98)
1912 Sep 10, In France J. Vedrines became the first pilot to break 100 m.p.h. barrier.
(HN, 9/10/98)
1912 The Australian Antarctic Expedition of 1911-1914 began using an airplane to tow gear onto the ice in preparation for their sledging journeys. The plane, the first from France's Vickers factory, had not been seen since the mid-1970s, when researchers photographed the steel fuselage nearly encompassed in ice. Australian researchers stumbled on remains of the plane on Jan 1, 2010.
(AP, 1/2/10)
1913 Jan 16, Prof. Thaddeus Lowe (80), balloonist pioneer, died.
(www.militarymuseum.org/Lowe.html)
1913 Feb 29, A US judge upheld a Wright Brothers’ airplane patent regarding the use of ailerons in a suit against Glenn Curtiss. In 1914 a Court of Appeals affirmed the decision. Henry Ford offered assistance to Curtiss and Ford lawyer W. Benton Crisp put Curtiss back in production by employing non-simultaneous use of ailerons.
(ON, 12/11, p.12)
1913 May 13, The first 4 engine aircraft was built & flown by Igor Sikorsky of Russia.
(SS, Internet, 5/13/97)(HN, 5/13/98)
1913 Aug 20, 700 feet above Buc, France, parachutist Adolphe Pegoud becomes the first person to jump from an airplane and land safely.
(HN, 8/20/00)(MC, 8/20/02)
1913 Franz Schneider patented a gun synchronizing device in Germany, France and Great Britain. In 1915 it was developed as the "Fokker Scourge" to fire bullets through an airplanes propellers.
(ON, 10/02, p.8)
1913-1931 The famous Schneider Trophy contests between over this period were meant to prove the practicality of floatplanes and seaplanes, but the emphasis on speed produced a horsepower race that led to military applications, among them the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine that powered the WWII aircraft: Supermarine Spitfire. The Supermarine Spitfire was one of the beneficiaries of an engine that the Rolls-Royce Company built to power Britain’s race contender, the S.6B seaplane racer designed by Reginald Mitchell. Rolls continued development of the engine after the races ended and it was installed in a sleek landplane fighter also designed by Mitchell, and christened against his personal preference as the Spitfire. The Merlin would go on to power many other aircraft.
(HN, 9/30/02)
1914 Jan 4, In San Francisco pilot Lincoln Beachey looped the loop a record seven times in his biplane in an aerial show before a crowd of some 25,000 people. Motion pictures were taken from tethered balloon.
(SSFC, 1/5/14, p.42)
1914 Jan, The St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line became the world’s first regularly scheduled airline service.
(NPub, 2002, p.9)
1914 Jun 2, Glenn Curtiss flew his Langley Aerodrome.
(SC, 6/2/02)
1914 Jun 6, The 1st air flight out of sight of land was made from Scotland to Norway.
(MC, 6/6/02)
1914 Jul 18, US army air service 1st came into being as part of the Signal Corps.
(MC, 7/18/02)
1914 Aug, Alberto Santos-Dumont (1873-1932), Brazilian aviation pioneer, burned his aeronautical papers after French neighbors labeled him a German spy.
(SSFC, 6/28/03, p.M1)
1914 Nov 8, In San Francisco Lincoln Beachey thrilled some 100,000 people with aerial flights from exposition grounds and the wrecking of an artificial warship with bombs dropped from 2,000 to 4,000 feet.
(SSFC, 11/9/14, p.42)
1914 Two-way radio contact was accomplished between pilot and ground control.
(NPub, 2002, p.9)
1915 Mar 3, The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), a NASA forerunner, was created. It was the first US government sponsored organization in support of aviation research and development.
(SC, 3/3/02)(NPub, 2002, p.9)
1915 Mar 14, Lincoln Beachey, air devil, plunged into the shallows of SF Bay and was killed as some 50,000 fans watched his performance during the Panama-Pacific Expo. The battleship USS Oregon recovered the plane and body.
(Ind, 9/5/98, p.5A)
1915 Apr 1, Roland Garros (d.1918), French aviator, shot down 2 German aviators over Belgium, with bullets shot through his propellers. Corp. August Spachholz and Lt. Walter Grosskopf became the 1st to be killed by an enemy pilot flying alone.
(ON, 10/02, p.8)
1915 May 10, A Zeppelin dropped hundreds of bombs on Southend-on-Sea.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1915 Orville Wright (1871-1948) sold his interest in the Wright Company and retired.
(NPub, 2002, p.9)
1916 Sep 2, Two airborne planes communicated directly by radio for the 1st time.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)
1916 The Univ. of Michigan established the nation’s 1st Dept. of Aeronautical Engineering under Prof. Felix Pawlowski.
(MT, Summer/04, p.7)
1916 The German firm BMW began life assembling aircraft engines.
(Econ, 3/12/15, p.64)
1917 Mar 8, Ferdinand von Zeppelin (78), Dutch count, air pioneer, died.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1917 The Manufacturers Aircraft Association was formed under the efforts of Ford lawyer W. Benton Crisp. Royalties of 1% were paid to the Curtiss and Wright companies up to 2 million dollars each. The organization, later named the Manufacturers' Aircraft Association (MAA), continued to unify the air industry and engage in public education endeavors. The MAA was later dissolved, and in 1919, the newly formed Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce (ACCA) stepped in to promote civil aviation.
(ON, 12/11, p.12)(www.aia-aerospace.org/about_aia/aia_at_a_glance/history/)
1918 Apr 1, In England the Royal Flying Corps was replaced by the Royal Air Force.
(AP, 4/1/98)(HN, 4/1/98)(OTD)
1918 Apr 8, The US First Aero Squadron was assigned to the Western Front for the first time on observation duty.
(MC, 4/8/02)
1918 May 13, The first US airmail stamps, featuring a picture of an airplane, were introduced. On some of the initial stamps the airplane was printed upside down; the "inverted Jenny," as it came to be called, became a collector's item. One sheet of 100 stamps got by inspectors.
(SSFC, 11/12/06, p.A2)(AP, 5/13/08)
1918 May 15, The U.S. Post Office and the U.S. Army began regularly scheduled airmail service between Washington and New York through Philadelphia. Lieutenant George L. Boyle, an inexperienced young army pilot, was chosen to make the first flight from Washington. Even with a route map stitched to his breeches, Boyle lost his way and flew south rather than north. The second leg of the Washington--Philadelphia--New York flight, however, took off and arrived in New York on schedule--without the Washington mail. The distance of the route was 218 miles, and one round trip per day was made six days a week. Army Air Service pilots flew the route until August 10, 1918, when the Post Office Department took over the entire operation with its own planes and pilots.
(AP, 5/15/97)(HNPD, 6/15/99)(HNQ, 4/24/01)
1919 Mar 22, The first international airline service was inaugurated on a weekly schedule between Paris and Brussels.
(AP, 3/22/99)
1919 Apr 28, The first jump with an Army Air Corp (rip-cord type) parachute was made by Les Irvin.
(HN, 4/28/98)(MC, 4/28/02)
1919 May 2, The first U.S. air passenger service started.
(HN, 5/2/98)
1919 May 8, The first transatlantic flight took-off by a US Navy seaplane.
(HN, 5/8/98)
1919 May 13, Atlantic City, NJ, became the site of the 1st municipal airport in the US.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)
1919 May 22, The Orteig Prize was offered by New York hotel owner Raymond Orteig for the first allied aviator(s) to fly from New York to Paris or vice versa. This was a few weeks before Alcock and Brown successfully completed the first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orteig_Prize)(Econ, 5/16/15, p.72)
1919 May 27, U.S. Navy Curtiss flying boat NC-4, piloted by Lt. Cmdr. Albert C. Read, arrived safely in Lisbon, Portugal, to become the first aircraft to complete a transatlantic flight. Three aircraft, designated NC-1, NC-3 and NC-4--called "Nancy" boats--had taken off from New York's Rockaway Naval Air Station for Lisbon on May 8, with intermediate stops planned for Newfoundland and the Azores. Only NC-4 completed the 3,925-mile transatlantic flight. Heavy rain and fog forced NC-1 down at sea, where it sank on May 17. NC-3, as depicted in this painting by Ron Weil, came down in rough seas and taxied 200 miles into the harbor at Horta in the Azores.
(HNPD, 5/27/99)
1919 Jun 14, Pilot John William Alcock (1892-1919) and navigator Arthur Witten Brown (1886-1948) took off from St. John’s, Newfoundland, for Clifden, Ireland, on the first nonstop transatlantic flight. The flight lasted 16 hours and 28 minutes and carried the first transatlantic airmail. They won a 10 thousand pound prize, first offered by the Daily Mail in 1913.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Whitten_Brown)(ON, 4/09, p.1)
1919 Jul 19, Raymonde de Larouche (1882-1919), Franch actress and aviatrix, died in an plane crash at Le Crotoy airport in France.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymonde_de_Laroche)
1919 Jul 21, Anthony Fokker established an airplane factory at Hamburg and Amsterdam.
(MC, 7/21/02)
1919 Jul 21, A dirigible crashed through a bank skylight killing 13 in Chicago.
(MC, 7/21/02)
1919 Aug 25, The 1st scheduled passenger service by airplane between Paris and London.
(MC, 8/25/02)
1919 Oct 11, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines made its debut and served a pre-packaged dinner, believed to be the 1st in-flight meal, on a flight between London and Paris.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)(WSJ, 5/31/08, p.A12)
1919 Dec 5, Colombian airline Avianca S.A. was initially registered under the name SCADTA (Colombian-German Air Transport Company).
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avianca)
1919 Dec 18, British pilot John William Alcock (b.1892), enroute to a Paris air show, was killed while making a forced landing in fog near Rouen. He and navigator Arthur Witten Brown (1886-1948) had recently completed the world’s first nonstop transatlantic flight [see June 14].
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Whitten_Brown)(ON, 4/09, p.1)
1919 Chalk’s Ocean Airways was founded to fly tourists and fisherman from Florida to the Bahamas.
(SFC, 12/20/05, p.A4)
1920 Feb 4, Lt. Col Pierre van Ryneveld and Flight Lieutenant Christopher Joseph (Flossie) Quintin-Brand left London from Brooklands Aerodrome in Surrey, England in the Vimy named the Silver Queen in the 1st flight from London to South Africa. Their flight took a total of 45 days with a flight time of 109 hours and 30 minutes.
(http://sapfa.co.za/index.php/2-uncategorised/234-1920-s-london-to-cape-town)
1920 Jul 27, A radio compass was used for 1st time for aircraft navigation.
(MC, 7/27/02)
1920 Sep 8, New York-to-San Francisco air mail service was inaugurated. US postal planes began flying across the country, but these flights took place only in daylight because pilots relied on visual landmarks to navigate.
(www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Government_Role/1918-1924/POL3.htm)(AP, 9/8/00)
1920 Australia-based Qantas Airlines was founded as Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services Ltd. Regular passenger service began in 1922.
(AP, 7/25/08)(http://airlines.ws/qantas.htm)
1921 Feb 22, An air mail plane left San Francisco at 4:30 a.m., landing at New York (Hazelhurst Field, L. I., N. Y.) at 4:50 p.m. on February 23.
(www.airmailpioneers.org/history/Sagahistory.htm)
1921 Feb 24, A giant plane was completed at 421 Colyton Street, Los Angeles. The "leviathan of the Skies" or "The Cloudster," was designed by Donald Douglas and was the first to carry a load greater than it own weight.
(www.lahistoryarchive.org)
1921 Mar 23, Arthur G. Hamilton set a new parachute record, safely jumping 24,400 feet.
(HN, 3/23/98)
1921 Jul 21, Gen. Billy Mitchell flew off with a payload of makeshift aerial bombs and sank the former German battle ship Ostfriesland off Hampton Roads, Virginia; the 1st time a battleship was ever sunk by an airplane.
(MC, 7/21/02)
1921 Aug 3, The 1st aerial crop dusting was in Troy, Ohio, to kill caterpillars.
(SC, 8/3/02)
1921 Nov 21, The 1st mid-air refueling was done by hand over Long Beach on a Curtiss JN-4.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)
1921 Dec 1, The US Navy flew the first nonrigid dirigible to use helium; the C-7 traveled from Hampton Roads, Va., to Washington.
(AP, 12/1/06)
1922 Mar 23, 1st airplane landed at the US Capitol in Washington DC.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1922 Jun 16, Henry Berliner demonstrated his helicopter to US Bureau of Aeronautics.
(MC, 6/16/02)
1922 Nov 2, Australian Qantas airways began service.
(www.qantas.com.au/travel/airlines/history-birthplace/global/en)
1923 Feb 9, Soviet Aeroflot airlines formed.
(MC, 2/9/02)
1923 May 2, Lieutenants Okaley Kelly and John Macready took off from New York for the West Coast on what would become the first successful nonstop transcontinental flight.
(HN, 5/2/02)
1923 May 3, The 1st non-stop flight across the US was completed. Army lieutenants Kelly and Macready arrived in San Diego from New York in 26 hours and 50 minutes.
(HFA, '96, p.30)(HN, 4/6/98)(NPub, 2002, p.10)
1923 Jun 27, The first in-flight refueling occurred over San Diego, Ca.
(NPub, 2002, p.10)
1923 Amelia Earhart became the 16th woman to be issue a pilot’s license by the Federation Aeronautique Internationale.
(ON, 12/07, p.8)
1924 Mar 17, Four Douglas army aircraft left Los Angeles for an around the world flight.
(HN, 3/17/98)
1924 Apr 1, Imperial Airways was formed in Britain.
(OTD)
1924 Apr 6, Four open-cockpit biplanes took off from Seattle for a round the world flight. Two of the planes made it back. They flew 26,000 miles in 363 hours over a 175 days at an average speed of 77 mph. The US Congress had to approve the financing and the airplanes were built by Douglas Aircraft. [see May 3, 1923]
(Hem., 2/96, p.43)(HN, 4/6/98)
1924 Jul 1, A regular transcontinental airmail service formed between NYC and SF.
(MC, 7/1/02)
1924 Sep 28, Two US Army planes landed in Seattle, Wash., having completed the first round-the-world flight in 175 days. Three U.S. Army aircraft arrived in Seattle, Washington, after completing a 22 day round-the-world flight.
(AP, 9/28/97)(HN, 9/28/98)
1925 Apr 6, A Deutsche Lufthansa flight debuted an in-flight movie, a silent-reel short.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)
1925 Sep 3, The dirigible "Shenandoah" crashed near Caldwell Ohio, 13 die. The 682-foot Shenandoah, a dirigible built by the U.S. Navy in 1923, broke apart in mid-air, killing 14 persons aboard.
(HNQ, 1/2/00)(MC, 9/3/01)
1926 May 9, Americans Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett made the first flight over the North Pole. [see 1888-1957, Byrd] Two teams of aviators competed to be the first to fly over the North Pole. American Navy Lt. Cmdr. Richard E. Byrd and pilot Floyd Bennett claimed victory when they circled the North Pole. But even today experts suspect that faulty navigation caused Byrd to miss the North Pole. Later archivists determined that Byrd was probably 150 miles short of the pole. His tri-motor Fokker monoplane named Josephine Ford probably came within 2.25 degrees of the pole.
(HFA, ‘96, p.30)(TMC, 1994, p.1926)(SFC, 5/9/96, p.A-13)(HN, 5/9/98)(HNPD, 5/13/99)
1926 May 12, Italian Col. Umberto Nobile of the Italian army piloted his Norge dirigible over the North Pole with Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen.
(ON, 10/00, p.5)
1926 Jul 2, The U.S. Army Air Corps was created by Congress. The Distinguish Flying Cross was authorized.
(AP, 7/2/97)(HN, 7/2/98)(SC, 7/2/02)
1927 Mar 23, Captain Hawthorne Gray set a new balloon record soaring to 28,510 feet.
(HN, 3/23/98)
1927 Apr 26, US Navy officers Cmdr. Noel Davis and Lt. Stanton Wooster were killed when their aircraft crashed near New York while trying to take off with a huge load of fuel for a final test flight prior to an attempt to cross the Atlantic.
(ON, 2/08, p.1)
1927 Apr 29, Construction of the Spirit of St Louis was completed. B.F. Mahoney was the ‘mystery man’ behind the Ryan Aeronautical Company that built Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis. Engineer Donald Hall designed the $10,580 plane to carry 400 gallons of fuel.
(HN, 4/29/98)(ON, 2/08, p.1)
1927 May 4, The first balloon flight over 40,000 feet was made.
(HN, 5/4/98)
1927 May 7, Mills Field, later SFO, opened for business with Captain Frank A. Flynn as superintendent.
(SFEC, 4/25/99, Z1 p.4)(Ind, 5/5/01, 5A)(SFC, 3/26/04, p.F7)
1927 May 8, French pilots Charles Nungesser and Francois Coli took off from Paris in their airplane named L’Oiseau Blanc (the White Bird), in an attempt to cross the Atlantic. Pilots and plane vanished during the flight.
(ON, 2/08, p.2)
1927 May 10, US aviator Charles Augustus Lindbergh (1902-1974) picked up his plane, “The Spirit of St. Louis," in San Diego and flew it to St. Louis. The next day he continued to New York using railroad maps that he picked up in a drugstore for 50 cents each. The plane was powered by an air-cooled Whirlwind engine built by Ryan Aeronautical Company. Charles Fayette Taylor (1895-1996) worked on the engine design team. Taylor later authored "The Internal Combustion Engine in Theory and Practice."
(WUD, 1994, p.832)(SFC, 6/23/96, Z1 p.2)(SFC, 6/30/96, p.B6)(ON, 2/08, p.2)
1927 May 20, Charles Lindbergh (25) took off from Roosevelt Field in Long Island, NY, at 7:40 AM aboard the Spirit of St. Louis on his historic solo flight to France. The Minnesota native had decided to compete for a $25,000 prize, offered in 1919 by Raymond Orteig, NY hotel owner, to the first pilot to complete the feat. The Spirit of St. Louis, was capable of flying 4,000 miles on 425 gallons of fuel. His greatest problems on the 33-hour, 30-minute flight were staying awake and keeping ice from forming on the airplane’s wings.
(AP, 5/20/97)(HN, 5/20/98)(HNPD, 5/21/00)(USAW, 5/19/02, p.26)(ON, 2/08, p.1)
1927 May 21, Charles Lindbergh (Lucky Lindy) landed in Le Bourget Field in Paris after a 33.5-hour nonstop, first solo flight from Roosevelt Field on New York’s Long Island. In 1953 Lindbergh authored his memoir “The Spirit of St. Louis."
(F, 10/7/96, p.68)(AP, 5/21/97)(SFC, 10/20/99, p.C10)(ON, 2/08, p.1)
1927 Aug, Hermann Koehl attempted a nonstop flight from Dessau, Germany, to North America in a Junkers monoplane, the Bremen. He reached Ireland and was forced to turn back.
(ON, 9/02, p.5)
1927 Oct 28, Pan Am Airways launched the first scheduled international flight. Pan Am was founded this year as a mail carrier to Havana by Juan Terry Trippe. In 2000 Barnaby Conrad III authored "Pan Am: An Aviation Legend."
(HN, 10/28/98)(SFEM, 2/13/00, p.30)
1927 The Washington Airport opened in DC next to Hoover field, which had opened a year earlier. The two merged in 1930 to form the Washington-Hoover Airport.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan_Washington_National_Airport)
1927 Japan's Imperial Aeronautics Association launched a competition for a non-stop flight across the Pacific Ocean. The Ashi Shimbun newspaper offered a $25,000 prize.
(ON, 1/03, p.10)
1928 Feb 7, Australian Bert Hinkler took off from London in a two-seat Avro 581E Avian biplane on the first leg of his solo flight from England to Australia. On February 22, after flying 128 hours in less than 16 days, Hinkler's 11,250-mile adventure ended in Darwin, Australia.
(HNQ, 2/7/01)
1928 Apr 12, Hermann Koehl attempted a 2nd nonstop flight Europe to North America in a Junkers monoplane, the Bremen. Koehl along with a navigator and passenger departed from Ireland and reached Greenly Island, Quebec, the next day.
(ON, 9/02, p.5)
1928 Apr 14, The first air service from SF to Los Angeles began. Mines Field opened in LA on a 640-acre portion of the 3,000-acre Bennett Rancho, which had become a popular landing strip for area aviators.
(SFEC, 4/25/99, Z1 p.4)(Hem, 9/04, p.34)
1928 May 1, Pitcairn Airlines (later Eastern) began service.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1928 May 24, The dirigible Italia crashed while attempting to reach Spitzbergen. Nine men survived the initial crash. In 2000 Wilbur Cross authored "Disaster at the Pole," a revised edition of the 1960 version of the disaster led by Italian aviator Umberto Nobile.
(ON, 10/00, p.6)(SSFC, 1/7/01, Par p.14)
1928 May 31, The first flight over the Pacific took off from Oakland. Charles Kingsford-Smith & Charles Ulm departed from Oakland, Ca., and arrived in Australia on June 9.
(HN, 5/31/98)(NPub, 2002, p.11)
1928 Jun 3, Commander Amelia Earhart departed with pilot Bill Stultz from Boston Harbor to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and then to Trepassey, Newfoundland. From there on June 17 they embarked on a trans-Atlantic flight from Newfoundland to Wales.
(AP, 6/17/97)(HNQ, 3/8/02)(ON, 12/07, p.8)
1928 Jun 9, Charles Kingsford-Smith & Charles Ulm were the 1st to fly across the Pacific when they ended their flight from California to Brisbane, Australia.
(NPub, 2002, p.11)
1928 Jun 17, Amelia Earhart embarked on a trans-Atlantic flight from Newfoundland to Wales with pilots Wilmer Stultz and Louis Gordon, becoming the first woman to make the trip as a passenger.
(ON, 12/07, p.9)(AP, 6/17/08)
1928 Jun 18, Aviator Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean as she completed a flight from Newfoundland to Wales in about 21 hours as a passenger.
(AP, 6/18/97)(HN, 6/18/98)(HNQ, 3/8/02)
1928 Jun28-1928 Jun 29, Albert Hegenbeerger and Lester Maitland accomplished the first nonstop flight across the Pacific.
(NPub, 2002, p.12)
1928 Aug 16, The US Navy selected the Oakland municipal airport as the site of a US Naval Reserve aviation base.
(SFC, 8/15/03, p.E9)
1928 Aug, Amelia Earhart became the 1st woman to make back-to-back solo transcontinental flights as she flew across back forth across America.
(ON, 12/07, p.9)
1928 Oct 25, An American group, led by James A. Talbot of Richfield Oil, acquired control of the American airplane business of Anthony H.G. Fokker.
(SFC, 10/24/03, p.E10)
1928 Oct 26, The Pickwick Stage System filed documents to form a passenger airplane service connecting SF, San Diego and Chicago. It planned to use a fleet of tri-motored, 12 passenger Bach monoplanes.
(SFC, 10/24/03, p.E10)
1928 Transcontinental Air Transport, the forerunner of Trans World Airlines (TWA), was incorporated. Thomas B. Eastland acquired enough shares to become the West Coast Director. Clement M. Keys was president and hired Charles Lindbergh as chairman of the technical committee.
(Ind, 11/16/02, 5A)
1928 The first diesel powered aircraft, a modified Stinson, took to the air.
(Econ, 9/6/08, TQ p.8)
1929 Jan 2, Evelyn "Bobbi" Trout (d.2003 at 97) shattered the female pilot endurance record of 8 hours with a flight of 12 hours and 11 minutes.
(SFC, 2/1/03, p.A18)
1929 Mar 26, The SF board of Supervisors voted 14-1 to remove Captain Frank A. Flynn from his post as superintendent of Mills Field, following the story of a Lindbergh complaint. Charles Lindbergh had come to San Francisco’s Airport, Mills Field, to promote his airline, Transcontinental Air Transport. His plane was forced off the field by another plane and became stuck in the mud.
(SFEC, 6/29/97, AS p.6)(SFC, 3/26/04, p.F7)
1929 Jul 16, Col. Charles Lindbergh was severely angered when he realized a sound-camera man had recorded a private conversation using a concealed microphone. The “voice that has never been filmed" left San Francisco’s Mills Field airport on the cameraman’s reel.
(SFC, 7/16/04, p.F4)
1929 Jul, Transcontinental Air Transport began regularly scheduled between NY and LA. Service took 48 hours with trains for night travel. A ticket cost $310. [see Oct 23]
(Ind, 11/16/02, 5A)
1929 Aug 7, Germany’s Graf Zeppelin airship embarked from Lakehurst, New Jersey, on the first round-the-world passenger voyage.
(www.airships.net/blog/graf-zeppelin-round-the-world-flight-august-1929)(Hem., 2/96, p.43)
1929 Aug 18, The first cross-country women's air derby began. Louise McPhetride Thaden won first prize in the heavier-plane division, while Phoebe Fairgrave Omlie finished first in the lighter-plane category.
(HN, 8/18/98)
1929 Aug 25, Graf Zeppelin passed over SF for LA following a trans-Pacific voyage.
(MC, 8/25/02)
1929 Aug 29, The Graf Zeppelin returned to Lakehurst, New Jersey, after 21 days 4 hours, a new world record.
(Hem., 2/96, p.43)(MC, 8/29/01)(ON, 1/03, p.10)
1929 Sep 1, Maddux Air began the 1st direct aerial passenger service from SF to NY. The 48 hour trip included 2 nights on trains.
(SSFC, 8/22/04, p.F8)
1929 Sep 24, U.S. Army pilot Lt. James H. Doolittle guided a Consolidated NY2 Biplane over Mitchel Field in New York in the first all-instrument flight.
(AP, 9/24/97)(HN, 9/24/98)
1929 Sep 30, The 1st manned rocket plane flight was made by auto maker Fritz von Opel at Frankfurt-am-Main [see May 29, 1928].
(http://strangevehicles.greyfalcon.us/OPEL%20ROCKET%20VEHICLES.htm)
1929 Oct 23, First transcontinental air service began from New York to Los Angeles. [see July]
(HN, 10/23/98)
1929 Oct 28, Universal Pictures joined with Transcontinental Air Transport to offer moving pictures for air passengers bound for California.
(SFC, 10/29/04, p.F11)
1929 Nov 28, Commander Richard E. Byrd embarked on the first South Pole flight.
(NPub, 2002, p.12)
1929 Nov 29, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Richard E. Byrd radioed that he'd made the first airplane flight over the South Pole: "My calculations indicate that we have reached vicinity of South Pole." He was wrong [see 1888-1957, Byrd].
(TMC, 1994, p.1929)(HFA, '96, p.42)(AP, 11/29/97)(NPub, 2002, p.12)
1929 Hangar 1, the first modern air terminal of LA, was completed at Mines Field in Spanish Colonial Revival style. In 2005 it was still part of LAX.
(Hem., 5/97, p.70)(Hem, 9/04, p.34)
1929 Amelia Earhart and other female aviation pioneers founded the Ninety-Nines (a women’s pilot’s association). Only about 150 of the nation’s 9,800 licensed pilots were women. While the number of female pilots increased, it was stunted by a Depression-era society no longer tolerant of the feminist activism of the 1920s.
(HNQ, 3/16/01)
1929 St. Louis hired Archie William League as the first US air traffic controller. His first "control tower" at Lambert Field consisted of a wheelbarrow on which he mounted a beach umbrella for the summer heat. In it he carried a beach chair, his lunch, water, a notepad and a pair of signal flags to direct the aircraft.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archie_League)
1929 Ira C. Eaker and three other pilots set an endurance record for flying. Eaker set flying records in 1929 and 1936, became the commander of VIII Bomber Command and later the entire Eighth Air Force in World War II.
(HNQ, 3/9/01)
1929 William Green developed the first automatic pilot used on an airliner.
(NPub, 2002, p.12)(www.spaceday.org/index.php/History-of-Flight-Timeline.html)
1929 The pilot of a Fokker C.IV crashed in Vancouver, Canada, during an attempt to fly nonstop from Seattle to Tokyo. The 1923 plane became a tourist attraction, then burned and ended up in Maine, where it was restored for the Owls Head Transportation Museum.
(SFC, 9/13/07, p.E3)
1930 Jan 6, Aviator Douglas Campbell, the 1st American ace of WW I, visited C.A. “Mother" Tusch at 2211 Union St. in Berkeley, Ca. Tusch’s home was known s the “Hangar" because it was one of the most complete privately owned aviation museums in America.
(SFC, 1/7/05, p.F6)
1930 Apr 6, 1st transcontinental glider tow was completed.
(MC, 4/6/02)
1930 Apr 20, Charles (d.1974) and Anne Lindbergh (d.2001 at 94) set a transcontinental speed record flying from Los Angeles to New York in 14 hours and 45 minutes. Anne was 7 months pregnant. [see Jan 20]
(SFC, 2/8/01, p.C2)
1930 May 15, Ellen Church, the first airline stewardess, went on duty aboard an Oakland-to-Chicago flight operated by Boeing Air Transport, a forerunner of United Airlines.
(HN, 5/15/98)(AP, 5/15/07)
1930 May 20, The first airplane, piloted by Charles Nicholson, was catapulted from a dirigible.
(HN, 5/20/98)(MC, 5/20/02)
1930 May 24, Amy Johnson became the first woman to fly from England to Australia.
(HN, 5/24/98)
1930 Aug 13, Captain Frank M. Hawks, superintendent of the Aviation Division of Texaco, flew a red-and-white Travel Air monoplane from Los Angeles to New York in 12 hours, 25 minutes and 3 seconds. According to Hawks' own widely publicized account, the Travel Air performed flawlessly, with an average airspeed of 215 mph. Hawks made three 15-minute refueling stops during the 2,510-mile journey. He battled a rainstorm, crosswinds, hunger and a thick haze that made "the ground barely visible at 8,000 feet," but reached New York City in time for dinner.
(HNPD, 8/20/99)
1930 Aug 18, Eastern Airlines began passenger service.
(MC, 8/18/02)
1930 Sep 2, The first non-stop airplane flight from Europe to the US was completed as Captain Dieudonne Coste and Maurice Bellonte of France arrived in Valley Stream, New York, aboard a Breguet biplane. The plane was known as "The Question Mark" because it bore a large question mark, instead of a name, on each side.
(AP, 9/2/08)
1930 Dec 10, Lady aviator Ruth Nichols set a new women's record for coast to coast flight, traveling from Los Angeles to New York in 13 hours 22 minutes.
(NY Times, 11/12/1930, p.1)
1931 Feb 7, Amelia Earhart (33), aviatrix, married George Palmer Putnam (45), divorced heir to a publishing empire in Noank, Conn.
(SFEM, 1/25/98, p.31)(HN, 2/7/99)
1931 Mar, United Aircraft-Transport Corp. acquired National Air Transport. 3 months later it bought Varney Air Lines and incorporated as United Air Lines Inc.
(WSJ, 12/6/02, p.B5)
1931 May 18, Japanese pilot Seiji Yoshihara crashed his plane in the Pacific Ocean while trying to be the first to cross the ocean nonstop. He was picked up seven hours later by a passing ship.
(HN, 5/18/99)
1931 May 27, Piccard and Knipfer made the first flight into stratosphere, by balloon.
(HN, 5/27/98)
1931 Jun 23, Wiley Post and Harold Gatty flew in a single-engine plane, the Winnie Mae, from New York on a round-the-world flight and returned to New York on July 1 after 8 days, 15 hrs, and 51 min., a new world record.
(AP, 6/23/97)(ON, 12/03, p.10)(NPub, 2002, p.12)
1931 Jul 28, Clyde Panghorn and Hugh Herndon took off from Roosevelt Field, NY, in an attempt to set a round-the world speed record. They got delayed in Siberia and changed their plan to pursue a record non-stop flight from Japan to the US. Herndon's mother, an heiress of Standard Oil Company money, financed most of the trip.
(ON, 1/03, p.10)
1931 Aug, Clyde Panghorn and Hugh Herndon landed at Japan's Tachikawa Airport and were arraigned for landing illegally. They paid fines of $1,050 apiece to be released.
(ON, 1/03, p.10)
1931 Oct 2, Aerial circus star Clyde Pangborn and playboy Hugh Herndon, Jr. set off in Miss Veedol to complete the first nonstop flight across the Pacific Ocean from Sabishiro Beach in Misawa City, Japan. A young boy gave Panghorn 5 apples from Misawa City.
(HN, 10/2/99)(ON, 1/03, p.10)
1931 Oct 3, Clyde Pangborn and Hugh Herndon, Jr. belly landed Miss Veedol, a Bellanca CH-200 monoplane, in Wenatchee, Wa., to complete the first nonstop flight across the Pacific Ocean from Japan. They won a $25,000 prize from the Japanese Ashi Shimbun newspaper. Panghorn sent apple cuttings from Wenatchee's Richard Delicious apples to Japan which were soon distributed across Japan.
(ON, 1/03, p.10)
1931-1975 Raymond Kelly (d.2003 at 102), flight engineer, shot 8mm movies of various flights. A 45-minute compilation was later made: "44 years in Aviation, 1931-1975," and kept at the national Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.
(SFC, 10/8/03, p.A27)
1932 Mar 20, The German dirigible, Graf Zepplin, made the first flight to South America on regular schedule.
(HN, 3/20/98)
1932 May 20, Amelia Earhart took off from Newfoundland to become the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. Because of weather and equipment problems, Earhart set down in Northern Ireland after 13 ½ hours instead of her intended destination, France.
(HFA, '96, p.30)(HN, 5/20/01)(AP, 5/20/07)(ON, 12/07, p.9)
1932 May 21, Amelia Earhart made her first transatlantic solo flight from Newfoundland to Ireland.
(HN, 5/21/98)(AP, 5/20/97)
1932 Jul 23, Alberto Santos-Dumont (b.1873), aviation pioneer, hanged himself in Guaraja, Brazil after hearing a bomber discharge its load on fellow countrymen. In 2003 Paul Hoffman authored "Wings of Madness: Alberto Santos-Dumont and the Invention of Flight."
(SSFC, 6/28/03, p.M1)
1932 Aug 18, Auguste Piccard and Max Cosijns reached 16,201m in a balloon.
(MC, 8/18/02)
1932 Aug 24, Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly nonstop across the United States, traveling from Los Angeles to Newark, N.J., in just over 19 hours.
(AP, 8/24/97)
1932 Aug 25, Amelia Earhart completed a transcontinental flight.
(chblue.com, 8/25/01)
1932 Oct 15, In India J.R.D Tata began flying regular mail service. India’s first airline, Air India, was founded by the Tata family. In 1953 Air India was nationalized. In 2007 it merged with Indian Airlines.
(www.airindia.com/SBCMS/Webpages/JRD.aspx?MID=196#)(Econ, 3/23/13, p.72)(Econ 7/8/17, p.59)
1932 Night flying was introduced in the US and transcontinental travel was cut to 24 hours.
(Ind, 11/16/02, 5A)
1933 Feb 8, The 1st flight of all-metal Boeing 247.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1933 Apr 3, The dirigible Akron crashed into the Atlantic off of New Jersey and killed 73 0f the 76 men aboard.
(SFC, 9/20/97, p.A21)
1933 Apr 13, The first flight over Mount Everest was completed by Lord Clydesdale.
(HN, 4/13/98)
1933 Jul 1, Italian Air Force Gen. Italo Balbo led a flight of twenty-four flying boats on a round-trip flight from Rome to the Century of Progress in Chicago, Illinois. The flight had seven legs and ended on Lake Michigan near Burnham Park on Aug 12. In honor of this feat, Mussolini donated a column from Ostia to the city of Chicago; it can still be seen along the Lakefront Trail, a little south of Soldier Field.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italo_Balbo)
1933 Jul 15, Wiley Post began the 1st solo flight around world.
(MC, 7/15/02)(ON, 12/03, p.12)
1933 Jul 22, American aviator Wiley Post completed the first solo flight around the world as he returned to New York's Floyd Bennett Field after traveling for 7 days, 18 and 3/4 hours.
(AP, 7/22/08)
1933 Pan American Airlines took over China Airways, founded by Clement Keys, and renamed it China National Aviation Corp. (CNAC).
(SFEM, 2/13/00, p.38)
1933 The first unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was the radio-controlled “Fairey Queen" biplane. It was catapulted into the air and survived 2 hours of live fire from a British warship. In 1934 Britain’s Air Ministry ordered 420 such aircraft, known as the Queen Bee, which gave rise to the word drone to describe such aircraft.
(Econ, 12/8/07, TQ p.23)
1934 May 18, TWA began commercial service.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1934 Aug 2, The 1st airplane train towed 3 mail gliders behind it.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1935 Jan 1, Eastern Airlines hired Eddie Rickenbacker as GM.
(MC, 1/1/02)
1935 Jan 1, Helen Richey became the 1st woman employed as an airplane pilot. She resigned 10 months later after the all-male pilot's union refused to accept her.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)
1935 Jan 11, Aviator Amelia Earhart began a trip from Honolulu to Oakland, Calif., becoming the first woman to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean.
(AP, 1/11/98)
1935 Feb 12, The 785-foot USS Macon, the last US Navy dirigible (ZRS-5), crashed on its 55th flight off the coast of California, killing two people. After takeoff from Point Sur, California, a gust of wind tore off the ship's upper fin, deflating its gas cells and causing the ship to fall into the sea. Two of Macon's 83 crewmen died in the accident. The U.S. Navy lost the airships Shenandoah in 1925 and Akron in 1933. Some considered airships too dangerous for the program to continue at that point, and work on them in the United States halted temporarily.
(HNQ, 2/7/99)(SFC, 9/27/06, p.B1)
1935 Mar 11, Hermann Goering made the German Air Force an official organ of the Reich.
(HN, 3/11/98)(MC, 3/11/02)
1935 Aug 15, Humorist Will Rogers (55), American comedian and "cowboy philosopher," and aviation pioneer Wiley Post (36) were killed when their airplane crashed near Point Barrow, Alaska. Rogers once said: "Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there."
(AP, 8/15/97)(HN, 8/15/98)(MC, 8/15/02)
1935 Sep 12, Millionaire Howard Hughes flew his own designed plane at 352.46 mph.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1935 Oct 30, The US Army Air Corps held a competition to see which company would build the country’s next-generation of long-range bombers. Boeing’s “flying fortress" crashed shortly after takeoff and Martin and Douglas won by default.
(Econ, 1/16/10, p.84)
1935 Nov 22, Pan Am inaugurated the first transpacific airmail service, San Francisco to Manila. The Pan Am China Clipper under Captain Ed Musick took off from Alameda Point bound for the Philippines with 111,000 letters. It was the company's first trans-Pacific flight. The plane was a 25-ton Martin M-130 flying boat with a wingspan of 130 feet, and was the largest aircraft in world service.
(HN, 11/22/98)(Ind, 5/1/99, p.5A)(SFEM, 2/13/00, p.35)(NPub, 2002, p.13)
1935 Dec 1, The fist airway traffic control center went into operation.
(NPub, 2002, p.13)
1935 Dec, The fist Douglas DC-3 airplane was introduced. By 1938 it carried the bulk of American air traffic. It was the first practical passenger plane and stemmed from the DC-1, whose design was led by Arthur E. Raymond (d.1999 at 99). Raymond helped found the Rand Corp. in 1948.
(SFC, 3/27/99, p.C2)(NPub, 2002, p.13)
1935 The British de Havilland DH82B Queen Bee, a remote controlled aircraft, entered military service.
{Britain, Aviation}
(Econ 6/10/17, TQ p.4)
1935-1945 There were 12,731 B-17 bomber airplanes built. Nicknamed the "Flying Fortress," over 4,000 never returned from combat.
(WSJ, 9/9/98, p.A20)
1936 Jan 14, American explorer Lincoln Ellsworth and Canadian pilot Herbert Hollick-Kenyon were rescued by the research ship Discovery II. The pair had made the first flight across Antarctica, 2,300 miles from the Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea. They landed when their plane's engine faltered, and waited in the previously constructed shelter at Little America for a month to be picked up. After his earlier attempts to cross Antarctica failed, Ellsworth set out with Hollick-Kenyon in the Northrop Gamma monoplane, Polar Star, and succeeded. Part of the area that Ellsworth and Hollick-Kenyon flew over in 1935 has been named the Ellsworth Highlands.
(HNPD, 1/14/99)(AH, 2/06, p.14)
1936 Mar 4, The 1st test flight of airship Hindenburg was made in Germany.
(www.airships.net/hindenburg)
1936 Mar 5, Spitfire made it's 1st flight at the Eastleigh Aerodrome in Southampton, England.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1936 Apr 18, Pan-Am Clipper began regular passenger flights from SF to Honolulu.
(MC, 4/18/02)
1936 May 6, The Hindenburg airship departed Germany and on the 9th on May, it arrived at Lakehurst, N.J., having completed the first scheduled transatlantic dirigible flight.
(www.airships.net/hindenburg/flight-schedule/maiden-voyage/passenger-account)
1936 Jun 26, The 1st flight of Fw61 helicopter.
(MC, 6/26/02)
1936 Sep 2, The 1st transatlantic round-trip air flight took place. [see Sep 6]
(MC, 9/2/01)
1936 Sep 6, Aviator Beryl Markham flew the first east-to-west solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. [see Sep 2]
(HN, 9/6/00)
1936 The multi-airlines magazine "Airlanes" was begun to popularize passenger flying.
(Hem, 11/02, p.53)
1937 Jan 19, Millionaire Howard Hughes set a transcontinental air record by flying his monoplane from Los Angeles to Newark, N.J., in seven hours, 28 minutes and 25 seconds.
(AP, 1/19/06)
1937 Mar 17, Amelia Earhart took off from Oakland, Ca., in an attempt to become the first pilot to fly around the globe at the equator.
(SFC, 3/1/97, p.A8)
1937 Apr 25, Clem Sohn (26), air show performer, died when his chute failed to open.
(SS, 4/25/02)
1937 May 6, At 7:25 p.m. the giant German airship (dirigible or zeppelin) Hindenburg burst into flames and crashed to the ground as it attempted to dock with a mooring mast at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey. Carrying 36 passengers and 61 crew, Hindenburg left Frankfurt on May 4 for its first transatlantic voyage of the 1937 season. A total of 36 died when the fire ignited the 16 hydrogen-filled cells and destroyed the zeppelin in only 34 seconds. It was 803 feet long and had private rooms for 50 passengers. It had an 11,000 mile range. A newsreel film of the Hindenburg Disaster was made. The true cause of the disaster remains a mystery, although crash investigators considered claims that Hindenburg was lost due to sabotage or an accidental charge of static electricity.
(TMC, 1994, p.1937)(Hem., 1/96, p.108)(AP, 5/6/97)(SFC,11/21/97, p.C17)(HNPD, 5/6/00)
1937 Gibbs Field opened in San Diego, Ca. On May 20, 1950, it was formally re-dedicated as Montgomery Field in honor of John Montgomery, the man who made the first controlled flight in a fixed wing craft (1883).
(GenIV, Winter 04/05)
1937 In Iceland an airline was founded that developed into Icelandair.
(WSJ, 10/14/08, p.B10)
1938 Jun 7, Boeing 314 Clipper flying boat was 1st flown (Eddie Allen).
(SC, 6/7/02)
1938 Jun 23, The Civil Aeronautics Authority was established. Nevada Sen. Patrick McCarran wrote the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938, which put the government in charge of regulating airline fares and accident investigations.
(https://tinyurl.com/y75ama6o)(AP, 6/23/97)
1938 Jul 10, Howard Hughes and the "Yankee Clipper" began the 1st passenger flight around the world flight from NYC. [see Jul 14]
(MC, 7/10/02)
1938 Jul 14, Howard Hughes landed at Floyd Bennet Field in NY with a crew of four after flying around the world in 3 days, 19 hours, and 17 min., a new record.
(Hem., 2/96, p.44)
1938 Jul 18, Douglas "Wrong Way" Corrigan arrived in Ireland. He had left NY for Calif. [see Jul 17]
(MC, 7/18/02)
1939 Mar 3, Eleanor Roosevelt christened Pan Am's new Boeing built Yankee Clipper.
(SFEM, 2/13/00, p.38)
1939 May 20, Regular trans-Atlantic air mail service began as a Pan American Airways plane, the Yankee Clipper, took off from Port Washington, N.Y., bound for Marseilles, France.
(AP, 5/20/97)(www.airliner.net/pan-am-clipper-flying-boat/transatlantic-airline-service/)
1939 Jun 28, Pan American Airways began regular trans-Atlantic passenger air service as the "Dixie Clipper" left Port Washington, N.Y., for Portugal.
(AP, 6/28/99)(NPub, 2002, p.13)
1939 Jul 3, Ernst Heinkel demonstrated an 800-kph rocket plane to Hitler.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1939 Aug 27, The world's first jet-propelled plane, the Heinkel He-178, made its first flight at Marienehe, north Germany. Hans von Ohain’s aircraft became the first jet-powered airplane to fly. It remained airborne for 7 minutes. Erich Warsitz made the 1st jet-propelled flight.
(SFC, 8/10/96, p.A20)(Reuters, 8/28/01)(MC, 8/27/01)
1939 Oct 15, The New York Municipal Airport was dedicated. It was the largest, most advanced commercial airport in the world. Its new terminal featured innovative design that kept arriving and departing passengers separated on two levels for greater efficiency. It was also terminals adorned with Art Deco details and fine restaurants and a rooftop viewing promenade as well as many technological details that made flying safer and less expensive. On Mar 31, 1940, the new airport was rechristened LaGuardia Airport after the mayor, who had been a bomber pilot in World War I and whose interest in aviation lasted throughout his lifetime, barely a month after it opened.
(www.arcadiapublishing.com/news_article.html?id=1816)(AP, 10/15/97)
1939 Dec 2, New York's Municipal Airport began operations as an airliner from Chicago landed at one minute after midnight. The North Beach Airport opened in Queens, NYC, with 2 levels for passenger circulation. It was renamed LaGuardia on March 31, 1940.
(Hem., 5/97, p.70)(AP, 12/2/98)
1940 Mar 31, The New York Municipal Airport, opened in October, 1939, was renamed La Guardia airport, after the mayor, who had been a bomber pilot in World War I and whose interest in aviation lasted throughout his lifetime, barely a month after it opened.
(www.arcadiapublishing.com/news_article.html?id=1816)
1940 May 20, Igor Sikorsky unveiled his helicopter invention.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1940 May 23, The 1st great dogfight between Spitfires took place.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1940 Jul 18, The 1st successful helicopter flight was made at Stratford, Ct.
(MC, 7/18/02)
1940 Aug 25, The first parachute wedding ceremony was performed by Rev. Homer Tomlinson at the New York City World’s Fair for Arno Rudolphi and Ann Hayward. The minister, bride and groom, best man, maid of honor and four musicians were all suspended from parachutes.
(HN, 8/25/00)
1940 Sep 16, The Luftwaffe bombed the Bristol Aeroplane Company.
(http://www.fishponds.freeuk.com/nluftbri1.htm)
1941 Jan, The US War Dept. formed an all-black flying unit that achieved fame as the Tuskegee Airmen. On June 20 the Tuskegee program officially began with the formation of the 99th Fighter Squadron at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Their 1st mission was in June 1943. African-Americans were barred from the Air Corps until this year, and then were shunted to all-black squadrons.
(SFC, 9/22/99, p.A24) (WSJ, 8/17/99, p.A1)(NPub, 2002, p.14)
1941 Mar 15, Philippine Airlines maid its maiden flight from Manila to Baguio.
(SFC, 9/24/98, p.A19)
1941 Apr 15, 1st helicopter flight of 1 hour duration took place at Stratford, Ct.
(MC, 4/15/02)
1941 May 11, The 1st Messerschmidt 109F was shot down above England.
(MC, 5/11/02)
1941 May 15, 1st British turbojet flew.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1941 Jun 16, The new Washington National Airport opened southwest of DC. In 1945, Congress passed a law that established the airport was legally within Virginia but under the jurisdiction of the federal government. In 1998 it was renamed Ronald Reagan National Airport.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan_Washington_National_Airport)
1942 Jan 6, The Pan American Airways "Pacific Clipper" arrived in New York under Captain Robert Ford. He flew west from New Zealand to avoid Japanese attacks and became the first commercial pilot to make a round-the-world trip. The Pacific Clipper was known as a "flying boat." This flight was 31,500 miles and took 209 hours to complete.
(AP, 1/6/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_314)
1942 Mar 3, Canada's Avro Lancaster military plane made its 1st combat flight.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1942 May 13, A helicopter made its 1st cross-country flight.
(MC, 5/13/02)
1942 Jun 6, The 1st nylon parachute jump was made in Hartford, Ct., by Adeline Gray.
(MC, 6/6/02)
1942 Jun 18, Eric Nessler of France stayed aloft in a glider for 38h 21m.
(MC, 6/18/02)
1942 Jul 18, The German Messerschmitt Me 262 Schwalbe, the first jet-propelled aircraft to fly in combat, made its first flight. Walter Nowotny was a rising your star in the Luftwaffe, chosen by Hitler to be the point man to lead the new jet fighter under the tutelage of General of Fighters Adolf Galland who was assigned to prove the airplane in battle. The Axis hopes were dashed when Nowotny was attacked by American pilots during landing and crashed. Col. Edward R. "Buddy" Haydon was one of those American pilots.
(www.fighter-planes.com/info/me262.htm)(HNQ, 9/2/02)
1942 Aug 1, Ensign Henry C. White, while flying a J4F Widgeon plane, sank U-166 as it approaches the Mississippi River, the first U-boat sunk by the U.S. Coast Guard. In the summer of 1942, German submarines put saboteurs ashore on American beaches. [see Jul 30, 1942]
(HN, 8/1/98)(SFC, 6/9/01, p.A5)
c1942-1945 The Bell P-39 Airacobra was liked for its easy-to-taxi tricycle landing gear and the 37mm cannon that fired through the propeller hub. But the engine mounted behind the pilot led to balance concerns and the lack of a turbosupercharger in the overweight airplane rendered it useless against higher-performing enemy aircraft at higher altitudes. Allied pilots considered it an accomplishment to even survive in the P-39, much less to win in aerial battle against the vaunted Japanese Zero, whose pilots considered the Airacobra "cold meat."
(HNQ, 9/13/02)
1943 Jan 11, President Franklin D. Roosevelt flew to Morocco for a top-secret meeting with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. He had not flown since 1932, when he traveled from Albany, New York, to Chicago to accept his nomination at the Democratic national convention. No U.S. president had previously flown while in office because the Secret Service regarded flying as a dangerous mode of transport. Air travel was the only realistic option for the trip to Casablanca because German submarines lurking in the Atlantic made a surface crossing too risky.
(HNQ, 4/8/02)
1943 Mar 5, The Gloster Meteor first flew. Great Britain emerged from World War II with a decided head start in jet technology, the only Allied power to have had a jet fighter operational in squadron strength before the German surrender on May 8, 1945. On July 21, 1944, the first two production Meteors arrived at Culmhead and formed the nucleus of No. 616 Squadron, Royal Air Force (RAF). Appropriately, the Meteor’s first duty was to defend Britain from attacks by German V-1 pulse jet-powered guided bombs, of which they destroyed 13 by the end of the war. Meteor IIIs of No. 616 Squadron were committed to Continental Europe in the last months of the conflict, but they never got the opportunity to meet the German Me-262A in battle.
(HNQ, 8/21/01)
1943 Mar 19, Airship Canadian Star was torpedoed and sank.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1943 Apr 11, Frank Piasecki, Vertol founder, flew his 1st (single-rotor) craft.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1943 May 15, Halifax bombers sank U-463.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1943 May 22, The 1st US jet fighter was tested. Lockheed Martin had picked Clarence Johnson, a Univ. of Michigan graduate (1932) to develop the nation’s 1st jet fighter. He had already designed the P-38 Lightning. Johnson and his staff developed a jet prototype, the Shooting Star, in 143 days.
(MC, 5/22/02)(MT, Summer/04, p.7)
1943 Jul 18, The US Navy airship K-74 was shot down by anti-aircraft fire from a German U-boat.
(HN, 7/18/98)
1943 Jacqueline "Jackie" Cochran convinced the U.S. military that qualified women pilots could free men for combat duty by performing non-combat missions. Supported by Eleanor Roosevelt and Army aviation chief General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold, Cochran's goal was achieved with the formation of the Women's Air Force Service Pilots (WASPs).
(HNPD, 2/25/99)
1944 Mar 23, Nicholas Alkemade fell 5,500 meter without a parachute and lived. [see Mar 25]
(SS, 3/23/02)
1944 Mar 25, RAF Sgt. Nickolas Alkemade survived a jump from his Lancaster bomber from 18,000 feet without a parachute. [see Mar 23]
(MC, 3/25/02)
1944 Jun 13, Only one week after the Normandy invasion, the first German V-1 buzz bomb, also called the doodlebug (Fieseler Fi-103), was fired at London. The first guided missile to be used in force, the V-1 was powered by a pulse-jet engine and resembled a small aircraft. Only one of the four missiles London saw that day caused any casualties, but a steady stream of V-1s causing severe damage and casualties fell on London in coming months. At times, nearly 100 bombs fell each day. Many German buzz bombs never reached their targets because of primitive guidance systems or because they were destroyed in flight by anti-aircraft fire or intercepting Allied fighters.
(AP, 6/13/97)(HNQ, 6/13/98)(MC, 6/13/02)
1944 Jul 4, Stanley Hiller Jr. (1925-2006) flew his XH-44 helicopter free from its tether for the 1st time in the stadium of UC Berkeley. A public demonstration took place in SF on Aug. 30, 1944.
(SSFC, 4/23/06, p.B7)(www.helis.com/timeline/hiller.php)
1944 Jul 25, The Messerschmitt 262 became the 1st jet fighter used in combat.
(SC, 7/25/02)
1944 Nov, An Int'l. Civil Aviation Conference established English as the air traffic control language. The Chicago Convention on air travel attempted to lay down technical and legal rules for the post-war order in int’l. air transport.
(SFC, 5/16/03, p.A25)(Econ, 10/4/03, p.66)(Econ, 7/9/11, p.69)
1944 Britain’s government decided to bulldoze the village of Heath Row to accommodate an expansion of a nearby aerodrome.
(Econ, 7/20/13, p.51)
1945 Dec, Eric Brown (1919-2016), British test pilot, made the first-ever jet aircraft landing on the carrier Ocean.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Brown_%28pilot%29)(Econ, 3/5/15, p.86)
1946 Mar 8, The 1st helicopter licensed for commercial use was in NYC.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1946 Apr 24, The Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, ordered the establishment of the Blue Angels team. In 1985 funding for the program was $4.2 million, about half the cost of replacements for the two A-4 jets. By 2005 21 pilots died during Angels shows. Navy officials said the super-trained unit and its dazzling displays are valuable in attracting young and talented recruits into the Navy and Air Force. By 2009 on the average, one F/A-18 used approximately 8,000 pounds or 1,300 gallons of JP-5 jet fuel at a cost of roughly $1,378. Fat Albert, which transports the crew to shows, holds 46,000 pounds of fuel.
(www.navy.com/about/navylife/onduty/blueangels/faq/)(http://tinyurl.com/ydn8pes)
1946 May 28, The US Army Air Force initiated the Nuclear Energy for the Propulsion of Aircraft program (NEPA). Fairchild Engine and Airplane Corp. was selected to study the possibility of developing a long range strategic bomber powered by a nuclear reactor.
(AH, 2/03, p.52)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_Nuclear_Propulsion)
1946 Heathrow Airport, an air base near London for fighter planes during WWII, was converted to civilian use. A modified Avro Lancastrian bomber made the first scheduled flight.
(Econ, 3/29/08, p.91)(Econ, 3/30/13, p.55)
1946 Scandinavian airlines began as a co-operative venture between the airlines of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. In 1951 they merged. Marcus Wallenberg Jr. (1899-1982), tennis champion, sold out of railways to concentrate on airplanes. Wallenberg helped to establish the Scandinavian Airlines System and controlled companies that employed one of every eight working Swedes.
(www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,925746-2,00.html)(Econ, 10/14/06, p.73)(Econ, 5/19/12, p.74)
1947 May 1, Radar for commercial and private planes was 1st demonstrated.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1947 Jun 17, Pan Am Airways was chartered as the 1st worldwide passenger airline.
(Hem., 2/96, p.44)(MC, 6/17/02)
1947 Jul 8, In New Mexico the Roswell Daily Record reported the military’s capture of a flying saucer. It became know as the Roswell Incident. Officials later called the debris a "harmless, high-altitude weather balloon. In 1994 the Air Force released a report saying the wreckage was part of a device used to spy on the Soviets.
(SFC, 6/23/96, p.T4)(USAT, 6/28/96, p.7D)
1947 Aug 10, William Odom set a solo record by completing a round-the-world flight in 73 hours and 5 minutes, landing at Chicago's Douglas Airport.
(AP, 8/10/97)
1947 Aug 25, Marion Carl, US Navy test pilot, set a world speed record of 651 mph in a D-558-I at Muroc Field (later Edwards AFB), Ca. He was shot to death in Oregon by a house robber in 1998 at age 82.
(SFC, 6/30/98, p.A3)(chblue.com, 8/25/01)
1947 Oct 14, Air Force test pilot Charles E. "Chuck" Yeager (24) flew the experimental Bell X-1 [Bell XS-1] rocket plane aircraft and broke the sound barrier to Mach 1.07 for the first time over Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., which was then called Muroc Army Air Field. The area has the largest dry lake bed in the world, a 44-square mile area known as Rogers Lake. Suspended from the belly of a Boeing B-29, Glamorous Glennis was dropped at 10:26 a.m. from a height of 20,000 feet. Yeager (who had broken two ribs in a riding accident the night before) fired the four rocket motor chambers in pairs, breaking through the sound barrier as he increased airspeed to almost 700 mph and climbed to an altitude of 43,000 feet. The XS-1 remained at supersonic speeds for 20.5 seconds, with none of the buffeting that characterized high-speed subsonic flight. The 14-minute flight was Yeager’s ninth since being named primary pilot in June 1947. The Air Force and the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (the forerunner of NASA) did not make the event public until Jun 10, 1948.
(SFC, 8/5/96, p.A3)(SFC, 10/13/97, p.A7)(AP, 10/14/97)(HNPD, 10/14/98)
1947 Nov 2, Howard Hughes piloted his huge wooden airplane, known as the Spruce Goose, on its only flight, which lasted 70 sec. over Long Beach Harbor in California. The plane had an 8-story tail and a 320-foot wingspan. It was designed to take seven hundred soldiers into battle. The plane had a wing span longer than a football field, and was powered by 8 engines and was crafted out of 200 tons of plywood. The war ended before the plane was deployed, but Hughes proved the Spruce Goose's was air-worthy.
(AP, 11/2/97)(SFC, 7/29/98, p.A20)(HN, 11/2/98)(MC, 11/2/01)
1947 Kirk Kerkorian (1917-2015), Fresno-born former RAF pilot, bought a tiny charter line and renamed it Trans Int’l. Airlines. Nearly two decades later he took the TIA public and used cash from the stock to build the Int’l. Hotel (later renamed the Westgate Las Vegas). In the 1970s he opened the first MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
(SFC, 6/17/15, p.D5)
1947 The first airport duty-free store opened at Shannon Airport, Ireland.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R49)
1948 Mar 23, John Cunningham set a world altitude record at 54,492' (18,133 meters).
(SS, 3/23/02)
1948 May 5, 1st air squadron of jets aboard a carrier
(MC, 5/5/02)
1948 Jun 26, The Berlin Airlift began in earnest as the United States, Britain and France started ferrying supplies to the isolated western sector of Berlin, after the Soviet Union cut off land and water routes. The Soviets had been harassing the French, British and American authorities in Berlin for weeks, trying to force them from the city. Finally, when all surface routes to the city were blockaded, it became clear that an airlift through the Allied sectors was the only way to re-supply the 2 million West Berliners. In spite of the enormous human and financial cost, “Operation Vittles" supplied food, fuel and hope to beleaguered citizens until the Soviet barricades were finally lifted on May 12, 1949. In 2010 Richard Reeves authored “Daring Young Men: The Heroism and Triumph of the Berlin Airlift, June 1948-May 1949."
(AP, 6/26/98)(HN, 6/26/99)(http://tinyurl.com/gqhi)(Econ, 1/2/10, p.63)
1948 Jul 1, New York International Airport at Idlewild, later renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport, was officially opened.
(AP, 7/1/98)
1948 The John Murtha Airport opened in Jonestown, Pennsylvania. From 1989-2009 Congressman John Murtha steered some $150,000,000 to the airport. In 2009 there were a total of 18 commercial flights per week, all of which went to Dulles Airport in Washington, DC.
(http://tinyurl.com/nsdv8k)(Econ, 1/23/10, p.26)
1949 Feb 26, A USAF plane began a 1st nonstop around-the-world flight.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1949 Mar 2, The Lucky Lady II (USAF B-50 Superfortress), landed at Fort Worth , Texas, after completing the first non-stop, round-the-world flight: 23,452-mis in 94 hours.
(AP, 3/2/98)(SC, 3/2/02)
1949 May 13, The 1st British-produced jet bomber, Canberra, made its 1st test flight.
(MC, 5/13/02)
1949 Jul 27, The British 36-seat jet-propelled De Havilland Comet 1 flew for the first time. This was the world’s first passenger jet.
(www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Commercial_Aviation/Opening_of_Jet_era/Tran6.htm)(Econ, 11/22/14, p.51)
1949 Sep 30, The Berlin airlift ended its operation after 277,264 flights. Through accidents 31 Americans lost their lives in support of the airlift. The Berlin Airlift, which began on June 26, 1948, and lasted 321 days, consisted of 272,264 flights by British and American airmen. They transported some 2.3 million tons of food to supply the 2.1 million residents of the blockaded portion of the city. The operation ended after 278,288 flights and delivery of 2,326,406 tons of supplies. In 2010 Richard Reeves authored “Daring Young Men: The Heroism and Triumph of the Berlin Airlift, June 1948-May 1949."
(EWH, 1968, p.1180)(AP, 9/30/97)(SFC, 5/12/98, p.A14)(HNQ, 7/9/98)(SSFC, 3/28/10, p.f3)
1950 Apr 8, A US Navy privateer airplane flew from Wiesbaden, West Germany, to spy over the Soviet Union with 10 people on board. Soviet reconnaissance spotted the plane over Latvia and shot it down.
(SFEC,12/21/97, p.A26)
1950 Apr 11, A US B-29 bomber was shot down above Latvia.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1950 Apr 18, The first transatlantic jet passenger trip was made.
(HN, 4/18/98)
1950 America established an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in fear of a nuclear attack.
(Econ., 6/20/20, p.33)
1951 The US Atomic Energy Commission and the Air Force instituted the Aircraft Nuclear propulsion development Program (ANP). It ended in 1961 under Pres. John F. Kennedy.
(AH, 2/03, p.52, 56)
1952 Apr 15, The 1st B-52 prototype test flight was made.
(MC, 4/15/02)
1952 Apr 21, BOAC began 1st passenger service with jets from London to Rome.
(MC, 4/21/02)
1952 May 1, TWA introduced tourist class.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1952 May 2, The British Overseas Aircraft Corporation (BOAC), the national British carrier, introduced the world’s 1st commercial jet airliner service. Initial flights took passengers from London to Johannesburg in South Africa, with stops. The British De Havilland Comet, the first commercial jetliner, was grounded later this year after a series of fatal crashes. Its flaws were fixed and the plane went on to deliver years of reliable service.
(www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Commercial_Aviation/Opening_of_Jet_era/Tran6.htm)(Econ, 1/19/13, p.65)
1952 May 3, The first airplane landed at geographic North Pole. It was a ski-modified U.S. Air Force C-47, piloted by Lieutenant Colonel William P. Benedict (d.1974) of California and Lieutenant Colonel Joseph O. Fletcher of Oklahoma. In 2002 Charles B. Compton authored "Born to Fly: Some Life Sketches of Lieutenant Colonel William P. Benedict."
(Polar Times, Fall, 97)(CBC)
1952 KLM Royal Dutch Airlines began offering first class passengers ceramic houses filled with liquor. Industry rules capped handouts at 75 cents, but there was no limit on booze. In 2008 the 89th house in the series made it debut on Oct 7, the airline’s 89th birthday.
(WSJ, 5/31/08, p.A1)
1953 May 18, Jacqueline Cochran became the first woman to break the sound barrier as she piloted a North American F-86 Canadair over Rogers Dry Lake, Calif.
(AP, 5/18/97)
1953 Jul 9, The 1st helicopter passenger service began in NYC.
(MC, 7/9/02)
1953 Aug 7, Eastern Airlines entered the jet age with the Electra prop-jet.
(MC, 8/7/02)
1953 Aug 21, Marion Carl in Douglas Skyrocket reached a record 25,370 m.
(SC, 8/21/02)
1953 Aug 25, The government of India exercised its option to purchase a majority stake in Tata Airlines and Air India International Limited was born as one of the fruits of the Air Corporations Act that nationalized the air transportation industry.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_India#Early_years_.281932-1945.29)
1953 Oct 19, America's first ever non-stop transcontinental service began with flights by American Airlines using DC-7 aircraft.
(www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Commercial_Aviation/Opening_of_Jet_era/Tran6.htm)
1953 Nov 20, Scott Crossfield (1921-2006), test pilot for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), flew a D-558-II Skyrocket to a record speed of over 1,320 mph.
(SFC, 4/21/06, p.B9)
1953 Dec 12, Chuck Yeager, test pilot for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), reached Mach 2.43 in Bell X-1A rocket plane.
(SFC, 4/21/06, p.B9)
1954 Feb 6, A US Air Force 4-engine RC-121 Super Constellation, one of the new flying radar stations, crashed in the shallows of San Pablo Bay. All 13 crew members survived.
(SFC, 2/6/04, p.E12)
1954 Apr 1, U.S. Air Force Academy was founded in Colorado. President Dwight Eisenhower signed a bill authorizing the establishment of an Air Force Academy, similar to West Point and Annapolis. On July 11, 1955, the first class was sworn in at Lowry Air Force Base. The academy moved to a permanent site near Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 1958.
(HN, 4/1/98)(HNQ, 2/22/99)(MC, 4/1/02)
1954 Jul 5, The B-52A bomber made its maiden flight.
(MC, 7/5/02)
1954 Jul 15, The Boeing “Dash 80," a prototype of the 707, made its first test flight.
(NPub, 2002, p.17)
1954 Aug 3, The 1st VTOL (Vertical Take-off & Land) aircraft was flown.
(SC, 8/3/02)
1954 Aug 29, The SF International Airport’s (SFO) Terminal 2 opened with a ceremony led by Mayor Robinson. Mills Field became SF Airport.
(SFEC, 5/16/99, Z1 p.4)(SSFC, 8/22/04, p.F8)
1954 Col. John Paul Stapp, an Air Force medical researcher, accelerated to 632 mph on a rocket powered sled in 5 sec. The sled then decelerated to a dead stop in 1.4 sec. with 40 times the pull of gravity.
(SFC, 11/18/99, p.C7)
1954 In Lebanon Beirut Int’l. Airport opened. In 1998 a new $460 million airport was under construction.
(WSJ, 4/6/98, p.A1)y
1955 Feb 26, G.F. Smith became the 1st aviator to bail out at supersonic speed.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1955 May 21, The first transcontinental round-trip solo flight was completed.
(HN, 5/21/98)
1955 Jun 11, The 1st jet magnesium airplane was flown.
(SC, 6/11/02)
1955 Aug 4, The U-2 reconnaissance prototype made its first flight.
(NPub, 2002, p.17)
1955 Sep 17, A US Convair B-36 bomber took off from Carswell AFB, Texas, becoming the first aircraft in the world to fly with a nuclear reactor. Over the next 2 years the Convair Crusader made 47 flights.
(AH, 2/03, p.51)
1955 In England Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 2 was completed.
(Econ, 3/29/08, p.91)
1956 Jul 23, The Bell X-2 rocket plane set a world aircraft speed record of 3,050 kph.
(MC, 7/23/02)
1957 Jan 16, Three B-52's (accompanied at first by two spare aircraft) took off from Castle Air Force Base in California on the first nonstop, round-the-world flight by jet planes, which lasted 45 hours and 19 minutes.
(AP, 1/16/07)
1957 Jan 18, A trio of B-52's completed the first nonstop, round-the-world flight by jet planes, landing at March Air Force Base in California after more than 45 hours aloft.
(AP, 1/18/07)
1957 Apr 11, The Ryan X-13 Vertijet became the 1st jet to take-off and land vertically.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1957 May, Two US fighter planes were scrambled and ordered to shoot down an unidentified flying object (UFO) over the English countryside. This was only made public on Oct 20, 2008, when Britain made public secret files on UFOs.
(Reuters, 10/20/08)
1957 Jul 16, Marine Maj. John Glenn set a transcontinental speed record when he flew a jet from California to New York in 3 hours, 23 minutes and 8 seconds.
(AP, 7/16/97)
1958 Mar 25, Canada’s era of supersonic flight began, when pilot Jan Zurakowski took off from Malton Airport near Toronto in an Avro CF-105 Arrow for a 35-minute maiden flight. Less than a month later, Zurakowski flew the Arrow at Mach 1.5 at an altitude of 50,000 feet. In spite of the aircraft’s early promise, the Canadian government scrapped the project before the Arrow could be put into production.
(HNPD, 8/21/00)
1958 Mar 29, Aerial circus star Clyde Pangborn died. He and playboy Hugh Herndon, Jr. complete the first nonstop flight across the Pacific Ocean in 1931.
(HN, 10/2/99)(ON, 1/03, p.10)
1958 May 7, Howard Johnson set an aircraft altitude record in F-104.
(HN, 5/7/98)
1958 May 16, A man endured a record 82.6 G for .04 seconds on a water-braked rocket sled at Holloman Air Force Base. He was hospitalized for 3 days for recovery.
(SFEC, 7/2/00, Z1 p.2)
1958 Jul, Soviet fighter planes shot down an RB-50G US reconnaissance plane over the east coast of the USSR. In 2002 William E. Burrows authored “by Any Means Necessary: America’s Secret Air War in the Cold War."
(AH, 6/02, p.70)
1958 Aug 29, Air Force Academy opened in Colorado Springs, Colo.
(MC, 8/29/01)
1958 Oct 4, The first trans-Atlantic passenger jetliner service was begun by British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) with flights between London and New York.
(AP, 10/4/97)
1958 Oct 26, Pan American Airways pilot Samuel H. Miller (d.2001 at 84) flew the first Boeing 707 passenger service jetliner from New York’s Idlewild Airport (later JFK) to Paris; the trip took eight hours and 41 minutes. 111 passengers flew aboard the Clipper America and a ticket cost $489.60. The plane was christened a week earlier by Mamie Eisenhower. The first New York London transatlantic jet passenger service was inaugurated by BOAC. [see Oct 4]
(AP, 10/26/97)(WSJ, 10/23/98, p.W6)(HN, 10/26/98)(SFC, 9/12/01, p.A21)
1958 Dec 10, The first domestic passenger jet flight took place in the United States as a National Airlines Boeing 707 flew 111 passengers from New York City to Miami.
(AP, 12/10/97)
1958 Passenger service by air over the Atlantic exceeded passenger steamship crossings for the 1st time.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)
1959 Jun 8, The NASA rocket powered X-15 made its first glide flight.
(http://history.nasa.gov/x15/chrono.html)
1959 Sep 15, Scott Crossfield (1921-2006) flew the rocket-powered X-15 faster and higher than any aircraft in history.
(NPub, 2002, p.19)
1959 Sep 17, The North American Aviation X-15 rocket plane, piloted by Scott Crossfield, made its first powered flight.
(SFC, 4/21/06, p.B9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Scott_Crossfield)
1959 Industrialist Henry Kremer offered the Kremer Prizes of £5,000 for the first man-powered aeroplane to fly a figure-of-eight course round two markers half-a-mile apart.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human-powered_flight)
1960 May 17, The YF4H-1 Phantom fighter and Douglas DC-8 were unveiled.
(NPub, 2002, p.19)
1961 Apr 30, Eastern Airlines began the 1st shuttle flights began between Wash DC, Boston and NYC.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1961 May 26, A USAF bomber flew the Atlantic in a record of just over three hours.
(HN, 5/26/98)
1961 Jul 24, A US commercial plane was hijacked to Cuba and began a trend.
(MC, 7/24/02)
1961 Nov 1, Pres. J.F. Kennedy signed executive order 10971 creating a board of three members to investigate a dispute between TWA and certain of its employees.
(www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/jfkeo/eo/10971.htm)
1961 United Airlines merged with Capital Airlines and became the world’s largest commercial airline.
(WSJ, 12/6/02, p.A1)
1962 Mar 5, The US Supreme Court in Griggs v. Allegheny County ruled that airports must compensate people living in the near vicinity for noise and vibrations.
(http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/369/84/)
1962 Harvard Professor Richard Caves published a paper that used economic logic to show that price-regulation of airlines was unnecessary.
(Econ, 10/4/14, p.92)
1962 American Airlines rolled out its proprietary computerized reservation system, Sabre.
(Econ, 4/3/04, p.70)
1963 May 18, It was reported that American Airlines has approved a new contract allowing its stewardesses to keep flying until they are 33, take a ground job when they reach 32, or retire at 32 with severance pay.
(SSFC, 5/19/13, p.46)
1963 Jun 27, USAF Major Robert A. Rushworth reached an altitude of 53.9 miles in the X-15.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_X-15)
1963 Aug 22, The X-15 aircraft set an altitude record of 67 miles.
(NPub, 2002, p.20)
1964 Apr 17, Jerrie Mock (1925-2014) became the first woman to complete a solo airplane flight around the world. Her journey had begun on March 19 from Columbus, Ohio.
(AP, 4/17/97)(SFC, 10/2/14, p.D4)
1964 Apr, In Marin County, Ca., Danny Nowell (11) was caught by the hand on a hot-air balloon rope and went airborne for about 10 minutes and 2 miles before being rescued.
(SFC, 10/20/09, p.A1)
1964 The US used an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) called the Firebee, a small jet-powered drone, for taking photographs over China. It was launched from another plane and released a parachute upon return for pickup by a helicopter. It was later used in the Vietnam war.
(Econ, 12/8/07, TQ p.23)
1965 Jun 28, In California a blazing engine tore from the Pan American Flight 843. The engine plunged into San Bruno and a piece of the wing fell into South San Francisco. The plane with 153 passengers landed safely at Travis airport.
(SSFC, 6/28/15, DB p.50)
1966 Apr 13, Pan Am placed a $525,000,000 order for 25 Boeing 747s. The 747 jumbo jet revolutionized mass air transportation.
(MC, 4/13/02)(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)
1966 Jul 8, A US airline strike began and lasted until Aug 19th.
(MC, 7/8/02)
1967 Mar 15, Texas lawyer Herb Kelleher and businessman Rollin King incorporated Southwest Airlines initially as "Air Southwest Co." Kelleher and King faced four years of setbacks and legal challenges from competitors that culminated in winning key cases before the Supreme Court of the United States in December 1970 and the Supreme Court of Texas in June 1971. The first flights finally took off on June 18, 1971.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herb_Kelleher)
1967 Apr, Henry Hill (d.2012) completed his first major robbery when he and Thomas DeSimone, who was portrayed in an Oscar-winning performance by Joe Pesci in "Goodfellas" (1990), famously robbed Air France of a shipment of $420,000. Hill became an FBI informant following a 1980 arrest on a narcotics-trafficking charge, and testimony he delivered led to 50 arrests. Hill’s life story was documented in the book "Wiseguy" (1986) by Nicholas Pileggi.
{Mafia, USA, France}
(ABCNews, 6/12/12)
1967 Sep, The British, French and German governments signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to start development of the 300 seat Airbus A300 in order to compete with American companies. Airbus Industrie was formally set up in 1970.
(www.absoluteastronomy.com/reference/airbus)
1967 Apr 9, The 1st Boeing 737 rolled out.
(MC, 4/9/02)
1967 Trudy Baker, Rachel Jones and Donald Bain authored “Coffee, Tea or Me: The Uninhibited Memoirs of Two Airline Stewardesses." The pseudonymous author turned out to be a male airline publicist.
(http://tinyurl.com/33hh6e)(Econ, 5/5/07, p.105)
1968 Jun 30, The Lockheed C-5A Galaxy, a large US Air Force transport plane, made its first flight.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-5_Galaxy)
1968 Jul 15, Commercial air travel began between US & USSR.
(www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1968/1968%20-%201275.html)
1968 Aug 21, William Dana reached 81.53 km. in the last high-altitude X-15 flight.
(http://pages.prodigy.net/pxkb94ars/Astro_X-15_Flights_9.htm)
1968 Sep 30, The 1st Boeing 747 was rolled out of the Everett, Wa., assembly building.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747)
1968 Nov 23, Five Cubans hijacked a US B-727 jet, from Chicago to Cuba.
(http://cuban-exile.com/doc_176-200/doc0180.html)
1968 Nov 24, Three Latins hijacked a US B-707 jet, from New York’s Kennedy Int’l. to Cuba. Pena Soltren, a US citizen, and two accomplices used weapons hidden in a diaper bag to hijack Pan Am Flight 281. In 2009 Luis Armando Pena Soltren (66) voluntarily returned to the same airport to surrender and face prosecution. On Jan 4, 2011, Soltren was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
(http://cuban-exile.com/doc_176-200/doc0180.html)(AP, 10/12/09)(SFC, 1/5/11, p.A4)
1968 Dec 5, Eduardo Castera, a Latin successfully hijacked a B-727 from Tampa to Cuba.
(http://cuban-exile.com/doc_176-200/doc0180.html)
1968 Dec 11, Two blacks successfully hijacked a DC-8 from St. Louis to Cuba.
(http://cuban-exile.com/doc_176-200/doc0180.html)
1968 Dec 28, Israel attacked the Beirut Int’l. Airport, destroying 13 civilian planes. This was in response to an attack on an Israeli airliner in Athens by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Israeli_raid_on_Lebanon)
1968 Dec 31, The Soviet Union's TU-144, similar in appearance to the Concorde, made its 1st flight. The first Tu-144S production aircraft crashed at the 1973 Paris Air Show.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-144)
1969 Feb 9, The Boeing 747, the world's largest airplane, made its 1st commercial flight. The Juan T. Trippe, named after the founder of Pan Am, was sold in 2000 to a South Korea couple, who transformed it into an aviation themed restaurant. The venture failed in 2005 and the plane was demolished in late 2010.
(www.boeing.com/commercial/747family/pf/pf_milestones.html)(SFC, 12/13/10, p.A2)
1969 Mar 2, The Concorde jetliner's 1st test flight took place in Bristol, England.
(www.xent.com/pipermail/fork/Week-of-Mon-20031013/026200.html)
1969 Apr 9, The maiden flight of Concorde 002 was from Filton to Bristol.
(www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects/aeronautics/1977-45.aspx)
1969 Jun 4, A 22-year-old man sneaked into wheel pod of a jet parked in Havana & survived a 9-hr flight to Spain despite thin oxygen levels at 29,000 ft.
(MC, 6/4/02)
1969 Oct 5, Lieutenant Eduardo Guerra Jimenez, a Cuban defector, entered US air space undetected and landed his Soviet-made MiG-17 at Homestead Air Force Base near Miami, Florida, where the presidential aircraft Air Force One was waiting to return President Richard M. Nixon to DC.
(www.missilesofkeywest.bravepages.com/penetrated.htm)
1969 Dec 12, PanAm signed for the first delivery of the new Boeing 747-100. Commercial service began Jan 21, 1970.
(Econ, 11/4/06, p.21)(http://tinyurl.com/ye3vwv)
1969 Dec 30, The US Federal Aviation Administration certified the Boeing 747-100 for commercial service.
(www.boeing.com/commercial/747family/pf/pf_milestones.html)
1969 Pan Am selected Najeeb Halaby (d.2003 at 87), former FAA head, as successor to chairman Juan Trippe. Halaby served 3 years as CEO. His daughter later became Queen Noor of Jordan.
(SFC, 7/4/03, p.A25)
1969 Embraer SA, an aircraft maker, was founded by Brazil’s military dictatorship in an effort to develop an aviation industry. The company was privatized in 1994.
(WSJ, 9/13/04, p.A8)(Econ, 9/11/10, SR p.10)
1969 In the Soviet Union Rostislav Belyakov (d.2014 at 94) became the MiG chief designer, succeeding the firm's founder, Artyom Mikoyan. He led the development of a family of MiG fighters, including MiG-23, MiG-25, Mig-29 and their versions, which have been the backbone of Soviet and then Russian air force.
(AP, 3/1/14)
1970 Jan 21, The Boeing 747-100 made its 1st commercial transatlantic flight from NY to London. The plane was 231 feet long with a wing span of 195 feet. It could seat 400 people in a cabin 182 feet long.
(WSJ, 7/19/96, p.B5)(www.boeing.com/commercial/747family/pf/pf_milestones.html)
1970 Mar 25, The Concorde, an Anglo-French airplane, made its first supersonic flight.
(HN, 3/24/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concorde)
1970 Apr 30, Yoshimi Tanaka and a group of students of the Red Army Faction, including Shiro Akagi, seized a Japan Airlines jet and flew to Pyongyang, N. Korea, in Japan's first ever case of air piracy. In 1996 Tanaka was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
(http://tinyurl.com/3c4bk7)(AP, 6/5/07)(www.tkb.org/KeyLeader.jsp?memID=102)
1970 Aug 1, W. Lain Guthrie (d.1997 at 84), a commercial airline pilot, refused to dump kerosene into the atmosphere as had been common practice. He kept his DC-8 on the ground and ordered the ground crew to drain the waste fuel from the previous flight. He was fired but other pilots supported him and he was reinstated and the industry stopped its dumping.
(SFC, 3/28/97, p.D2)
1970 Sep 13, The supersonic airliner Concorde landed for the 1st time at Heathrow airport.
(www.aviation-news.co.uk/concordeChronology.html)
1970 Oct 24, The X24A lifting body exceeded Mach 1. The X-24A was the Martin Corporation's subsonic test version of the US Air Force's preferred manned lifting body configuration. The lifting bodies were used to demonstrate the ability of pilots to maneuver and safely land wingless vehicles designed to fly back to Earth from space and be landed like an airplane at a predetermined site.
(NPub, 2002, p.22)(www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Movie/X-24A/index.html)
1970 Airbus Industrie was formally set up following an agreement between Aerospatiale (France) and Deutsche Aerospace (Germany). In 1971 it was joined by CASA (Spain). The name "Airbus" was taken from a nonproprietary term used by the airline industry in the 1960s to refer to a commercial aircraft of a certain size and range, as term was acceptable to the French linguistically.
(www.absoluteastronomy.com/reference/airbus)
1971 Feb 4, Rolls-Royce collapsed due to rising development costs on the RB.211, the sole powerplant selected for the Lockheed TriStar.
(http://widebodyaircraft.nl/chro1971.htm)
1971 Jun , Southwest Airlines, co-founded by Herbert Kelleher, made its 1st flight.
(WSJ, 1/13/03, p.A1)(WSJ, 7/11/03, p.A6)
1971 May 20, The US Congress cancelled the supersonic SST airplane program.
(WSJ, 7/26/00, p.A26)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_2707)
1971 Nov 24, On Thanksgiving eve DB Cooper boarded Flight 305 in Portland, Or., and demanded $200,000 with the threat of a bomb. He parachuted from a Northwest Airlines 727 with the money over the Cascade Mountains near Ariel, Wash., and was never seen again. FBI agent Ralph Himmelsbach wrote the book NORJAK that described the case. A packet containing $5,880 of the ransom money was found in 1980 on the north shore of the Columbia River, just west of the Washington city of Vancouver. In 2011 evidence was presented that Lynn Doyle Cooper (d.1999) of Oregon, a Korean war veteran, was the hijacker. On July 13, 2016, the FBI said it is no longer investigating the case.
(SFEC, 11/17/96, Z1 p.5)(AP, 11/24/97)(SFC, 8/4/11, p.A8)(SFC, 7/13/16, p.A6)
1972 Jan 26, A DC-9 exploded over Serbska Kamenice, Czechoslovakia, and attendant Vesna Vulovic dropped 33,300 feet and survived following a 27-day coma and a 16-month recovery. The cause of the explosion has never been established, but was attributed by the Yugoslav and Czechoslovakian authorities to a bomb placed on the plane by a Croatian Terrorist group, known as the Ustasa.
(SFEC, 3/14/99, Z1 p.10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesna_Vulovic)
1972 Feb 5, It was reported that the United States had agreed to sell 42 F-4 Phantom jets to Israel.
(www.historynet.com/tdih0205.htm)
1972 Apr 7, Richard McCoy (1942-1974), Vietnam veteran and pilot, hijacked a United Air Lines jet and extorted $500,000 in copycat version of the DB Cooper crime. He parachuted into a Utah desert, but was caught with the money in his house and was sentenced to 40 years in prison. He escaped and died in a shootout with FBI agent Nicholas O’Hara in Nov, 1974.
(SFEC, 11/17/96, Z1 p.5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_McCoy,_Jr.)
1972 Apr 25, Hans-Werner Grosse (b.1922), German glider pilot, glided 907.7 miles (1,461 km) in an AS-W-12.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Werner_Grosse)
1972 May 8, A Belgian Sabena aircraft, bound for Tel Aviv, was hijacked by 4 Palestinians. At Lod Intl. 2 hijackers were shot and killed by Israeli military personnel, dressed as ground engineers. One passenger died 8 days later as a result of her wounds. The two women hijackers were subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment.
(www.prophetofdoom.net/Islamic_Terrorism_Timeline_1972.Islam)
1972 May 30, Three militants of the Japanese Red Army staged a machine-gun and hand-grenade attack at the Lod Airport in Israel. 24 people were killed and a 100 injured. The terrorists found refuge in Lebanon until 1997 when they were arrested. Kozo Okamoto served 13 years of a life sentence in Israel. In 2000 Lebanon granted asylum to Kozo Okamoto. 4 other Japanese Red Army members were deported to Japan.
(SFC, 2/19/96, p.A8)(SFC, 3/18/00, p.A3)
1972 Jun 18, BEA Trident crashed after takeoff from Heathrow killing 118.
(MC, 6/18/02)
1972 Jul 31, George Wright, dressed as a priest and using an alias, hijacked a Delta flight from Detroit to Miami with four other BLA members and three children. They released 86 other passengers in exchange for a $1 million ransom and forced the plane to fly to Boston. There an international navigator was taken aboard, and the plane was flown to Algeria, where the hijackers sought asylum. Wright's associates were tracked down, arrested, tried and convicted in Paris in 1976. In 2011 Wright (68) was arrested in Portugal.
(www.edmontonsun.com/2011/09/27/us-fugitive-caught-after-41-years)
1972 Aug 21, The 1st hot air balloon flight over the Alps.
(SC, 8/21/02)
1972 Oct 26, Igor Sikorsky (b.1889), Ukraine-born helicopter pioneer, died in Connecticut.
(HNPD, 10/27/98)(ON, 3/06, p.5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Sikorsky)
1972 Oct 29, Hijackers of a German Lufthansa passenger jet demanded the release of the three surviving terrorists, who had been arrested after the Fürstenfeldbruck gunfight and were being held for trial. They forced West Germany to release 3 terrorists who were involved in the Munich Massacre.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_massacre)
1972 Oct 29, Charles A. Tuller, his 2 sons and William White Graham hijacked an Eastern Airlines jet from Houston and flew to Cuba 4 days after an abortive bank robbery in Arlington, Va. The robbery left 2 people dead in Arlington and a ticket agent dead in Houston. This was the second-to-last successful hijacking from the United States to Cuba before the signing of an anti-hijacking agreement between the two countries in February, 1973.
(www.latinamericanstudies.org/hijackers/72-killings.htm)
1972 Nov 10, Hijackers diverted a jet to Detroit, demanding $10 million and ten parachutes.
(HN, 11/10/98)
1972 Nov, Three hijackers threatened to crash a Southern Airways passenger flight after a stopover in Birmingham, Ala. They threatened to crash into a research reactor at Oak Ridge, Tenn. The airline turned over $ 2 million and a shootout took place in Orlando. The plane flew on to Havana where the hijackers were arrested for 8 years. They returned to Alabama in 1980 and received 20-25 year sentences.
(USAT, 6/11/03, p.2B)
1972 Dec 5, The Nixon administration, in response to recent hijackings, ordered airports to screen every passenger with a metal detector, inspect the contents of carry-ones and station a local police officer or sheriff’s deputy at every one of the nation’s 531 major commercial facilities. In 2013 Brendan I. Koerner authored “The Skies Belong to Us: Love and Terror in the Golden Age of Hijacking."
(SSFC, 6/30/13, p.F4)
1972 The Alaska Continental Development Corp. merged with the financially troubled Alaska Airlines. The airline soon became profitable in part due to the Alaska oil pipeline.
(WSJ, 1/7/07, p.A4)(http://tinyurl.com/6obvr7)
1973 Jan 5, San Francisco Int'l. Airport began screening passengers. This followed Pres. Nixon's mandate for screening due to increased hijackings in the 1960s and early 1970s.
(SFC, 3/30/19, p.C1)
1973 Jan 29, Emily Howell Warner (b.1939) became the 1st woman pilot permanently employed by a commercial airline. Her first flight as co-pilot was on the Frontier Airlines DHC-6 Twin Otter August 1, 1974.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)(http://members.tripod.com/~LAMKINS/Emily_Howell_Warner.txt)
1973 Feb 15, The US and Cuba reached an anti-hijacking agreement.
(SFC, 7/9/96, p.A8)(www.historyofcuba.com/history/time/timetbl4.htm)
1973 Jul 20, The Japanese Red Army and Lebanese guerrillas hijacked a Japan Airlines plane over the Netherlands. The passengers and crew were released in Libya where the hijackers blew up the plane.
(SFC, 11/9/00, p.C2)(www.cdi.org/friendlyversion/printversion.cfm?documentID=1771)
1973 Jul 27, Eddie Rickenbacker (b.1890), American WW I fighter pilot, died in Zurich. He and several associates bought Eastern Airlines in 1938 and guided it to become one of the most profitable airlines in the postwar era. Rickenbacker had granted mechanics a 40-hour week, profit-related pay and a pension.
(www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=324)(HNPD, 10/7/98)(Econ., 12/12/20, p.65)
1973 Sep 26, Concorde flew from Washington DC to Paris in 3hr. 33m.
(www.concordesst.com/02.html)
1973 Nov 25, Three Palestinians hijacked a KLM B747 enroute to New Delhi to Abu Dhabi.
(www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Terrorism/incidents.html)
1973 Ethiopian Airlines became the first African carrier to fly to China.
(Econ, 10/22/16, p.59)
1974 Feb 22, Samuel Joseph Byck (1930–1974), an unemployed former tire salesman, attempted to hijack a plane flying out of Baltimore-Washington International Airport. He intended to crash into the White House in hopes of killing US President Richard M. Nixon. Byck killed pilot Fred Jones and a aviation officer George Neal Ramsburg before he was shot and wounded by gunfire through the door of a Delta DC-9 airplane. Byck then shot himself in the head.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Byck)
1974 Mar 8, Charles the Gaulle Airport (aka Roissy I) opened outside of Paris.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_de_Gaulle_International_Airport)
1974 Aug 26, Charles Lindbergh (72), the first man to fly solo, nonstop across the Atlantic, died at his home in Hawaii. Lindbergh had 3 illegitimate children in Germany with Brigitte Hesshaimer, a Munich hat maker. In 1998 A. Scott Berg authored "Lindbergh." Earlier Lindbergh's daughter authored her memoir "Under a Wing."
(AP, 8/26/97)(SFEC, 11/15/98, Par p.29)(SSFC, 10/24/04, Par p.2)
1975 Apr 25, 1st Boeing Jetfoil revenue service began between Hong Kong and Macao.
(SS, 4/25/02)
1975 Tony Ryan (1921-2007), Irish-born aviation entrepreneur, set up Guinness Peat Aviation with money from Air Lingus, bankers in London and some of his own cash. GPA rented planes to airlines around the world. Its IPO in 1992 stumbled and General Electric Co. picked up most of the company at a bargain price.
(WSJ, 10/6/07, p.A17)
1976 Apr 26, Pan Am began non-stop flights between NYC and Tokyo.
(www.wingnet.org/rtw/rtw006hh.htm)
1976 May 24, Britain and France opened trans-Atlantic Concorde service to Washington. This was the 1st commercial supersonic transport (SST).
(AP, 5/24/97)
1976 Jun 27, An Air France Airbus flight AF139, from Tel Aviv to Paris, was hijacked shortly after departing Athens and taken to Uganda. It was hijacked by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and a German radical group. The hijackers released 148 non-Israeli passengers after the plane landed in Uganda. French pilot Michel Bacos (d.2019) remained with the hostages despite offers of release.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France)(AP, 3/27/19)
1976 Jul 3, Israel launched its daring mission to rescue 103 passengers and Air France crew members being held at Entebbe Airport in Uganda by pro-Palestinian hijackers.
(AP, 7/3/97)
1976 Jul 4, Jonathan Netanyahu, brother of Benjamin, led and was killed in an Israeli raid called Operation Thunderball that rescued the [105] hostages held at Entebbe Airport in Uganda. The raid was by Sayeret Matkal, Israel’s elite counter-terrorist unit led by Muki Betser, and it freed all but 3 of the 104 Israeli and Jewish hostages and crew of an Air France jetliner seized by pro-Palestinian hijackers. The events are described by Muki Betser and Robert Rosenberg in "Secret Soldier, The True Life of Israel’s Greatest Commando." 20 Ugandan soldiers, 1 Israeli officer, 3 hostages and 7 hijackers died. The hijacking was linked to Carlos the Jackal, aka Ilich Ramirez Sanchez.
(SFC, 6/24/96, p.A19)(SFC, 7/16/96, p.E5)(AP, 7/4/97)(SFC,12/11/97, p.C2)(HN, 7/4/98)
1976 Jul 27, Kakuei Tanaka, former PM (1972-1974) of Japan, was arrested for accepting a bribe from the US Lockheed Corp. Tanaka was convicted in 1983 but continued to fight the charges. A. Carl Kotchian (d.2008 at 94), a Lockheed salesman, had testified that Lockheed had paid $12.6 million in bribes to Japanese businessmen and government officials.
(www.international.ucla.edu/eas/restricted/lockheed.htm)(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 216)(SFC, 12/24/08, p.B7)
1976 Jul 28, Eldon Joersz & Geo Morgan set a world air speed record of 3,530 kph.
(SC, 7/28/02)
1976 Sep 10, 5 Croatian terrorists captured a TWA-plane at La Guardia Airport, NY.
(http://nycslav.blogspot.com/2005/11/croatian-terroristsin-new-york.html)
1976 PT Dirgantara Indonesia was founded as a state-owned company to produce prestige-enhancing aircraft.
{Indonesia, Aviation}
(Econ, 2/15/14, p.57)
1977 Sep 26, Sir Freddie Laker began his cut-rate "Skytrain" service from London to NY. Laker airways collapsed into bankruptcy in 1982.
(SSFC, 2/12/06, p.B8)(www.cnn.com/almanac/9709/26/)
1977 Aug 23, The Gossamer Condor 2 flew the first figure-of-eight, a distance of 2,172 meters winning the first Kremer prize at Minter Field in Shafter, California. It was built by Dr Paul B. MacCready and piloted by amateur cyclist and hang-glider pilot Bryan Allen.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gossamer_Condor)
1977 Oct 13, A Lufthansa Boeing 737, bound for Frankfurt, was hijacked by Palestinians shortly after take-off. The plane is diverted to Rome's Fiumicino Airport. Almost all of the passengers are German vacationers. "This is Captain Martyr Mohammed speaking," announces one of the hijackers to the Rome air-traffic controllers. "The group I represent demands the release of our comrades in German prisons [see Oct 18].
(www.baader-meinhof.com/timeline/1977.html)
1977 Oct 18, West German commandos stormed a hijacked Lufthansa jetliner that was on the ground in Mogadishu, Somalia, freeing all 86 hostages and killing three of the four hijackers, Palestinians of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. In 1996 Suhaila al-Sayeh was sentenced to 12 years in prison by a German court.
(SFC, 11/20/96, p.A17)(AP, 10/17/07)
1977 Nov 22, Regular passenger service between New York and Europe on the supersonic Concorde began on a trial basis.
(AP, 11/22/97)
1978 Mar 14, Clayton Thomas (27) surrendered in Denver after hijacking United Flight 696 from SF.
(SFC, 3/14/03, p.E8)
1978 Aug 17, The helium-filled balloon, Double Eagle II, crossed the Atlantic in 6 days. The first successful trans-Atlantic balloon flight ended as Americans Maxie Anderson, Ben Abruzzo and Larry Newman landed outside Paris.
(AP, 8/17/97)(HN, 8/17/98)
1978 Sep 13, The US Navy's F-18 Hornet makes its public debut during rollout ceremonies in St. Louis, Mo.
(www.boeing.com/defense-space/military/fa18/fa18_milestones.htm)
1978 Sep 15, Willy Messerschmitt (b.1898), German aircraft builder, died in Munich.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willy_Messerschmitt)
1978 Oct 24, Pres. Carter signed the Airline Deregulation Act. The main purpose of the act was to remove government control from commercial aviation and expose the passenger airline industry to market forces. Alfred Kahn (1917-2010) was the head of America’s Civil Aeronautics Board and the driving force behind the deregulation of air travel.
(WSJ, 10/5/04, p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_Deregulation_Act)(Econ, 1/8/11, p.67)
1978 Dec 11, Six masked men bound 10 employees at Lufthansa cargo area at NY Kennedy Airport & made off with $5.8 M in cash & jewelry. Nicholas Pileggi wrote "Wise Guys," which described his participation in the heist. The robbery inspired the movie "Goodfellas."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lufthansa_heist)(SFC, 5/10/97, p.A3)
1979 Jan 23, The USAF's 388th Tactical Fighter Wing at Hill AFB, Utah, became the first unit anywhere to receive the F-16 Fighting Falcon. Lockheed Corp. produced the F-16 fighter jet. It became the first production military aircraft to incorporate a fly-by-wire control system.
(WSJ, 3/22/96, p.A-1)(NPub, 2002, p.23)(www.f-16.net/timeline_1979.html)
1979 Jun 12, Cyclist Bryan Allen (26) flew the manpowered Gossamer Albatross across the English Channel. This was the first man powered craft to fly across the English Channel. The bicycle plane was designed by Paul MacCready (1925-2007).
(Hem, Nov.'95, p.138)(AP, 6/12/97)(WSJ, 9/1/07, p.A4)
1979 Jun 20, Nikola Kavaja (d.2008 at 77) hijacked a US passenger jet with the intention of crashing it into Yugoslav Communist Party headquarters in Belgrade. He abandoned his hijack mission in Ireland, saying at the time he was not sure of the exact location of the downtown party office and did not want innocent civilians to die if the jet missed the target.
(AP, 11/12/08)(www.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/world/europe/12kavaja.html)
1980 May 8, Maxie Anderson (45) and his son Kris (23) lifted off from Fort Baker in Marin Ct., Ca., in a helium-filled balloon to make the 1st transcontinental balloon crossing.
(SFC, 5/6/05, p.F2)
1980 May 12, Maxie Anderson (45) and his son Kris (23) completed the 1st balloon crossing of the American continent as they landed their helium-filled balloon on Canada’s Gaspe Peninsula. Their journey began May 8 in Marin Ct., Ca.
(SFC, 5/6/05, p.F2)
1980 Jun 10, A package bomb injured United Airlines Pres. Percy Wood at his home in Lake Forest, Ill. It was later attributed to the Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski.
(SFEC,11/9/97, Z1 p.4)(www.courttv.com/trials/unabomber/bombings.html)
1981 Feb, John King (1917-2005), at the behest of PM Margaret Thatcher, became chairman of British Airways with a brief to clean the company up for privatization. Over the next 12 years he steered the company to profitability.
(Econ, 7/16/05, p.54)(http://tinyurl.com/3xl527)
1981 Mar 2, A Pakistan Airways Boeing 720 was hijacked by 3 Pakistani terrorists. The passengers and crew were released March 15 in Syria.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/15/newsid_2818000/2818437.stm)
1981 Apr 3, Juan Terry Trippe (b.1899), American commercial aviation pioneer, entrepreneur and the founder of Pan American World Airways, died in NYC.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Trippe)
1981 May 1, American Airlines instituted the 1st "frequent flyer" program to keep customers returning.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)(http://tinyurl.com/2uvcut)
1981 May 26, 14 people were killed when a Marine jet crashed onto the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz off Florida.
(AP, 5/26/97)
1981 Jul 7, The 1st solar-powered aircraft, Solar Challenger, crossed the English Channel flying 163 miles from Paris to Canterbury. It was created by Dupont and Paul MacCready.
(www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/news/FactSheets/FS-054-DFRC.html)(Econ, 9/8/07, p.88)
1981 Aug 3, US air traffic controllers (PATCO) went on strike, despite a warning from President Reagan they would be fired. Most of the 13,000 controllers defied Reagan’s order to return to work within 48 hours and were fired.
(AP, 8/3/02)(SFC, 10/4/02, p.A17)
1981 Oct 22, The Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) was decertified by the US federal government for its strike the previous August.
(AP, 10/22/06)
1981 Nov 12, The Double Eagle V landed in California 84 hours and 31 minutes following its Nov 10 launch in Japan. It was the 1st balloon to cross the Pacific ocean. Rocky Aoki (1938-2008), founder of the Benihana steakhouse (1964), was part of the crew.
(http://www.benihana.com/ballooning_history.asp)(SFC, 7/12/08, p.B5)
1982 Feb 5, Laker Airways, founded in 1966 by Sir Freddie Laker, collapsed owing $351M.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laker_Airways)
1982 May 12, Braniff Airlines ceased operations. N601BN "747 Braniff Place" made the very last Braniff flight from Hawaii to Dallas/Fort Worth on May 13.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braniff_Airways)
1982 Jul 2, Larry Walters (1949-1993), a Los Angeles truck driver, flew 16,000 feet into the air with 42 helium balloons attached to a lawn chair. Walters surprised an airline pilot, who radioed the control tower that he had just passed a guy in a lawn chair with a gun. The weapon was to shoot balloons and descend. Walters paid a $1,500 penalty for violating air traffic rules. Eleven years later, he committed suicide at age 44.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Walters)(SFC, 7/3/02, p.A17)(AP, 7/10/07)
1982 Aug 11, Pan Am flight 830 from Tokyo to Honolulu was bombed. The bombing was set in motion when Mohammed Rashed, wife Christine Pinter and their son traveled to Tokyo with fraudulent identification documents. Rashed tucked a bomb beneath window seat 47K, pulled the pin, engaged the timer and got off in Japan. Toru Ozawa (16), vacationing with his family, occupied the same seat on the next leg and was killed. 15 people were injured. In 1998 Mohammed Rashid, a Palestinian national, was turned over to the US by Egypt on charges related to the bombing. In 2002 Rashid pleaded guilty in exchange for a release date of March 20, 2013.
(SFC, 6/4/98, p.A4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_830)(AP, 3/17/13)
1982 Husband and wife Selig Altschul and Marylin Bender authored "The Chosen Instrument," a biography of Juan Trippe (1927-1981), the founder of Pan American World Airways.
(SSFC, 11/8/20, p.C14)
1982 Charles F. Ehret (1923-2007), a scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, released the “Argonne Anti-Jet-Lag Diet."
(WSJ, 3/10/07, p.A4)
1982 Braniff Airlines, based in Dallas, ceased operations with $1 billion in debt. Harding Lawrence (d.2002 at 81) led the company from 1965-1980.
(SFC, 1/21/02, p.B5)
1982 The Pentagon acknowledged for the 1st time the existence of a "stealth" aircraft.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)
1982 A US federal law was passed that prohibited airport revenue from being transferred to local city general funds.
(SFC, 7/20/96, p.A11)
1983 Jun 2, A toilet caught fire on Air Canada's DC-9 and 23 died at Cincinnati.
(SC, 6/2/02)
1983 Jun 27, Maxie Anderson and Don Ida died during a balloon race.
(SC, 6/27/02)
1983 Jul 15, In France a bomb explodes in front of the THY counter at Orly airport. 8 people were killed and more than sixty injured. A 29 years old Syrian-Armenian named Varadjian Garbidjian (d.2019) confessed to having planted the bomb. He admitted that the bomb was intended to have exploded once the plane was airborne. Karapetian (d.2019), who headed the French branch of the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia, later confessed to paying a passenger to check a bomb-carrying bag for him onto a Turkish Airlines flight, claiming he had too much luggage himself. Karapetian was sentenced to life imprisonment in France, but was released in 2001 on condition of his being deported to Armenia.
(http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2006/12/1273-this-month-in-history-armenian.html)(AP, 1/29/19)
1983 Bhutan’s Paro Airport, the country’s first commercial airport, was constructed 40 miles from the capital.
(WSJ, 3/6/97, p.A8)
1983 In Saudi Arabia the King Khalid Int'l. Airport opened in Riyadh and was touted as the largest in the world. One of the terminals was mothballed at opening and remained so in 2008.
(WSJ, 8/20/96, p.A1)(Econ, 4/26/08, p.15)
1984 Mar, William Potts, on a Miami-bound Piedmont Airlines flight that originated in Newark, N.J., pushed his call button and gave the flight attendant a note saying he had two accomplices aboard with explosives. He hijacked the plane to Cuba, where he was arrested and served 13½ years in prison. In 2013 he returned to the US to face piracy charges.
(http://tinyurl.com/oayj9do)(Reuters, 11/6/13)
1984 Jun 22, Richard Branson led the inaugural flight of his Virgin Airlines from London to Newark, NJ.
(Econ, 6/16/07, SR p.10)
1984 Dec 4, A five-day hijack drama began as four armed men seized a Kuwaiti airliner en route to Pakistan and forced it to land in Tehran, where the hijackers killed American passenger Charles Hegna.
(AP, 12/4/04)
1984 Dec 9, In Iran a five-day hijack drama ended when Iranian commandos captured the Kuwaiti plane. 4 armed men had seized a Kuwaiti airliner en route to Pakistan and forced it to land in Tehran, where the hijackers killed American passenger Charles Hegna.
(AP, 12/4/04)
1984 Dec 14, The maiden flight of NASA’s X-29, a forward swept wing aircraft, took place.
(NPub, 2002, p.24)
c1984 Air Serv International was founded to ferry humanitarian workers to world hot spots.
(WSJ, 12/8/03, p.B1)
1985 Jun 14, The 17-day hijack ordeal of TWA Flight 847 began as a pair of Lebanese Shiite Muslim extremists seized the plane with 104 Americans shortly after takeoff from Athens, Greece. The hijackers killed Petty Officer Robert Dean Stethem and dumped his body on the tarmac in Beirut. In 2002 Stethem’s family was awarded $21.4 million in compensatory damages from the US Treasury. In 1987 Mohammed Ali Hamadi was arrested at the Frankfurt airport, when customs officials discovered liquid explosives in his luggage. The Lebanese man was convicted and served a life sentence in Germany for the 1985 hijacking of a TWA jetliner and killing of a US Navy diver. In 2005 he returned to Lebanon after being paroled in Germany.
(AP, 6/14/97)(HN, 6/14/98)(SSFC, 4/21/02, p.A9)(AP, 12/20/05)
1985 Gulf Air, a joint venture between Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Oman and Qatar, decided to cut back its services to Dubai. This prompted Dubai to launch its own airline. The Emirates Airline began in the UAE with 2 rented planes and a $10 million investment from Dubai’s ruling family under the direction of Maurice Flanagan. In 2005 the state-owned operation planned to double its 73-plane fleet. Sir Tim Clark helped set up the airline and by 2015 it was the world’s biggest carrier as measured by int’l. passenger mileage.
(WSJ, 1/11/05, p.A1)(Econ, 6/5/10, p.75)(Econ, 11/26/16, p.63)
1985 Ryanair was founded by Cathal and Declan Ryan (after whom the company is named), Liam Lonergan (owner of an Irish tour operator named Club Travel), and noted Irish businessman Tony Ryan (1936-2007), founder of Guinness Peat Aviation and father of Cathal and Declan. The small airline, flying a short hop from Waterford to London, grew to become one of Europe's largest carriers.
(WSJ, 10/6/07, p.A17)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryanair)
1986 Sep 5, The Pakistan army stormed a hijacked US B-747 in Karachi and 22 people were killed. A purser helped save the lives of more than 350 passengers when Libyan-backed hijackers stormed Pan Am Flight 73. The hijackers killed the purser and she posthumously became the youngest person to receive India's highest civilian award for bravery. In 2001 Zayd Hassan Abd Al-latif Masud Al Safarini, jailed in Pakistan for 15 years, arrived in Alaska and was expected to face a 1991 indictment for the 1986 hijacking of a Pan Am jet. In 2003 Safarini pleaded guilty and agreed to 3 life sentences plus 25 years. On Jan 3, 2008, Pakistani authorities freed and deported four Palestinians convicted in the hijacking.
(SFC, 10/2/01, p.A3)(SFC, 12/17/03, p.A4)(AP, 9/5/06)(AP, 1/3/08)(AFP, 7/16/17)
1986 Dec 23, The experimental airplane Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, completed the first non-stop, round-the-world flight without refueling as it landed safely at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
(AP, 12/23/97)
1986 Frank Borman, CEO of Eastern Airlines, sold the company to Texas Air, led by Frank Lorenzo.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Air_Lines)
1987 Mar, Britain’s PM Margaret Thatcher privatized BAA (British Airports Authority). From a lethargic government bureaucracy it grew to become a major airport operator.
(TMC, 1994, p.1987)(WSJ, 9/24/96, p.A1)
1987 Apr 18, An unconscious skydiver was rescued by another diver in mid-air.
(MC, 4/18/02)
1987 Japan privatized Japan Airlines (JAL). By 2001 it required 3 state bailouts.
(Econ, 10/3/09, p.76)
1988 Mar 20, Eight-year-old DeAndra Anrig found herself airborne when the string of her kite was snagged by an airplane flying over Shoreline Park in Mountain View, Calif. Not seriously hurt, she was lifted 10 feet off the ground and carried 100 feet until she let go.
(AP, 3/20/98)
1988 Apr 23, A federal ban on smoking during domestic airline flights of two hours or less went into effect.
(AP, 4/23/98)(WSJ, 1/27/04, p.D12)
1988 Apr 23, Greek cycling champion Kanellos Kanellopoulos pedaled a self-powered aircraft named Daedalus 88 for 74 miles. The MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics Department's Daedalus was a human-powered aircraft flew from Iraklion Air Force Base on Crete, Greece, crashing in the sea just short of the island of Santorini in 3 hours, 54 minutes. Daedalus 87 had crashed on Rogers Dry Lakebed on 17 February 1988, and was rebuilt as a backup.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Daedalus)
1988 Jun 8, Nippon Airways announced that painting eyeballs on Jets cut bird collisions by 20%.
(MC, 6/8/02)
1988 Nov, African Aviation Ministers met in Yamoussoukro, Côte d’Ivoire, to develop a blueprint for building a strong and vibrant aviation industry that would galvanise economic and social development across the huge continent of Africa. Most African governments signed up to the Yamoussoukro Declaration, pledging to open their skies to one another. By 2016 not had done so fully.
(www.africanaviation.com/The_Yamoussoukro_Indecision.html)(Econ, 2/13/15, p.12)
1988 Dec 2, The 5 gunmen, who hijacked Soviet Aeroflot jet, surrendered in Israel.
(http://tinyurl.com/hkvkb)
1988 Tony Ryan, the founder of Guinness Peat Aviation, brought on Michael O’Leary to do whatever was necessary to make Ryanair profitable. In 2007 Alan Ruddock authored “Michael O’Leary: A Life in Full Flight."
(Econ, 8/25/07, p.76)
1989 Mar 4, Frank Lorenzo locked out Eastern's mechanics and ramp service employees, represented by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM). Eastern Airlines machinists went on strike and were joined by pilots and flight attendants.
(AP, 3/4/99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Airlines)
1989 Mar 5, Machinists striking Eastern Airlines withdrew an immediate threat to picket the nation's railroads, after a federal judge issued an order temporarily prohibiting rail workers from honoring the Eastern picket lines.
(AP, 3/5/99)
1989 Mar 6, With nearly 90 percent of its pilots honoring the picket lines of striking machinists, Eastern Airlines shut down operations on all but three routes.
(AP, 3/6/99)
1989 Mar 9, Eastern Airlines filed for bankruptcy.
(HN, 3/9/98)
1989 May 12, The nation's largest airline computer reservation system, the American Airlines Sabre system, shut down for nearly 12 hours, disrupting the operations of thousands of travel agencies nationwide.
(AP, 5/12/99)
1989 May 25, Eastern Airlines graduated its 1st class of non-union pilots.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1989 Jul 17, The controversial B-2 Stealth bomber underwent its first test flight at Edwards Air Force Base in California, two days after a technical problem forced a postponement.
(AP, 7/17/99)
1989 Aug 13, 2 hot-air balloons crashed at Alice Springs, Australia, and 13 were killed.
(MC, 8/13/02)
1989 Nov 1, A Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) and Finnair ban on smoking took effect for all Nordic flights.
(http://tc.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/13/suppl_1/i20)
1989 Nov 21, A law banning smoking on most domestic flights signed by President Bush.
(http://tinyurl.com/gf6zq)
1989 Nov 22, Eastern Airlines pilots and flight attendants ended their strike. President Bush vetoed a bill that would set up panel to investigate walkout. The strike by machinists continued.
(http://openweb.tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/1989-11/1989-11-22-ABC-11.html)
1989 Frank Lorenzo sold Eastern Air Lines Shuttle to real estate mogul Donald Trump (who named it the Trump Shuttle). Lorenzo sold other parts of Eastern to his Texas Air holding company and its subsidiary, Continental Airlines, at terms disadvantageous to Eastern.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Air_Lines)
1990 Apr 18, Bankruptcy court forced Frank Lorenzo (b.1940) to give up Eastern Airlines. Lorenzo had cut wages, alienated the staff and pursued a policy of asset-stripping the company.
(www.airlinesafety.com/Unions/UnionVictoryAtEastern.htm)(Econ., 12/12/20, p.65)
1990 Aug 20, Three former Northwest Airlines pilots were convicted in Minneapolis of flying while intoxicated.
(AP, 8/20/00)
1990 Sep 29, The YF22 fighter, an American prototype fighter aircraft designed by Northrop and McDonnell Douglas, was first flown by Lockheed test pilot Dave Ferguson.
(NPub, 2002, p.25)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_YF-23)
1990 Oct 11, The first flight of the X-31 took place. The collaborative US-German Rockwell-MBB X-31 Enhanced Fighter Maneuverability program was designed to test fighter thrust vectoring technology.
(NPub, 2002, p.25)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-31)
1990 Nov 11, In Myanmar Rangoon students Soe Myint and a friend hijacked a plane enroute from Bangkok to Yangon. They made it fly to Calcutta (later Kolkata) by pretending that a bar of soap inside a statuette was a bomb. Myint then launched a news service covering Myanmar from India using underground reporters.
(http://tinyurl.com/kz4vs6d)(Econ, 8/10/13, p.38)
1990 Smoking was banned on US domestic flights 6 hours or less.
(WSJ, 1/27/04, p.D12)
1990 Canada-based Bombardier took over American-based Learjet.
(Econ, 1/4/14, p.23)
1991 Jun 19, Five Cubans stole and flew a Russian-made Antonov AN-2 biplane to Miami.
(http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=82602&page=2#.T3eeOtnNlPs)
1991 Jun, Alaska Airlines began the 1st regularly scheduled service from the US to the Soviet Far East.
(WSJ, 1/7/07, p.A4)
1991 Aug 27, The first flight of the YF23 V-22 Osprey tiltrotor took place.
(NPub, 2002, p.25)
1991 Sep 17, The first flight of the McDonnell Douglas C-17 military cargo transport took place.
(NPub, 2002, p.25)
1991 Dec 4, Pan American World Airways ceased operations. Pan Am’s records went to the Univ. of Florida and artifacts went to the Historical Museum of South Florida. However, a new, smaller version of Pan Am was later formed.
(AP, 12/4/01)(SSFC, 11/4/07, p.A9)
1991 Sony introduced the first commercial lithium-ion batteries in its CCD-TR1 camcorder. They had a capacity to overheat. In 2004 the US banned them as cargo on passenger planes. In 2006 Dell and Apple initiated recalls for laptop computers with recently manufactured, problematic lithium-ion batteries.
(Econ, 8/19/06, p.52)(Econ, 3/8/08, TQ p.23)(Econ, 8/12/17, p.16)
1992 Jun 26, Supreme Court ruled that fund soliciting can be banned at airports.
(MC, 6/26/02)
1992 Boeing and Airbus reached a truce whereby EU aid to Airbus was limited to a third of development costs and Boeing government subsidies to 4% of its turnover. The truce ended in 1998 as Airbus approached 50% of the market.
(Econ, 6/4/05, p.59)
1992 In India Naresh Goyal founded Jet Airways. Etihad Aviation Group purchased a 24% stake in Jet Airways in 2013. In 2019 the company faced Bankruptcy.
(AP, 4/16/19)
1993 Jan 22, Norwegian Air Shuttle was founded by Bjorn Kjos to take over the regional airline services produced by Busy Bee for Braathens in Western Norway.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_Air_Shuttle)(Econ 7/15/17, p.55)
1993 Nov 18, American Airlines flight attendants went on strike. They ended their job action four days later.
(AP, 11/18/98)
1993 Nov, Wang Zhihua boarded a scheduled flight from Hangzhou to Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian province opposite Taiwan. He showed fake explosives to the crew, saying he had a bomb, and forced the plane to fly to Taiwan. In 2008 Wang was returned to China and sentenced to 12 years in prison.
(AP, 12/5/08)
1993 In China Chen Feng led a coalition of private investors and the government of Hainan to launch Hainan Airlines. In 2016 it recorded revenues of $90 billion.
(Econ, 4/15/17, p.56)
1994 Feb 10, Jeannie Flynn (b.1966)), the first female combat pilot in the US Air Force, finished flight training in the F-15.
(http://tinyurl.com/n5ehhg)(NPub, 2002, p.26)
1994 Jun 7, Vicki Van Meter 912) of Meadville, Pa., completed a trans-Atlantic flight, landing in Glasgow, Scotland. She was accompanied by her flight instructor.
(www.zinkle.com/p/articles/mi_m1590/is_n3_v51/ai_15823355)
1994 Jun, Carlo Toto, an Italian contractor, purchased a Boeing 737 at a court auction and began a small-charter airline service that became Air One.
(WSJ, 9/24/04, p.A13)
1994 Jul 12, The shareholders and employees of United Airlines approved a deal giving the majority ownership to the employees (76,000+).
(Hem, Dec. 94, p.13)
1994 Oct 31, An American Eagle French-built ATR-72, en route from Indianapolis to Chicago, crashed in Roselawn, Ind., and killed 68 people. In 1997 American Airlines and 7 other companies settled a suit filed by relatives for $110 million.
(SFC, 9/23/97, p.A4)(AP, 10/31/97)
1994 An investor group led by Banco Bozano, Simonsen SA, bought the loss-ridden aircraft maker Embraer SA from the Brazilian government.
(WSJ, 3/21/97, p.A17)(WSJ, 9/13/04, p.A8)
1994 Canada leased its major airports to private-sector entities.
{California, Aviation}
(Econ, 8/12/17, p.52)
1994 India allowed private rivals to compete with Air India.
(Econ 7/8/17, p.59)
1995 Feb 28, Denver International Airport opened after 16 months of delays and $3.2 billion in budget overruns. A $250 million automated baggage handling system contributed to the delays. United Airlines gave up on the system in 2005.
(AP, 2/28/98)(WSJ, 6/7/05, p.D5)
1995 Nov, Air One launched service between Rome and Milan, a route on which Alitalia had held a monopoly.
(WSJ, 9/24/04, p.A13)
1995 The US Predator surveillance drone was 1st used over Bosnia. In 2001 it was equipped with the hell-fire missile and used over Afghanistan. This unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flew as slowly as a Cessna.
(SFC, 11/23/01, p.A12)(Econ, 12/8/07, TQ p.22)
1995 Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou (b.1967), a Greek-Cypriot-born British entrepreneur, founded easyJet, a budget airline.
(Econ, 11/22/08, p.75)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EasyJet)
1995 Mexico created Cintra, a holding company to rescue Aeromexico and Mexicana airlines.
(Econ, 3/26/05, p.63)
1996 Jan 4, The Boeing Sikorsky Comanche helicopter was unveiled.
(NPub, 2002, p.26)
1996 Aug 8, Frank A. Whittle (89), inventor of the Jet engine, died.
(MC, 8/8/02)
1996 Fokker went bankrupt, and the last new Fokker-50 was delivered to Ethiopian Airlines in May, 1997. Stork, another Dutch company, bought a large part of Fokker's assets, and continued to be a main provider of parts and service for Fokker planes.
(AP, 2/10/04)
1997 May 5, American Airlines' pilots ratified a contract, ending nearly three years of negotiations.
(AP, 5/5/98)
1997 May 10, In Britain Jennifer Murray and co-pilot Quentin Smith began a round-the-world helicopter trip in an effort to become the first woman to pilot the globe in a helicopter. She completed her flight on Aug 15.
(SFC, 7/23/97, p.A3)(SFC, 8/16/97, p.A11)
1997 May 17, The first flight of NASA’s subscale remotely piloted X-36 Tailless Fighter Agility Research Aircraft took place.
(www.dfrc.nasa.gov/gallery/Photo/X-36/index.html)
1997 Jun 28, Robert Schuller, TV evangelist, attacked a flight attendant.
(MC, 6/28/02)
1997 Aug, Harry Stonecipher, CEO of McDonnell Douglas, negotiated a merger with Boeing.
(WSJ, 3/7/05, p.A1)
1998 Apr 30, United and Delta airlines formed an alliance that would control one-third of all U.S. passenger seats.
(AP, 4/30/99)
1998 May 10, The FAA grounded older models of the Boeing 737 after mandatory inspections of some aircraft found extensive wear in power lines through wing fuel tanks.
(SFC, 5/11/98)(AP, 5/10/08)
1998 Jun 30, In Malaysia the new Kuala Lumpur Int’l. Airport (KLIA) began operations.
(SFEC, 7/5/98, p.T3)(Econ, 2/7/09, p.35)
1998 Sep 10, The Northwest Airlines and its pilots reached an agreement to end their 13-day strike.
(SFC, 9/11/98, p.A3)(AP, 9/10/99)
1998 Sep 10, Air Canada and its pilots reached an agreement to end a 9-day strike. [see Sep 14]
(SFC, 9/11/98, p.A3)
1998 Dec 25, Seven days into their journey, American millionaire Steve Fossett, British mogul Richard Branson and Per Lindstrom of Sweden set down their ICO Global Challenger balloon in the Pacific near Honolulu. This ended their latest effort to circumnavigate the world.
(SFC, 12/26/98, p.A1)(AP, 12/25/99)
1998 The Washington National Airport was renamed Ronald Reagan National Airport.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan_Washington_National_Airport)
1999 Mar 20, Balloonists Bertrand Piccard of Switzerland and Brian Jones of Britain became the first aviators to fly a hot-air balloon around the world nonstop. They established an around the world record after floating over Mauritania at 1:54 a.m. PST and won a $1 million prize from Anheuser-Busch as the first aviators to fly a hot-air balloon around the world nonstop.
(SFEC, 3/21/99, p.A21)(AP, 3/20/00)
1999 May 31, It was reported that Mike Moshier (51), founder of Millennium Jet Inc. in Santa Clara, Ca., had developed the SoloTrek XFV, a single passenger flying vehicle, that could fly at 80 mph for up to 90 minutes as high as 10,000 feet on a single tank of 87-octane gas.
(SFC, 5/31/99, p.E3)
1999 Jul 23, In Japan Yuzi Nishizawa (b.1970) attempted to hijack flight 61 from Tokyo and stabbed to death pilot Naoyuki Nagashima (51). The hijacker was overcome and the plane landed safely with 516 passengers. On March 23, 2005, Nishizawa was found to be guilty, but of unsound mind and thus only partly responsible for his actions. Presiding judge Hisaharu Yasui handed Nishizawa a life sentence in 2005.
(SFC, 7/24/99, p.A9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANA_Flight_61)
1999 Dec 6, SabreTech, an aircraft maintenance company, was convicted of mishandling the oxygen canisters blamed for the cargo hold fire that caused the 1996 ValuJet crash in the Everglades that killed 110 people. Eight of the nine counts were later thrown out on appeal.
(AP, 12/6/04)
1999 Dec 20, Singapore Airlines agreed to buy a 49% stake in Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic.
(www.iht.com/articles/1999/12/21/virgin.2.t.php)
1999 David Neeleman founded JetBlue Airways, an American low-cost airline. In Dec, 2008, he founded Azul (meaning blue), his Brazilian airline.
(Econ, 8/29/09, p.58)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JetBlue)
1999 Jets began landing on the main island of the archipelago of Socotra, ruled by Yemen. Some 50,000 native Socotris spoke 4 dialects of an ancient language unintelligible to other Yemenis. It has been described as the most alien-looking place on Earth.
(Econ, 4/24/10, p.46)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socotra)
2000 Jul 1, Canada and Russia began to allow regular commercial air flights over the North Pole.
(WSJ, 6/8/00, p.A19)
2000 Jul 10, DASA (minus MTU) merged with Aerospatiale-Matra of France and Construcciones Aeronáuticas SA (CASA) of Spain to form the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS). DASA was founded as Deutsche Aerospace AG on May 19, 1989 by the merger of Daimler-Benz's aerospace interests (MTU, Dornier and two divisions of AEG). In July 1989 the two AEG divisions were themselves merged within Deutsche Aerospace to form Telefunken Systemtechnik (TST). In December 1989 Daimler-Benz acquired Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm (MBB) and merged it into DASA.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DASA)
2000 Aug 15, British Airways joined Air France in grounding its Concorde supersonic jets in the wake of the July 25th crash near Paris that claimed 113 lives.
(SFC, 8/16/00, p.A17)(AP, 8/15/01)
2000 Sep 15, The new San Francisco Int’l. Terminal opened at a cost of $950 million. SFO operations at Terminal 2 ceased in December as part of a $2.5 billion airport master plan.
(SFC, 9/16/00, p.A15)(SFC, 5/13/08, p.D4)
2001 Jan 10, American Airlines (AMR) called its plan to acquire Trans World Airlines (TWA) beneficial to consumers. TWA’s board approved plans for bankruptcy and accept the buyout offer. TWA had used St. Louis as a hub.
(WSJ, 1/11/01, p.A3)(WSJ, 1/2/02, p.R12)(Econ, 6/28/08, p.37)
2001 Jan, In Brazil Gol Airlines was launched by the Constantino family, which ran a fleet of buses. Employee owned Varig had 40% of the market, but was crumbling under competition from TAM. Varig went into bankruptcy in 2005.
(Econ, 4/28/07, p.76)
2001 Aug 10, A tourist helicopter crashed near the Grand Canyon and 6 people were killed.
(SSFC, 8/12/01, p.A8)
2001 cAug 26, In the French Alps a hot-air balloon caught fire after apparently hitting a high voltage wire and 6 people were killed.
(WSJ, 8/27/01, p.A1)
2001 Sep 11, Two planes left Boston’s Logan Airport. Both planes were hijacked and flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. In the same morning, another plane left Dulles International Airport in Virginia. It was hijacked, turned around and flown into the Pentagon building. A fourth plane from Newark Airport in New Jersey was hijacked and steered back toward Washington, D.C. It crashed in rural Pennsylvania after people on board tried to stop the hijackers. Four groups of terrorists used knives, hijacked 4 airplanes, and were linked to Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda organization. The terrorist attacks threatened to prompt a global recession. Thousands of people were stranded and air cargo was paralyzed as the FAA grounded all US flights. (http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/11/chronology.attack/)
8:45 am EST: American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767 carrying 92 people, crashed into the North tower of the World Trade Center in NYC. It was enroute from Boston to LA.
9:03 am EST: United Airlines Flight 175, a Boeing 767 carrying 65 people, crashed into the South Tower of the WTC. It was enroute from Boston to LA.
9:38 am EST: American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757 carrying 64 people, crashed into the Pentagon in Arlington, Va. It was enroute from Washington DC to LA.
9:40 am EST The FAA grounded all domestic flights and ordered all airborne craft to land immediately.
9:43 am EST: American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757 carrying 64 people, crashed into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. It was enroute from Washington, D.C. to Los Angeles, California
10:00 am EST The South Tower of the WTC collapsed.
10:10 am United Airlines Flight 93, a Boeing 757 carrying 45 people, crashed southeast of Pittsburgh. The plane had left Newark for SF but was believed to be directed by hijackers to Camp David. Passengers appeared to have overcome the hijackers. In 2002 it was reported that Congress was the target.
10:29 am EST The North Tower of the WTC collapsed.
1:04 pm EST: President George W. Bush puts the U.S. military on “high alert."
5:25 pm EST: Building 7 of the WTC complex collapsed.
8:30 pm EST: President George W. Bush, in a televised address, vowed to find those responsible for the attacks.
In 2005 NYC said it was unable to identify the remains of 1,161 of the 2,749 people killed in the Sep 11 attacks. The ultimate death toll would be: 2,797 at the World Trade Center Towers, 189 killed at the Pentagon and 44 died in Pennsylvania … a total of 3,030.
(SFC, 9/12/01, p.A6,10,12)(WSJ, 9/12/01, p.A1)(SFC, 11/6/01, p.A6)(WSJ, 9/12/01, p.A1,3) (WSJ, 2/24/05, p.A1)
2001 Sep 11, Rick Rescorla, security chief at Morgan Stanley, evacuated 2,700 MS employees from the WTC and was killed trying to save others. In 2002 James B. Stewart authored "Heart of a Soldier," a biography of Rescorla.
(WSJ, 9/11/02, p.D10)
2001 Sep 11, World leaders expressed outrage at terrorist attacks in NYC and the Pentagon and pledged solidarity with the US. In the West Bank town of Nablus, some 3,000 people celebrated the attacks and chanted "God is great." Later the estimates of the WTC dead dropped to 4,396. In 2004 the count was reduced to 2,749.
(SFC, 9/12/01, p.A14)(SFC, 11/3/01, p.A3)(SFC, 11/21/01, p.A2)(USAT, 10/30/03, p.7A)(WSJ, 1/26/04, p.A1)
2001 Sep 11, Peter Alderman (25) was among those murdered by terrorists while attending a conference at the World Trade Center. His parents later established the Peter C. Alderman Foundation in his name to alleviate the suffering of victims of terrorism and mass violence in post-conflict countries by providing physicians and other indigenous caregivers with the tools to treat mental anguish using Western medical therapies combined with local healing traditions.
(www.petercaldermanfoundation.org/about/index.html)
2001 Oct 2, Cash-strapped Swissair shut down flight operations and stranded thousands of passengers around the globe.
(SFC, 10/3/01, p.D3)
2001 Oct 4, Reagan National Airport re-opened.
(SFC, 10/5/01, p.A15)
2001 Oct 4, Swissair resumed flying following a 2-day shut down propped by a $281 million Swiss government loan. [see Jan 31, 2002]
(SFC, 10/5/01, p.B4)
2001 Dec 22, Passengers and flight attendants subdued Richard Colvin Reid on AA Flight 63 from Paris to Miami. He appeared to have explosive materials in his shoes. The flight was diverted to Boston and the FBI confirmed that his shoes were packed with explosives. Reid had trained with Lashkar-e-Taiba. French police identified the man as Tariq Raja (28), a Sri Lankan traveling on a British passport. The sneakers contained pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) and triacetone triperoxide (TATP). On Jan 30, 2003 Reid was sentenced to life in prison. A 2nd plot involved Saajid Badat, who backed out of similar plan on a different flight. In 2005 a British judge sentenced Badat (25) to 13 years in prison.
(SSFC, 12/23/01, p.A1)(SFC, 12/24/01, p.A1,6)(SFC, 1/31/03, p.A1)(SFC, 4/23/05, p.A4)(WSJ, 12/8/08, p.A6)
2001 Dec, Airbus announced the development of a huge double-decker jet, the A-380, capable of carrying up to 1,000 passengers.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)
2001 Tony Fernandez (b.1964), Malaysian entrepreneur, acquired AirAsia and soon re-launched it as a low-cost domestic carrier with 2 B737 planes purchased from a Malaysian conglomerate. Ryanair signed on with a 5% stake. By 2009 the company had 76 planes. By the end of 2004 the low cost airline planned to have 30 planes.
(Econ, 3/13/04, p.63)(Econ, 2/7/09, p.35)(Econ, 3/21/09, p.72)(http://tinyurl.com/cxf3hz)
2001 Braathens, a Norwegian airline, was taken over by the SAS Group, partly owned by the governments of Sweden, Denmark and Norway. It merged with SAS in 2004.
(Econ, 4/27/13, p.61)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braathens)
2002 Jan 31, Crossair, a regional carrier and successor airline to the bankrupt Swissair, announced plans that will make it Europe's 4th largest international airline, under the new name Swiss.
(EB, 2002, p.11)(Econ, 2/14/04, p.10)
2002 Jul 10, A unified US Senate approved harsh new penalties for corporate fraud and document-shredding as part of an accounting oversight bill. The House approved, 310-113, a measure to allow pilots to carry guns in the cockpit to defend their planes against terrorists. President George W. Bush later signed the measure into law.
(AP, 7/10/07)
2002 Aug 11, US Airways, the 6th largest US airline, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
(SFC, 8/12/02, p.A1)
2002 Aug 13, American Airlines said it would eliminate 7,000 and cut flights.
(AP, 8/13/03)
2002 Sep 2, Glenn Tilton was named chairman, president and chief executive officer of United Airlines parent UAL Corp.
(AP, 9/2/03)
2002 Nov 28, In Kenya 3 suicide bombers attacked an Israeli-owned hotel, killing 13 other people. Gunmen fire two MANPADS at a Boeing jet carrying 271 passengers and crew as it took off from Mombasa, Kenya. Both missiles missed.
(AP, 11/28/02)(SFC, 11/29/02, p.A1)(SFC, 11/30/02, p.A1)(AP, 6/11/13)
2002 Dec 4, A US federal board rejected a 1.8 billion loan guarantee for United Airlines.
(SFC, 12/5/02, p.A1)(WSJ, 12/5/02, p.A1)
2002 Dec 9, United Airlines filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and reported losses of $20 million a day.
(SFC, 12/9/02, p.A1)(SFC, 12/10/02, p.A1)
2002 Christopher Chant authored "A Century of Triumph: The History of Aviation."
(WSJ, 11/1/02, p.W10)
2002 Losses for the 9 biggest US airlines totaled 11.2 billion for the year.
(WSJ, 1/2/04, p.R8)
2002 PT Dirgantara Indonesia won a contract to produce wing parts for the Airbus A380.
{Indonesia, Aviation}
(Econ, 2/15/14, p.57)
2003 Jan 15, Lufthansa introduced Internet access to passengers on a flight from Germany to Washington DC.
(SFC, 1/15/03, p.B1)
2003 Mar, Hooters Air started flying between Atlanta and Myrtle Beach.
(Econ, 6/28/03, p.65)
2003 Mar 19, A Cuban airliner was hijacked to Key West. 6 hijackers took control of the plane without telling the 25 passengers and six crew members about their asylum plans. The six were later convicted of federal hijacking charges.
(SFC, 3/20/03, p.A15)(AP, 3/19/04)
2003 Mar 24, The National Transportation Safety Board concluded that Boeing 737 rudder problems caused two fatal airline crashes and nearly triggered a third.
(AP, 3/24/04)
2003 Apr 1, In the second hijacking of a Cuban plane in as many weeks, a hijacker claiming to have two grenades surrendered an hour after forcing the aircraft to land in Florida with 32 people aboard. Adermis Wilson Gonzalez was convicted of air piracy and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
(AP, 4/2/03)(AP, 3/24/14)
2003 Apr 1, Air Canada filed for bankruptcy protection.
(WSJ, 1/2/04, p.R9)
2003 May 31, Air France planned to ground its last 5 Concorde airplanes. The Air France Concorde, the world's fastest and most luxurious passenger jet, flew from New York to Paris for the last time.
(SFC, 4/11/03, p.B5)(AP, 5/30/03)(SSFC, 6/1/03, p.A2)
2003 Jun 12, Air France turned the oldest of its Concordes over to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.
(AP, 6/12/04)
2003 Aug 12, A balsa-mylar model airplane set a long distance flight record of 1,888.3 miles as it landed in Ireland from Newfoundland.
(WSJ, 8/13/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 29, The board of Air France approved a deal to combine with Dutch KLM under a holding company to form the world's #3 airline.
(WSJ, 1/2/04, p.R12)
2003 Aug, Vietnam took possession of the 1st of 4 new Boeing 777-200 ER jetliners purchased in part with a loan from the Export-Import Bank of the US.
(SSFC, 8/24/03, p.I6)
2003 Oct 8, Vietnam and the United States tentatively agreed to allow the first commercial flights between the two countries since the end of the Vietnam War.
(AP, 10/8/03)
2003 Oct 24, British Airways retired the Concorde. 3 Concordes swooped into Heathrow Airport, joining in a spectacular finale to the era of luxury supersonic jet travel.
(WSJ, 10/2/03, p.A1)(AP, 10/24/03)
2003 Nov 22, A DHL Airbus cargo jet transporting mail in Iraq was struck and damaged by a MANPAD. Though hit in the left fuel tank, the plane was able to return to the Baghdad airport and land safely.
(AP, 6/11/13)
2003 Dec 1, Boeing Company chairman and CEO Phil Condit resigned unexpectedly. Boeing was involved in a series of procurement violations that also led to the firing of CFO Michael Sears, who ended up serving time in prison for illegal employment negotiations. In 2006 Boeing agreed to pay $615 million to end 3 years of Justice Department investigations.
(AP, 12/1/04)(WSJ, 5/15/06, p.A1)
2003 Dec, Dennis Montgomery, a California computer programmer, reported that hidden in the crawl bars broadcast by Al Jazeera, someone had planted information about specific American-bound flights from Britain, France and Mexico that were hijacking targets. CIA officials rushed the information to Pres. Bush, who ordered those flights to be turned around or grounded before they could enter American airspace. Montgomery had patented computer codes that he claimed could find terrorist plots hidden in broadcasts of Al Jazeera. His codes were later believed to be fake. In 2011 Montgomery faced charges of trying to pass $1.8 million in bad checks at Las Vegas casinos.
(SSFC, 2/20/11, p.A8)(http://tinyurl.com/5rur55y)
2003 The Int’l. Civil Aviation Association (ICOA) issued technical specifications for passports to contain an integrated circuit to be activated by a radio signal to broadcast stored data.
(Econ, 2/19/05, p.75)
2003 The cost of ultralights fell to under $20,000.
(Econ, 8/9/03, p.66)
2003 Abu Dhabi launched its Etihad airline by royal decree. In 2004 it made an $8 billion order for new airplanes.
(Econ, 6/5/10, p.76)
2003 Afghanistan 1st private airline, Kam Air, was launched.
(Econ, 8/21/04, p.35)
2003 Captain G.R. Gopinath launched Air Deccan, India’s 1st low-cost airline.
(Econ, 3/10/07, p.59)
2004 Jan 12, It was reported that a new US Homeland Security program planned to screen airline passengers according to a color code based on computerized data.
(SFC, 1/13/04, p.A1)
2004 Feb 3, Singapore Airlines began 18½ hour non-stop flights to Los Angeles.
(USAT, 2/5/04, p.1B)
2004 Jun 4, Virgin USA chose SFO as its home base.
(SFC, 6/5/04, A1)
2004 Sep 12, US Airways filed for bankruptcy protection.
(AP, 9/13/04)
2004 Sep 30, Officials at US 115 int’l. airports and 14 seaports began photographing and electronically fingerprinting travelers from 27 industrialized nations.
(SFC, 10/1/04, p.A3)
2004 Dec 24, The Comair computer system crashed after it was overwhelmed by cancellations and delays due to winter storms in the Ohio Valley. Comair was forced to cancel all of its 1,100 flights the next day. US AIR cancelled numerous flights and baggage problems rippled through its system for days.
(SFC, 12/27/04, p.A3)
2004 Dana Bell and Norman Polmar authored “One Hundred Years of World Military Aircraft."
(www.historynet.com/one-hundred-years-of-world-military-aircraft-book-review.htm)
2004 Stephen Budiansky authored "Air Power," a history of military aviation.
(WSJ, 4/12/04, p.D8)
2004 Alastair Gordon authored “Naked Airport: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Revolutionary Structure."
(SSFC, 9/5/04, p.M1)
2004 In India the low-cost GoAir airline was founded. By 2014 it had 19 aircraft and a 9.2% national market share.
(Econ, 11/29/14, p.58)
2005 Jan 18, In France Airbus unveiled the 840-passenger A380, the world's biggest passenger jet, in a glitzy ceremony in which the leaders of France, Britain, Germany and Spain hailed Europe's victory over the US as the new king of the commercial skies.
(AP, 1/18/05)
2005 Jan 20, Delta Airlines reported a record $5.2 billion loss for 2004.
(SFC, 1/21/05, p.C1)
2005 Feb 15, The Falcon 7X, a business jet designed and built by the French aviation company Dassault, was displayed for the first time. It was the first plane to be digitally modeled in 3-dimensions and required no prototype.
(Econ, 6/18/05, p.78)(http://tinyurl.com/lxlgt2)
2005 Mar 11, Canada’s Jetsgo announced in the dead of night that it was going out of business and grounding all flights immediately as thousands of passengers prepared to jet away for March break, one of the busiest travel periods of the year.
(AP, 3/11/05)
2005 Mar 17, Italian airline Alitalia SpA said that the latest strike by flight attendants could plunge the struggling carrier into bankruptcy.
(AP, 3/17/05)
2005 May 20, US Airways and America West merged in a $1.5 billion deal.
(SFC, 5/20/05, p.C1)
2005 Jun 13, The Paris Air Show opened. The Russian Lavochkin Association demonstrated a new escape pod for people trapped in tall, burning buildings.
(Econ, 6/11/05, p.60)(Econ, 6/25/05, p.81)
2005 Jun 19, A new, domestic French low-cost airline, Air Turquoise, took to the skies, opening budget routes from the northeast city of Reims to Bordeaux, Marseille and Nice.
(AP, 6/19/05)
2005 Jul 21, Airbus said it has received an order for 20 of its twin-aisle A330 passenger jets from Air China, in a deal worth about 3.2 billion euros ($3.9 billion) at list prices.
(AP, 7/21/05)
2005 Oct 10, Japan's space agency conducted a test flight of a supersonic jet prototype in the Australian Outback.
(AP, 10/10/05)
2005 Nov 19, President Bush arrived in Beijing for talks with Chinese leaders following the APEC meeting in South Korea. A US official said China will buy 70 Boeing 737 airliners as President Bush arrived on a visit expected to include discussion of Beijing's surging trade surplus with the US.
(AP, 11/19/05)(AP, 11/19/06)
2005 Nov 29, CINTRA sold Mexicana airlines and its subsidiary, Click Mexicana, to the Mexican hotel chain Grupo Posadas for USD$165.5 million.
(Econ, 8/14/10, p.53)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexicana_de_Aviaci%C3%B3n)
2005 In India Vijay Mallya, chairman of Bangalore based United Breweries, launched Kingfisher Airlines, named after UB’s best-selling beer.
(Econ, 7/16/05, p.64)
2006 Feb 9, Sir Freddie Laker (83), pioneer of low-cost airline travel, died in Florida.
(WSJ, 2/11/06, p.A1)
2006 Feb 11, Adventurer Steve Fossett completed the longest nonstop flight in aviation history, flying 26,389 miles in about 76 hours, but he had to land early in southern England because of mechanical problems.
(AP, 2/11/06)
2006 Mar 27, Malaysia’s government said it will end subsidies to flag carrier Malaysia Airlines and let it operate only 19 domestic routes, in competition with budget carrier AirAsia, under a major restructuring that will shed thousands of jobs.
(AP, 3/27/06)
2006 Apr 10, Mexican soldiers seized 128 suitcases packed with 5.6 metric tons of cocaine worth more than $100 million from a commercial plane arriving from Venezuela. Smugglers had purchased the DC-9 plane with laundered funds transferred through US banks Wachovia Corp. and Bank of America. In 2010 court papers said a gang under Walid Makled operated the DC-9 and flew the cocaine from Simon Bolivar International to Campeche, Mexico. Makled was arrested Aug 19, 2010 in Colombia in the border city of Cucuta. In Nov 2010 Colombia denied an extradition request for Makled by the US, saying that the suspect will be sent back to face charges in his home country.
(AP, 4/12/06)(SFC, 6/30/10, p.D1)(AP, 11/17/10)
2006 Jul, In Spain employees of the airline Iberia blocked Barcelona runways over a new baggage check arrangement. In 2011 Spain’s Supreme Court confirmed 2-year prison sentences for 23 employees whose actions affected some 600 flights leaving 100,000 passengers stranded.
(SFC, 1/29/11, p.A2)
2006 Oct 3, A Turkish Airlines plane carrying 113 people from Albania to Istanbul landed in Italy where a Turkish man surrendered and released all the passengers unharmed. The Turkish army deserter who hijacked the airliner sought asylum because he feared persecution in his Muslim homeland after his conversion to Christianity and wanted Pope Benedict XVI's protection.
(AP, 10/4/06)(AP, 10/3/07)
2006 Oct 29, Libya took delivery of a Boeing jetliner for the first time in 30 years after the privately owned Buraq Air airline bought six of the US-made aircraft.
(AFP, 10/28/06)
2006 Nov 15, US Airways Group Inc. made an $8 billion cash and stock bid for Delta Air Lines Inc., a deal that would create one of the world's largest carriers. The move came despite Delta's repeated statements it isn't interested in a merger.
(AP, 11/15/06)
2006 Representatives of twenty or more airlines were caught conspiring to fix prices on int’l. cargo services. The airlines were forced to pay over $3 billion in penalties.
(SFC, 4/21/14, p.67)
2006 Boeing developed its Large Cargo Freighter, a converted 747, to handle large cargo for its new 787 Dreamliner. The makeover was performed in Taiwan.
(WSJ, 1/8/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 15, JetBlue Airways Corp. tried to calm a maelstrom of criticism, after passengers were left waiting on planes at a NY airport for as long as 11 hours during a snow and ice storm.
(AP, 2/15/07)
2007 Feb 15, A fast-thinking pilot with passengers in cahoots fooled hijacker Mohamed Abderraman, a 32-year-old Mauritanian, by braking hard upon landing in Gran Canaria, then accelerating to knock the man down. When he fell, flight attendants threw boiling water in his face, and about 10 people pounced on him.
(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 28, European airliner maker Airbus told unions that it would dispose of six factories and switch some work from France to Germany under a plan costing some 10,000 jobs.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, Indonesia said it is planning to ban local carriers from operating jetliners more than 10 years old as part of a safety campaign following a string of crashes and accidents.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Mar 1, India’s government approved a proposal to merge 4 state-owned air-carriers in order to make them more competitive.
(Econ, 3/10/07, p.59)
2007 Mar 16, JetBlue canceled 215 flights because of a winter storm on the East Coast. The storm was blamed for as many as a dozen deaths and forced more than 3,600 flight cancellations.
(AP, 3/16/07)(WSJ, 3/19/07, p.A1)
2007 Mar 30, Authorities arrested a man armed with a knife who hijacked a Sudan Airways plane while flying from Libya to Sudan.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2007 Apr 15, Airlines canceled over 400 flights in the NYC area as a hard-blowing nor'easter gathered strength along the East Coast. The storm out of the Great Plains was already blamed for 5 deaths.
(AP, 4/15/07)(SFC, 4/16/07, p.A4)
2007 Apr 30, Delta Air Lines emerged from bankruptcy after 19 months in Chapter 11.
(Econ, 5/5/07, p.84)
2007 Jun 2, Four Muslim men were arrested and in connection to a plan to set off explosives in a jet fuel line that feeds John F. Kennedy International Airport and runs through residential neighborhoods. Two men allegedly involved in a plot to attack New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport were in custody in Trinidad and Tobago and the police commissioner said authorities were scouring the Caribbean country for a third suspect still at large. In 2011 Kareem Ibrahim (65) of Trinidad was found guilty of convincing plotters to seek aid from Iran.
(AP, 6/2/07)(AP, 6/3/07)(AP, 6/2/08)(SFC, 5/27/11, p.A6)
2007 Jun 9, Boeing and Aeroflot signed a deal for the Russian carrier to acquire 22 Dreamliner jets from the American plane maker.
(AP, 6/9/07)
2007 Jun 18, In France Airbus racked up a series of big orders at the opening of the Paris Air Show. Airbus announced that it had booked firm orders or letters of intent to order for 339 aircraft, a record figure, for a value of 45.7 billion dollars (34.1 billion euros) at catalogue prices.
(AP, 6/18/07)(AFP, 6/19/07)
2007 Jun 19, International Lease Finance Corp., the world's largest airline leasing company, ordered 63 Boeing jets with a total list price of $8.8 billion.
(AP, 6/19/07)
2007 Jul 9, The EU's top justice official said EU citizens will be protected by the US Privacy Act under an anti-terror deal with Washington on the sharing of trans-Atlantic air passenger data.
(AP, 7/10/07)
2007 Jul 7, In Oregon Kent Couch (47) in his lawn chair with some snacks and a parachute rose to the sky under 105 large helium balloons. Nearly 9 hours later the gas station owner came back to earth in a farmer's field near Union, 193 miles from home. In September he had got off the ground for six hours.
(AP, 7/10/07)
2007 Aug 1, A financial watchdog said British Airways has been fined a record 121.5 million pounds (180 million euros, $246 million) after admitting collusion with Virgin Atlantic over fuel surcharges on tickets. British Airways and Korean Air (for collusion with Lufthansa) agreed to pay $300 million each in fines and plead guilty to federal charges that they colluded with other airlines to set ticket prices. In 2012 the fine against BA was reduced to £58.5 million.
(AFP, 8/1/07)(SFC, 8/2/07, p.C2)(Econ, 8/4/07, p.48)(AFP, 4/19/12)
2007 Aug 8, Virgin America, part of Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, made its inaugural flight from JFK to San Francisco. For the first nine months of 2008 Virgin announced a $174.5 million loss on $259 million in revenue.
(SFC, 1/3/11, p.D2)
2007 Aug 27, Opera Romana Pellegrinaggi, a Vatican-backed charter airline service, made its inaugural flight, aiming to carry pilgrims to such Catholic shrines as Lourdes, Fatima, Santiago de Compostela and the Holy Land.
(AP, 8/27/07)
2007 Aug 28, Paul MacCready (b.1925), designer of the Gossamer Albatross, died in California. His bicycle powered plane crossed the English Channel in 1979. He founded AeroVironment in 1971 to monitor air pollution.
(www.sas.org/maccready.htm)(Econ, 9/8/07, p.88)
2007 Sep 2, Temasek, Singapore’s state-owned investment company, said it would take a 8.3% stake in China Eastern Airlines and Singapore Airlines announced a 15.7% stake.
(Econ, 9/29/07, p.68)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Eastern_Airlines)
2007 Sep 4, Steve Fosset (63), tycoon turned record seeker, disappeared in Nevada after flying from the Flying M Ranch, owned by billionaire Baron Hilton. In 2002 Fosset became the 1st person to fly around the world in a balloon.
(SFC, 9/5/07, p.A8)(SFC, 9/15/07, p.A1)
2007 Sep 8, It was reported that China has 126 airports, 57 of which can handle private planes. This was compared to 500 airports in the US that can handle big commercial airliners, and some 10,000 that handle smaller planes.
(Econ, 9/8/07, p.69)
2007 Sep 26, Russia unveiled its regional 95-seat Superjet-100, a government-backed effort to re-energize the country's ailing aviation industry and get into a market now dominated by Bombardier and Embraer.
(AP, 9/26/07)
2007 Sep 28, Traveler Carol Anne Gotbaum of New York died in a holding cell at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix; authorities say Gotbaum accidentally asphyxiated herself after being chained to a bench.
(AP, 9/28/08)
2007 Oct 3, Tony Ryan (b.1936), Irish-born aviation entrepreneur and co-founder of Ryanair (1985), died.
(WSJ, 10/6/07, p.A17)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryanair)
2007 Oct 15, Airbus finally delivered its first A380 superjumbo jet. Singapore Airlines took delivery of the double-decker jet, the world's largest passenger plane, almost two years late. In 2020 the first A380 to fly was sent to the scrapheap as the COVID-19 pandemic cast a pall on the future of globe-trotting.
(AP, 10/15/07)(Econ., 8/15/20, p.59)
2007 Oct 25, An Airbus 380, the world's largest jetliner, made aviation history, completing its first commercial flight from Singapore to Sydney with 455 passengers, some of them ensconced in luxury suites and double beds.
(AP, 10/25/07)
2007 Oct 27, Queues of frustrated, angry passengers built up at main French airports as Air France cancelled scores of flights on the third day of a strike by cabin staff.
(AP, 10/27/07)
2007 Nov 12, Airbus said it was building a custom, 380 VIP double-decker jet for Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal with a price tag of over $320 million.
(AP, 11/12/07)
2007 Nov 27, Cessna said it will turn over complete production of its new Cessna 162 SkyCatcher to a Chinese partner. The base price of the plane will be $109,500.
(WSJ, 11/28/07, p.A14)
2007 Dec 13, Lufthansa AG said it is paying $300 million for a 19% stake in JetBlue Airways.
(SFC, 12/14/07, p.D3)
2007 Dec 21, China's first fully homegrown commercial aircraft, the 70-seat ARJ21, rolled off the production line, marking a potential milestone for the country's aviation program. Its first test flight was set for 2008.
(AP, 12/21/07)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACAC_ARJ21)
2007 Kathleen M. Barry authored “Femininity in Flight: A History of Flight Attendants."
(Econ, 5/5/07, p.105)
2008 Feb 8, In New Zealand a knife-wielding woman (33), originally from Somalia, tried to hijack a regional domestic flight, stabbing both pilots and threatening to blow up the twin-propeller plane before she was subdued.
(AP, 2/8/08)
2008 Feb 14, Boeing and India's Tata Industries announced an agreement to set up a joint venture company to handle an initial 500 million dollars of defense-related aerospace component work in India.
(AFP, 2/14/08)
2008 Feb 24, The first flight by a commercial airline to be partly powered by biofuels took off from London on a short trip to Amsterdam billed as heralding a new eco-friendlier era of airline travel.
(AFP, 2/24/08)
2008 Mar 15, Alitalia, Italy’s state-owned national airline, accepted a takeover offer worth $217 made by air France-KLM, a French-Dutch airline group. The Italian government accepted the offer on March 17.
(Econ, 3/22/08, p.73)
2008 Mar 25, Air travel between Georgia and Russia resumed, more than 17 months after Moscow suspended flights because of tension between the ex-Soviet neighbors.
(AP, 3/25/08)
2008 Mar 28, British Airways Plc cancelled a fifth of flights from its new $8.6 billion terminal at London's Heathrow airport as chaos from its shambolic opening spilled into a second day.
(AP, 3/28/08)
2008 Mar 29, British Airways said that it was canceling more flights to and from London Heathrow airport's new Terminal 5 for a third day running because of logistical problems.
{Britain, Aviation}
(AFP, 3/29/08)
2008 Mar 31, Hawaii’s Aloha Airlines ended passenger service after today due to competition and rising fuel prices.
(SFC, 3/31/08, p.A1)
2008 Apr 1, In France the stockmarket watchdog Autorite des Marches Financiers (AMF) filed a formal complaint against the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company, the parent company of Airbus, and more than a dozen current and former executives. It confirmed evidence of massive insider trading in shares of EADS in late 2005 and early 2006 in the knowledge that the A380 airbus program was in deep trouble.
(Econ, 6/21/08, p.80)(http://tinyurl.com/3kd8vh)
2008 Apr 3, ATA Airlines discontinued all flights and filed for bankruptcy.
(AP, 4/3/08)
2008 Apr 3, Alitalia edged closer to bankruptcy protection after Air France-KLM abruptly broke off talks to buy the struggling national airline and Alitalia's chairman of seven months resigned in frustration.
(AP, 4/3/08)
2008 Apr 5, Skybus Airlines, a low-cost carrier based in Columbus, Ohio, shut down and filed for bankruptcy protection, becoming the latest of the nation's airlines to fall because of rising fuel costs and a slowing economy.
(AP, 4/5/08)(SFC, 4/8/08, p.D3)
2008 Apr 7, The EU opened the way for air travelers to use mobile phones to talk, text or send e-mails on planes throughout Europe's airspace.
(AP, 4/7/08)
2008 Apr 9, Oasis Hong Kong Airlines cancelled all flights and went into liquidation as a result of high fuel costs.
(SFC, 4/10/08, p.C4)
2008 Apr 10, American Airlines canceled more than 900 flights to fix faulty wiring in hundreds of jets, marking the third straight day of mass groundings as company executives offered profuse apologies and travel vouchers to calm angry customers.
(AP, 4/10/08)
2008 Apr 14, Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines announced an agreement to a $17.7 billion merger creating the world’s largest carrier.
(SFC, 4/15/08, p.A1)
2008 Apr 22, Alitalia flew into the unknown after Air France-KLM withdrew its takeover offer, leaving Italy's long-struggling flagship airline with little choice but to contemplate bankruptcy or receivership. The outgoing center-left government allowed a loan of €300 million to Alitalia.
(AP, 4/22/08)(Econ, 4/26/08, p.68)
2008 Apr 26, Eos Airlines, a Business-class carrier launched in 2005, filed for bankruptcy. It ceased operations the next day.
(SFC, 4/28/08, p.A4)
2008 May 11, China PM Wen Jiabao launched Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (CACC), in an effort to challenge the duopoly of Airbus and Boeing.
(Econ, 5/17/08, p.82)
2008 May 14, A Swiss pilot strapped on a jet-powered wing and leaped from a plane for the first public demonstration of the homemade device, turning figure eights and soaring high above the Alps.
(AP, 5/15/08)
2008 May 21, American Airlines said it will remove 75 of 954 aircraft in its fleet and start charging some domestic passengers $15 to check a suitcase due to rising fuel costs. Oil futures closed at a record $133.17.
(SFC, 5/22/08, p.C1)(WSJ, 5/22/08, p.A1)
2008 May 31, President Manuel Zelaya said that Honduras would create a civilian airport for commercial jets on a US military airfield, diverting traffic from Tegucigalpa's notoriously dangerous airport following a deadly crash.
(AP, 6/1/08)
2008 Jun 3, UAL Corp's United Airlines announced plans to slash jobs and flights, following a similar move by AMR Corp's American Airlines last month.
(Reuters, 6/5/08)
2008 Jun 5, Continental Airlines Inc said it would cut 3,000 jobs, or about 6.5 percent of its work force, and retire 67 older planes as it scales down in the face of soaring fuel prices.
(Reuters, 6/5/08)
2008 Jun 13, In London, administrators said a takeover deal to rescue small business-class airline Silverjet has collapsed. The airline employed 370 pilots and cabin crew and 50 administrative staff in Luton, where it operated flights to New York and Dubai.
(AFP, 6/13/08)(http://tinyurl.com/56mjgg)
2008 Jun 18, The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) upheld Boeing’s protest of a refueling tanker contract and recommended a new competition.
(SFC, 6/19/08, p.A8)
2008 Jun 21, A Sudanese official said Sudan is grounding its national carrier Sudan Airways from June 23 for at least a month for breaking civil aviation rules, mainly over administration. On June 23 the Civil Aviation Authority agreed to a one month reprieve.
(AP, 6/21/08)(AFP, 6/24/08)
2008 Jun 26, Four international airlines (Air France-KLM, Cathay Pacific Airways, Martinair Holland and SAS Cargo Group) agreed to pay $504 million in fines to the US Justice Dept. to settle charges they conspired to fleece consumers by driving up cargo shipping prices.
(AP, 6/26/08)
2008 Jul 14, At Britain’s Farnborough International Airshow Etihad Airways, the national carrier of the United Arab Emirates, said it had agreed to buy 45 Boeing passenger jets worth 9.4 billion dollars (5.9 billion euros).
(AFP, 7/14/08)
2008 Jul 26, Brazil's Embraer (EMBR3.SA), the world's third-biggest commercial jet maker, said it would invest 148 million euros in two new plants in Portugal -- its first industrial units in Europe that will make wings and tailpieces for exports.
(AP, 7/26/08)
2008 Aug 20, International and domestic flights were disrupted across India as thousands of airport employees went on strike to protest plans to privatize airports.
(AP, 8/20/08)
2008 Jul 28, The propeller-driven "Zephyr" aircraft, owned by QinetiQ Group PLC, began a flight over the Arizona desert and continued for an unofficial record of 83 hours and 37 minutes, more than doubling the official world record set by Northrop Grumman's "Global Hawk" in 2001. The 66 pound- (30 kilogram-) plane was launched by hand and flown by autopilot and via satellite.
(AP, 8/24/08)
2008 Aug 26, Sudanese hijackers commandeered the Boeing 737 jetliner, which was carrying 95 passengers and crew, soon after it took off from the southern Darfur town of Nyala, not far from a refugee camp that the Sudanese military attacked a day earlier.
(AP, 8/27/08)
2008 Aug 27, Two hijackers, who commandeered a jetliner from Sudan's Darfur region and diverted it to a remote desert airstrip in southern Libya, surrendered after a 22-hour standoff.
(AP, 8/27/08)
2008 Sep 19, Alitalia cancelled flights and regulators said they might soon ground the troubled flag-carrier as it hurtles toward bankruptcy after the failure of another rescue plan.
(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 26, Yves Rossy of Switzerland leapt from a plane and into the record books, crossing the English channel in 13 minutes on a homemade jet-propelled wing.
(AP, 9/26/08)
2008 Oct 15, Turkish media say a hijacker attempted to commandeer a Turkish Airlines plane over Belarus but he was overpowered by passengers.
(AP, 10/15/08)
2008 Oct 21, EU lawmakers joined US civil liberty campaigners in criticizing a new scanner that allows airport security to see through passengers' clothes, calling it a virtual strip search that should only be used as a last resort.
(AP, 10/21/08)
2008 Oct 30, In Germany the last flight lifted off from Berlin's Tempelhof Airport, bringing an end to an era of aviation that spanned World War II, the Cold War and the rebirth of the German capital. The grounds reopened in 2010 as a public park.
(AP, 10/30/08)(SSFC, 12/16/12, p.P6)
2008 Oct 31, Airship Ventures began operating zeppelin flights from Moffett field in Mountain View, Ca. Passenger tickets were set at $495 per person for one hour and $950 for 2 hours.
(SFC, 10/28/08, p.A1)
2008 Nov 7, European planemaker Airbus said that Spanish tourism company Grupo Marsans has signed a firm order for 61 aircraft worth almost $9 billion at list prices.
(AP, 11/7/08)
2008 Nov 14, Nearly half of Air France's flights were grounded by a pilots' strike expected to last through the weekend.
(AP, 11/14/08)
2008 Nov 25, In Thailand Bangkok's main international airport halted all flight operations after anti-government protesters stormed the departures area.
(AFP, 11/25/08)
2008 Nov 25, Indochina Airlines, Vietnam’s first privately owned airline, began operations.
(www.india-server.com/news/vietnam-launches-indochina-airlines-4811.html)
2008 Nov 27, Thailand's government prepared to crack down on protesters occupying the capital's two airports, but called on the public not to panic as rumors of a coup swept through the city.
(AP, 11/27/08)
2008 Dec 3, In Thailand the first commercial flight in a week arrived in Bangkok as anti-government protesters ended their siege of the country's two main airports, declaring victory after PM Somchai Wongsawat was ousted by a court ruling.
(AP, 12/3/08)
2008 Dec 6, Okay Airways, China's first private airline, began a planned one-month suspension of passenger service 10 days early after skittish airports insisted on cash to refuel its planes. The airline suffered from financial and management woes.
(AP, 12/6/08)
2008 Dec 9, The European Union and Canada reached a deal to open their aviation markets to each other by removing restrictions on direct flights and foreign ownership in airlines.
(AP, 12/9/08)
2008 Dec, Russia’s Finance Leasing Co. (FLC), a subsidiary of United Aircraft Corp., defaulted on $250 million of bonds, the first default by a state-owned company on foreign debt since the country’s 1998 financial meltdown.
(WSJ, 3/23/09, p.A1)
2008 Cameroon airline Camair ceased trading. Yves Michel Fotso and Paul Gamo Hamani, two former bosses of the airline were detained and placed under formal investigation for embezzlement of public funds: Hamani in 2009 and Fotso in 2010.
(AFP, 4/17/12)
2008 Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC) was founded to develop a range of aircraft. Its first airplane, a regional jet called ARJ21, entered into service in June 2016.
(Econ, 11/5/16, p.58)
2009 Jan 5, Boeing signed a $2.1 billion deal with India for eight P-81 maritime patrol aircraft.
(WSJ, 1/6/09, p.B4)
2009 Jan 9, Lithuania’s FlyLAL airline, privatized in 2005, announced that SCH Swiss Capital Holdings, a Switzerland-based firm, has purchased it for $1 million and debt of about 1 million euros. On Jan 17 FlyLAL airline said it has suspended its operations after a buyout deal by Swiss investment firm SCH Swiss Capital Holdings failed.
(AP, 1/9/09)(AP, 1/17/09)
2009 Jan 12, Alitalia's board accepted Air France-KLM's offer to buy 25 percent of the company and become its international partner.
(AP, 1/12/09)
2009 Jan 13, Nancy Bird-Walton (93), Australian aviation pioneer, died from natural causes. She was the first woman in Australia to operate a commercial aircraft. Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith, the first man to fly across the mid-Pacific, taught Watson how to fly in 1933, when she was just 17 years old. Two years later, she obtained a commercial pilot's license and began taking paying passengers for joyrides around the country.
(AP, 1/13/09)
2009 Jan 15, A US Airways Airbus A320 jetliner, piloted by Chesley B. Sullenberger and bound for Charlotte, NC, landed in the Hudson River after both engines failed shortly after takeoff from LaGuardia and an encounter with a flock of geese. All 155 people aboard Flight 1549 survived.
(AP, 1/16/09)(WSJ, 1/16/09, p.A3)
2009 Jan 15, The British government announced its support for a controversial third runway at London's chronically overcrowded Heathrow Airport, despite angry opposition from green groups and locals.
(AP, 1/15/09)
2009 Feb 2, Guyana banned nighttime flights because of a strike by air traffic controllers. The strike began the night of Jan 30 over union demands for salary increases of 5 percent. The government says it cannot grant the pay hikes because it needs to upgrade airport safety equipment.
(AP, 2/2/09)
2009 Feb 18, Iran’s Deputy Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi said in published remarks that Iran has built an unmanned surveillance aircraft with a range of more than 600 miles, enough to reach Israel. Iran announced two years ago that it had built an unmanned aircraft, but Vahidi's comments were the first by a top official revealing its range.
(AP, 2/18/09)
2009 Feb 8, Sigurdur Helgason (b.1921), former Icelandic airline CEO (1974-1984), died on the Caribbean private island of Mustique. He pioneered cheap flights that carried legions of backpackers between Europe and the United States in the 1960s and '70s.
(AP, 2/21/09)
2009 Feb 24, The United Arab Emirates' official news agency said US firms Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. have been awarded almost $3 billion in contracts to supply transport aircraft for the country's military.
(AP, 2/24/09)
2009 Feb 27, A court ordered the Japanese government to pay 5.6 billion yen ($57.7 million) to compensate people whose lives are disrupted by the noise of warplanes at a US air base on the southern island of Okinawa. The Fukuoka High Court ruling doubled the 2.8 million yen compensation awarded in 2005 to the people living around Kadena Air Base, and upheld the appeals of 5,540 residents.
(AP, 2/27/09)
2009 Mar 26, In Brazil engine pieces from a US plane fell from the sky, hitting 22 houses and a car but sparing passengers and residents on the ground. Arrow Cargo's station manager in Manaus, Rai Marinho, said the company will pay local residents for damages to their property.
(AP, 3/26/09)
2009 Apr 19, In Jamaica Stephen Fray (20) forced his way through Montego Bay airport security and hijacked a Canadian jet, holding six crew members hostage. He fired his father's licensed .38-caliber revolver into the air, stole money from some of the 167 passengers aboard and demanded to be flown off the island. After 6 hours police and soldiers stormed the aircraft and captured Fray. On October 8 Fray was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
(AP, 4/20/09)(AP, 10/9/09)
2009 Apr 20, In Jamaica police and soldiers stormed an aircraft and captured a hijacking suspect, identified as Stephen Fray (20). The gunman had forced his way though airport security and hijacked a Canadian jet near Montego Bay, holding six crew members hostage for eight hours.
(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 29, In Cuba a statement published in state newspapers said that effective midnight, flights from Cuba to Mexico would be grounded due to swine flu. After that, airlines can fly presumably empty planes to the island and pickup Mexico travels. This amended a blanket 48-hour ban on flights between Mexico and Cuba announced a day earlier.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 May 6, Canada and the EU signed an "open skies" pact under which airlines from the two trading partners will be able to fly freely between any airport in the 27-country EU and any in Canada.
(Reuters, 5/6/09)
2009 Jun 26, In Switzerland Solar Impulse, a project run by aviators Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg, unveiled a prototype solar powered airplane, the HB-SIA.
(AP, 6/26/09)(Econ, 6/13/09, p.83)
2009 Aug 8, Continental Express Flight 2816, en route with 47 passengers to Minneapolis from Houston, was stranded overnight at Rochester, Minn., after being forced to land due to storms. On Nov 24 the Dept. of Transportation levied $175,000 in fines against Continental, ExpressJet and Mesaba Airlines for keeping the plane on the tarmac.
(SFC, 11/25/09, p.A6)
2009 Aug 22, The EU published a list of nearly 4,000 airlines that it says should reduce their impact on the environment from 2012 or face being banned from European airports.
(AP, 8/22/09)
2009 Sep 3, In the US Virgin Islands two ticket agent contractors who worked for Delta Airlines and an airport employee were arrested after being indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of conspiracy to smuggle illegal immigrants into the US.
(AP, 9/5/09)
2009 Sep 9, In Mexico a Bolivian-born man, clutching a Bible and claiming a divine mission, hijacked a plane with more than 100 people aboard after takeoff from Cancun. The incident ended quickly and without bloodshed when police arrested Jose Flores (44) in Mexico City. Police in Morelia said that they had seized eight counterfeit police and rescue vehicles including an intensive care ambulance with official-looking logos and paint jobs. The vehicles belonged to gang members who planned to use them to conduct illegal activities. In 2011 Josmar Flores was sentenced to seven years, seven months and 15 days in prison.
(Reuters, 9/10/09)(AP, 9/10/09)(AP, 5/19/11)
2009 Sep 15, In Puerto Rico several employees of American Airlines were among a group of at least 20 people arrested on suspicion of aiding a smuggling ring that shipped drugs from Puerto Rico's main airport to the US mainland.
(AP, 9/15/09)
2009 Oct 21, Security guards thwarted an attempted hijacking on an EgyptAir flight from Istanbul to Cairo by overpowering a Sudanese man who threatened crew members with a plastic knife. The man told flight attendants he wanted to "liberate Jerusalem."
(AP, 10/21/09)
2009 Oct 21, Northwest Airlines Flight 188 overflew its Minneapolis destination by 150 miles. Air traffic controllers and pilots tried for more than an hour night to contact pilot Richard Cole (54) of Salem, Oregon, and the flight's captain, Timothy B. Cheney (53), of Gig Harbor, Wash., using radio, cell phone and data messages. The pilots said they had been having a heated discussion about airline policy. On Oct 27 the FAA revoked the licenses of the two pilots saying they had been out of radio contact for 91 minutes.
(AP, 10/24/09)(SFC, 10/28/09, p.A6)
2009 Nov 6, British Airways revealed a quadrupling of net losses in its first half, and axed an extra 1,200 jobs in an "essential" cost-reduction program.
(AP, 11/6/09)
2009 Nov 12, British Airways PLC and Spanish airline Iberia SA confirmed they are holding separate board meetings about a long-awaited merger, responding to feverish speculation that has sent the companies' shares soaring.
(AP, 11/12/09)
2009 Nov 13, A Somali man was arrested by African Union peacekeeping troops before a Daallo Airlines flight took off from Mogadishu. It was scheduled to travel from Mogadishu to the northern Somali city of Hargeisa, then to Djibouti and Dubai. The man was carrying powdered chemicals, liquid and a syringe that could have caused an explosion. The case bore chilling similarities to a later Dec 25 terrorist plot to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner.
(AP, 12/30/09)
2009 Nov 19, US air travelers scrambled to revise their travel plans after an FAA computer glitch caused widespread cancellations and delays for the second time in 15 months.
(AP, 11/19/09)
2009 Nov 23, UOP LLC, a Honeywell company, announced today that its renewable jet fuel process technology was used to convert second-generation, renewable feedstocks to green jet fuel for a biofuel demonstration flight by KLM Royal Dutch Airlines.
(http://tinyurl.com/yb877n3)(SFC, 11/24/09, p.A2)
2009 Nov 25, Yves Rossy, a Swiss adventurer, landed in the Atlantic after trying to soar from Morocco to Spain on jet-powered wings.
(SFC, 11/27/09, p.A2)
2009 Nov 28, French Transport Minister Dominique Bussereau said Russia has given the green light for Air France's A380 superjumbo to overfly Siberia, opening the way for a projected Paris-Tokyo service. The accord was approved by PM Vladimir Putin at the end of a two-day visit to France which saw a number of business deals concluded. Putin's trip also secured a deal for French investment in a key pipeline project and the struggling Avtovaz car maker, as well as a promise that France will consider selling Moscow a huge amphibious assault ship.
(AFP, 11/28/09)
2009 Nov 2, In Mali the burned debris of a Boeing cargo plane was discovered on Nov. 2 in the Gao region. It was assumed to have landed on a clandestine landing strip and either failed to take off again or was destroyed on purpose. Ample traces of cocaine were found on board.
(AP, 12/3/09)
2009 Dec 11, German officials said Berlin's new airport will be named after Willy Brandt (1913-1992), the former West German leader who championed East-West relations and won the Nobel Peace Prize (1971).
(AP, 12/11/09)
2009 Dec 11, In Spain the A400M military transport plane, that has been causing Airbus and European defense ministers budgetary and logistical headaches, finally took to the skies for its maiden flight.
(AP, 12/11/09)
2009 Dec 12, In Thailand 5 foreigners were detained and their foreign-registered aircraft impounded after it landed in the Thai capital with tons of war weaponry on board that originated in North Korea. The aircraft, an Ilyushin 76 transport from Kazakhstan, was allegedly traveling from North Korea to Sri Lanka when it asked to land in Bangkok to refuel. According to a flight plan seen by arms trafficking researchers, the aircraft was chartered by Hong Kong-based Union Top Management Ltd. to fly oil industry spare parts from Pyongyang to Tehran, Iran, with several other stops, including Bangkok, Colombo in Sri Lanka, Azerbaijan and Ukraine.
(AP, 12/12/09)(AP, 12/23/09)
2009 Dec 15, Boeing’s new 787 jetliner made its inaugural flight from Everett’s Paine Field, beginning an extensive testing program to obtain FAA certification.
(SFC, 12/15/09, p.A12)
2009 Dec 15, British Airways sought a court injunction to prevent a 12-day strike by cabin crew that would cause havoc for one million travelers over the Christmas and New Year's holidays.
(AP, 12/15/09)
2009 Dec 21, The Obama administration took aim at tarmac horror stories, ordering airlines to let passengers stuck in stranded airplanes to disembark after three hours.
(AP, 12/21/09)
2009 Dec 22, Budget airline EasyJet cancelled about 180 flights due both to the "significant snowfall" and airport closures across Britain, in a fresh blow to passengers hoping to travel for the Christmas holidays.
(AFP, 12/22/09)
2009 Dec 22, American Airlines Flight 331 carrying 154 people skidded across a Jamaican runway in heavy rain, bouncing across the tarmac and injuring more than 40 people before it stopped just short of the Caribbean Sea.
(AP, 12/23/09)(SFC, 12/24/09, p.A2)
2009 Dec 25, An attempted bombing took place as Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam prepared to land in Detroit just before noon. Law enforcement officials identified the suspect as Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (23), a Nigerian man, who claimed to be acting on orders from al-Qaida to blow up the airliner with a bomb sewed into his underwear. Abdulmutallab later told US investigators he had received training and instructions from al-Qaida operatives in Yemen. On Oct 12, 2011, Abdulmutallab pleaded guilty to all federal counts against him.
(AP, 12/26/09)(AFP, 12/29/09)(AP, 1/2/10)(SFC, 10/13/11, p.A8)
2009 Dec 30, The Netherlands announced it will immediately begin using full body scanners for flights heading to the United States, issuing a report that called the failed Christmas Day airline bombing a "professional" terror attack.
(AP, 12/30/09)
2009 Dec 30, A Nigerian official says the nation will purchase 3-D, full body scanners after Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab passed through Nigeria's biggest airport before trying to bring down a US-bound flight on Christmas Day.
(AP, 12/30/09)
2009 Zambian Airways was liquidated. The government refused to let foreign airlines use Lusaka as a hub in the unlikely event that the airline would one day fly again.
(Econ, 8/16/14, p.55)
2010 Jan 19, Japan Airlines filed for one of the country's largest bankruptcies ever, entering a restructuring that will shrink Asia's top carrier and its presence around the world.
(AP, 1/19/10)
2010 Feb 8, Boeing Co.’s 250-foot 747-8 freighter, the biggest plane it has ever built, successfully completed its first flight from Paine Field, in Everett, Wash.
(SFC, 2/9/10, p.A4)
2010 Feb 15, British Airways said it would use low-carbon fuel to power part of its fleet from 2014 once Europe's first sustainable jet-fuel plant was built by US biofuels specialist Solena Group. A plant to be built in London will convert 500,000 tons of waste into 16 million gallons of green jet fuel annually.
(AFP, 2/15/10)
2010 Feb 19, Two Muslim women were stopped from boarding a flight at Manchester airport from Britain to Pakistan for refusing to go through new body scanners, citing religious and medical reasons.
(AFP, 3/4/10)
2010 Feb 22, German airline Lufthansa went to court in a bid to halt a strike by some 4,000 pilots that disrupted more than one third of its flights. Later in the day Lufthansa pilots agreed to suspend for two weeks a strike that grounded about 900 flights, just as rival British Airways' cabin crew voted to join the fray to protest harsh cost cuts.
(AP, 2/22/10)(Reuters, 2/22/10)
2010 Feb 25, Rajib Karim, a British Airways computer specialist, was arrested at his BA desk in Newcastle. On Feb 28, 2011, he was convicted after a trial at Woolwich crown Court in London of plotting with US-born extremist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki to blow up an airplane. He pleaded guilty to helping produce a terrorist group's video, fundraising and volunteering for terror abroad, but insisted he never planned an attack in Britain.
(www.globaljihad.net/view_news.asp?id=1400)(AP, 2/28/11)
2010 Feb 26, In France a strike by air traffic controllers disrupted flight for a 4th day and some Air France pilots walked off the job to protest cost cutting measures.
(SFC, 2/27/10, p.A2)
2010 Mar 19, In London last-ditch talks aimed at preventing a strike by some 12,000 British Airways (BA) cabin crew collapsed, leaving thousands of passengers facing chaos within hours.
(AFP, 3/19/10)
2010 Mar 20, British Airways canceled more than 1,000 flights after its cabin crew launched a three-day strike, wreaking havoc on the plans of tens of thousands of passengers just before the busy spring holiday season. .
(AP, 3/20/10)
2010 Mar 21, British Airways cabin crews walked off the job for a second day, upsetting travel plans for scores of customers, but the airline said its contingency plans were working well and more planes were taking off than expected.
(AP, 3/21/10)
2010 Mar 22, British Airways cabin crew held a 3rd day of strike action, prolonging travel misery for thousands. A business group warned the action threatens Britain's global reputation.
(AP, 3/22/10)
2010 Mar 27, British Airways cabin crew launched a four-day strike, the second wave of action in a week as part of a bitter, long-running dispute over pay and conditions.
(AFP, 3/27/10)
2010 Mar 28, British Airways cabin crew entered the second day of a four-day strike, bringing further travel disruption with no end in sight for a dispute that has become increasingly political.
(AFP, 3/28/10)
2010 Apr 7, In Switzerland the Solar Impulse aircraft, a pioneering Swiss bid to fly around the world on solar energy, successfully completed its first test flight.
(AFP, 4/7/10)
2010 Apr 10, French explorer Jean-Louis Etienne (63) made the first Arctic crossing by balloon, landing in the tundra of eastern Siberia five days after taking off in Norway.
(AP, 4/10/10)
2010 Apr 15, British airport operator BAA Ltd. said all flights at London's Heathrow Airport have been suspended for the rest of the day, causing travel chaos as ash clouds from Iceland's spewing volcano halted air traffic across Europe.
(AP, 4/15/10)
2010 Apr 16, Volcanic ash blanketed parts of rural Iceland and left a widening arc of grounded aircraft across Europe, as thousands of planes stayed on the tarmac to avoid the hazardous cloud. Travel chaos engulfed major European cities and the UN warned of possible health risks from falling ash.
(AP, 4/16/10)
2010 Apr 17, A lingering volcanic ash plume forced extended no-fly restrictions over much of Europe, as Icelandic scientists warned that volcanic activity had increased and showed no sign of abating, a portent of more travel chaos to come. Nearly 17,000 flights to and from Europe were cancelled out of about 22,000 on a normal day.
(AP, 4/17/10)(Econ, 4/24/10, p.63)
2010 Apr 19, The chief of British Airways said test flights have proven that the blanket restrictions EU governments have imposed on flights because of volcanic ash are unnecessary. The airline industry said it has lost at least $1 billion due to five days of closed airports. A senior Western diplomat says several NATO F-16 fighters suffered engine damage after flying through the volcanic ash cloud covering large parts of Europe.
(AP, 4/19/10)
2010 Apr 20, Airplanes gradually took to the skies after five days of being grounded by a volcanic ash cloud that has devastated European travel. Only limited flights were allowed to resume at some European airports and UK authorities said London airports would remained closed for at least another day due to new danger from the invisible ash cloud.
(AP, 4/20/10)
2010 Apr 22, European airports sent thousands of planes into the sky after a week of unprecedented disruptions, with airlines piling on more flights and bigger planes to try to get as many people home as possible.
(AP, 4/22/10)
2010 Apr 25, Kifah Hassan, chief executive of Iraqi Airways, had his passport seized and the plane he arrived on was impounded at Gatwick Airport in a long-running legal dispute with Kuwait Airways. The dispute dated back to Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, when, according to the oil-rich emirate, 10 of its planes and aircraft parts were plundered after its airport was seized.
(AFP, 4/30/10)
2010 May 2, United Airlines said it has agreed to buy Continental in a $3 billion-plus deal that would create the world's largest carrier with a commanding position in several top US cities.
(AP, 5/3/10)(SFC, 5/3/10, p.D1)
2010 May 4, Iceland's volcanic ash renewed its threat to European air space, forcing Ireland to shut services temporarily for the first time in 12 days. Ireland and Britain lifted flight restrictions after temporarily closing airspace due to the return of ash.
(AP, 5/4/10)(AFP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 5, Britain and Ireland grounded flights again after a fresh cloud of ash swept in from the Icelandic volcano which sparked unprecedented air travel chaos in Europe last month.
(AFP, 5/5/10)
2010 May 7, It was reported that JetBlue has formed a partnership with South African Airways that will allow travelers to fly on both airlines with a single ticket. Starting May 12 JetBlue customers will be able to travel to 40 international cities served by South African Airways.
(AP, 5/7/10)
2010 May 8, Hundreds of flights between Europe and North America were either delayed or canceled due to the spreading cloud of volcanic ash stretching across much of the northern Atlantic. Spain shut 19 northern airports including Barcelona because of the cloud of ash.
(AP, 5/8/10)(Reuters, 5/8/10)
2010 May 9, A plume of volcanic ash snaked its way through southern France, Switzerland, Italy and Germany, shutting down airports and disrupting flights across Europe.
(AP, 5/9/10)
2010 May 11, Volcanic ash from Iceland wound its way down to North Africa and curled over to Turkey, forcing authorities to shut down Casablanca airport in Morocco as well as airports in Spain and airspace over Turkey.
(AP, 5/11/10)
2010 May 11, Mohamed Ibrahim, an Egyptian-American university botany professor teaching in the United States, was arrested at Cairo airport after arriving on a direct flight from New York carrying two pistols, 250 bullets, two swords and 11 knives in his luggage.
(Reuters, 5/12/10)
2010 May 16, Aviation officials closed airports in northern England, Scotland and Northern Ireland due to a drifting, dense cloud of volcanic ash from Iceland.
(AP, 5/16/10)
2010 May 24, British Airways cabin crew started a five-day strike, throwing travel plans for thousands of passengers into disarray after last-ditch efforts to avert the action collapsed.
(AP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 26, Iraq's government dissolved state-owned Iraqi Airways over a decades-old financial dispute dating back to Saddam Hussein's invasion of his oil-rich neighbor Kuwait. A lawyer for Kuwait Airways called the Iraqi government's strategy a "cynical tactic" and said it will not end the dispute because Kuwait will still hold the government accountable for the debt.
(AP, 5/26/10)
2010 May 27, Authorities closed Guatemala's international airport after the nearby Pacaya volcano showered as much as 3 inches (8 centimeters) of ash over parts of the city. A television reporter was killed by a shower of burning rocks when he got too close to the volcano, about 15 miles (25 km) south of Guatemala City.
(AP, 5/28/10)(AP, 5/29/10)
2010 May 28, Jonathan Trappe (36) of Raleigh, North Carolina, crossed the English Channel carried by a bundle of helium balloons, ending a quiet and serene flight by touching down in a French cabbage patch.
(AP, 5/28/10)
2010 May 30, British Airways cabin crew started a fresh five-day strike with little sign of a breakthrough in the long-running dispute between their union and the airline.
(AFP, 5/30/10)
2010 Jun 14, An Iranian airport official said 71 Iranian women "improperly" dressed were prevented from boarding flights in recent months, as a police crackdown on the behavior of young people intensified.
(AFP, 6/14/10)
2010 Jul 6, The EU banned most of Iran Air's jets from flying to Europe because of safety concerns, emphasizing that the move was not related to UN sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.
(AP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 8, In Switzerland an experimental solar-powered plane completed its first 24-hour test flight successfully, proving that the aircraft can collect enough energy from the sun during the day to stay aloft all night.
(AP, 7/8/10)
2010 Jul 14, British Airways and Iberia won the EU's regulatory approval to merge and to team up with American Airlines to share more of their lucrative trans-Atlantic routes.
(AP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 14, An Air India plane carrying more than 200 passengers from New York became the first commercial flight to land at New Delhi's new Terminal 3, part of a $2.7-billion airport upgrade.
(AFP, 7/14/10)(Econ, 7/10/10, p.72)
2010 Jul 18, In England plane manufacturers, airlines, government ministers and military top brass gathered for the Farnborough International Airshow amid hopes that the two-year downturn in the aviation and defense industry is nearing a bottom.
(AP, 7/18/10)
2010 Jul 19, In England Boeing Co. and Airbus announced new orders worth almost $13 billion at the start of the Farnborough International Airshow, raising hopes that the aviation industry is on the way back up after a dire two-year slump.
(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 19, David Warren (b.1925), an Australian scientist who invented the "black box" flight data recorder, died. He designed and constructed a black box prototype in 1956, but it took several years before officials understood just how valuable the device could be and began installing them in commercial airlines worldwide. In 2002, Warren was awarded the Order of Australia, among the nation's highest civilian honors, for his work.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Aug 2, Compania Mexicana de Aviacion filed for bankruptcy.
(Econ, 8/14/10, p.53)
2010 Aug 21, A consortium of Mexican investors said they have acquired 95 percent of Mexicana de Aviacion airline, which earlier this month filed for bankruptcy protection. The Tenedora K group was formed "to capitalize" and "save" Nuevo Grupo Aeronautico, the holding company that controls Mexicana de Aviacion and two domestic airlines, Mexicana Click and Mexicana Link.
(AFP, 8/22/10)
2010 Aug 23, Officials said the United States has granted Nigerian airlines permission for direct US flights.
(AFP, 8/24/10)
2010 Aug 23, Saudi low-cost private airline Sama, launched in 2007 to serve Gulf and other Arab states, said it is to suspend services from Aug 24 due to financial problems.
(AP, 8/23/10)
2010 Sep 3, Britain and France announced they are talking about sharing the cost of military aircraft programs, but rejected reports that they plan to merge their aircraft carrier fleets.
(AFP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 13, Staff at Israel's Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv went on strike, grounding all flights and leaving arriving passengers without their luggage.
(AP, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 14, Zimbabwe's state airline said it has fired 40 striking pilots for failing to meet a deadline to return to their posts. The pilots said the indebted airline has not paid out operational allowances for nearly 20 months. They earned up to $2,500 a month, about one third of the international pay scale for airline pilots.
(AP, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 15, The new X2 helicopter, developed by Sikorsky, flew at 290mph during a test flight in Florida, setting a new helicopter speed record.
(Econ, 9/11/10, p.98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_X2)
2010 Oct 3, Egyptian and Iranian airlines agreed to resume direct flights between the two countries for the first time since 1979.
(SFC, 10/4/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 6, American Airlines, British Airways and Iberia launched their transatlantic joint business, unveiling new routes and detailing benefits for customers that include a shared frequent flyers program.
(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 10, Virgin Galactic’s space tourism rocket, SpaceShip Two, achieved its first solo glide flight. Manned by 2 pilots it flew for 11 minutes before landing in Mojave, Ca.
(SFC, 10/11/10, p.A5)(Econ, 10/16/10, p.100)
2010 Oct 19, Iran said some Western companies were refusing to refuel its planes in Europe and warned it would "confront" such measures, which it deemed illegal under international law.
(AFP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 21, In central Mexico Canadian industrial giant Bombardier and Mexican President Felipe Calderon opened a new 250-million-dollar plant where it will produce components for the Learjet 85 business aircraft.
(AFP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 29, Authorities on three continents thwarted the attacks when they seized explosives on cargo planes in the United Arab Emirates and England. The plot sent tremors throughout the US, where after a frenzied day searching planes and parcel trucks for other explosives, officials temporarily banned all new cargo from Yemen. The next day police in Dubai said that the bomb discovered there contained the powerful explosive PETN and bore the hallmarks of al-Qaida. One of the two powerful bombs mailed from Yemen to Chicago-area synagogues traveled on two passenger planes within the Middle East.
(AP, 10/30/10)(AP, 10/31/10)
2010 Oct 31, A French airliner landed at Baghdad International Airport, becoming one of the first passenger planes to fly into the Iraqi capital direct from western Europe since the Gulf War and opening a potential new route to stronger international business ties.
(AP, 10/31/10)
2010 Nov 4, A Qantas A380 with more than 450 people on board made a dramatic forced landing in Singapore, trailing smoke from a blackened engine after the Airbus superjumbo's first mid-air emergency. In response Qantas Airways and Singapore Airlines suspended flights of the Airbus A380 superjumbos. In 2013 the engine failure was traced to an oil pipe that failed to conform to design specifications.
(AFP, 11/4/10)(Reuters, 11/4/10)(AP, 6/27/13)
2010 Nov 6, Airlines cancelled at least 36 flights to and from Jakarta, affecting international carriers from Europe to Asia, because of ash from the Mount Merapi volcano.
(AFP, 11/6/10)
2010 Nov 8, Qantas extended the grounding of its Airbus A380 superjumbos for at least three more days after finding oil leaks in some engines, heightening safety fears after two mid-air blow-outs last week.
(AFP, 11/8/10)
2010 Nov 8, Video posted on the CBS News website showed an object flying through the evening sky over southern California that left a large contrail, or vapor trail. A news helicopter owned by KCBS, a CBS affiliate in Los Angeles, shot the video. Pentagon officials were stumped by the event.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 9, The United Arab Emirates said it will force Canadians to get a visa to travel to the Persian Gulf federation as of Jan 2, as ties soured between the once-close countries. Emirati officials have ratcheted up the pressure on Ottawa after failing to secure additional landing rights for their growing government-backed airlines.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 14, Delvonte Tisdale (16) apparently fell from the sky after stowing away in an airplane’s wheel well at the Charlotte-Douglas International Airport in Charlotte, NC. His mutilated body was found in a Boston suburb.
(SFC, 12/11/10, p.A4)(http://tinyurl.com/2dmblgm)
2010 Nov 17, In Namibia a suspected explosive device was found on a conveyor belt with luggage on a Germany-bound flight. On Nov 22 a court said that Nehemia Shafuda, chief inspector of the Namibian police aviation security, faces charges for smuggling a suspected explosive device, using the device in an airport and giving false information that interfered with airport operations.
(AP, 11/22/10)
2010 Nov 22, India gave the green light for the construction of a second international airport in the commercial capital Mumbai, a two billion dollar project that was ten years in the making.
(AFP, 11/22/10)
2010 Nov 27, Australia's Qantas Airways resumed flights of its Airbus A380 superjumbos, after a mid-flight engine failure grounded all six of the planes earlier this month.
(Reuters, 11/27/10)
2010 Dec 2, Heavy snow caused travel chaos across much of northern Europe, keeping London's Gatwick airport closed for a second day and disrupting road and rail travel in France, Germany and Switzerland. Freezing temperatures and often blinding snowfall killed 12 people, 10 in Poland and 2 in Germany. Poland had already reported 8 dead due to the cold. Some of the worst floods in a century devastated parts of the Balkans. Authorities declared a state of emergency in Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro.
(Reuters, 12/2/10)(AP, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 3, Negotiators for the US and Brazil initialed a text in Rio de Janeiro for a new air transport agreement. Once formally approved, the pact will establish an Open Skies air transportation relationship between the two countries that will expand services and could bring down prices.
(AFP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 4, Spain placed striking air traffic controllers under military authority and threatened them with jail terms in an unprecedented emergency order to get planes back in the skies and clear chaotic airports clogged with irate travelers.
(AP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 6, Saudi Arabia's Rani Investment Group said it would break ground on a 100-million-dollar (75-million-euro) resort on a Mozambique island next year, aiming to cash in on foreign tourists.
(AFP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 8, In France heavy snowfall forced the closure of Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport and shut down the Paris bus system.
(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 10, It was reported that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is missing key information on who owns one-third of the 357,000 private and commercial aircraft in the US, a gap the agency fears could be exploited by terrorists and drug traffickers.
(AP, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 20, Snow and frigid temperatures caused disruption across northern Europe for a third day, stranding travelers, snarling traffic and shutting schools, and the bad weather is likely to run through Christmas.
(Reuters, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 24, Heavy snow stranded thousands of Christmas travelers in Europe, with Belgium's main airport closed for landing and icy roads in Sweden choked with traffic.
(AP, 12/24/10)
2010 Dec 26, In Russia icy rain shut down Moscow's largest airport for nearly 15 hours, coated roads with ice and left more than 300,000 people and 14 hospitals without electricity.
(AP, 12/26/10)
2010 Dec 27, Hundreds of passengers were stuck at airports up and down the US East Coast as a blizzard menaced travelers trying to get home after the holidays.
(AP, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 27, Alfred Kahn (93), US airline deregulator, died. In 1977 he took over the Civil aeronautics Board for Pres. Carter. His academic efforts included the 2-volume work: “The Economics of Regulation: Principles and Institutions" (1988).
(Econ, 1/22/11, p.101)
2010 Dec 29, Spain's government formally launched the privatization of air traffic control in 13 airports, just weeks after clamping down on a wildcat strike by controllers.
(AFP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 29, The UAE embassy in Ottawa said on its website that Canadians would be charged $250 for a 30-day single entry visa while a six-month multiple entry visa would cost $1000, with a maximum stay of 14 days during each visit. Tensions have risen between the two countries since Canada denied expanded landing rights for UAE airlines flying to Canada. That triggered a UAE government decision to end access to a military base used by the Canadian military to support troops in Afghanistan.
(Reuters, 12/29/10)
2010 Macedonia’s MAT airline went bankrupt.
(Econ, 5/19/12, p.73)
2011 Jan 2, Russia's transport oversight agency ordered the country's airlines to stop using Tu-154B planes until the cause of a passenger jet fire and explosion that killed three people is determined.
(AP, 1/2/11)
2011 Jan 11, China's radar-eluding stealth fighter, the J-20, made its first-known test flight, marking dramatic progress in the country's efforts to develop cutting-edge military technologies.
(AP, 1/11/11)(Econ, 1/15/11, p.43)
2011 Jan 19, President Barack Obama announced a deal to step up cooperation with China on nuclear security. The United States and China reached agreement on export deals worth $45 billion. The agreements included a $19 billion deal with Boeing in which China will purchase 200 Boeing aircraft. The deals were announced at the formal start of a four-day state visit to the US by Chinese President Hu Jintao. President Barack Obama issued a finely tuned call for greater respect for human rights in his speech to welcome his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao.
(AP, 1/19/11)(Reuters, 1/19/11)
2011 Jan 24, Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura sued the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration, alleging full-body scans and pat-downs at airport checkpoints violate his right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.
(AP, 1/24/11)
2011 Jan 24, In Russia 37 people were killed and 180 injured in a suicide bombing at Moscow's Domodedovo airport. An autopsy later showed "a huge amount of highly potent narcotic and psychotropic substances in parts of the suicide bomber's body." On Feb 6 unnamed officials in the North Caucasus region said they believed Magomed Yevloyev (20) of Ingushetia, was the suicide bomber. On Feb 9 Itar-TASS reported that Yevloyev’s brother Akhmed (16) and sister Fatima (22) have been arrested. Also detained was Akhmed Aushev, a resident of the same village, Ali-Yurt, Ingushetia. On March 29 Russian investigators charged Doku Umarov, a Chechen warlord, and another militant with organizing the airport bombing. Media reports said that Umarov might be among 17 militants killed in a security raid in the province of Ingushetia west of Chechnya on March 28. On Nov 11, 2013, brothers Islam and Ilez Yandiyev and Bashir Khamkhoyev received life sentences in maximum security penal colonies on terrorism and other charges. Akhmed Yevloyev was sentenced to 10 years in a penal colony.
(Reuters, 1/24/11)(Reuters, 1/25/11)(AP, 1/29/11)(AP, 2/3/11)(Reuters, 2/6/11)(Reuters, 2/9/11)(AP, 3/29/11)(AP, 11/11/13)
2011 Jan 26, The European Union's top competition regulator blocked the merger between Greek airlines Olympic Air and Aegean Airlines SA, saying a combined carrier could monopolize Greek air travel.
(AP, 1/26/11)
2011 Jan 28, Mexican soldiers seized nearly 200 pounds (90 kg) of drugs from the cargo area of an Aeromexico commercial plane scheduled to fly to the northern border city of Tijuana.
(AP, 1/29/11)
2011 Jan 31, The EU said that the World Trade Organization found US aid to Boeing violated international rules, confirming a preliminary ruling in the long-running subsidy battle between the Chicago-based plane maker and European rival Airbus.
(AP, 1/31/11)
2011 Feb 1, China Harbor Engineering Company, a subsidiary of state-owned China Communications Construction Company, signed a 1.2-billion-dollar contract to build Khartoum's new international airport.
(AFP, 2/15/11)
2011 Feb 4, The US X-47B jet, which looks like a smaller version of the B-2 stealth bomber, stayed in the air for 29 minutes and climbed to 5,000 feet in a test flight at Edwards Air Force Base, Ca. The robotic, bat-winged bomber was designed to take off from an aircraft carrier. Northrop was building the navy bomber under a $636 million contract awarded in 2007.
(AFP, 2/6/11)
2011 Feb 8, In Pakistan strike action forced ailing state carrier Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) to cancel flights to Britain and Turkey, affecting some 1,500 passengers.
(AFP, 2/8/11)
2011 Feb 9, In Pakistan strike action forced Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) to ground or delay all flights, affecting thousands of passengers and heaping further woes on the troubled state carrier.
(AFP, 2/9/11)
2011 Feb 10, A new Thai airline reported the hiring of transsexual ladyboys as flight attendants, aiming at a unique identity to set itself apart from competitors as it sets out for the skies. PC Air, a charter airline set to start operations on Asian routes in April, has thus far chosen 4 ladyboys, along with 19 female and 7 male flight attendants.
(Reuters, 2/10/11)
2011 Feb 11, Pakistani police baton charged Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) employees, detaining 20 of them, following violent protests as all of the carrier's flights remained grounded for a second day.
(AFP, 2/11/11)
2011 Feb 20, Iran finally withdrew its entire fleet of Soviet era Tupolev aircraft after a series of fatal accidents involving the planes.
(AP, 2/20/11)
2011 Feb 24, In New Jersey Transportation Security Administration officer Al Raimi (29) of Woodbridge pleaded guilty in Newark federal court to theft by a government officer. Federal prosecutors say Raimi stole between $10,000 and $30,000 cash over nearly a year from travelers passing through his checkpoint. He gave a cut of the cash to his supervisor, Michael Arato, who pleaded guilty to related charges this month. 2 TSA agents at a NYC airport were arrested earlier this month on charges of stealing $40,000 from passengers' luggage.
(AP, 2/24/11)
2011 Mar 8, The US government gave permission to eight more airports to offer direct charter flights to and from Cuba in the latest small opening in the 49-year-long trade embargo against the communist island.
(AP, 3/9/11)
2011 Mar 25, In India Pradeep Kumar, a government aviation official, and 3 other people were arrested in a widening investigation of corruption in awarding flying licenses to airline pilots.
(AP, 3/26/11)
2011 Mar 31, It was reported that the World Trade Organization has ruled that some US government aid to aircraft maker Boeing Co. is illegal. The WTO's report detailed findings first issued in private to the EU and US in January.
(AP, 3/31/11)
2011 Apr 1, Southwest Airlines Flight 812 lost cabin pressure following a fuselage rupture just after takeoff from Phoenix. The Boeing 737-300 landed safely in Yuma with no injuries. Inspectors later found small cracks in 3 more Southwest planes. Some 300 flights were cancelled over the next 2 days as Southwest examined 79 similar planes.
(SFC, 4/4/11, p.A6)
2011 Apr 6, Virgin America Flight VX2001 became the first to land at San Francisco’s newly remodeled Terminal 2. The 1954 structure had just undergone a $383 million upgrade.
(SFC, 4/7/11, p.A1)
2011 Apr 11, Australia fined Japan Airlines (JAL) Aus$5.5 million (US$5.8 million) after the carrier admitted its role in a long-running cargo cartel case involving 15 airlines. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said JAL admitted to "making and giving effect to illegal price-fixing understandings with other international airlines" on fuel, insurance and security surcharges.
(AFP, 4/11/11)
2011 Apr 13, Iran’s first vice-president was quoted as saying in the governmental newspaper that Iran has stopped refueling "western passenger planes" since Europe-bound Iranian commercial planes were refused fuelling there.
(AFP, 4/13/11)
2011 Apr 14, Mozambique announced that it is building a $102 million (€70 million) airport in the northern city Nacala in an effort to expand infrastructure to attract tourists and investment.
(AFP, 4/14/11)
2011 Apr 17, The US government said air traffic controllers would have more time to rest between shifts under new work rules announced today, while Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood made clear he won't tolerate sleeping on duty despite studies and expert recommendations that suggest scheduled shut-eye can help combat fatigue.
(AP, 4/17/11)
2011 Apr 18, Two airline employees came to the aid of a woman that was being raped at Denver Int’l. Airport. Noel Bertrand (26) was later charged with sexual assault.
(www.truecrimereport.com/2011/04/ex-marine_noel_alexander_alleg.php)
2011 May 6, Nearly 800 Air India pilots demanding more pay ended their 10-day-old strike, which cost the state-run airline around 12 million rupees ($2.7 million) a day.
(AP, 5/6/11)
2011 May 13, Pioneering Swiss solar-powered aircraft Solar Impulse landed in Brussels after a 12-hour flight from Switzerland, the futuristic aircraft's first international sortie.
(AP, 5/13/11)
2011 May 22, Iceland closed its main international airport and canceled all domestic flights as the Grimsvotn volcano sent a plume of ash, smoke and steam 12 miles (20 km) high.
(AP, 5/22/11)
2011 May 24, About 250 flights to northern Britain were canceled over concerns about the ash cloud spewing from an Icelandic volcano, but British and Irish officials dismissed fears of a mass shutdown of airspace.
(Reuters, 5/24/11)
2011 May 27, Air India was forced to cancel some flights after oil companies refused to give the cash-strapped state-run carrier fuel because of a failure to pay bills.
(AFP, 5/27/11)
2011 Jun 11, Chile’s Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcano continued to sporadically spew a cloud of ash, disrupting airline travel from Brazil and Argentina to as far away as Australia and New Zealand.
(AP, 6/11/11)
2011 Jun 14, In Chile The cloud of ash spewing from an erupting volcano grounded more flights in countries from Uruguay to Australia and threatened to delay next month's start of the Copa America football tournament in Argentina.
(AP, 6/14/11)
2011 Jun 16, In SF Deshon Marman (20), a college football player, was arrested and thrown off a US Airways jet in a dispute over his sagging pants. Marmon was in the city attending the funeral of his best friend, David Henderson, who was fatally wounded last month.
(SFC, 6/18/11, p.C4)
2011 Jun 16, Indian budget airline GoAir said it had placed a $7.2-billion order for 72 new Airbus aircraft as local carriers continue an aircraft shopping spree to meet booming demand on the subcontinent.
(AFP, 6/16/11)
2011 Jun 18, A five-hour computer outage virtually shut down United Airlines Friday night and early Saturday, a stark reminder of how dependent airlines have become on technology.
(AP, 6/18/11)
2011 Jun 21, In Australia Hundreds of flights were grounded in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Canberra as the Chilean ash cloud returned to Australia with a vengeance.
(AFP, 6/21/11)
2011 Jun 22, In France European plane maker Airbus won a slew of orders for its A320 medium-haul workhorse, including a record deal for 180 from Indian budget carrier IndiGo at a rainy Paris Air Show.
(AFP, 6/22/11)
2011 Jun 23, The US blacklisted a major Iranian port operator and the country's national airline, Iran Air, to increase pressure on Tehran to curtail its alleged nuclear weapons program.
(Reuters, 6/23/11)
2011 Jul 2, Australian aviation regulators grounded budget carrier Tiger Airways Australia, a subsidiary of Singapore's Tiger Airways, because it posed a "serious and imminent risk to air safety", throwing the travel plans of thousands of people into chaos.
(AFP, 7/2/11)
2011 Jul 7, Ash from a Chilean volcano grounded flights across much of South America again, disrupting travel for thousands of people just as the continent's premier football tournament got going in Argentina.
(AP, 7/7/11)
2011 Jul 11, Air Algerie cabin crew went on strike. They wanted a 106-percent pay rise and left thousands of angry travelers stranded in Paris, Marseille and Nice airports.
(AFP, 7/13/11)
2011 Jul 12, In Germany a plane being used by Thailand's Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn was been impounded as part of a long-running battle over payments for a building project in Thailand. The Thai government allegedly owed the now-bankrupt German construction firm Walter Bau AG builder 30 million euros because of a contract agreed to more than 20 years ago to build and operate a toll highway to Bangkok's Don Muang airport. On July 20 a German court ordered the release of the impounded jet upon receipt of a hefty bank guarantee. On July 21 Thailand's foreign minister ruled out paying a multi-million dollar bank guarantee to secure the release of the prince's jet.
(AP, 7/13/11)(AFP, 7/20/11)(AFP, 7/21/11)
2011 Jul 13, In Colorado a hail storm took almost a third of the Frontier Airlines Airbus fleet out of service forcing the airline to cancel numerous flights over the next week.
(SSFC, 7/17/11, p.A7)
2011 Jul 14, In France thousands of angry travelers were still stranded in airports and in Algiers as a strike by Air Algerie cabin crew, who want a 106% pay rise, went into its 4th day. Air Algerie staff ended their four-day strike after mediation by the office of PM Ahmed Ouyahia.
(AFP, 7/14/11)
2011 Jul 19, Britain's competition watchdog reiterated its ruling for Spanish-owned airports operator BAA to sell two more airports including London Stansted followed by Edinburgh or Glasgow Airport.
(AFP, 7/19/11)
2011 Aug 2, The US Senate recessed and left without resolving a partisan standoff over a bill to end the partial shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration. This left the FAA unable to collect taxes on airline ticket sales and already cost the government over $200 million.
(SFC, 8/3/11, p.A2)
2011 Aug 4, US Congressional leaders struck a deal to resolve a partisan dispute and end a partial shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that has halted airport projects and threatened thousands of jobs. Congress adjourned earlier this week for its August recess but Democratic aides said the Senate will finalize the deal on Aug 4 by approving a version of the spending measure already passed by the U.S. House of Representatives.
(Reuters, 8/4/11)
2011 Aug 9, In Malaysia budget carrier AirAsia and state-owned Malaysia Airlines formed an alliance through a share swap deal to end their long rivalry and boost business.
(AP, 8/9/11)
2011 Aug 10, Australian aviation authorities lifted a 6-week flying ban on the local unit of Tiger Airways after the budget carrier agreed to new conditions including extra training for pilots.
(AFP, 8/10/11)
2011 Aug 18, Spanish authorities arrested Aeromexico co-pilot Ruben Garcia Garcia for attempting to smuggle 93 pounds of cocaine into the European country.
(AP, 8/23/11)
2011 Aug 27, National carrier Egyptair resumed direct flights to Iraq after a break of 21 years.
(AFP, 8/27/11)
2011 Aug 27, The Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents 6,800 Air Canada flight attendants, said Air Canada flight attendants have rejected a tentative contract that union bargainers negotiated with the country's largest air carrier. The union has scheduled a strike vote for next month.
(Reuters, 8/27/11)
2011 Sep 27, In Australia thousands of international air travelers faced delays as Customs and Border Protection officers walked off the job at airports across the country after workers rejected a 9 percent pay rise over three years.
(AP, 9/27/11)
2011 Sep 28, ANA, a Japanese airline, flew the first commercial Dreamliner into Tokyo. Its first passenger flight was made on Oct 26 from Tokyo to Hong Kong.
(Econ, 10/1/11, p.42)(SFC, 10/27/11, p.A16)
2011 Oct 4, It was reported that NASA has awarded a Pennsylvania company, Pipistrel-USA.com of State College, a $1.35 million prize for developing an ultra-efficient electric airplane. Wired Magazine reported that the winning airplane "was developed and built in Slovenia as a technology demonstrator for the airplane maker."
(http://tinyurl.com/3nk4ndh)
2011 Oct 13, Air traffic between Senegal and Mauritania resumed after a three-month pause, ending a row over onward flights.
(AFP, 10/13/11)
2011 Oct 24, In Portugal an overnight storm tore part of the roof off Faro airport in the southern Algarve region, injuring five people and disrupting flights.
(AP, 10/24/11)
2011 Oct 29, Australian flag carrier Qantas grounded its entire fleet indefinitely in a bitter industrial dispute. Months of strikes by baggage handlers, engineers and pilots have been costing Qantas Aus$15 million (£9.9 million) per week, with the total financial impact so far hitting Aus$68 million.
(AFP, 10/29/11)
2011 Oct 29, Phoenix-based US Airways flight attendant Nick Aaronson (33) was found dead in a Mexico City hotel room while on a layover. Authorities were investigating the death as a homicide.
(AP, 10/30/11)
2011 Oct 31, An Australian court ended the strikes and employee lockout that had abruptly grounded Qantas Airways and stranded tens of thousands of passengers worldwide. The government referred the dispute to Fair Work Australia, which ordered both sides into 21 days of talks.
(AP, 10/31/11)(Econ, 11/5/11, p.75)
2011 Nov 1, Senegal shut its airspace to all planes coming or going to Guinea after a Senegal Airlines flight was blocked in Conakry due to a spat over payments.
(AFP, 11/1/11)
2011 Nov 4, British Airways owner IAG said it has agreed to buy Lufthansa's UK unit bmi in a bid to squeeze more growth from its capacity constrained Heathrow hub and expand services to emerging markets in Asia and Latin America.
(Reuters, 11/4/11)
2011 Nov 13, Emirates Airlines launched the Dubai Airshow with a record $18-billion order for 50 Boeing 777s, giving the US company a flying start on its European rival Airbus at the prestigious event.
(AFP, 11/13/11)
2011 Nov 14, Kuwait-based leasing company ALAFCO signed an agreement with Airbus to buy 50 A320neo aircraft, valued at $4.6 billion at list price, the two sides announced at Dubai Airshow.
(AFP, 11/14/11)
2011 Nov 15, Nigerian airport officials fined British Airways $135 million and Virgin Atlantic $100 million amid a dispute over ticket prices. The airlines were given 14 days to respond and were ordered to compensate passengers. In 2012 a panel "cancelled the fines because at the time of the offence between 2004 and 2006, there was no law to make them culpable."
(AFP, 11/17/11)(AFP, 2/10/12)
2011 Nov 18, Indonesia’s Lion Air said it is planning to buy 230 planes from Boeing Co. The list price of $21.7 billion will be paid over 12 years though bank financing.
(AP, 11/18/11)
2011 Nov 29, AMR Corp., the parent of American Airlines, filed for bankruptcy and replaced CEO Gerard Arpey. The company still had some 8 billion in cash to keep operating.
(SFC, 11/30/11, p.D5)
2011 Dec 4, Pilots at Lebanese national carrier Middle East Airlines (MEA) ended a five-day strike in protest at the dismissal of a cancer-stricken colleague which grounded dozens of flights at Beirut airport.
(AFP, 12/4/11)
2011 Dec 6, Antigua-based LIAT airline said all of its pilots have called in sick, likely disrupting all flights. The pilots were protesting the firing of a captain for undisclosed reasons.
(AP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 15, Air Zimbabwe chairman Jonathan Kadzura said the government has raised $1.5 million (1.2 million euros) to pay off the national airline's debt and have an impounded airplane released in London.
(AFP, 12/15/11)
2011 Dec 16, Zimbabwe state media said the national airline has suspended flights to South Africa over a debt of $500,000, fearing creditors might impound more of its planes.
(AFP, 12/16/11)
2011 Dec 18, Spanish airline Iberia cancelled a third of its flights because of a strike by pilots fearing job losses when company planes are diverted for a planned new budget carrier.
(SFC, 12/18/11, p.A2)
2011 Dec 19, The Air Berlin group, Germany's 2nd-largest airline, said United Arab Emirates airline, Etihad, is to pay 72.9 million euros ($95 million) to become its biggest shareholder.
(AP, 12/19/11)
2011 Air Tanzania stopped flying after its last aircraft was grounded for repairs.
(Econ, 6/8/19, p.45)
2012 Jan 1, As of today the EU began billing all the world’s airlines for the carbon emissions into and out of the EU.
(Econ, 1/7/12, p.58)
2012 Jan 16, A hacker network that claims to be based in Saudi Arabia paralyzed the websites of Israel's stock exchange and national airline. El Al Israel Airlines took down its website after hacker OxOmar, who has been linked to the Saudi group, warned that both sites would be targeted by allied pro-Palestinian hackers.
(AP, 1/16/12)
2012 Jan 25, Boeing won its largest ever order from Europe as Norwegian Air Shuttle ordered 122 planes. The deal was worth $11.4 billion at list prices. NAS also planned to buy some 100 Airbuses. The total package for 222 planes was about $10 billion.
(Econ, 1/28/12, p.65)(Econ, 4/27/13, p.61)
2012 Jan 31, South African Airways launched non-stop flights to Beijing. China became South Africa's top trade partner in 2009.
(AFP, 1/31/12)
2012 Feb 1, TSA agent Alexandra Schmid (31) took $5000 in cash from the jacket of a Bangladeshi passenger as it went along an X-ray conveyor belt at JFK airport. Schmid was arrested on a charge of grand larceny and suspended pending an investigation.
(AP, 2/3/12)
2012 Feb 3, A storm swept across Colorado forcing the cancellation of some 600 flights at Denver’s airport. The storm dumped up to 6 feet of snow in some areas of eastern Colorado.
(SFC, 2/4/12, p.A5)
2012 Feb 5, Britain’s Heathrow Airport cut around half of the 1,300 flights scheduled for today after snow and freezing temperatures hit much of England a day earlier.
(Reuters, 2/5/12)
2012 Feb 6, In Brazil the wining $9.4 billion bid was announced for the privatization of Guarulhos, Sao Paulo’s main int’l. airport. The winning bid was by a consortium led by Petrobras, the state-owned oil company, and Banco do Brasil, the state-development bank. This was nearly $2 above the 2nd highest bid.
(Econ, 2/11/12, p.40)
2012 Feb 6, Air France pilots and other personnel began a 4-day walkout to protest a bill requiring air transport workers to give 48 hours notice before striking.
(SFC, 2/6/12, p.A2)
2012 Feb 17, Budget carrier Air Australia collapsed, stranding thousands of passengers as its domestic flights and international services to Honolulu, Bali and Phuket were all grounded.
(AFP, 2/17/12)
2012 Feb 24, Zimbabwe's national airline suspended all its flights indefinitely, after the latest revival effort collapsed this week. The struggling carrier battled against debts reported in December at $140 million.
(AFP, 2/24/12)
2012 Feb, Malev, Hungary’s flag air carrier, went bankrupt.
(Econ, 5/19/12, p.73)
2012 Mar 6, Turkish Airlines started flying into Somalia's war-torn capital, becoming the first international company to fly passenger planes into Mogadishu in more than 20 years. Flights were scheduled for twice a week.
(AP, 3/6/12)
2012 Mar 12, India's cash-strapped Kingfisher Airlines cancelled nearly a fifth of its flights, including at least one international route, after its staff staged a strike over unpaid wages.
(AFP, 3/12/12)
2012 Mar 14, India's beleaguered Kingfisher Airlines said it had curtailed its overseas flights to avoid losing further cash as it struggles to keep flying amid mounting operational difficulties.
(AFP, 3/14/12)
2012 Mar 22, India said it has barred its airlines from complying with the EU’s carbon taxation scheme, with the government saying no Indian carrier would share emissions data with the EU. The EU has directed Indian carriers to submit emission details of their aircraft by March 31, 2012. China decided last month to ban its airlines from complying with the EU directive. Over two dozen countries, including Russia and the United States, have opposed the EU move, calling it a violation of international law.
(AFP, 3/23/12)
2012 Mar 28, Fiji's military regime said it had seized control of national carrier Air Pacific from Australia's Qantas because it did not want foreigners to own or control Fijian airlines.
(AFP, 3/28/12)
2012 Apr 3, The European Commission prohibited Conviasa, Venezuela’s state airline, from flying into the EU due to safety concerns. Venezuela called the decision unfair.
(SFC, 4/4/12, p.A2)
2012 Apr 4, Iraq approved a request from Kuwait's Jazeera Airways to operate services to Baghdad and Najaf, more than 20 years after direct flights between the neighbors were halted.
(AFP, 4/5/12)
2012 Apr 6, The Transition Roadable Aircraft, developed by Terrafugia, Inc., made its auto show debut at the 2012 New York International Auto Show. The Massachusetts firm priced the commercial flying car at $279,000.
(Econ, 3/3/12, TQp.3)(www.terrafugia.com/news_media.html)
2012 Apr 9, Airlines cancelled flights from Sudan to the newly independent South, after new rules treating the route as international took effect.
(AFP, 4/9/12)
2012 Apr 11, Indonesian carrier Garuda International and European plane manufacturer Airbus signed a $2.5 billion deal in Jakarta, as British PM David Cameron visited Southeast Asia's biggest economy.
(AFP, 4/11/12)
2012 Apr 13, Australia's Qantas launched the nation's first commercial flight using a mixture of refined cooking oil, saying it would not survive if it relied solely on traditional jet fuel. Australia's tax on carbon emissions comes into force on July 1.
(AFP, 4/13/12)
2012 Apr 23, Ferrovial-owned BAA said it had agreed to sell Edinburgh airport to Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) for 807 million pounds ($1.3 billion), adding the Scottish hub to an investment portfolio that includes London's Gatwick and City airports.
(Reuters, 4/23/12)
2012 Apr 25, US federal officials announced that multiple airport screeners have been arrested for allegedly taking handsome bribes to look the other way while loads of illegal drugs slipped through security at Los Angeles International Airport.
(ABCNews, 4/25/12)
2012 Apr 28, North Korea began sending electronic GPS jamming signals affecting civilian flights in South Korea amid simmering cross-border tensions.
(AFP, 5/3/12)
2012 May 8, At least 100 pilots from India's debt-laden national carrier Air India failed to turn up to work in a move the civil aviation minister described as an "illegal" strike. The pilots were protesting against former Indian Airlines flyers -- who moved to Air India when the two firms merged -- also being trained for new Boeing 787 Dreamliner airplanes, claiming that would threaten their own career prospects.
(AFP, 5/8/12)
2012 May 9, In India the number of pilots involved in a wildcat strike at national carrier Air India rose to 150, as the walkout forced the cancellation of more international flights.
(AFP, 5/9/12)
2012 May 9, Palestinian Airlines resumed operations, starting with biweekly flights between El-Arish and Marka Airbase in the Jordanian capital of Amman. The new route means Gazans no longer have to travel to Cairo, some 350 km (215 miles) from their territory, to board planes.
(AFP, 5/27/12)
2012 May 13, North Korea stopped transmitting signals which jammed the GPS systems of hundreds of civilian aircraft and ships in South Korea for two weeks. The signals originated from the North's border city of Kaesong and began on April 28.
(AFP, 5/15/12)
2012 May 16, The new $1.4 billion int’l. air terminal opened at Hartsfeld-Jackson Atlanta Int’l. Airport.
(SFC, 5/16/12, p.A8)
2012 May 24, The jumbo jet-size Solar Impulse, an experimental solar-powered airplane, took off from Switzerland on its first transcontinental flight, aiming to reach North Africa next week.
(AP, 5/24/12)
2012 Jun 4, A militia of Libyan ex-rebels entered Tripoli International airport with tanks and armored vehicles and completely blocked air traffic, a day after their leader Abu Ajila al-Habshi was arrested. By the evening authorities wrested back control of the airport.
(AFP, 6/4/12)
2012 Jun 5, The Solar Impulse, an experimental solar-powered plane, took off from Madrid en route to Morocco for the 2nd leg of a bid to complete its first transcontinental flight.
(AP, 6/5/12)
2012 Jun 6, In Puerto Rico US federal agents swept through the main airport and other areas, arresting dozens of baggage handlers, airline workers and others suspected of smuggling millions of dollars' worth of cocaine aboard commercial flights for at least a decade.
(AP, 6/6/12)
2012 Jun 7, Qatar Airways completed its first flight to Baghdad since Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, a month after launching services to Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region.
(AFP, 6/7/12)
2012 Jun 21, In Morocco the Swiss-made solar-powered plane, Solar Impulse, took off from Rabat airport in a fresh bid to cross the Moroccan desert, after being foiled by rough conditions last week.
(AFP, 6/21/12)
2012 Jun 26, Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer and U.S. company Boeing said they've agreed to share technical knowledge and market assessments on the development of a Brazilian military cargo plane.
(AP, 6/26/12)
2012 Jun 29, In China Passengers and crew foiled an alleged hijacking attempt by six people on a plane in the far-western Xinjiang region. Local sources said that the plane turned back after Uighurs and Hans began fighting after a disagreement over seat assignments.
(AP, 6/29/12)
2012 Jul 2, Europe’s Airbus said it would open its first jet assembly line in America in Mobile, Alabama.
(Econ, 7/7/12, p.63)
2012 Jul 5, Colin Marshall (78), who guided British Airways on its transition from state ownership to privatization, died. He was appointment as chief executive of British Airways in 1983 and was given a knighthood after the airline was privatized in 1987.
(AFP, 7/11/12)
2012 Jul 9, Boeing Co. clinched the first big deal of this year's Farnborough Airshow with a firm order from Air Lease Corp. for 75 of its redesigned 737 aircraft worth $7.2 billion.
(AP, 7/9/12)
2012 Jul 10, Boeing Co. revealed a further large order for its remodeled short-haul 737 aircraft, a $9.2 billion with GE Capital Aviation Services. Rival Airbus announced its first billion-dollar order at this year's Farnborough Airshow.
(AP, 7/10/12)
2012 Jul 12, Airbus, a subsidiary of EADS, said it booked a potential $6.35 billion worth of orders. The four deals, if completed, take Airbus' total by the fourth day of the UK airshow to $16.9 billion for a total of 115 aircraft.
(AFP, 7/12/12)
2012 Jul 14, India's struggling Kingfisher Airlines cancelled more than three dozen flights when frustrated pilots and other workers walked off the job to protest about long-overdue pay.
(AFP, 7/14/12)
2012 Jul 15, Sewing needles were found in 5 sandwiches on flights originating in Amsterdam. One passenger on a flight to Minneapolis was injured. The other needles were on two flights to Atlanta and one to Seattle. The sandwiches were made in the Amsterdam kitchen of catering company Gate Gourmet.
(AP, 7/17/12)
2012 Jul 30, In Canada a passenger found what appeared to be a sewing needle in a pre-prepared sandwich on board an Air Canada flight from Victoria, British Columbia to Toronto. On July 14 sewing needles were found in food on four Delta flights from Amsterdam to the United States, injuring one passenger.
(Reuters, 8/2/12)
2012 Jul 30, A Canadian government-appointed arbitrator chose to enforce Air Canada's final offer over one proposed by the union representing its 3,000 pilots, ending a long and bitter contract dispute but angering the pilots.
(Reuters, 7/30/12)
2012 Aug 12, In Italy Hundreds of Wind Jet airline passengers became stranded due to the failure of Alitalia's deal to purchase the Sicily-based low-cost carrier.
(AP, 8/12/12)
2012 Aug 17, Ethiopian Airlines received Africa's first Boeing 787 Dreamliner, making Ethiopia the only country aside from Japan to operate the innovative aircraft. Ethiopian Airlines has purchased ten 787 Dreamliners from Boeing.
(AFP, 8/17/12)
2012 Aug 31, In Germany Lufthansa flight attendants walked off the job for eight hours at Frankfurt airport, causing the cancellation of more than 220 flights. Their union warned of more stoppages unless the airline gives in to its demands.
(AP, 8/31/12)
2012 Sep 7, Egypt's national air carrier said it will resume international flights after the airline's flight attendants suspended a 12-hour strike pending negotiations to meet their grievances.
(AP, 9/8/12)
2012 Sep 7, Lufthansa canceled hundreds of flights after flight attendants walked off the job at airports around the country in an escalating battle with Germany's largest airline. Signs emerged that the two sides may be prepared to return to the negotiating table.
(AP, 9/7/12)
2012 Sep 7, In Nigeria more than 60 workers from Air Nigeria protested at Lagos' Murtala Muhammed International Airport's domestic wings, demanding four-months-worth of unpaid salaries from the company. The airline's owner, business tycoon Jimoh Ibrahim, fired nearly all of the company's 800 employees for "disloyalty" earlier this month.
(AP, 9/7/12)
2012 Sep 9, In England a man fell to the ground in the Mortlake neighborhood of West London when a jet passing overhead lowered its landing gear as it neared the runway at Heathrow Airport. The apparent stowaway had no identification papers, just some currency from Angola. The man was later identified as Jose Matada of Mozambique.
(AP, 12/10/12)(SFC, 4/12/13, p.A2)
2012 Sep 10, Japan Airlines (JAL) emerged from bankruptcy (2010) in an initial public offering (IPO) at $8.5 billion.
(Economist, 9/15/12, p.64)
2012 Sep 14, India agreed to open its huge market to foreign retailers such as Wal-Mart in a surprising decision that was part of a flurry of economic reforms aimed at sparking new growth in the country's sputtering economy. The reforms would also allow foreign airlines to invest in Indian carriers for the first time.
(AP, 9/14/12)(Economist, 9/29/12, p.69)
2012 Sep 16, The CEO of EL AL Airlines said Israel's national airline will stop flying to Cairo, even though the Israel-Egypt peace treaty mandates flights to the country. Eliezer Shkedi said that flights are nearly empty, and the airline cannot afford the high security and operating costs.
(AP, 9/16/12)
2012 Sep 20, Nigeria's largest airline Arik Air Ltd. halted all its domestic flights indefinitely as its leaders alleged government corruption made it impossible for the carrier to fly. Domestic flights resumed on Sep 23.
(AP, 9/20/12)(SSFC, 9/23/12, p.A6)
2012 Sep 21, Nigeria's Central Bank barred the nation's top two airlines from receiving any additional loans over their massive outstanding debts.
(AP, 9/21/12)
2012 Oct 10, A deal to create a European defense and aerospace giant to rival Boeing Co. collapsed when Britain's BAE Systems and EADS NV called off their merger discussions because of conflicting interests between the British, French and German governments.
(AP, 10/10/12)
2012 Oct 10, A Syrian Air A320 from Moscow that was forced to land in Ankara. Turkish state-run television TRT reported the next day that the passenger plane was carrying military communications equipment. Damascus branded the incident piracy amid growing tensions between the two countries. The plane's 37 passengers and crew were allowed to continue to Damascus after several hours, without the cargo.
(AP, 10/11/12)
2012 Oct 13, Syria's state-run news agency SANA says Syria has decided to ban Turkish Airlines flights from Syrian airspace.
(AP, 10/13/12)
2012 Oct 14, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu announced that Turkey is barring Syrian civilian flights from Turkey's airspace, a day after Syria issued such a ban for Turkish commercial aircraft.
(AP, 10/14/12)
2012 Oct 27, In France several hundred striking Air France workers, protesting a restructure plan to cut 10% of the work force, clashed with police at Paris’ Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport.
(SSFC, 10/28/12, p.A3)
2012 Oct 29, Category one Hurricane Sandy grounded thousands of flights in the US northeast and upended travel plans across the globe, stranding passengers from Hong Kong to Europe. Public transport in NYC shut down and the stock market suffered its first weather-related closure in 27 years. The storm made landfall in New Jersey with 80 mph sustained winds. The Hurricane Center later attributed 72 US deaths to Sandy and estimated damages from the storm at $50 billion.
(AP, 10/29/12)(Reuters, 10/29/12)(AP, 10/30/12)(SFC, 2/13/13, p.A6)
2012 Oct 30, Virgin Australia, the second largest airline in Australia, announced a 99 million Australian dollar ($102 million) takeover offer for regional carrier Skywest and said it bought a 60 per cent stake in budget domestic rival Tiger Airways Australia for AU$35 million.
(AP, 10/30/12)
2012 Oct 31, Spanish infrastructure company Ferrovial said an arm of China's sovereign wealth fund has taken a 10 percent stake in the holding company controlling Britain's largest airport Heathrow.
(AP, 10/31/12)
2012 Nov 2, In South Africa low cost 1Time Airline said that all of its operations have been grounded with immediate effect after it applied for business liquidation.
(AP, 11/3/12)
2012 Nov 18, In Mozambique pilots and crew members at the national airline went on strike, grounding the carrier.
(AP, 11/18/12)
2012 Nov 24, In western France protesters squatting in treetop tents and makeshift shelters battled for a 2nd day with French riot police trying to expel them from the site of a planned airport near Nantes.
(AP, 11/24/12)
2012 Sep 9, In England a man fell to the ground in the Mortlake neighborhood of West London when a jet passing overhead lowered its landing gear as it neared the runway at Heathrow Airport. The apparent stowaway had no identification papers, just some currency from Angola.
(AP, 12/10/12)
2012 Dec 11, Delta Airlines agreed to buy a 49% stake in Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. For $360 million.
(SFC, 12/12/12, p.D3)
2012 Scientists at the Harvard robotics laboratory performed a successful flight of hovering robots the size of crane flies.
(Econ, 5/4/13, p.77)(http://wyss.harvard.edu/viewpressrelease/110/)
2012 India’s Kingfisher airline company was grounded with debts of more than $1.5 billion.
(Econ, 11/21/15, p.61)
2013 Jan 16, The US federal government grounded Boeing’s new 787s until the risk of battery fires is addressed. The FAA emergency order affected only United Airlines, the lone US carrier to operate the 787 Dreamliners.
(SFC, 1/17/13, p.A7)
2013 Jan 16, Japan's two leading airlines grounded their fleets of Boeing 787s after one of the Dreamliner passenger jets made an emergency landing.
(AP, 1/16/13)
2013 Jan 17, Ethiopian Airlines grounded its four Boeing 787 Dreamliners following a decision by the Federal Aviation Administration to take the planes out of service in the United States because of a risk of fire from its lithium batteries.
(AP, 1/17/13)
2013 Jan 20, London's Heathrow Airport cancelled a fifth of flights and airlines scrapped 40 percent of flights to Paris's main airports as snow continued to blanket parts of Europe, with more forecast.
(AP, 1/20/13)
2013 Jan 21, London's Heathrow airport cancelled 10 percent of flights, a day after it cut its capacity by a fifth, and said services could face further delays with more snowfall expected.
(Reuters, 1/21/13)
2013 Jan 21, In Germany passengers suffered delays and flight cancellations at Frankfurt airport, Europe's third busiest, after freezing rain had forced the airport to shut late on Jan 20.
(Reuters, 1/21/13)
2013 Feb 13, The boards of American Airlines and US Airways approved their merger. This will create the world’s biggest airline.
(SFC, 2/14/13, p.C2)
2013 Feb 26, Puerto Rico's Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla approved turning over the operations of the country’s largest airport to a private company as part of an estimated $2.6 billion deal that began under his predecessor and has been fiercely protested.
(AP, 2/27/13)
2013 Feb 27, An Iraqi plane landed in Kuwait for the first time since Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of the tiny emirate.
(AP, 2/27/13)
2013 Mar 13, In Nigeria a strike at Aero Contractors Co. of Nigeria Ltd., halted flights "temporarily."
(AP, 3/16/13)
2013 Mar 16, Nigeria's aviation ministry asked Dana Air to suspend all flights. A Dana Air crash on June 3 left more than 160 people dead, leading the carrier to lose its license. It resumed its operations two months ago. The suspension came days after another major airline halted its operations over a strike. The general suspension on Dana was lifted March 18, but one plane remained grounded.
(AP, 3/17/13)(AP, 3/19/13)
2013 Mar 22, The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it will close 149 air traffic control towers at small airports across the country beginning on April 7 as it copes with automatic federal spending cuts.
(Reuters, 3/22/13)
2013 Mar 22, In Alabama Luke Bresette (10) was killed at the Birmingham-Shuttlesworth Int’l. Airport when a flight information panel fell on a family from Kansas.
(SSFC, 3/24/13, p.A8)
2013 Apr 3, Samoa Air planned to start pricing its first international flights based on the weight of its passengers and their bags. Depending on the flight, each kg (2.2 pounds) would cost 93 cents to $1.06. The new airline was launched last June.
(AP, 4/4/13)
2013 Apr 15, In France clashes again erupted over the construction on a new airport near the city of Nantes. 3 demonstrators were reported injured as anarchists and beret-wearing farmers joined against the project.
(AP, 4/16/13)
2013 Apr 23, Australia's competition regulator approved the takeover by Virgin Australia of budget rival Tiger Airways Australia.
(AP, 4/23/13)
2013 Apr 27, Ethiopian Airlines flew a Boeing 787 from Ethiopia to Nairobi, Kenya, the first commercial flight of the Dreamliner since it was grounded for smoldering batteries.
(SSFC, 4/28/13, p.A5)
2013 Apr 28, US air traffic controllers resumed normal operations after lawmakers rushed through a bill to withdraw furloughs that resulted from automatic spending cuts in the sequester. Pres. Obama signed the legislation on May 1.
(SSFC, 4/28/13, p.A7)(SFC, 5/2/13, p.A5)
2013 Apr 28, Japan's All Nippon Airways successfully conducted its first test flight of the Boeing 787 aircraft since battery problems grounded the planes earlier this year.
(AP, 4/28/13)
2013 May 1, An experimental US aircraft, the unmanned X-51A WaveRider sped over 3,000 mph in a test flight above the Pacific Ocean. It used a scramjet engine and reached Mach 5.1 riding its own shock wave before plunging into the ocean as planned.
(SFC, 5/4/13, p.A10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-51)
2013 May 3, The Solar Impulse, a solar-powered airplane, that developers hope to eventually pilot around the world, took off from Moffet Field, south of San Francisco, on the first leg of an attempt to fly across the US with no fuel but the sun's energy.
(Reuters, 5/3/13)
2013 May 3, Italian police said they have arrested 29 airport baggage handlers accused of stealing cameras, cellphones and other loot from passengers' luggage, a bust made possible after hidden cameras were installed in airplane cargo holds where the thefts occurred.
(AP, 5/3/13)
2013 May 14, Croatia Airlines pilots and flight attendants went on strike over planned salary cuts and layoffs that are part of efforts to restructure the loss-making state carrier ahead of the country's EU entry.
(AP, 5/14/13)
2013 May 16, Flights in Greece were halted for four hours as the country's two largest labor unions staged work stoppages to protest austerity measures and the government decision to cancel a teachers' strike.
(AP, 5/16/13)
2013 May 18, In Egypt baggage handlers in Cairo went on strike after a baggage handler who works for EgyptAir died when a conveyer belt used to unload luggage fell on his head. The strike did not disrupt flights.
(AP, 5/18/13)
2013 May 22, Croatian Airlines’ staff accepted a 9% wage cut and returned to work after 8 days of strikes.
(Econ, 5/25/13, p.52)
2013 Jun 5, In Egypt striking workers at the Cairo international airport's largest terminal blocked airplanes on the tarmac and disrupting flights.
(AP, 6/5/13)
2013 Jun 12, A strike by French air traffic controllers forced cancellations of more than 60% of flights and disrupted travel elsewhere in Europe.
(AP, 6/12/13)
2013 Jun 13, Egyptian pilots working for the national carrier staged a 10-hour sit-in protest, delaying 22 flights in an effort to press their demands for management changes and bonus payments.
(AP, 6/13/13)
2013 Jun 14, In France the Airbus A350's maiden flight ended with a safe landing, setting the stage for intensifying competition with US rival Boeing in the long-haul wide-body aircraft market.
(AP, 6/14/13)
2013 Jun 17, In France Airbus and Boeing both won pledges for big purchases of long-haul, wide-body jets, as the Paris Air Show got off to a robust, if rainy start.
(AP, 6/17/13)
2013 Jun 24, Some $1.2 million was reported to have disappeared from a shipment of cash on Flight 17 from Switzerland to NYC as part of a banking transaction.
(SFC, 6/26/13, p.A4)
2013 Jul 6, A solar-powered aircraft, completed the final leg of a history-making cross-country flight this evening, gliding to a smooth stop at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. The Solar Impulse left San Francisco in early May and made stopovers in Phoenix, Dallas-Fort Worth, St. Louis, Cincinnati and Dulles.
(AP, 7/7/13)
2013 Jul 10, The US Navy successfully landed theX-47B experimental drone aircraft, the size of a fighter jet, on the George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier. Off the coast of Virginia.
(SFC, 7/11/13, p.A4)
2013 Jul 12, In Britain a fire erupted on a Boeing Dreamliner at London's Heathrow airport. The fire broke out on the plane, operated by Ethiopian Airlines, when it was parked at a remote stand with no passengers on board, eight hours after arriving from Addis Ababa.
(Reuters, 7/13/13)
2013 Jul 25, In Niger the body of a suspected stowaway fell from an Air France plane and was discovered lifeless in a western suburb of the capital, Niamey.
(AP, 7/25/13)
2013 Aug 1, Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways said it plans to acquire a 49% stake in Serbia's JAT Airways in a wide-ranging deal that will bring a new name and expanded routes for the struggling Belgrade-based carrier.
(AP, 8/1/13)
2013 Aug 7, A fire engulfed Kenya's Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, forcing the indefinite suspension of international passenger flights and choking a vital travel gateway to east Africa. First responders looted electronics, a bank and an ATM during and after the blaze.
(Reuters, 8/7/13)(AP, 8/8/13)
2013 Aug 9, In Lebanon gunmen abducted a Turkish Airlines pilot and his assistant in Beirut, forcing them from a bus as it took them from the airport in the early hours of the morning. A group claimed responsibility for the abduction in the name of nine Lebanese Shi'ite Muslims kidnapped last year in Azaz near the Turkish-Syrian border. On Aug 20 a Lebanese prosecutor charged 13 people in connection with the kidnapping.
(Reuters, 8/9/13)(AP, 8/20/13)
2013 Aug 13, The US Justice Dept. filed suit to stop a $14 billion union of American Airlines and US Airways.
(SFC, 8/14/13, p.C1)
2013 Sep 16, Bombardier of Canada launched the maiden flight of its new cSeries narrow-body plane with 100-150 seats.
(Econ, 9/21/13, p.66)
2013 Oct 11, Alitalia’s board of directors approved a €500m salvage package. €300m would come from fresh capital and €200m from new credit lines. The government planned to involve the state-owned postal service in the rescue.
(Econ, 10/19/13, p.56)
2013 Oct 13, Companies involved in a $1.27 billion project to develop a business district around Britain’s Manchester airpor announced that Chinese construction giant Beijing Construction Engineering Group (BCEG) has signed a deal with British firms to develop the area.
(AFP, 10/13/13)
2013 Oct 27, Dubai opened passenger operations at its second airport, Al-Maktoum International, touted to be the world's largest once it is completed.
(AFP, 10/27/13)
2013 Nov 1, The US Federal Aviation Administration said it is relaxing restrictions on the use of smartphones and other electronics inside flights by American carriers.
(AP, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 1, In California Paul Ciancia (23) walked into LAX’s terminal 3 near the security checkpoint and began shooting, sending thousands of passengers scattering onto tarmacs other parts of the airport. TSA agent Gerardo Hernandez (39) was killed.
(Reuters, 11/2/13)
2013 Nov 6, William Potts (56), a former US militant who hijacked a plane to Cuba in 1984, flew home to the United States where he faced federal charges for air piracy. On July 16, 2014, Potts was sentenced to 20 years in prison. The sentence effectively gave him credit for serving 13 years in Cuba making him eligile for parole in 7 years.
(AP, 11/6/13)(SFC, 7/18/14, p.A6)
2013 Nov 11, Struggling low-cost British airline Flybe said it plans to axe another 500 jobs as it pursues a round of cost-cutting measures.
(AFP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 17, The Dubai Airshow took off with huge aircraft orders and commitments worth around $100 billion for Boeing and $40 billion for Airbus from Gulf carriers.
(AFP, 11/17/13)(SFC, 11/18/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 23, China declared an Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) bolstering its claim to islands that Japan says it owns. China warned that it would take "defensive emergency measures" against aircraft that failed to identify themselves properly in airspace over them.
(Reuters, 11/23/13)(Econ, 11/30/13, p.12)
2013 Nov 28, South Korean and Japanese flights through China's new maritime air defense zone added to the international defiance of rules Beijing says it has imposed in East China Sea but that neighbors and the US have vowed to ignore.
(AP, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 29, Officials said the Obama administration has decided to tell US commercial airlines to comply with China’s deamnds to be notified of any flights through a broad swath of int’l. airspace that China has claimed as part of an air defense zone.
(SFC, 11/30/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 11, Air Canada announced it had placed a firm $6.5 billion order for 61 Boeing 737 MAX narrow-body aircraft, with options on 18 more planes and purchase rights for 30 others.
(AFP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 12, Iraq signed a $1.1 billion deal to buy 24 multi-role light fighters from South Korea. Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) said it would deliver the T-50IQ, a variant of its T-50 supersonic aircraft, to Baghdad between 2015 and 2016.
(AFP, 12/12/13)
2013 Dec 13, In Kansas airport worker Terry Lee Loewen (58) was arrested at Wichita’s Mid-Continent Regional Airport as part of an FBI sting. He planned to attack the airport with what he thought were explosives loaded in a car in as plot aiming to support al-Qaida. On June 8, 2015, Loewen admitted to plotting a suicide bomb attack.
(SFC, 12/14/13, p.A7)(SFC, 6/9/15, p.A6)
2013 Dec 26, In France a surprise strike by Lufthansa workers at the main Paris airport prompted flight cancellations and brought a new headache to holiday travel. Lufthansa said in statement that only two flights were officially canceled, and that travel was resuming in the afternoon.
(AP, 12/26/13)
2013 Richard Holmes authored “Falling Upward: How We Took to the Air."
(Econ, 5/11/13, p.89)
2014 Jan 3, A major snowstorm producing blizzard-like conditions hammered the northeastern United States, causing 2,000 US flight delays and cancellations.
(Reuters, 1/3/14)
2014 Jan 5, In Saudi Arabia human body parts fell from the sky in the city of Jeddah, with police saying they could be the remains of a person trapped in an airplane's wheel bay.
(AFP, 1/5/14)
2014 Jan 6, Airlines canceled more than 4,400 flights as extreme cold in the US Midwest and Northeast froze fuel lines to airplanes and posed exposure hazards for employees working on the tarmac.
(Reuters, 1/6/14)
2014 Jan 10, India's overcrowded financial capital unveiled its long-awaited $2 billion new airport terminal. Mumbai’s renovated Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport was delayed for nearly two years and overran its construction budget by 25 percent.
(AP, 1/10/14)
2014 Jan 23, Ecuadorean airline Tame suspended its once-daily flights to and from Venezuela until that country's cash-strapped government pays it $43 million owed for ticket sales.
(AP, 1/23/14)
2014 Jan 30, In France about 20 percent of flights in and out of Paris' airports were canceled because air traffic controllers are on strike over plans to combine European air space. Controllers in several other European countries also plan work stoppages.
(AP, 1/30/14)
2014 Feb 17, Ethiopian Airlines co-pilot Hailemedehin Abera Tagegn (31) locked his colleague out of the cockpit, hijacked a Rome-bound plane and landed in Geneva, all in an attempt to seek asylum in Switzerland. On March 16, 2015, Tagegn was convicted in absentia by Ethiopia’s high court.
(AP, 2/17/14)(AFP, 2/17/14)
2014 Feb 19, Europe's largest defense contractor BAE Systems says the governments of the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia have agreed on new pricing for a massive sale of 72 Eurofighter Typhoon jets.
(AP, 2/19/14)
2014 Feb 19, Kuwait’s loss-making state-owned Kuwait Airways Co signed contracts with Airbus to buy 25 planes, its first order for new aircraft in more than 20 years.
(AFP, 2/19/14)
2014 Feb 21, In Germany a strike by security staff at Frankfurt airport caused nearly 50 flight cancellations and delayed thousands of passengers, bringing chaos to Europe's third largest hub.
(Reuters, 2/21/14)
2014 Mar 9, A Sierra Leone airport official said International airlines have cancelled flights to and from Sierra Leone after a UN aviation regulator discovered that the only functioning fire engine at its main airport had broken down.
(Reuters, 3/9/14)
2014 Mar 21, In Libya two rockets struck a runway at the international airport in Tripoli, forcing the suspension of flights. Since October, 2011,the airport has been under the control of former insurgents from Zintan, 170 km (105 miles) southwest of Tripoli.
(AFP, 3/21/14)
2014 Mar 27, Germany's main airports were hit by a strike as public sector workers raised pressure on the government in pay talks.
(Reuters, 3/27/14)
2014 Mar 31, Germany's Lufthansa said it will cancel some 3,800 flights because of a three-day strike by the pilots' union later this week (April 2-4), hitting more than 425,000 passengers.
(AP, 3/31/14)
2014 Mar, Swaziland’s King Mswathi III cut the ribbon for a new airport named after himself.
(Econ, 10/3/15, p.49)
2014 Apr 2, Lufthansa canceled almost 900 domestic and intercontinental flights after the pilots' union started a three-day strike in a wage dispute with Germany's largest airline.
(AP, 4/2/14)
2014 Apr 8, The defense chiefs of China and the US faced off over Beijing's escalating territorial disputes in the region, with US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel telling his Chinese counterparts they do not have the right to unilaterally establish an air defense zone over disputed islands with no consultation.
(AP, 4/8/14)
2014 Apr 10, Europol, the EU police organization, said law enforcement authorities have arrested 70 people at airports around the world in a meticulously coordinated crackdown targeting criminals using fake or stolen credit cards to buy airline tickets.
(AP, 4/10/14)
2014 Apr 30, Qatar opened its vast new Hamad International Airport in Doha following years of delays.
(AP, 4/30/14)
2014 May 21, China’s state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corp. said it is reqady to deliver the country’s first homegrown regional airliner, the ARJ21-700, to Chengdu Airlines.
(SSFC, 5/25/14, p.D2)
2014 May 31, Some flights between Australia and southeast Asia and all domestic flights operating out of Darwin airport in the country’s north were canceled after the eruption a day earlier of Sangeang Api in Indonesia’s south produced a large cloud of ash.
(Reuters, 5/31/14)
2014 Jun 2, The Swiss-made Solar Impulse 2 airplane made a successful inaugural flight as its makers prepare for what they hope will be the first round-the-world solar flight.
(AP, 6/2/14)
2014 Jun 5, Peru's counter-narcotics police said they have broken up a ring that shipped cocaine from Lima's international airport to Mexico on commercial flights by swapping out unsuspecting passengers' luggage with identical suitcases.
(AP, 6/6/14)
2014 Jun 10, The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it has granted the first permission for commercial drone flights over US land. The BP energy corporation and drone maker AeroVironment of California have been given permission to use a Puma drone to survey pipelines, roads and equipment at Prudhoe Bay in Alaska. The first flight took place on June 8.
(AP, 6/10/14)
2014 Jun 10, Russia’s PM Dmitry Medvedev gave the government's blessing to Aeroflot’s new low-cost airline serving newly-annexed Crimea, as he inspected a Dobrolyot (Good Flight) Boeing-737 ahead of its maiden flight from Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport.
(Reuters, 6/10/14)
2014 Jun 13, The Spanish government said it has approved legislation to sell 49 percent of the national aviation authority AENA and also open up one of the country's passenger rail routes to a private operator.
(AP, 6/13/14)
2014 Jun 17, American Airlines said that it will cut nearly 80 percent of its flights to Venezuela in a dispute over revenue being held by the South American country.
(AP, 6/17/14)
2014 Jun 24, In Pakistan one woman was killed and three crew members were wounded by gunmen shooting at an Airbus 310 plane carrying 178 passengers from Saudi Arabia as it landed in Peshawar.
(Reuters, 6/25/14)
2014 Jun 25, Abu Dhabi-based airline Etihad Airways said it had reached a deal in principle to buy a 49 percent stake in struggling Italian carrier Alitalia. In return Alitalia agreed to cut 20% of its work force.
(AP, 6/25/14)(Econ, 6/28/14, p.58)
2014 Jul 3, A China-based tour operator said North Korea will reopen some of its domestic scheduled air routes for the first time in years, another sign of moves to bolster tourism in the isolated country.
(Reuters, 7/3/14)
2014 Jul 17, Airbus said that its orders and commitments for 496 aircraft at England’s Farnborough International Airshow. Boeing, meanwhile, secured business for 201 airplanes.
(AP, 7/17/14)
2014 Jul 18, In eastern Ukraine emergency workers, police officers and even off-duty coal miners searched the wreckage of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 shot down a day earlier as it flew miles above the country's battlefield. Ukraine's state aviation service closed the airspace over two regions currently gripped by separatist fighting.
(AP, 7/18/14)
2014 Jul 22, A Hamas rocket exploded near Israel's main airport, prompting a ban on flights from the US and many from Europe and Canada as aviation authorities responded to the shock of seeing a civilian jetliner shot down over Ukraine. The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) banned flights to Tel Aviv for at least 24 hours.
(Reuters, 7/23/14)
2014 Jul 23, Air France and Germany's two largest airlines canceled more flights to Tel Aviv because of ongoing safety concerns amid the fighting between Israel and Hamas.
(AP, 7/23/14)
2014 Jul 23, Polish state airline LOT suspended its flights to Israel from Warsaw until July 28 because of concern for passengers' safety.
(Reuters, 7/23/14)
2014 Jul 23, Late today the US FAA lifted its ban on commercial flights to Tel Aviv.
(Reuters, 7/24/14)
2014 Jul 24, Europe's aviation regulator said it will cancel its warning that recommends airlines do not fly to Israel, after the Federal Aviation Authority cleared US carriers to resume flights.
(Reuters, 7/24/14)
2014 Aug 2, Air France cancelled some of its short and medium-haul flights from airports across France due to a strike by ground staff on one of the busiest travel days of the year.
(AFP, 8/2/14)
2014 Aug 8, Malaysia Airlines will be taken over by the country's state investment fund and de-listed, as part of plans announced today for a "complete overhaul" to rescue the company from oblivion after two crippling air disasters.
(AFP, 8/8/14)
2014 Aug 8, Etihad, the flag carrier of the United Arab Emirates, agreed to inject a further $750 million into Alitalia in return for a 49% stake.
(Econ, 8/16/14, p.55)
2014 Aug 9, In Portugal dozens of flights were cancelled as pilots from the national TAP airline took strike action over working conditions.
(AFP, 8/9/14)
2014 Aug 11, The US Federal Aviation Authority began imposing flight restrictions on more than 37 square miles of airspace surrounding Ferguson, Mo. The restrictions were lifted after 12 days and it was later reported that they had been imposed to keep away news helicopters during Ferguson’s violent street protests over the death of Michael Brown (18).
(SFC, 11/3/14, p.A7)
2014 Aug 11, The Ivory Coast announced that it has banned all flights from countries hit by Ebola as part of steps to prevent the deadly virus from reaching the west African nation.
(AFP, 8/11/14)
2014 Aug 12, Argentina halted a brief pilot strike that stranded thousands of passengers in Buenos Aires as the Labor Ministry ordered the two sides to accept mediation.
(SFC, 8/13/14, p.A2)
2014 Aug 14, South Korea’s Korean Air Lines Co. said will suspend flights to Kenya in a measure to prevent the spread of Ebola.
(AP, 8/14/14)
2014 Aug 19, Air France said some of its flight crews were refusing to board planes bound for Guinea, Sierra Leone and Nigeria over fears of the Ebola outbreak.
(AFP, 8/19/14)
2014 Aug 21, Egypt's Cairo airport and Tunisia cancelled most flights to and from Libya, days after the Libyan government said unidentified war planes had attacked positions of armed groups in Tripoli.
(Reuters, 8/21/14)
2014 Aug 29, Malaysia Airlines said it will cut 6,000 workers as part of a $1.9 billion overhaul to revive its damaged brand after being hit by double passenger jet disasters.
(AP, 8/29/14)
2014 Sep 2, Mexico’s president Enrique Peña Nieto an nounced a new Mexico City international airport in his State of the Union address. The estimated cost was 169 billion pesos ($11 billion)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Mexico_City_international_airport)(Econ., 5/2/15, p.29)
2014 Sep 15, French flag carrier Air France scrapped half of its flights as pilots began a strike against the company's plan to develop its low-cost subsidiary.
(AFP, 9/15/14)
2014 Sep 16, In France a pilots strike at Air France entered its second day, with the two sides appearing no closer to resolving a dispute over cost cuts that has forced the airline to cancel 60 percent of flights.
(Reuters, 9/16/14)
2014 Sep 20, French air pilots voted to extend their walkout until at least Sep 26 to protest Air-France-KLM’s new strategy to shift much of its European operation to Transavia, a low-cost subsidiary.
(SSFC, 9/21/14, p.A3)
2014 Sep 25, Airbus sent its latest jet up for its first flight above the skies of southern France, amid high demand for the single-aisle A320neo and its promised fuel economy.
(AP, 9/25/14)
2014 Sep 26, In Illinois Brian Howard (36), an FAA contract employee, set fire at the Aurora air traffic control center bringing Chicago’s Midway and O’Hare airports to a halt with over 2,000 flights cancelled. On May 28, 2015, Howard pleaded guilty to setting the fire during a failed suicide attempt.
(SFC, 9/27/14, p.A7)(SFC, 9/29/14, p.A6)(SFC, 5/29/15, p.A9)
2014 Sep 28, Air France's leading pilots union announced an end to a 14-day strike that grounded roughly half of the airline's flights, stranded passengers worldwide and led to stern shows of frustration by the French prime minister. The union was ending the walkout so that service could resume and negotiations continue peaceably.
(AP, 9/28/14)
2014 Sep 30, In Germany pilots on Lufthansa's long-haul fleet started a 15-hour walkout at the airline's main Frankfurt hub in a festering contract dispute.
(AP, 9/30/14)
2014 Oct 1, Greek police said an airline pilot and a ground crew staff member were among seven people arrested on suspicion of participating in a ring smuggling migrants onto flights from the city of Thessaloniki to other EU countries.
(AP, 10/1/14)
2014 Oct 6, Richard Branson's Virgin Atlantic said it will shut its short-haul domestic service in Britain, partly owing to a lack of demand for connections with its long-haul operations.
(AFP, 10/6/14)
2014 Oct 9, Britain said it will start screening travelers coming from Ebola-hit parts of west Africa at Heathrow and Gatwick airports and on Eurostar trains from Belgium and France.
(AFP, 10/10/14)
2014 Oct 13, US plane giant Boeing said Indonesian flag carrier Garuda has placed an order for 50 planes worth almost $5 billion.
(AFP, 10/13/14)
2014 Oct 18, Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries unveiled first passenger aircraft to be made in Japan in nearly four decades as Mitsubishi pushed into the booming regional jet sector with an eye to taking on industry giants Embraer and Bombardier.
(AFP, 10/18/14)
2014 Oct 20, Lufthansa pilots launched a strike, deepening Germany's travel chaos after train drivers stopped work at the weekend just as school holidays began in much of the country.
(AFP, 10/20/14)
2014 Nov 14, Virgin America shares began trading in an IPO priced at $23. Shares began trading at $24 and closed the day at $30 per share.
(SFC, 11/15/14, p.D1)
2014 Nov 28, European Union police coordination agency Europol said police around the world have arrested 118 suspects in a global investigation into online fraud that targets the travel industry, a crime said to cost airlines $1 billion a year.
(AP, 11/28/14)
2014 Dec 1, German airline Lufthansa cancelled about half of its flights after pilots went on strike in an ongoing dispute over retirement benefits.
(AP, 12/1/14)
2014 Dec 2, Pilots at German airline Lufthansa extended their two-day strike to long-haul flights in an ongoing dispute over retirement benefits.
(AP, 12/2/14)
2014 Dec 2, Portugal's national airline endured its fifth walkout this year, with a 24-hour strike by cabin crew grounding around 200 flights.
(AP, 12/2/14)
2014 Dec 11, The EU banned Libya's seven airlines from operating in European skies, citing safety concerns linked to the ongoing fighting there.
(AP, 12/11/14)
2014 Dec 11, South Africa said its loss-making national airline will be placed under the control of the Treasury, as the carrier battles to turn around its fortunes.
(AFP, 12/11/14)
2014 Dec 12, In Britain a system failure affecting air traffic control workstations was to blame for disruption to thousands of passengers coming in and out of Britain's biggest airports.
(Reuters, 12/13/14)
2014 Dec 17, Low-cost Indian airline SpiceJet grounded all flights after oil companies stopped supplies of jet fuel to the financially beleaguered carrier.
(AP, 12/17/14)
2014 Dec 22, France-based Airbus delivered its first next-generation A350-900 plane to Qatar Airways in a formal ceremony that kickstarts its bid to erode rival Boeing's dominance in the lucrative long-haul market.
(AFP, 12/22/14)
2014 Dec 25, In Russia a massive snowstorm in Moscow caused delays to more than 150 flights and brought traffic to a standstill.
{Russia, Aviation}
(AP, 12/25/14)
2014 Dubai airport overtook Heathrow in London this year to become the world’s busiest int’l. airport with 68.9 million annual passengers.
(Econ, 1/10/15, p.44)
2015 Jan 6, Turkish Airlines, the last foreign airline still flying to Libya, suspended flights to Libya.
(Econ, 1/10/15, p.23)
2015 Jan 15, Canadian manufacturer Bombardier suspended its business jets program due to "weak market demand," resulting in layoffs of 1,000 employees in Mexico and the United States.
(AFP, 1/15/15)
2015 Jan 15, In Qatar the world's newest jetliner, the Airbus A350, took to the skies carrying its first paying passengers from the Gulf Arab nation.
(AP, 1/15/15)
2015 Jan 26, Hackers defaced the website of Malaysia Airlines and threatened to dump stolen information online after posting a glimpse of customer data obtained in the attack.
(AP, 1/26/15)
2015 Jan 27, In Iraq a bullet hit the fuselage of a Flydubai airliner on its descent into Baghdad, lightly wounding a young girl and prompting many carriers to suspend their flights.
(AFP, 1/27/15)
2015 Jan 29, In Germany dozens of flights were canceled at Duesseldorf and Cologne-Bonn airports after private security workers walked off the job in a dispute over wages.
(AP, 1/29/15)
2015 Jan 30, Qatar Airways said it has bought nearly 10 percent of the parent company of British Airways and Spain's Iberia, deepening its business ties to Europe.
(AP, 1/30/15)
2015 Feb 5, Libya's only commercial flight link to mainland Europe was severed when the state carrier said its foreign partner had pulled out of the country after a deadly attack last week on a Tripoli hotel. Georgia-based Afriqiyah had only just restarted the route to Duesseldorf last month.
(Reuters, 2/5/15)
2015 Feb 12, In South Korea an onboard tantrum dubbed "nut rage" culminated in a one-year prison sentence for Korean Air heiress Cho Hyun-ah, the daughter of Korean Air's chairman.
(AP, 2/12/15)
2015 Feb 18, In Turkey a snowstorm in Istanbul grounded planes, halted traffic and forced the closure of the Bosphorus Strait shipping channel.
(Reuters, 2/18/15)
2015 Feb 27, Scandinavian Airlines canceled some 60 flights out of Copenhagen after members of a Danish cabin crew union walked out to protest the carrier's plan to move 147 employees to a domestic airline that SAS acquired last year. 30 more flights were canceled the next day.
(AP, 2/28/15)
2015 Mar 1, A first Iranian flight landed in the Yemeni capital, a day after officials from the Shiite militia-controlled city signed an aviation agreement with Tehran. The plane delivered medical and other supplies to Sanaa.
(AFP, 3/1/15)(SFC, 3/2/15, p.A4)
2015 Mar 2, Scandinavian Airlines said some 50 flights have been canceled to and from Denmark after members of a Danish cabin crew union walked out to protest the carrier's plan to transfer employees to a domestic airline acquired by SAS.
(AP, 3/2/15)
2015 Mar 2, In Norway flights by a subsidiary of low-cost airline Norwegian Air Shuttle — Norwegian Air Norway — were partly disrupted after pilots continued a walkout begun Feb 28, causing the company's share price to crash 5 percent in Oslo.
(AP, 3/2/15)
2015 Mar 4, Thousands of passengers were stranded in Denmark, Norway and Sweden as a strike by pilots of Norwegian Air Shuttle continued for a fifth day.
(AP, 3/4/15)
2015 Mar 4, In Nepal a Turkish Airlines jet skidded off the wet surface at Kathmandu's Tribhuwan International Airport. Thousands of passengers were left stranded as the plane partially blocked the only runway.
(AP, 3/5/15)
2015 Mar 8, China-based Da-Jiang Innovations (DJI) launched its new Phantom 3 range of drones with prices starting at $1,000.
(SFC, 5/14/15, p.58)
2015 Mar 8, United Arab Emirates airlines Emirates, flydubai and Etihad Airways said they have suspended flights to Erbil, citing security concerns as Islamic State razes ancient cities in Iraq's north.
(Reuters, 3/8/15)
2015 Mar 9, The Solar Impulse 2 aircraft set off from Abu Dhabi on a bid to make the first round-the-world tour. Swiss pilot Andre Borschberg (63) will trade flying the Si2 with Bertrand Piccard. The epic journey was scheduled to spread over five months, with a total flight time of around 25 days.
(AFP, 3/9/15)(SFC, 3/9/15, p.A2)
2015 Mar 18, In Germany hundreds of flights were canceled in a strike by Lufthansa pilots at the airline's short- and medium-haul operations.
(AP, 3/18/15)
2015 Mar 19, Lufthansa, Germany's largest airline, had to cancel 84 of 153 of its long-haul flights, affecting 18,000 passengers as a strike by pilots was extended to long-haul flights.
(AP, 3/19/15)
2015 Mar 20, Germany-based Lufthansa canceled hundreds more flights as pilots went on strike for the third consecutive day and announced they would continue the walk-out over the weekend.
(AP, 3/20/15)
2015 Mar 25, A number of pilots at Lufthansa's low-cost subsidiary Germanwings refused to fly following the deadly crash a day earlier in the French Alps, saying they were mourning the victims of the doomed aircraft.
(AFP, 3/25/15)
2015 Mar 26, Airlines rushed to change their rules so as to require a second crew member in the cockpit at all times, hours after French prosecutors suggested co-pilot Andreas Lubitz (27) had barricaded himself alone at the controls of a German jetliner and crashed it on purpose.
(Reuters, 3/26/15)
2015 Mar 29, An Air Canada flight crash landed and slid off the runway in the east coast city of Halifax, with the airline confirming 23 passengers and crew suffered non-life threatening injuries.
(Reuters, 3/29/15)
2015 Apr 4, Sri Lanka PM Ranil Wickremesinghe's office said an inquiry, led by an anti-corruption lawyer, had found "shocking details of corruption running into billions of dollars" at Sri Lankan Airlines, as well as "irregularities" in its $2.3 billion 2013 deal to buy 10 Airbus aircraft.
(Reuters, 4/5/15)
2015 Apr 8, French air traffic controllers launched a two-day strike over working conditions. Hundreds of flights were cancelled in and out of the country.
(AFP, 4/8/15)
2015 Apr 9, In France the Eiffel Tower closed, many school kids had no classes and air traffic controllers were staying off work in a nationwide day of protests and strikes to air an array of grievances against the government.
(AP, 4/9/15)
2015 Apr 17, Nigeria air traffic controllers suspended a strike that had grounded all domestic flights, but warned that a more damaging work stoppage would be launched next week if their demands were not met.
(AFP, 4/17/15)
2015 Apr 25, Some airlines cancelled flights to the capitals of Argentina, Chile and Uruguay as ash from the Chilean volcano Calbuco, which erupted without warning this week, reached as far as southern Brazil.
(Reuters, 4/25/15)
2015 Apr 30, Portugal's government appealed to pilots at flag carrier TAP to call off a 10-day strike that it says would damage tourism and could ruin the airline, scuppering a privatization process scheduled to start next month.
(Reuters, 4/30/15)
2015 Apr, In Sweden the conventional control tower at Ornskoldsvik was closed and controllers moved to a remote tower at Sundsvall. It was built by LFV, Sweden’s air navigation agency, and became the first airport to deploy a virtual control tower.
(Econ 5/27/17, p.70)
2015 May 7, In Italy a fire badly damaged part of Rome's Fiumicino airport and closed it to most traffic.
(AP, 5/7/15)
2015 May 23, Nigerian airlines grounded flights and radio stations were silenced as a months-long fuel shortage worsened, aggravated by a strike disrupting fuel deliveries in Africa's biggest oil producer.
(AP, 5/23/15)
2015 May 26, Libya's three main airports canceled flights because of strikes by ground staff complaining they have not been paid for two months.
(Reuters, 5/26/15)
2015 May 27, Belgian airports were at a standstill after an electrical failure at air traffic control in Brussels caused Belgium-bound flights to be diverted.
(AFP, 5/27/15)
2015 May 31, Swiss pilot Andre Borschberg took off from Nanjing, China, for a six day flight to Hawaii in the solar powered Solar Impulse. This was the 7th of twelve flights in the round the world journey. Borschberg made an unscheduled stop in Japan on June 1 to wait out bad weather.
(SFC, 6/1/15, p.A2)(SFC, 6/2/15, p.A2)
2015 Jun 1, Iran’s Fars news agency reported that Iranian Mahan Air, that acquired nine passenger jets in defiance of US sanctions, will begin using them on international routes this week. Mahan Air acquired eight second-hand Airbus A340s and one Airbus A321 in early May. The US Treasury imposed sanctions on two firms based in Iraq and the United Arab Emirates on suspicion of helping the purchase.
(Reuters, 6/1/15)
2015 Jun 8, Spain's air traffic controllers began four days of partial strikes that could cause major traffic disruptions as the summer vacation season gets underway.
(AP, 6/8/15)
2015 Jul 1, North Korea opened a new terminal building at Pyongyang's international airport, underscoring an effort to attract more tourists.
(AP, 7/1/15)
2015 Jul 2, Saudi Arabia officially opened a billion-dollar aviation gateway aimed at Muslim pilgrims, in the kingdom's first airport privatization.
(AFP, 7/2/15)
2015 Jul 10, European plane-maker Airbus flew its E-fan plane from Lydd, England, to the French port of Calais. About 12 hours before Airbus' Channel flight, French pilot Hugues Duval took his two-engine, one-seat Cricri electric plane from Calais to Dover and back.
(AP, 7/10/15)
2015 Jul 10, In northeastern Nigeria commercial flights resumed into Maiduguri, nearly 18 months after the airport was shut in the wake of a daring Boko Haram raid.
(AFP, 7/11/15)
2015 Jul 12, In Indonesia the airport on Bali reopened after the erupting Mount Raung volcano forced its closure for the second time in just a few days and caused fresh travel misery for stranded holidaymakers.
(AFP, 7/12/15)
2015 Jul 15, The Solar Impulse team said it is suspending its journey in Hawaii to at least next April after the plane suffered battery damage during its flight from Japan.
(SFC, 7/16/15, p.A5)
2015 Jul 16, In Indonesia eruptions at Mount Raung and Mount Gamalama caused closures at three airports, including Juanda International serving Surabaya, the country's 2nd-largest city.
(AP, 7/16/15)
2015 Jul 22, In Indonesia eruptions of ash at five volcanoes shrouded the skies over parts of the archipelago, forcing three airports to close.
(AP, 7/22/15)
2015 Jul 27, Delta said it will pay $450 million to buy a stake in China Eastern Airlines as the Atlanta-based airline seeks to expand into China's fast-growing travel industry.
(AP, 7/27/15)
2015 Aug 3, US airlines Delta and American banned the shipment of big game trophies on flights, in the wake of outrage over the killing of Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe.
(AFP, 8/4/15)
2015 Aug 17, Indian budget airline IndiGo finalized an exceptionally large order for 250 single-aisle Airbus A320neo jets to keep up with rapid growth in the country's air travel.
(AP, 8/17/15)
2015 Aug 18, The Greek government gazette said reported an agreement to sell to a German company the rights to operate 14 regional airports.
(AP, 8/18/15)
2015 Aug 28, Nigeria's domestic intelligence agency warned travelers to be ready for an attack on the capital's airport after announcing it had smashed a spy network run by the radical Islamist group Boko Haram. The Department of State Services (DSS) said in a statement that it had arrested a 14-year-old at Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja who admitted he had been ordered to spy on security procedures.
(AFP, 8/29/15)
2015 Sep 8, United Airlines CEO Jeff Smisek and two other top executives resigned amid a federal corruption investigation.
(Econ, 9/12/15, p.30)
2015 Sep 9, A German court issued an injunction ordering a halt to a strike by pilots at Lufthansa, that caused the cancelation of 1,000 flights affecting 140,000 travelers.
(AP, 9/9/15)
2015 Sep 15, In Chile a 24-hour strike by civil aviation workers grounded departing flights.
(AP, 9/15/15)
2015 Sep 23, Chinese media reported that local companies have agreed with Boeing to buy 300 jets and build an aircraft assembly plant in China in deals signed during President Xi Jinping's visit to the United States.
(AP, 9/23/15)
2015 Sep 25, Ukraine said it is banning flights by Russian airlines from Oct. 25 as part of a wave of sanctions against Russia over its support for separatists in the east of the country. PM Arseny Yatseniuk added that any Russian planes carrying military hardware or troops had also been banned from flying over Ukrainian territory. The government statement also forbade Ukrainian state companies from using Russian software, particularly from the Russian anti-virus giant Kaspersky Lab. Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov said that Russia would be forced to take retaliatory measures.
(Reuters, 9/25/15)
2015 Oct 5, Air France executives fled an angry mob after having their shirts ripped off by striking workers. Seven people were hurt, including a security guard who was knocked unconscious. The company has proposed job cuts, believed to involve 300 pilots, 900 air hostesses and stewards, and 1,700 ground staff.
(AFP, 10/6/15)
2015 Oct 9, In Congo DRC a new airline was launched in a bid to revolutionize air transport within the vast country where flights are currently operated only by the UN and small carriers blacklisted by the EU.
(AFP, 10/9/15)
2015 Oct 12, In France police arrested several Air France workers at their homes as investigators tracked down protesters who hounded executives from a meeting about mass job cuts last week and tore the clothes of two fleeing managers.
(Reuters, 10/12/15)
2015 Oct 23, Philippine aviation authorities said haze from Indonesian forest fires has spread to the southern and central Philippines, disrupting air traffic and prompting warnings for residents to wear face masks.
(AFP, 10/23/15)
2015 Oct 25, Direct flights between Russia and Ukraine stopped as a result of continuing tensions over Russia's annexation of Crimea and backing of separatists in eastern Ukraine.
(AP, 10/2515)
2015 Nov 4, In Indonesia thousands of tourists were stranded on three islands after ash from Mount Rinjani on Lombok Island forced the closure of airports and blanketed villages and farmlands.
(AP, 11/4/15)
2015 Nov 6, Germany's flagship airline, Lufthansa, canceled 290 flights as cabin crew workers went on strike at Frankfurt and Duesseldorf airports.
(AP, 11/6/15)
2015 Nov 6, A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin said all flights to Egypt will be suspended until proper security is in place there.
(AP, 11/6/15)
2015 Nov 6, Turkish Airlines canceled flights to Sharm al-Sheikh in Egypt on Friday and Saturday nights over security concerns.
(Reuters, 11/6/15)
2015 Nov 7, Estonia's flagship airline announced its bankruptcy after the European Union ruled it would have to pay back 85 million euros plus interest of state aid pumped into the struggling business to keep it flying. Authorities in Tallinn moved to absorb the shock by immediately setting up a new carrier to take over key routes.
(AFP, 11/8/15)
2015 Nov 7, Russian Federal Air Transport Agency said it will send 44 planes to repatriate its nationals from two Egyptian Red Sea resorts. Around 80,000 Russians were stranded in Egypt.
(AFP, 11/7/15)(Reuters, 11/7/15)
2015 Nov 7, Cabin crew at Lufthansa staged a second day of strikes, forcing the German airline to cancel some 520 short- and medium-haul flights.
(AP, 11/7/15)
2015 Nov 7, Russian Federal Air Transport Agency said it will send 44 planes to repatriate its nationals from two Egyptian Red Sea resorts. Around 80,000 Russians were stranded in Egypt.
(AFP, 11/7/15)(Reuters, 11/7/15)
2015 Nov 8, In Nepal more than 70% of domestic flights were canceled due to fuel shortages as members of the Madhesi ethnic community continued to block the southern border with India in protest of the country’s new Constitution.
(SFC, 11/10/15, p.A2)
2015 Nov 10, In the first major commercial deal at the Dubai Airshow Airbus and Vietnamese air carrier Vietjet announced a deal for 30 new aircraft easily worth over $3 billion at list prices.
(AP, 11/10/15)
2015 Nov 11, A UN conference agreed to dedicate part of the radio spectrum to a global flight tracking system, to avoid a repeat of the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 in March last year.
(Reuters, 11/11/15)
2015 Nov 13, Russia said it has banned incoming flights by Egypt's state-owned airline effective as of Nov 14.
(Reuters, 11/13/15)
2015 Nov 17, More than 100 flights were canceled at Denver International Airport early as a powerful storm system dropped snow over the Rocky Mountains.
(Reuters, 11/17/15)
2015 Nov 21, A heavy fall snowstorm hit the Midwestern United States, blanketing states from South Dakota to Wisconsin with as much as 16 inches (40 cm) of snow. The storm affected air travel, with 514 US flights canceled by morning, with Chicago's O'Hare International and Midway International airports the hardest hit.
(Reuters, 11/22/15)
2015 Nov 22, More than 130 flights were cancelled in and out of Chicago’s O’hare Int’l. Airport as a deep freeze set in across the Midwest.
(SFC, 11/23/15, p.A5)
2015 Dec 4, The European Union agreed on a system to share airline passenger information, paving the way for closer scrutiny of extremists.
(AP, 12/4/15)
2015 Dec 8, Air France said it will resume flights to Tehran for the first time in more than seven years, as part of resuming European trade with Iran following a hard-fought deal to curb its nuclear activities.
(AP, 12/8/15)
2015 Dec 10, EU lawmakers backed plans to track airline passenger names as part of efforts to prevent a repeat of the Paris attacks.
(AFP, 12/10/15)
2015 Dec 15, In Colorado a storm dropped up to two feet snow in the mountains before hitting the plains prompting airlines to cancel 425 flights at the Denver airport.
(SFC, 12/16/15, p.A8)
2015 Dec 16, In India a maintenance technician was accidentally sucked into an aircraft engine at an airport in Mumbai.
(SFC, 12/18/15, p.A2)
2015 Dec 17, The United States and Cuba said they have agreed to restore scheduled commercial airline service between the two countries, the first anniversary of the Cold War foes' announcement they would normalize relations. The deal would allow as many as 110 regular flights a day.
(Reuters, 12/17/15)(SFC, 12/18/15, p.A8)
2015 Dec 17, China's biggest airline said it is buying more than a hundred Boeing 737 jets in a deal worth about $10 billion that comes just months after the US plane maker announced plans to build a Chinese finishing plant for the aircraft type.
(AP, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 19, Ten of Chile's airports remained closed as striking workers tied to the civil aviation authority and officials failed to reach an agreement.
(Reuters, 12/19/15)
2015 In China some 20,000 workers at the Zhengzhou Airport Economic Zone worked to complete a 2nd terminal and runway. Officials expected the planned aerotropolis to have five runways by 2030 serving some 70 million passengers annually.
(Econ., 3/14/15, p.47)
2016 Jan 6, China landed two civilian test flights on an island it has built in the South China Sea, four days after it angered Vietnam with a landing on the same runway in the disputed territory.
(Reuters, 1/6/16)(AP, 1/7/16)
2016 Jan 22, Thousands of flights were cancelled and supermarket shelves were left bare as millions of Americans hunkered down for a winter storm expected to dump historic amounts of snow in the eastern United States.
(AFP, 1/22/16)
2016 Jan 24, Iran said it will buy 114 Airbus planes to revitalize its ageing fleet, in the first major commercial deal announced since the lifting of sanctions under its nuclear agreement.
(AFP, 1/24/16)
2016 Jan 26, The United States said it would further ease restrictions on its Cuba sanctions regime involving exports and authorized airline travel. The changes will facilitate travel to Cuba by allowing blocked space, code-sharing, and leasing arrangements with Cuban airlines.
(Reuters, 1/26/16)
2016 Jan 26, Czech airline Travel Service said it has signed deals to buy 16 new Boeing 737 MAX jets.
(AP, 1/26/16)
2016 Jan 26, In France one in five flights were canceled at Paris airports and other flights faced delays as air traffic controllers staged a walkout and taxi drivers disrupted roads. Paris police fired tear gas and taxi drivers lit bonfires on a major highway amid nationwide strikes and protests over working conditions and competition from non-traditional services such as Uber.
(AP, 1/26/16)
2016 Feb 2, In Somalia a suspected suicide bomber was sucked out of a Daallo Airlines plane. Investigators believed a bomb probably caused the onboard explosion that forced the Airbus A321 to return to Mogadishu for an emergency landing. On May 30 a Somali military court sentenced 10 people it said were behind the bomb blast.
(Reuters, 2/3/16)(Reuters, 5/30/16)
2016 Feb 3, Most flights by Pakistan's ailing national airline were grounded, as striking employees disrupted operations to protest against a government privatization plan.
(Reuters, 2/3/16)
2016 Feb 8, The Montreal-based UN aviation agency said global aviation experts agreed to the first emissions-reduction standards for aircraft in a deal that will take effect with new models in four years, but environmental groups said the carbon dioxide cuts did not go far enough.
(Reuters, 2/8/16)
2016 Feb 16, The United States signed a bilateral agreement authorizing up to 110 scheduled daily flights to Cuba.
(AFP, 2/16/16)
2016 Feb 17, At the Singapore Airshow Airbus and Boeing announced modest aircraft orders that indicated a lull in demand for the big manufacturers.
(AP, 2/17/16)
2016 Feb 19, Virgin Galactic rolled out a new version of its SpaceShipTwo space tourism rocket at Southern California's Mojave Air & Space Port, as it prepared to return to flight testing for the first time since a 2014 accident destroyed the original craft, killing a pilot and setting back the nascent industry.
(AP, 2/19/16)
2016 Mar 23, In Colorado more than 300 flights were canceled at Denver International Airport on Wednesday after freezing snow on power lines from a blizzard triggered a power outage.
(Reuters, 3/23/16)
2016 Mar 28, In Britain some 100,000 homes were left without power due to Storm Katie. High winds caused some 130 flights at Gatwick and Heathrow airports to be diverted or cancelled.
(SFC, 3/29/16, p.A2)
2016 Mar 29, EgyptAir flight MS181 took off from Bourg el-Arab airport just outside Alexandria on a regular route to Cairo when it was hijacked to Cyprus. Hijacker Seif Eldin Mustafa wore a fake explosives belt and was taken into custody after he released all the passengers and crew.
(AP, 3/29/16)(Reuters, 3/29/16)
2016 Apr 3, Brussels Airport reopened with three "symbolic" flights and strict additional checks for passengers, marking a new high-security era for air travel in Belgium after the March 22 attacks by Islamic State suicide bombers.
(AFP, 4/3/16)
2016 Apr 4, Air France decided to allow female flight attendants to refuse to work the company's new route to Iran, beginning April 17, for which they must wear a headscarf.
(AP, 4/4/16)
2016 Apr 14, The European Parliament voted to force airlines to share passenger information with EU countries to help detect jihadists, ending five years of debate that intensified after the Paris and Brussels attacks.
(AFP, 4/14/16)
2016 Apr 15, India said it had suspended the diplomatic passport of embattled tycoon and lawmaker Vijay Mallya, who left the country last March 2 amid pressure from lenders to repay about $1.4 billion in debt owed by his defunct Kingfisher Airlines. On April 18 a Mumbai court issued a warrant for his arrest. In July the airline said its books had vanished.
(Reuters, 4/15/16)(Econ, 4/23/16, p.56)(Econ, 7/9/16, p.55)
2016 Apr 21, The Swiss-made Solar Impulse took off from Hawaii on course to land in Mountain View, Ca. in about 3 days on the 9th leg of its circumnavigation.
(SFC, 4/22/16, p.A8)
2016 Apr 23, Solar Impulse 2, an experimental plane flying around the world without consuming a drop of fuel, landed in California, one leg closer to completing its trailblazing trip. Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard piloted the craft from Hawaii to California.
(AFP, 4/24/16)
2016 Apr 26, German government workers called short-term strikes in the run-up to wage discussions later this week. Lufthansa said it has cancelled 895 flights scheduled for April 27 from six German airports as public-sector workers doing ground handling and security checks were expected to walk off the job.
(AP, 4/26/16)
2016 May 2, Solar Impulse 2 completed the 10th leg of its journey, landing in Arizona after a 16-hour flight from California. The solar-powered airplane was midway through a historic bid to circle the globe.
(AP, 5/3/16)
2016 May 7, In Nevada Airbus completed a test flight of a glider set to eventually travel to the edge of space, in a pioneering step into the stratosphere.
(AFP, 5/7/16)
2016 May 12, In Oklahoma the Swiss-made Solar Impulse 2 landed in Tulsa after taking off from Arizona on the latest leg of its around-the-world journey.
(SFC, 5/14/16, p.A6)
2016 May 21, The Swiss-made Solar Impulse 2 took off from Tulsa and landed at Ohio’s Dayton Int’l. Airport on the latest leg of its around-the-world journey.
(SSFC, 5/22/16, p.A11)
2016 May 23, Boeing Co. said it is selling 100 aircraft worth about $11.3 billion at list prices to Vietnam's VietJet as the airline seeks to expand its international and domestic flights.
(AP, 5/23/16)
2016 May 25, In Pennsylvania the Swiss-made Solar Impulse 2 landed in Allentown 17 hours after taking off from Dayton in the latest leg of its journey around the world.
(SFC, 5/26/16, p.A6)
2016 May 29, German airline Lufthansa said it is suspending its flights to Caracas, citing the difficult economic situation in Venezuela.
(AP, 5/29/16)
2016 Jun 11, The Swiss-made Solar Impulse 2, on a globe-circling voyage that began more than a year ago in the United Arab Emirates, reached a milestone, completing a trip across the United States with a Statue of Liberty fly-by before landing at John F. Kennedy International Airport.
(AP, 6/11/16)
2016 Jun 11, About a quarter of Air France pilots went on strike to demand better working conditions. Up to a fifth of flights were canceled, both domestic and international. Among those affected were flights carrying spectators to cities holding matches for the European Championship soccer tournament. Train drivers and garbage collectors continued their strikes.
(AP, 6/11/16)
2016 Jun 16, The European Commission said Iran's state airline, which has just reached an agreement with Boeing Co to purchase new jetliners, can resume flights in the EU.
(Reuters, 6/16/16)
2016 Jun 19, Iran said it has reached an agreement with American aerospace giant Boeing to purchase 100 aircraft to renew its ageing fleet, though the deal must still be approved by the US government.
(AFP, 6/19/16)
2016 Jun 20, The Solar Impulse 2 aircraft took off from New York's JFK airport and soared over the western Atlantic, one of the most difficult legs of its record-breaking bid to fly across the globe using only solar energy.
(AFP, 6/20/16)
2016 Jun 21, The US FAA announced new aviation rules designed for drones weighing less than 55 pounds. The new rules allow commercial operators to fly drones without special permission. A set of rules known as “part 107" were issued in August.
(SFC, 6/22/16, p.A8)(Econ 6/10/17, TQ p.4)
2016 Jun 23, The Solar Impulse 2 landed in Spain after completing a 71-hour flight from New York in the first "magical" solo transatlantic crossing in a solar-powered airplane.
(AFP, 6/23/16)
2016 Jun 28, China’s first locally produce regional jet made its debut flight carrying 70 passengers. The ARJ21 initiative was launched in 2002 and was scheduled to deliver its first plane in 2007, but that was pushed back due to technical problems.
(AP, 6/28/16)
2016 Jul 7, The US government gave tentative approval for scheduled commercial airline service to Havana from 10 American cities, advancing President Barack Obama's effort to normalize relations with Cuba.
(AP, 7/7/16)
2016 Jul 12, A Chinese civilian aircraft successfully carried out calibration tests on two new airports in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.
(Reuters, 7/12/16)
2016 Jul 13, Two Chinese civilian aircraft landed at two new airports on reefs controlled by China in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. The aircraft then returned to the southern Chinese island province of Hainan.
(Reuters, 7/13/16)
2016 Jul 13, The Solar Impulse 2 landed in Cairo for its penultimate stop as the solar-powered plane nears the end of its marathon tour around the world.
(AFP, 7/13/16)
2016 Jul 14, Qatar Airways announced an agreement to purchase a 49-percent stake in Italy's second largest carrier, Meridiana.
(AP, 7/14/16)
2016 Jul 17, Malaysia Airlines struck a deal to settle damages claims for most victims of its MH17 flight that was shot down over eastern Ukraine two years ago.
(Reuters, 7/17/16)
2016 Jul 20, Southwest Airlines was forced to cancel more than 700 flights because of a faulty router that brought its systems down for 12 hours. Some 2,300 flights were cancelled over the next 24 hours.
(http://tinyurl.com/gmta4ek)(Econ, 8/13/16, p.46)
2016 Jul 25, Turkish Airlines said it has terminated the contracts of 211 employees, joining a government purge of people suspected of links to a US-based cleric. Turkey also ordered the detention of 42 journalists, drawing fire from the European Union.
(AP, 7/25/16)(Reuters, 7/25/16)
2016 Jul 26, In Abu Dhabi Solar Impulse 2 made history as the first airplane to circle the globe powered only by the sun, opening up new possibilities for the future of renewable energy.
(AFP, 7/26/16)
2016 Jul 27, India signed a contract to buy four maritime spy planes from Boeing Co for about $1 billion, aiming to bolster the navy as it tries to check China's presence in the Indian Ocean.
(Reuters, 7/27/16)
2016 Jul 29, Air France cancelled 10 percent of its long-distance flights, during a period of high traffic due to summer vacations, because of a strike by cabin crew.
(AP, 7/29/16)
2016 Jul 29, In Vietnam screens displaying flight information at two major airports were hacked to contain distorted information about the South China Sea and insult Vietnam and the Philippines.
(AP, 7/29/16)
2016 Jul 30, Pakistan arrested at least 12 staff of its national carrier following the discovery of 6 kg (13.23 lb) of heroin in the toilet of an aircraft bound for Dubai.
(Reuters, 8/1/16)
2016 Jul, Natasha Ednan-Laperouse (15), who was allergic to sesame seeds, collapsed on a British Airways flight from London to Nice after eating a baguette from the British sandwich chain Pret A Manger.
(AP, 9/28/18)
2016 Aug 8, Delta canceled more than 700 flights and had 2,600 others delayed, some for hours, after a power outage at its Atlanta headquarters caused many computer systems to crash. The company later blamed a malfunctioning power-control system at its data center.
(AP, 8/9/16)(Econ, 8/13/16, p.46)
2016 Aug 10, Delta fliers faced delays, cancellations and more headaches as the Atlanta-based airline struggled with its computer systems for the third straight day.
(AP, 8/10/16)
2016 Sep 20, Air France canceled its morning flight to Kinshasa amid an escalation of street violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo capital over opposition claims the president wants to extend his mandate.
(Reuters, 9/20/16)
2016 Sep 21, Aviation sources said the United States has started issuing license unblocking the sale of Western passenger jets to Iran.
(Reuters, 9/21/16)
2016 Sep, Turkmenistan opened a new falcon-shaped airport in Ashgabat.
(Econ, 12/17/16, p.36)
2016 Oct, A new 67-meter control tower opened at the San Francisco Int’l. Airport at a cost of $120 million.
(Econ 5/27/17, p.70)
2016 Oct, In California 104 tiny Perdix drones, with a wingspan of 30 cm, were launched from three American fighters and performed a series of maneuvers.
(Econ 6/10/17, TQ p.8)
2016 Nov 17, The US Republican-led House acted to bar the sale of commercial aircraft to Iran. The legislation prohibited the Treasury Department from issuing the licenses US banks would need to complete transactions potentially valued in the billions of dollars.
(SFC, 11/17/16, p.A7)
2016 Nov 22, In Germany cabin crew at Lufthansa's budget unit Eurowings launched a 15-hour strike, causing dozens of flight cancelations, as the German carrier warned customers to prepare for a larger walk-out by pilots the next day.
(AP, 11/22/16)
2016 Nov 23, German airline Lufthansa canceled nearly 900 flights and scrapped another 912 scheduled for Nov 24 after pilots launched a 2-day strike in a pay dispute.
(AP, 11/23/16)
2016 Nov 24, German flagship carrier Lufthansa said it is scrapping 830 flights for tomorrow, grounding more than 100,000 passengers, as a strike by pilots over wages extends to a third day.
(AFP, 11/24/16)
2016 Nov 25, Germany's Lufthansa airline canceled 830 short- and medium-haul flights affecting 100,000 passengers after a pilots' strike entered its third day in a long-running dispute over wages.
(AP, 11/25/16)
2016 Nov 26, In Germany pilots at Lufthansa staged a fourth consecutive day of strikes, with chances of an immediate resolution to the pay dispute looking slim after their union rejected a new offer from the company. The Cockpit union targeted Lufthansa's long-haul services, prompting 137 flight cancellations and affecting some 30,000 passengers.
(AP, 11/26/16)
2016 Nov 28, The World Trade Organization (WTO) ruled that US plane maker Boeing received major illegal tax breaks from Washington state, adding that the federal government should now take action to end that support within months.
(AP, 11/28/16)
2016 Nov 28, The first commercial flight from the US in more than 50 years arrived in Cuba.
(SFC, 11/29/16, p.A2)
2016 Nov 28, Germany-based Lufthansa said it is canceling more than 1,700 flights scheduled for the next two days as a union representing the airline's pilots resumes a campaign of strikes.
(AP, 11/28/16)
2016 Nov 30, German airline Lufthansa said it has made a modified pay offer to pilots as it seeks to put an end to a long-running dispute that's seen a succession of strikes over recent days.
(AP, 11/30/16)
2016 Dec 1, The Bolivian Civil Aviation Authority indefinitely suspended permission for LaMia airline to operate following the deadly crash of one its charter planes in Colombia.
(AP, 12/1/16)
2016 Dec 5, German airline Air Berlin said it is selling its stake in Austrian carrier NIKI to Abu Dhabi-based Etihad for 300 million euros ($319 million).
(AP, 12/5/16)
2016 Dec 5, Polish authorities said Lufthansa and General Electric will jointly invest some 250 million euros ($270 million) in Poland to build a plant that will service aircraft engines starting in 2018.
(AP, 12/5/16)
2016 Dec 8, The Canadian government said its air force will buy 16 Airbus C295W aircraft modified for search and rescue to replace its aging fleet, at a cost of Can $2.4 billion (USD$1.8 billion).
(AFP, 12/8/16)
2016 Dec 8, The European Union banned Iran's Aseman Airlines from operating within the EU due to safety concerns, in a blow to Tehran which is buying new jets to renew the country's ageing fleet following the lifting of long-term sanctions.
(Reuters, 12/8/16)
2016 Dec 11, Iran's flag carrier finalized a major deal with US plane maker Boeing Co. to buy $16.6 billion worth of passenger planes in one of the most tangible benefits yet for the Islamic Republic from last year's landmark nuclear agreement.
(AP, 12/11/16)
2016 Dec 12, FlightAware said 190 US flights were canceled today after 1,800 were grounded a day earlier, mostly at Chicago's two main airports.
(Reuters, 12/12/16)
2016 Dec 14, Alaska Airlines completed its purchase of Virgin America.
(SFC, 12/15/16, p.C1)
2016 Dec 14, The Unite union said thousands of cabin crew working for British Airways have voted overwhelmingly in favor of strike action in a pay dispute and could walk out after Dec 21.
(Reuters, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 16, German airline Lufthansa said it is launching a code-sharing agreement with Abu Dhabi-based Etihad, a key financial backer of troubled rival Air Berlin, from which Lufthansa will lease 38 aircraft for two of its subsidiaries.
(AP, 12/16/16)
2016 Dec 18, Chinese authorities in Tianjin grounded dozens of flights and closed most highways after severe smog blanketed the city, one of more than more than 40 in China's northeast to issue pollution warnings in the past 48 hours.
(Reuters, 12/18/16)
2016 Dec 23, Czech airline Travel Service signed a deal to buy five more new Boeing 737 MAX jets. This brought to 30 the total number of such Boeing aircraft that Travel Service has recently agreed to buy.
(AP, 1/4/17)
2016 Dec 23, An Airbus A320 on an internal flight in Libya was diverted to Malta. Hijackers forced the airliner to land in Malta then freed all their hostages unharmed and surrendered after declaring their loyalty to Libya's late leader Muammar Gaddafi.
(Reuters, 12/23/16)
2016 Dec 28, Qatar Airways said it has purchased a 10-percent stake in Chile's LATAM Airlines Group for $608 million.
(AP, 12/29/16)
2017 Jan 6, In Florida US Army National Guard veteran Esteban Santiago (26) of Anchorage, Alaska, shot and killed five people and wounded six at the Fort Lauderdale airport. He opened fire with a 9mm semiautomatic handgun that he appears to have legally checked on a flight from Alaska. In May, 2018, Santiago pleaded guilty to 11 of 22 counts. Santiago avoided a death penalty and was sentenced to life in prison.
(AP, 1/7/17)(SFC, 5/23/18, p.A6)(SFC, 8/18/18, p.A7)
2017 Jan 7, In Turkey a heavy snowstorm paralyzed life in Istanbul, with hundreds of flights cancelled and the Bosporus closed to shipping traffic.
(AFP, 1/7/17)
2017 Jan 9, Turkish Airlines canceled 277 domestic and international flights to and from Istanbul's two airports due to heavy snow.
(AP, 1/9/17)
2017 Jan 12, Dozens of flights at London's Heathrow Airport were canceled amid forecasts of snow and strong winds in Britain.
(AP, 1/12/17)
2017 Jan 16, Low-cost Saudi carrier flynas signed an $8.6-billion deal with European plane manufacturer Airbus to purchase 80 A320neo single-aisle jets.
(AFP, 1/16/17)
2017 Jan 19, In France it was announced that aircraft-engine company Safran has agreed to buy seat and cabin manufacturer Zodiac Aerospace in a deal worth 8.5 billion euros ($9.1 billion).
(AP, 1/19/17)
2017 Jan 29, An American Airlines flight arrived in Miami from Bogota, Colombia. It was flagged for maintenance and sent to Tulsa where seven bricks of cocaine were found in the nose gear.
(SFC, 1/31/17, p.A5)
2017 Feb 1, In the Netherlands a major computer malfunction crippled traffic at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport for hours, causing delays or cancellations of more than 100 flights at one of Europe's largest transportation hubs. The outage was caused by faulty hardware.
(Reuters, 2/1/17)
2017 Feb 2, American Airlines formally opened an office in Havana, and an executive said the company will move ahead with its plans for Cuba despite uncertainty over what President Donald Trump's administration will bring.
(AP, 2/2/17)
2017 Feb 9, The Federal Aviation Administration canceled all inbound and outbound flights at John F. Kennedy Airport amid a winter storm that barreled its way through the northeastern United States. More than 3,500 flights were canceled across the region.
(Reuters, 2/9/17)(SFC, 2/10/17, p.A9)
2017 Feb 13, In New England some 675 US flights were canceled, scores of vehicle crashes reported and schools and government offices shuttered as the third winter storm in five days slammed the area.
(Reuters, 2/13/17)
2017 Feb 15, German airline Lufthansa said it has struck a deal to solve a bitter labor dispute with pilots that over five years has cost it an estimated half a billion dollars and more than a dozen strikes.
(AP, 2/15/17)
2017 Feb 16, In Germany a union representing ground staff has called on its members to go on strike at Berlin's two airports, leading to the cancelation of some 210 flights.
(AP, 2/16/17)
2017 Mar 8, Nigeria's capital was cut off by air, as Abuja airport closed for at least six weeks for repairs, forcing flights to divert and lengthening travel times for passengers.
(AFP, 3/8/17)
2017 Mar 14, Winter Storm Stella dumped snow and sleet across the northeastern United States, forcing airlines to ground flights and schools to cancel classes. Airlines canceled about 5,700 flights across the United States. Airports in New York, Boston, Baltimore, Washington and Philadelphia were hit the hardest.
(AP, 3/14/17)(AFP, 3/14/17)
2017 Mar 14, Canada's Pearson International Airport canceled more than a hundred flights as a late winter storm brought more snow to southern Ontario, forcing several colleges to suspend classes.
(Reuters, 3/14/17)
2017 Mar 14, Berlin's airports remained paralyzed after ground staff extended a strike, stepping up pressure in a dispute over pay that has already caused the cancellation of more than 1,000 flights since March 10.
(Reuters, 3/14/17)
2017 Mar 17, The European Union re-imposed a fine on 11 air cargo companies totaling $835 million after the original decision was thrown out by a high court on a procedural issue.
(AP, 3/17/17)
2017 Mar 21, The United States imposed restrictions on carry-on electronic devices bigger than cellphones on planes coming from 10 airports eight in Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East and North Africa, in response to unspecified security threats. Britain soon followed with similar measures to become effective on March25.
(Reuters, 3/21/17)(AP, 3/22/17)
2017 Mar 21, EgyptAir said it has received instructions from US transport authorities imposing restrictions on electronic devices carried by incoming travelers and will bring them into effect on March 24.
(Reuters, 3/21/17)
2017 Mar 27, Lufthansa announced a code-sharing deal with Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific under which the German airline and its Swiss and Austrian Airlines units will offer new connections to Australia and New Zealand.
(AP, 3/27/17)
2017 Mar 27, Fraport Greece said the European Union is clearing a 280 million euro loan from the European Investment Bank to the company, which won the tender to upgrade and operate 14 regional Greek airports.
(AP, 3/28/17)
2017 Mar 28, Air Koryo, North Korea's national carrier, connected Pyongyang with the northeastern Chinese city of Dandong on a twice-weekly inaugural flight.
(Reuters, 3/28/17)
2017 Apr 9, Dr. David Dao (69) was yanked out of Flight 3411 at Chicago O'Hare Int’l. Airport by airport security to make way for United employees. Dao lost two front teeth and suffered a broken nose and a concussion. Video of the incident went viral. Worldwide backlash hit the airline's share price and prompted an apology from the company chief executive.
(Reuters, 4/12/17)(SFC, 4/14/17, p.A6)
2017 Apr 11, In Puerto Rico federal law enforcement broke up a $4 million drug-trafficking ring. Most of the 26 indicted suspects were arrested before dawn at the Luis Munoz Marin airport in San Juan.
(SFC, 4/12/17, p.A2)
2017 Apr 19, The Dubai government-owned Emirates airline slashed its flights to the United States by 20%, blaming a drop in demand on tougher US security measures a Trump administration attempts to ban travellers from some Muslim majority nations.
(SFC, 4/20/17, p.C3)
2017 Apr 20, Lilium, a German startup, completed a successful test over Bavaria of a small electric plane capable of flying up to 300 km per hr.
(Econ, 4/29/17, p.51)
2017 Apr 24, In Italy some two-thirds of Alitalia employees in a referendum nixed the industrial plan the government had linked to the airline’s survival. Alitalia has been losing 2 million euros ($2.2 million) daily and faced bankruptcy.
(AP, 4/25/17)
2017 Apr 26, South African Airways cancelled nearly three dozen flights, most of them domestic, because of a strike by some cabin crew. A labor court ruled that the strike was not allowed under terms of the crewmembers' contracts.
(AP, 4/26/17)(AP, 4/27/17)
2017 Apr 27, United Airlines said it will raise the payment limit to customers who give up seats on oversold flights to $10,000. Lawyers said United has reached a settlement with passenger David Dao (69), who was injured when he was yanked from a United flight on April 9.
(SFC, 4/28/17, p.C1)
2017 May 5, The first large Chinese-made passenger jetliner, the single-aisle C919, completed its maiden test flight, a milestone in China's long-term goal to break into the Western-dominated market. The plane can be configured for 155-175 passengers.
(AP, 5/5/17)
2017 May 9, In Florida Spirit Airlines cancelled nine flights blaming the decision on pilots’ failure to show up at Fort Lauderdale.
(SFC, 5/10/17, p.A5)
2017 May 11, In Portugal thousands of angry passengers who were stranded in Lisbon's international airport by a refueling system failure a day earlier and had to sleep on the floor and luggage belts were finally able to travel.
(Reuters, 5/11/17)
2017 May 22, Pakistani authorities found 20 kg (44 lbs.) of heroin on a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight bound for London during a search at Islamabad airport.
(Reuters, 5/22/17)
2017 May 27, British Airways canceled all flights from London's Heathrow and Gatwick airports as a global IT failure caused severe disruption for travelers on a busy holiday weekend. BA refunds were later estimated to cost as much as £150m ($192m)
(AP, 5/27/17)(Econ 6/3/17, p.58)
2017 May 27, Airbus began building its first helicopter assembly plant in China, and the European plane maker planned to produce 18 machines a year there in hopes the country will soon open up its low-altitude airspace.
(AFP, 5/28/17)
2017 May 28, British Airways resumed some flights from Britain's two biggest airports after a global computer system failure a day earlier created chaos, but hundreds of passengers were still waiting for hours at London Heathrow.
(Reuters, 5/28/17)
2017 May 30, Romanian air traffic controllers staged a four-hour strike to demand better working conditions, leading to some cancellations and delays. The strike ended after officials struck an agreement with trade unions.
(AP, 5/30/17)
2017 Jun 5, US Pres. Donald Trump called for separating air traffic control operations from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Opponents worried the plan would give too much power to the airline industries.
(SFC, 6/6/17, p.A7)
2017 Jun 10, Boeing said Iran's Aseman Airlines has finalized an agreement to buy 30 Boeing 737 MAX jets for $3.0 billion, with an option to buy 30 more.
(AFP, 6/10/17)
2017 Jun 16, Italians and tourists alike struggled to get around as a nationwide transport strike forced the cancellation of Alitalia flights, the closure of subway stations and the suspension of bus service.
(AP, 6/16/17)
2017 Jun 19, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani inaugurated the first Afghanistan-India air corridor during a ceremony at the Kabul International Airport — a direct route that bypasses Pakistan and is meant to improve commerce.
(AP, 6/19/17)
2017 Jun 19, The European Union approved 377 million euros ($420 million) in state aid from France and Germany for the development of a new Airbus helicopter.
(AP, 6/19/17)
2017 Jun 21, In Israel an 83-year-old woman won a lawsuit against the national airline after being asked to move seats on a transatlantic flight because an ultra-Orthodox man did not want to sit next to her.
(AFP, 6/22/17)
2017 Jun 22, American Airlines said state-owned Qatar Airways is attempting to buy a 10 percent stake, triggering US antitrust oversight of deals that size.
(AP, 6/22/17)
2017 Jun 29, Tighter restrictions on travel to the US from six mostly Muslim nations took effect this evening after the Supreme Court gave its go-ahead for a limited version of President Donald Trump's plans for a ban. Visa applicants from the six countries — and all refugees — will need to show close family or business ties to the United States.
(AP, 6/29/17)
2017 Jul 2, Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, became the first city to be exempt from a US ban on laptop computers being in airplane cabins.
(AP, 7/2/17)
2017 Jul 4, Saudi Arabian Airlines (Saudia) said it expects the in-cabin ban on laptops and other large electronics on direct flights to the United States to be lifted by July 19.
(Reuters, 7/4/17)
2017 Jul 4, Turkish Transport Minister Ahmet Arslan said the United States is set to lift a ban on carrying large electronic devices, such as laptops, in the cabin of US-bound flights from Turkey's main international airport.
(AFP, 7/4/17)
2017 Jul 5, Airbus said it has won a major order from China of 140 planes for $22.8 billion, during a visit by President Xi Jinping to Berlin.
(AP, 7/5/17)
2017 Jul 5, Turkish and Emirates Airlines said the United States has lifted the in-cabin ban on laptops and other large electronic devices on US-bound flights from Dubai and Istanbul.
(Reuters, 7/5/17)
2017 Jul 6, Qatar Airways said passengers traveling to the United States can now carry their laptops and other large electronics on board, ending a three month in-cabin ban on devices for the Doha-based airline.
(Reuters, 7/6/17)
2017 Jul 9, Jordan’s national airline joined other Middle Eastern countries in lifting a ban on laptops in airplane cabins after complying with US security guidelines.
(AP, 7/9/17)
2017 Jul 10, Spain's Iberia airline said it has decided to scrap a pregnancy test for new employees after it was fined 25,000 euros ($29,000) by a regional government for discrimination.
(AP, 7/10/17)
2017 Jul 12, American Airlines notified Qatar Airways and Abu Dhabi's Etihad of its decision to no longer share flights with them over what it described as "illegal subsidies".
(AFP, 7/13/17)
2017 Jul 13, Lithuanian aviation officials said that hundreds of thousands of airline passengers will be diverted for more than a month as the country's main airport near the capital will be shut for a major renovation as of August 17.
(AP, 7/13/17)
2017 Jul 14, London-based budget airline easyJet said it is opening a base in Vienna, Austria, to prepare for the potential effects of Brexit.
(AP, 7/14/17)
2017 Jul 15, Libya’s Benina international airport officially reopened for commercial flights amid a heavy security presence after a three-year closure due to fighting in Benghazi.
(Reuters, 7/15/17)
2017 Jul 17, The US Transportation Security Administration said it was lifting a ban on passengers on Saudi Arabian Airlines carrying large electronics like laptops onboard US-bound flights, the last carrier under the restrictions.
(Reuters, 7/17/17)
2017 Jul 19, Saudi Arabia's national carrier said a US ban on laptops and tablets in the cabins of its US-bound planes has been lifted.
(AFP, 7/19/17)
2017 Jul 28, Britain lifted a ban on passengers carrying electronic devices in the cabin on some flights to the UK from Turkey after new security measures were introduced, saying other restrictions would be looked at on a case by case basis.
(Reuters, 7/28/17)
2017 Jul 29, Australian police foiled "Islamic-inspired" plans for a bomb attack on an aircraft during counter-terrorism raids in which two Lebanese-Australian fathers and their sons were arrested in several Sydney suburbs. Police later said one man sent his unsuspecting brother to Sydney airport to catch an Etihad Airways flight carrying a home-made bomb disguised as a meat-mincer built at the direction of a senior Islamic State commander. On August 8 Khaled Merhi (39) one of the four arrested men, was charged with possession of a prohibited weapon and granted bail.
(AP, 7/29/17)(Reuters, 7/30/17)(SFC, 8/1/17, p.A2)(Reuters, 8/4/17)(AP, 8/6/17)
2017 Jul, Australian-Lebanese dual citizen Amer Khayat was arrested in Lebanon days after Australian authorities foiled an alleged plot to down an Etihad flight bound for Abu Dhabi. He was released in 2019 after a military court said he was innocent in the case. Two of Khayat's brothers were on trial in Australia for the plot. The plan involved detonating a bomb concealed in a meat grinder on a flight from Sydney on July 15, 2017, to the United Arab Emirates capital Abu Dhabi, but it was abandoned when a bag with the bomb inside was too heavy to be taken aboard as carry-on luggage.
(AP, 9/20/19)
2017 Aug 3, Australian police charged two men with planning a terrorist act, over their role in a foiled "Islamic-inspired" plot to bring down an airplane.
(Reuters, 8/3/17)
2017 Aug 4, Britain lifted a ban on personal electronic devices for flights from Amman's Queen Alia International Airport to the United Kingdom.
(AFP, 8/4/17)
2017 Aug 4, In Spain holidaymakers faced delays and long queues at Barcelona's El Prat airport, the first day of strikes by security staff that may be stepped up in coming weeks.
(Reuters, 8/4/17)
2017 Aug 6, In Spain workers handling carry-on luggage checks at Barcelona's airport staged a second day of partial strikes, causing long lines for passengers at one of Europe's most popular airports.
(AP, 8/6/17)
2017 Aug 15, Germany's second largest airline, Air Berlin, filed for bankruptcy protection after its main shareholder, Abu Dhabi-based Etihad, said it would make no more financing available following years of unsuccessful turnaround attempts.
(AP, 8/15/17)
2017 Aug 15, In Iraq a spokesman for the Supreme Judicial Council said Samir Kubba, the director general of Iraqi Airways, has been arrested and referred to trial on graft charges.
(Reuters, 8/15/17)
2017 Aug 18, South Africa grounded an Air Zimbabwe flight at Johannesburg's main international airport after South African authorities concluded it was not in compliance with civil aviation rules.
(AP, 8/19/17)
2017 Aug 19, Zimbabwe blocked flights by South Africa's government-owned airline amid tensions over allegations that Zimbabwe's first lady assaulted a young model at a luxury hotel in Johannesburg.
(AP, 8/19/17)
2017 Aug 20, Saudi Arabia media said Qatar has blocked Saudi planes from transporting hajj pilgrims, after Riyadh reopened the border despite a major diplomatic crisis roiling the Gulf.
(AFP, 8/20/17)
2017 Sep 1, Egypt's Ministry of Civil Aviation said British authorities have lifted a ban on carry-on electronic devices on planes arriving from Cairo airport.
(Reuters, 9/1/17)
2017 Sep 12, Bankrupt German airline Air Berlin said its existence is threatened by an apparent wildcat strike, after 200 pilots called in sick at short notice.
(AP, 9/12/17)
2017 Sep 14, In Luxembourg Ryanair lost an EU court battle in which the airline had sought to continue forcing cabin crew based outside Ireland to take their disputes to Irish courts, in a case with implications across the low-cost airline sector.
(Reuters, 9/14/17)
2017 Sep 17, Russia and Iraq restored scheduled commercial airline services for the first time since 2004, in what officials hailed as a sign of stability returning to the war-torn country.
(AFP, 9/17/17)
2017 Sep 17, State-owned Saudi Air Navigation Services (SANS) announced that it was offering theoretical and practical training to 80 women per year to prepare them for work in the air traffic control sector.
(Reuters, 9/18/17)
2017 Sep 18, Irish budget airline Ryanair was under pressure to provide more information to travelers after canceling up to 50 flights a day over the next six weeks because it "messed up" its pilots' holiday schedules.
(AP, 9/18/17)
2017 Sep 27, Irish budget airline Ryanair cancelled another 18,000 flights, deepening its woes over its mismanagement of pilots' holiday schedules.
(AP, 9/27/17)
2017 Sep 27, Turkey said it will suspend flights to the northern Iraqi cities of Erbil and Sulaimaniya starting on 1500 GMT on Sep 29, in response to a Kurdish independence referendum held earlier this week.
(Reuters, 9/27/17)
2017 Sep 28, British PM Theresa May warned of growing protectionism in the global economy, slamming plane maker Boeing for its role in the US government proposal to impose a massive tariff that could cost thousands of jobs in Northern Ireland.
(AP, 9/28/17)
2017 Sep 29, In Iraq the last international flight left Erbil airport as the Baghdad government imposed an air ban in retaliation for an independence vote by Iraqi Kurds that has drawn widespread opposition from foreign powers.
(Reuters, 9/29/17)
2017 Oct 1, Qatar Airways said it has completed the acquisition of a 49 percent stake in Italy's AQA Holding, the new parent company of Italy's second largest carrier Meridiana.
(AP, 10/1/17)
2017 Oct 2, British authorities scrambled to bring home 110,000 travelers after Monarch Airlines collapsed, cancelling all flights by what had been Britain's fifth biggest carrier with 2,100 employees. Monarch Chief Executive Andrew Swaffield said the airline's troubles stemmed from recent terror attacks in Egypt and Tunisia and the "decimation" of the tourist trade in Turkey.
(AP, 10/2/17)
2017 Oct 6, Czech airline Travel Service said it has acquired a majority stake in the national carrier, Czech Airlines, known as CSA. Travel Service reached a deal with the Czech state and Korean Air to buy their CSA stakes.
(AP, 10/6/17)
2017 Oct 10, Vietnam's flag carrier and Air France signed an agreement to deepen their cooperation to tap the growing travel market between Vietnam and Europe.
(AP, 10/10/17)
2017 Oct 12, In Germany Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr said that the airline will sign an agreement to buy large parts of the bankrupt carrier Air Berlin.
(AP, 10/12/17)
2017 Oct 14, The first commercial flight arrived in St. Helena, a South Atlantic island that until recently was only accessible by boat and where Napoleon Bonaparte spent his last years in exile. The SA Airlink plane conducted 13 flight trials at the St. Helena airport in August. Some charter and medical evacuation flights have used the airport in the past year. The population of more than 4,000 people is now heavily dependent on British government support.
(AP, 10/14/17)
2017 Oct 16, Turkey announced that it is closing its airspace to flights to and from Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region and have Baghdad take control of the Iraqi side of its main border crossing.
(AP, 10/16/17)(Reuters, 10/16/17)
2017 Oct 18, Saudi budget carrier flynas made the first commercial flight from Riyadh to Baghdad since 1990, as ties with neighboring Iraq show signs of improvement.
(AFP, 10/18/17)
2017 Oct 26, New security screenings for all passengers on US-bound flights began today, with airlines worldwide questioning flyers about their trip and their luggage in the latest Trump administration decision affecting global travel.
(AP, 10/26/17)
2017 Oct 27, Air Berlin, Germany's second-biggest airline, ended operations after 38 years with an evening Munich-to-Berlin flight.
(AP, 10/28/17)
2017 Oct 28, British budget airline easyJet said it has reached an agreement with Air Berlin to buy parts of the bankrupt German airline as part of a 40-million euro ($46 million) deal.
(AP, 10/28/17)
2017 Oct 31, In Argentina a strike by workers of its two largest airlines caused the cancellation of dozens of flights and the grounding of tens of thousands of passengers. Unions representing state-run carrier Aerolineas Argentinas and sister company Austral Lineas Aereas demanded a 26 percent salary hike in line with the inflation rate.
(AP, 10/31/17)
2017 Nov 1, Bangladesh Biman pilot Sabbir Enam (31) was formally arrested a day after being detained for suspected of terrorism offences, including plotting to keep passengers hostage and flying a plane into the houses of top government leaders.
(Reuters, 11/1/17)
2017 Nov 12, Long-haul carrier Emirates purchased 40 American-made Boeing 787-10 Dreamliners at the start of the biennial Dubai Air Show, a $15.1 billion deal.
(AP, 11/12/17)
2017 Nov 14, Rebel authorities in Yemen said that a Saudi-led air strike had destroyed a navigation station at Sanaa international airport, which is critical to receiving already limited aid shipments.
(AFP, 11/14/17)
2017 Nov 15, At the Dubai Air Show Airbus signed a $49.5 billion deal to sell 430 airplanes to the Phoenix-based private equity firm that owns Frontier Airlines. Boeing reached an agreement with low-cost carrier FlyDubai to sell 225 Boeing 737 MAX 10 aircraft — a deal valued at $27 billion.
(AP, 11/15/17)
2017 Nov 17, Lebanon's national carrier Middle East Airlines (MEA) lifted restrictions on carry-on electronic devices on planes traveling from Beirut to London.
(AP, 11/17/17)
2017 Nov 21, China’s state-owned airline Air China suspended flights between Beijing and North Korea due to a lack of demand.
(AP, 11/24/17)
2017 Nov 24, A UN official said the Saudi-led coalition has authorized the resumption of UN flights to the Yemeni capital starting Nov. 25.
(AP, 11/24/17)
2017 Nov 28, Airbus, Siemens and Rolls-Royce said they are teaming up to develop a hybrid passenger plane that would use a single electric turbofan along with three conventional jet engines running on aviation fuel.
(AP, 11/28/17)
2017 Dec 2, Airlines canceled more flights departing the Indonesian holiday island of Bali, citing forecasts of deteriorating flying conditions due to a risk of volcanic ash from the erupting Mount Agung volcano.
(Reuters, 12/2/17)
2017 Dec 10, The heaviest snowfall to hit Britain in four years caused widespread disruption, with roads becoming hazardous and flights grounded following runway closures.
(AFP, 12/10/17)
2017 Dec 14, Delta said that it will order 100 Airbus A321neo jets with a sticker price of $12.7 billion and take an option to buy another 100 jets.
(AP, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 15, Russia and Egypt signed a deal in Moscow to resume flights between Moscow and Cairo starting from February, after more than a two-year break.
(AP, 12/15/17)
2017 Dec 17, A fire caused an 11-hour power outage at Atlanta’s airport in Georgia leading to the cancellation of more than 1,500 flights.
(SFC, 12/20/17, p.A5)
2017 Dec 17, A second prototype of China's home-built C919 passenger jet took off for a test flight in Shanghai, another step forward in the country's ambitions to muscle in to the global jet market.
(Reuters, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 21, The EU approved a deal that will see Lufthansa take over part of defunct Air Berlin, formerly the second-largest carrier in Germany.
(AP, 12/21/17)
2017 Dec 21, Cho Hyun-ah, the former Korean Air executive, will avoid jail as South Korea's top court upheld her suspended prison term for her onboard "nut rage" tantrum that delayed a flight in 2014.
(AP, 12/21/17)
2017 Dec 24, China's domestically developed AG600, the world's largest amphibious aircraft, performed its maiden flight from an airport on the shores of the South China Sea, the latest step in a military modernization program.
(Reuters, 12/24/17)
2017 Dec 24, Tunisia suspended all flights by Emirates to and from Tunis after the Dubai-based airline barred Tunisian women from boarding its flights last week. UAE's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash soon replied on Twitter that the ban was temporary and due to security reasons.
(Reuters, 12/25/17)(AP, 12/25/17)
2017 Dec 25, The union of Egyptian flight attendants angrily responded to criticism by lawmaker Galila Othman over the weight and age of some female attendants employed by the national carrier, saying her comments amounted to discrimination.
(AP, 12/25/17)
2017 Dec 29, British Airways owner IAG announced it will snap up bankrupt Austrian airline Niki, outlining plans to keep on hundreds of the carrier's staff.
(AP, 12/29/17)
2018 Jan 4, Four people were reported killed in North Carolina and South Carolina after their vehicles ran off snow-covered roads. More than 5,000 flights were reported cancelled across the US.
(SFC, 1/5/18, p.A5)
2018 Jan 4, It was reported that Poland has created a new, state-owned aviation company, the Polish Aviation Group, based on the national airline, LOT, that aims to capitalize on a planned major airport and on the region's growing air travel market.
(AP, 1/4/18)
2018 Jan 4, Pres. Vladimir Putin authorized the resumption of regular Russian airline flights to Cairo, according to a document published on the Moscow government's website. It said the clearance for flights to resume was effective from Jan. 2.
(Reuters, 1/4/18)
2018 Jan 6, It was reported that Serbia's government has picked France's Vinci Airports for a 25-year concession to run the main Belgrade airport, the biggest in western Balkans.
(AP, 1/6/18)
2018 Jan 8, A bid by International Airlines Group, the parent of British Airways and Iberia, to acquire much of bankrupt Air Berlin's Niki division hit a legal stumbling block with an appeals court ruling. The Berlin state court decided that a Berlin administrative court did not have the jurisdiction to handle the insolvency of Austria-based Niki and that it's up to an Austrian court to decide.
(AP, 1/8/18)
2018 Jan 17, The French government abandoned plans for a new 580 million euro ($710 million) airport in western France in favor of expanding an existing airport in Nantes, a sensitive decision that past governments had shirked for decades.
(Reuters, 1/17/18)
2018 Jan 17, Air France-KLM canceled 228 European flights to and from Amsterdam's Schiphol airport planned for Jan. 18, as a storm is expected to disrupt traffic at the Dutch national airport.
(Reuters, 1/17/18)
2018 Jan 18, The Dubai-based Emirates said it struck a deal with Airbus to buy 20 of its A380 double-decker jets, with the option to buy 16 more, in a deal worth $16 billion.
(AP, 1/18/18)
2018 Jan 20, In Afghanistan gunmen in army uniforms stormed Kabul's Intercontinental Hotel late today and battled Afghan Special Forces through the night killing at least 22 people and wounding 12 more. All five attackers were killed. Afghanistan's Kam Air was left reeling after nine personnel including five pilots were killed in the Taliban attack.
(Reuters, 1/21/18)(AFP, 1/22/18)
2018 Jan 20, In Libya the Mitiga airport serving the capital resumed flights following a five-day suspension after deadly clashes around the facility that also damaged planes on the tarmac.
(AFP, 1/20/18)
2018 Jan 29, The African Union announced it has launched a new aviation deregulation scheme as more than 40 leaders from across the continent meet in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa for their annual summit.
(AP, 1/29/18)
2018 Jan 30, The United States and Qatar inked a deal to resolve a years-old quarrel over alleged airline subsidies, as Qatar's government works to defuse tensions with the Trump administration.
(AP, 1/30/18)
2018 Jan 30, Dublin-based Ryanair said it has signed an agreement to recognize the British Airline Pilots Association that reverses its historic hostility towards trade unions.
(AFP, 1/30/18)
2018 Jan 27, Dominican Republic officials announced that they were suspending Pawa Dominicana's operations at the Santo Domingo airport for at least 90 days because the company owes $3 million in taxes and airport fees to the government and $5 million to private contractors. Passengers arriving on other airlines for connections with Pawa soon found themselves without a way to reach their final destinations
(AP, 2/2/18)
2018 Feb 6, Boeing announced more than $900 million in orders at the Singapore Airshow from companies in the region and beyond.
(AP, 2/6/18)
2018 Feb 6, Belgium's foreign ministry said the Democratic Republic of Congo has ordered Belgium to close a consulate and cut flights by Brussels Airlines, in a further deterioration of relations between Belgium and its former colony.
(Reuters, 2/6/18)
2018 Feb 9, A major winter storm pounded the US Midwest and forced cancellation of hundreds of flights as heavy snow and plummeting temperatures threatened to bring travel to a standstill across the region. Winter weather this week killed several people in accidents in the Midwest, including six in Iowa, two in Missouri and one in Montana.
(Reuters, 2/9/18)
2018 Feb 11, In Dubai Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, the Emirates chairman and CEO of Emirates, and Mikhail Houari, president of Airbus Middle East signed a $16 billion purchase of the Airbus A380 superjumbo commercial airliner.
(AFP, 2/11/18)
2018 Feb 14, Two airport vehicles collided on the airfield at London's Heathrow Airport, killing a British Airways engineer and injuring another man.
(AP, 2/14/18)
2018 Feb 26, Two presumed stowaways died in Ecuador after they fell from the landing gear of a New York-bound plane.
(AP, 2/26/18)
2018 Mar 1, Heavy snowfall and deadly blizzards lashed Europe. Exceptional snow and wind forced airports to close in Scotland, Switzerland and France and stranded several hundred drivers in their cars.
(AFP, 3/1/18)
2018 Mar 7, The second winter storm within a week crept into New York and surrounding states. New York’s three major airlines reported a total of 1,431 canceled flights, about 40 percent of their normally scheduled flights. The governors of New Jersey and Pennsylvania declared states of emergency.
(Reuters, 3/7/18)
2018 Mar 7, Air India said Saudi Arabia has given it permission to fly between New Delhi and Tel Aviv over Saudi airspace, ending a 70-year ban and marking a diplomatic shift.
(Reuters, 3/7/18)
2018 Mar 9, Turkish Airlines confirmed plans to buy at least 50 wide-body aircraft from Airbus and Boeing as the flag carrier ramps up its ambitions ahead of a move to a new Istanbul airport.
(AFP, 3/10/18)
2018 Mar 10, Direct flights between Iran and Serbia resumed when an IranAir jet touched down at Belgrade's Nikola Tesla airport following a gap of 27 years.
(AFP, 3/10/18)
2018 Mar 16, Egypt's national carrier EgyptAir said it would resume direct flights between Cairo and Moscow, three years after they were halted following the bombing of a Russian charter jet over the Sinai.
(AFP, 3/16/18)
2018 Mar 17, In New York a Fly Jamaica Airways crew member Hugh Hall was arrested at JFK airport and agents seized about 9 pounds of cocaine taped to his legs, with a street value of about $160,000.
(AP, 3/22/18)
2018 Mar 18, A second day of icy weather led London's Heathrow Airport to cancel more than 100 flights and disrupted the homecoming celebrations of Ireland's all-conquering rugby team.
(AFP, 3/18/18)
2018 Mar 20, Direct international flights resumed from Sulaimaniyah airport in Iraqi Kurdistan, a week after Baghdad lifted an almost six-month-long blockade on the region's foreign air links.
(AFP, 3/20/18)
2018 Mar 23, Turkey opened its airspace to flights from northern Iraq's Erbil. Flights from Sulaimaniya were not included in the plan.
(Reuters, 3/23/18)
2018 Mar 25, The maiden flight of a new non-stop regular passenger service between Australia and Britain touched down at London's Heathrow Airport. The new link with Perth, a 14,498-km (9,009-mile) journey, is around three hours quicker than routes that involve stopovers in the Middle East to change planes or refuel.
(AP, 3/25/18)
2018 Mar 29, In Lebanon the world's largest passenger jet, an Airbus A380, landed at Beirut's international airport, bringing with it hope for a revival of Lebanon's vital tourism sector.
(AP, 3/28/18)
2018 Mar 30, Air France staff went on strike for the third time in a month, forcing the airline to cancel a quarter of flights. Lawyers were also set to strike nationwide against reforms that they say will over-centralize France's court system.
(AFP, 3/30/18)
2018 Apr 3, It was reported that Timothy J. Cislo, a former US Federal Aviation Administration safety inspector, pleaded guilty in Guam last week to three counts of honest services wire fraud. Cislo was accused of issuing certificates to Hansen Helicopters Inc. without inspecting the helicopters in exchange for an airplane for his personal use.
(AP, 4/3/18)
2018 Apr 7, Air France cancelled hundreds of its flights as pilots, cabin crew and ground staff pursued a fifth day of strikes aimed at securing higher pay.
(AFP, 4/7/18)
2018 Apr 10, In France air traffic was severely disrupted as the country's biggest airline Air France was forced to cancel one in four flights, in the sixth round of strikes launched by its employees since February.
(AFP, 4/10/18)
2018 Apr 10, In Germany tens of thousands of air passengers were stranded as workers at airlines Lufthansa staged strikes that crippled traffic.
(AFP, 4/10/18)
2018 Apr 11, Striking Air France pilots and cabin staff insisted they weren't backing down, as their latest walkout forced the cancellation of some 30 percent of the airline's flights worldwide.
(AP, 4/11/18)
2018 Apr 12, Egypt and Russia resumed direct flights, more than two-and-a-half years after they were suspended in the wake of a bombing that brought down a Russian passenger plane over the Sinai Peninsula.
(AP, 4/12/18)
2018 Apr 12, It was reported that Hassan al-Kontar, a Syrian man, said he has been stranded at the main airport serving the Malaysian capital for over a month after being denied entry to several countries, and begged for help to escape.
(AFP, 4/12/18)
2018 Apr 16, In South Korea Korean Air Lines said it has suspended Cho Hyun-min, aka Emily Cho, one of its chairman's daughters from her marketing work after she threw a tantrum at a business meeting last month, triggering public outrage and a police investigation. She is the younger sister of another Korean Air executive whose onboard "nut rage" outburst delayed a flight in 2014.
(AP, 4/16/18)
2018 Apr 17, A Southwest Airlines Co. jet landed in Philadelphia after an engine blew up in mid air, killing a passenger in the first deadly US commercial airline accident in nine years. The engine explosion occurred about 20 minutes after the Dallas-bound Southwest Flight 1380 with 149 on board took off from New York's LaGuardia Airport.
(Reuters, 4/18/18)(SFC, 4/17/18, p.A7)
2018 Apr 19, The head of the consular section of the US Embassy in Moscow told Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper that it was having difficulties issuing urgent visas to Russian pilots because of a shortage of staff.
(Reuters, 4/20/18)
2018 Apr 23, Florida-based Silver Airways said it has bought Puerto Rico-based Seaborne Airlines, the Caribbean's largest regional airline.
(AP, 4/24/18)
2018 Apr 23, South Korea-based Korean Air Lines said that two daughters of its chairman will resign from their executive positions amid mounting public criticism over the women's behavior and allegations that the family engaged in smuggling.
(AP, 4/23/18)
2018 May 1, Pakistani PM Shahid Khaqan Abbasi inaugurated the long-delayed new airport in the capital, Islamabad, replacing the cramped Benazir Bhutto airport often criticized by travelers.
(Reuters, 5/1/18)
2018 May 4, Hundreds of Korean Air Lines Co. pilots, cabin crew and other workers staged a rally in Seoul saying they can't take any more abuse from the company's founding family.
(AP, 5/4/18)
2018 May 7, Air France's share price dived after its CEO quit and the French government warned that the country's flagship carrier might collapse. A new strike over wage demands, meanwhile, prompted the cancellation of about 15 percent of Air France flights worldwide as the airline enters its 14th day of walkouts this year.
(AP, 5/7/18)
2018 May 10, Polish lawmakers approved divisive legislation paving the way for the construction of what is intended to be one of Europe's largest airports, and China's gateway to the continent.
(AP, 5/11/18)
2018 May 17, Italy's anti-establishment 5-Star Movement and the far-right League planned to halt the sale of Italy's insolvent national airline Alitalia.
(Reuters, 5/17/18)
2018 May 24, The United States imposed sanctions on several Iranian and Turkish companies and a number of aircraft in a move targeting four Iranian airlines.
(Reuters, 5/24/18)
2018 May 27, British meteorologists said thousands of lightning strikes hit the UK during a powerful overnight thunderstorm, and the London-area Stansted Airport reported flight disruptions after an aircraft refueling system was damaged.
(AP, 5/27/18)
2018 May 28, Serge Dessault (93), French business executive, died in Paris. He was known for the development of the French Mirage jet fighter and equipping the French Air Forces and other militaries through global sales. His father, Marcel Dassault, founded the aviation company at the core of the Dassault Group.
(SFC, 5/29/18, p.C3)
2018 May 30, Environmental campaigners said a hidden shipment of shark fins including some from endangered species had been shipped to Hong Kong via Singapore Airlines, despite a ban by the carrier.
(AFP, 5/30/18)
2018 Jun 3, In Germany the international airport in Hamburg suspended all flights because of a power outage, leaving hundreds of passengers stranded.
(AP, 6/3/18)
2018 Jun 5, Britain's government gave the go-ahead to building a third runway at London Heathrow, Europe's biggest airport by passenger numbers, a long-awaited decision that has stoked decades of division and debate.
(AFP, 6/5/18)
2018 Jun 19, In Maine Marcin Urbanski, a Polish pilot on a Saudi Arabian royal family jet, was taken into custody during a stop in Bangor. He was wanted for accepting $9,000 to help a Florida resident become a licensed pilot, but never providing the services.
(AP, 6/21/18)
2018 Jun 22, Aviation giant Airbus threatened to leave Britain if the country exits the European Union without an agreement on trade relations, underscoring the concerns of business leaders who say the government is moving too slowly.
(AP, 6/22/18)
2018 Jun 22, Greece's dominant Aegean Airlines said it has signed a 5 billion-euro ($5.8 billion) deal with Airbus to buy up to 42 new A320 neo passenger aircraft. Aegean was founded 19 years ago and serves 150 destinations in 44 countries.
(AP, 6/22/18)
2018 Jun 24, Officials acknowledged that Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways will loan pilots to competing Dubai-based carrier Emirates under a new program, marking a rare cooperation between the two state-owned carriers who operate only 115 km (70 miles) apart.
(AP, 6/24/18)
2018 Jul 5, Boeing and the Brazilian jet maker Embraer said they will attempt to form a joint venture that would push the US aerospace giant more aggressively into the regional aircraft market.
(AP, 7/5/18)
2018 Jul 10, In France Airbus unveiled its new A220 aircraft, a rebranded Bombardier C Series plane that the company picked up in a deal last year.
(AP, 7/10/18)
2018 Jul 18, At Britain's Farnborough airshow European air giant Airbus unveiled a solar-powered drone called Zephyr that will fly at a high altitude and fulfil the same functions as a satellite.
(AFP, 7/18/18)
2018 Jul 18, Eritrea and Ethiopia resumed commercial airline flights for the first time in two decades. Two flights left Addis Ababa within minutes of each other and an hour and a half later touched down in the Eritrean capital Asmara.
(AFP, 7/18/18)
2018 Jul 19, Flight space over Belgium was closed due to a problem with a flight data processing system at Belgium air traffic controller Belgocontrol.
(Reuters, 7/19/18)
2018 Jul 19, At England's Farnborough airshow US aviation giant Boeing announced 676 orders, totaling $92 billion at list prices, while Airbus, its European competitor, unveiled 431 orders worth $70 billion.
(AFP, 7/21/18)
2018 Jul 22, Typhoon Ampil hit Chinese financial hub Shanghai around midday, bringing heavy rainfall and disrupting transport and shipping. More than 600 flights from the city's two airports were canceled and high-speed rail services also impacted.
(Reuters, 7/22/18)
2018 Jul 24, Heavy rains pummeled parts of the US Southwest and mid-Atlantic, swelling floods that have forced evacuations, disrupted air travel and cut power.
(Reuters, 7/24/18)
2018 Jul 25, China applauded international airlines for bending to its demand that they stop referring to Taiwan as an independent country on their websites after the issue generated friction between Beijing and Washington. Many airlines now simply list Taiwan's capital, Taipei, as a destination while omitting Taiwan.
(AP, 7/25/18)
2018 Jul 26, Yemen's Iranian-aligned Houthi movement said it had attacked Abu Dhabi airport in the United Arab Emirates with a drone, though it was not immediately clear if there was any damage or casualties.
(Reuters, 7/26/18)
2018 Aug 5, Iranian news agency IRNA reported that IranAir has taken delivery of five more ATR turboprop aircraft, shortly before Washington imposes new sanctions on Iran after exiting a nuclear pact between Tehran and major world powers.
(Reuters, 8/5/18)
2018 Aug 10, Ryanair pilots in several European countries staged a strike over work conditions that prompted the budget carrier to cancel 400 flights. Walkouts called by German and Belgian unions accounted for many of the cancelations, with strikes also called in Sweden and Ireland.
(AP, 8/10/18)
2018 Aug 18, In Chile, Argentina and Peru false bomb threats caused up to 11 commercial flights to take emergency measures. Chilean authorities soon arrested Franco Sepulveda Robles (29) for making false bomb threats in anger over an airline not returning his suitcase.
(SSFC, 8/19/18, p.A4)
2018 Aug 16, Air France-KLM was tipped to name its first non-French chief executive, with Ben Smith, chief operating officer at Air Canada, set to be unveiled. Nine out of 10 Air France unions opposed the selection.
(AP, 8/16/18)
2018 Aug 21, Ethiopian Airlines said it is teaming up with four African airlines and has inked a deal to set up a fifth, as it continues its expansion on the continent.
(AFP, 8/22/18)
2018 Aug 21, Hawaiian Airlines announced that nonstop service between Honolulu and Beijing will end in October, citing low demand. The service, launched in 2014, flew three days a week between the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport and the Beijing Capital International Airport.
(AP, 8/23/18)
2018 Aug 23, British Airways said it is suspending flights between London and Tehran because they are not commercially viable.
(Reuters, 8/23/18)
2018 Aug 27, Ethiopian air traffic controllers began a strike after disputes over pay and calls for more employment benefits. Their average monthly salary was around $540.
(AP, 9/1/18)
2018 Sep 5, A plane was quarantined at New York's Kennedy Airport when about 10 passengers became ill aboard a flight from Dubai. The double-decker Emirates aircraft held 520 passengers.
(AP, 9/5/18)(SFC, 9/6/18, p.A4)
2018 Sep 12, Irish budget carrier Ryanair was defiant as dozens of flights were disrupted in a walkout by German pilots and cabin crew, the latest flare-up in a bitter Europe-wide battle for better pay and conditions.
(AFP, 9/13/18)
2018 Sep 17, Libyan authorities closed Tripoli's only functioning airport, diverting traffic to another one at the nearby militia-controlled city of Misrata after the UN-backed Tripoli government handed control of the facility from one militia to another, prompting the Transport Ministry to order its closure on security concerns.
(AP, 9/17/18)
2018 Sep 17, It was reported that Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan has defended his decision to accept a luxury plane from Qatar at a time of economic hardship, saying it was a gift, not a purchase, and that it had been donated to the Turkish state, not to him personally.
(Reuters, 9/17/18)
2018 Sep 28, Dublin-based Ryanair canceled scores of European flights, but downplayed the impact of the strike. Unions hoped the strike would be the biggest in the airline's history. A key complaint of workers based in countries other than Ireland is the fact that Ryanair has been employing them under Irish legislation.
(AFP, 9/28/18)
2018 Oct 8, Qatar Airways' boss Akbar al-Baker said US sanctions on Iran will not impact its flights to the Islamic republic.
(AFP, 10/8/18)
2018 Oct 24, Poland's national airline LOT cancelled some flights as some crew members struck to protest layoffs and demand better working conditions. Almost 70 flight crew members have been fired for participating in the strike that started Oct. 18 and that the management says is illegal.
(AP, 10/24/18)
2018 Oct 26, In Belgium hundreds of passengers were left stranded at Brussels international airport after luggage handlers went on strike over workload and pay demands.
(AP, 10/26/18)
2018 Oct 28, Japan Airlines pilot Katsutoshi Jitsukawa (42) was arrested after the driver of a Heathrow Airport crew bus smelled alcohol and reported it to security officials. Tests later found the first officer had 189 milligrams of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood in his system, almost 10 times the 20 milligrams limit for a pilot.
{Britain, Japan, Aviation}
(AP, 11/29/18)
2018 Oct 28, Mexican voters in a referendum rejected the completion of a new, partly constructed Mexico City airport by a 70 to 29 percent margin. This effectively ended the $13 billion project that was already one-third built.
(SFC, 10/30/18, p.A2)
2018 Oct 29, In Belgium a strike by baggage handlers disrupted flights to and from the main airport for a fifth day.
(AP, 10/29/18)
2018 Oct 29, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan inaugurated Istanbul's new airport, a megaproject that he has pushed to meet its symbolic deadline. Human Rights has cited at least 38 workplace deaths over the past three years.
(AP, 10/29/18)
2018 Nov 1, A court in the Netherlands banned Ryanair from transferring 16 pilots overseas following the closure of its Dutch base in Eindhoven, saying that the move appeared to be a reprisal by the budget carrier for strikes by Dutch employees.
(AP, 11/1/18)
2018 Nov 6, The 6-day biennial Airshow China opened in the coastal city of Zhuhai. It is traditionally an event for Beijing to parade its growing aviation prowess.
(Reuters, 11/6/18)
2018 Nov 25, A winter storm blanketed much of the US central Midwest. Some 1200 flights were reported canceled.
(SFC, 11/26/18, p.A4)
2018 Nov 26, State-owned Qatar Airways said it will add more flights to Iran from January, just weeks after the United States re-imposed sanctions aimed at crippling Tehran's economy.
(Reuters, 11/26/18)
2018 Dec 10, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said Oman will let Israeli planes fly through its airspace. The permission however provides Israel with little immediate practical use since its planes cannot fly over Oman's neighbor Saudi Arabia.
(AFP, 12/10/18)
2018 Dec 14, A Berlin court said the insolvency administrator for bankrupt airline Air Berlin has sued its former largest shareholder, UAE-based airline Etihad, for 2 billion euros ($2.26 billion) in damages.
(AP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 17, US plane maker Boeing and Brazil's Embraer said they have approved the terms of a partnership to create a joint venture now worth $5.26 billion -- more than when they first announced it in July.
(AFP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, Switzerland and Britain signed an agreement guaranteeing that flights between the two countries can continue uninterrupted even if London opts to leave the European Union without a deal with Brussels.
(AFP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 20, Drones flying near London’s Gatwick airport grounded flights for at least 15 hours, causing chaos for tens of thousands of Christmas travelers in what authorities said was a reckless attempt to cripple Britain’s second busiest airport.
(Reuters, 12/20/18)
2018 Dec 20, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said that the armed forces would build a new airport he plans for Mexico City at a military air base in the town of Santa Lucia north of the capital.
(Reuters, 12/20/18)
2018 Dec 21, British police arrested two people late today over the suspected "criminal use of drones" at London's Gatwick Airport. A damaged drone was soon found near the airfield perimeter. On Dec. 23 Paul Gait (47) and his wife Elaine Kirk (54), arrested over the drone disruption, were released without charge.
(AFP, 12/22/18)(AFP, 12/23/18)(SFC, 12/23/18, p.A4)
2018 Dec 22, A Brazilian court shot down a fresh injunction by a judge over a plan by plane makers Boeing of the US and Embraer of Brazil to create a $5.26-billion joint venture.
(AP, 12/22/18)
2018 Dec 27, French conglomerate Vinci said it had bought control of Gatwick airport, Britain's second-busiest, for nearly three billion pounds only months before Brexit.
(AFP, 12/27/18)
2019 Jan 2, Qatar Airways said it now holds a 5 percent share in China Southern Airlines, helping expand the Gulf carrier's reach in one of the world's fastest growing aviation markets.
(AP, 1/2/19)
2019 Jan 3, Texas lawyer Herb Kelleher (b.1931), co-founder of Southwest Airlines, died. He became chairman of the airline in 1978 and CEO in 1982.
(SFC, 1/4/19, p.D2)
2019 Jan 3, Mexico's government said construction on a partly-built $13 billion new Mexico City airport which the new president wants to cancel has been officially suspended.
(Reuters, 1/3/19)
2019 Jan 5, Heavy snow caused travel chaos in parts of Austria and Germany as authorities closed roads and train routes because of avalanche danger and airports reported weather-related cancelations.
(AP, 1/5/19)
2019 Jan 9, Nepal and Japan agreed to allow state-run Nepal Airlines to resume flights between the two Asian nations at the beginning of a two-day visit to Nepal by Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono.
(AP, 1/9/19)
2019 Jan 10, In Germany almost 640 flights were cancelled as security staff went on strike at three airports, meaning disruption for around 100,000 passengers.
(AFP, 1/10/19)
2019 Jan 11, The share price in Brazilian airplane manufacturer Embraer soared as markets reacted favorably to the country's President Jair Bolsonaro approving a merger with us giant Boeing. Embraer will only retain control of its military division.
(AFP, 1/11/19)
2019 Jan 11, In Germany airlines canceled around 120 flights at Frankfurt Airport and 90 at Munich Airport because of concerns about snow.
(AP, 1/11/19)
2019 Jan 21, Germany said it has banned Iran's Mahan Air from landing in the country with immediate effect, citing security concerns and the airline's involvement in Syria. The airline had several weekly flights between Tehran and German cities.
(AP, 1/21/19)
2019 Jan 21, Israel inaugurated a new international airport near the Red Sea. Jordan hit out at Israel's move to open the new Ramon International Airport along their shared border close to the Red Sea, saying it would threaten the kingdom's airspace.
(AFP, 1/21/19)
2019 Jan 28, Blizzard-like conditions in the US Midwest caused the cancellation of some 1,000 flights at Chicago's airports and the closure of hundreds of schools.
(SFC, 1/29/19, p.A10)
2019 Jan 30, US governors in Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin declared emergencies as bitter cold due to a split polar vortex caused temperature drops to as low as minus 57 degrees. More than 2,600 flights to and from regional airports were cancelled.
(SFC, 1/31/19, p.A7)
2019 Feb 8, Pilots from Taiwan's China Airlines went on strike in the middle of the Lunar New Year travel rush, forcing the cancellation of at least 18 flights over coming days and stranding thousands of passengers.
(AP, 2/8/19)
2019 Feb 10, A strike among pilots at Taiwan's flag carrier China Airlines dragged into a third day, resulting in further flight cancellations.
(AP, 2/10/19)
2019 Feb 14, European plane maker Airbus said it will stop making its superjumbo A380 in 2021 for lack of customers, abandoning the world's biggest passenger jet and one of the aviation industry's most ambitious and most troubled endeavors.
(AP, 2/14/19)
2019 Feb 15, A top Airbus official said Germany's halt in exports to Saudi Arabia is preventing Britain from completing the sale of 48 Eurofighter Typhoon warplanes to Riyadh, and has delayed potential sales of other weapons such as the A400M military transport. The Eurofighter is built by a consortium of four founding countries: Germany, Britain, Italy and Spain.
(Reuters, 2/15/19)
2019 Feb 16, Hundreds of passengers throughout Europe were stranded by the abrupt collapse of the British regional airline Flybmi.
(AP, 2/17/19)
2019 Feb 20, Dubai budget carrier flydubai said it chalked up a loss of $43.5 million in 2018, as airlines across the Gulf struggle with mounting costs and political tensions.
(AFP, 2/20/19)
2019 Feb 23, In India a fire at the Aero India airshow in Bengaluru, run by the country's defence ministry, destroyed three hundred cars.
(AP, 2/23/19)
2019 Feb 27, The Bahrain-based long-haul carrier Gulf Air acknowledged it is cancelling and delaying flights without explaining why.
(AP, 2/27/19)
2019 Feb 28, British Airways announced a multi-billion dollar order for up to 42 Boeing 777 fuel-efficient passenger jets, just two weeks after Airbus said it would no longer make its A380 superjumbo.
(AFP, 2/28/19)
2019 Feb 28, A temporary closure of air space over Pakistan snarled air traffic, especially between Asia and Europe, though some airlines adjusted by rerouting their flights.
(AP, 2/28/19)
2019 Mar 6, In Kenya thousands of air passengers were stranded after a strike by aviation workers at the main Nairobi airport led to the cancellation and delay of scores of flights and the use of riot police to break up the industrial action. By the end of the day however, most scheduled arrivals had been processed while the departures backlog was being cleared.
(Reuters, 3/6/19)
2019 Mar 11, Authorities in China, Ethiopia and Indonesia grounded all Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft following the March 10 crash of an Ethiopian Airlines jetliner that killed 157 people.
(AP, 3/11/19)
2019 Mar 12, The US aviation regulator said it would not ground Boeing Co 737 MAX planes after a crash in Ethiopia that killed 157 people, bucking a trend of countries around the world that have suspended the aircraft's operations.
(Reuters, 3/13/19)
2019 Mar 12, Britain, Germany and France joined a wave of suspensions of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft as US President Donald Trump fretted over modern airplane design following the March 10 crash in Ethiopia that killed 157 people.
(Reuters, 3/12/19)
2019 Mar 12, Malaysia suspended all Boeing 737 Max 8 flights in and out of the country following two recent fatal crashes.
(AP, 3/12/19)
2019 Mar 12, Norwegian Air said it will temporarily ground its Boeing 737 MAX 8 passenger jets at the advice of European regulators.
(Reuters, 3/12/19)
2019 Mar 12, Oman said it was "temporarily suspending" all flights by Boeing 737 MAX aircraft in the sultanate following the March 10 crash of an Ethiopian Airlines jetliner, becoming the first nation on the Arabian Peninsula to ground the planes.
(AP, 3/12/19)
2019 Mar 13, The United States grounded Boeing's money-spinning 737 MAX aircraft over safety fears after an Ethiopian Airlines plane crash that killed 157 people, leaving the world's largest plane maker facing its worst crisis in years.
(Reuters, 3/14/19)
2019 Mar 13, US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson added 3½ years in prison to Paul Manafort (69), Donald Trump's former campaign manager, for misleading the government about his lucrative foreign lobbying and for encouraging witnesses to lie on his behalf. He was then hit with state charges in New York related to mortgage loan applications.
(SFC, 3/14/19, p.A5)
2019 Mar 13, A winter storm brought blizzards, rain or floods to more than 25 US states. About 1,000 flights were cancelled at Denver Int'l. Airport and nearly 40 more at Colorado Springs.
(SFC, 3/14/19, p.A5)
2019 Mar 13, Egypt barred the passage, takeoff and landing of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft. No Egyptian airlines had Boeing 737 MAX jets in their fleets.
(Reuters, 3/13/19)
2019 Mar 13, Iraq banned US plane maker Boeing Co's 737 MAX aircraft from entering or transiting its airspace.
(AP, 3/13/19)
2019 Mar 13, Norwegian Air said it will seek compensation from plane maker Boeing for costs and lost revenue after grounding its fleet of 737 MAX 8 aircraft in the wake of the Ethiopian Airlines crash.
(Reuters, 3/13/19)
2019 Mar 14, Flight recorders from a doomed Ethiopian Airlines flight arrived in France for analysis as frustrated relatives of the 157 people killed stormed out of a meeting with airline officials in Addis Ababa.
(AP, 3/14/19)
2019 Mar 14, Japan followed other countries on multiple continents in banning the Boeing 737 Max 8 and 9 aircraft from its airspace following the March 10 Ethiopian Airlines' crash.
(AP, 3/14/19)
2019 Mar 14, Mozambique cancelled flights to several domestic destinations as a tropical cyclone, potentially the strongest to hit the country in nearly two decades, approached. Cyclone Idai hit Mozambique late today and continued on to Zimbabwe and Malawi. Over the next two days killed more than 140 people, left hundreds more missing and stranded tens of thousands who are cut off from roads and telephones in mainly poor, rural areas.
(AFP, 3/14/19)(AP, 3/16/19)
2019 Mar 14, The United Nations said that no UN staff should travel on the Boeing 737 Max 8 planes.
(AP, 3/14/19)
2019 Mar 18, The world's biggest plane maker faced escalating pressure after Ethiopia pointed to parallels between its crash and one in Indonesia, sharpening focus on the safety of software installed in Boeing's 737 MAX planes.
(Reuters, 3/18/19)
2019 Mar 22, Indonesian airline Garuda said it plans to cancel a $6 billion order for Boeing 737 MAX jets, saying some passengers would be frightened to board the plane after two fatal crashes. Analysts said the deal had long been in doubt.
(Reuters, 3/22/19)
2019 Mar 25, The board of India's private Jet Airways accepted the resignations of Chairman Naresh Goyal, his wife and a nominee of Gulf carrier Etihad Airways. Goyal quit amid mounting financial woes which have forced Jet Airways to suspend 14 international routes and ground more than 80 planes. The board approved the setting up of an interim management committee to oversee daily operations and cash flow of the company.
(AP, 3/25/19)
2019 Mar 28, Icelandic budget airline WOW Air collapsed under its financial problems, leading it to ground planes and leave passengers stranded across two continents.
(AP, 3/28/19)
2019 Apr 5, Turkey began the relocation of Ataturk International Airport to Istanbul Airport on the Black Sea shores. The move is expected to end tomorrow.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2019 Apr 6, Malaysia and Singapore reached an agreement to end their months-long airspace dispute. Under the deal, Singapore will halt instrument landing system procedures at its Seletar Airport, while Malaysia will open up a restricted area near the countries' border.
(AP, 4/6/19)
2019 Apr 6, In Turkey the last commercial passenger flight took off from Istanbul's Ataturk airport and convoys of trucks ferried thousands of tons of equipment across the city to a giant new airport which Turkey plans to make the biggest in the world.
(Reuters, 4/6/19)
2019 Apr 8, Cho Yang-ho (70), Korean Air's chairman, died of an illness in Los Angeles. His leadership included scandals such as his daughter's infamous incident of "nut rage". He had been indicted on multiple charges, including embezzlement and tax evasion.
(AP, 4/8/19)
2019 Apr 9, President Donald Trump said he'll put tariffs on $11 billion worth European Union cheese, wine and other goods to retaliate for what Washington says are improper subsidies to Airbus.
(AP, 4/9/19)
2019 Apr 10, Japan grounded its F-35A fighter jets, built by US-based Lockheed Martin, following the crash of a Japanese F-35 in the Pacific Ocean a day earlier.
(Reuters, 4/10/19)
2019 Apr 13, The twin-fuselage Stratolaunch, designed to launch rockets into space, took off on its first flight from the Mojave Air and Space Port in Kern Ct., Ca. It was created by the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.
(SSFC, 4/14/19, p.A12)
2019 Apr 15, In India Jet Airways pilots demonstrated in Mumbai, saying they had not received a salary in four months.
(AP, 4/16/19)
2019 Apr 16, Indian airline Jet Airways' stock fell sharply after its former chairman reportedly withdrew plans to bid for a controlling stake in the company and news media said its flight operations might be temporarily halted. Naresh Goyal had founded Jet Airways in 1992. Etihad Aviation Group purchased a 24% stake in Jet Airways in 2013.
(AP, 4/16/19)
2019 Apr 17, India's debt-stricken Jet Airways halted all of its operations after failing to secure emergency funding from lenders, leaving it teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.
(AFP, 4/17/19)
2019 Apr 23, Uganda accepted delivery of the first two Bombardier CRJ900 jet airliners purchased in a bid to relaunch Uganda Airlines, nearly two decades after the East African country's national carrier collapsed.
(AFP, 4/23/19)
2019 Apr 26, Scandinavian airline SAS pilots went on strike as wage talks broke down, grounding around 70 percent of the airline's flights and hitting some 170,000 people over the weekend alone. SAS is part-owned by the Swedish and Danish governments.
(Reuters, 4/27/19)
2019 Apr 27, Scandinavian airline SAS canceled hundreds of flights scheduled for April 28 as a pilot strike entered its second day, disrupting the travel plans of tens of thousands of passengers.
(Reuters, 4/27/19)
2019 Apr 28, Scandinavian Airlines (SAS), the flag carrier of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, announced further flight cancellations for the next week on the third day of a pilots strike as the parties have failed to resume talks on a new collective bargaining agreement.
(AP, 4/28/19)
2019 Apr 29, A strike among pilots at Scandinavian Airlines, flag carrier of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, entered its fourth day.
(AP, 4/29/19)
2019 May 1, Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) canceled 504 flights today as talks with the pilots resumed in Norway.
(AP, 5/1/19)
2019 May 18, Syria's transport ministry says Iraqi Airways flights to Damascus expected for the first time since the war erupted in 2011 have been postponed indefinitely. The delay was relayed by the Iraqi embassy.
(AP, 5/18/19)
2019 May 21, Italy's struggling airline Alitalia canceled over 300 flights because of a 24-hour strike called to protest deteriorating conditions in the sector, including the government's failure to relaunch the carrier.
(AP, 5/21/19)
2019 May 28, In the Netherlands around 80 flights to and from Amsterdam Schiphol were canceled as a 24-hr nationwide public transport strike made it hard for passengers and staff to get to Europe's third largest airport.
(Reuters, 5/28/19)
2019 May 29, A nationwide strike in Argentina protesting austerity measures under President Mauricio Macri brought the country's airports to a standstill and halted work at key grains ports, the latest sign of tension in the recession-hit nation.
(Reuters, 5/29/19)
2019 Jun 3, British Airways resumed flights to Pakistan, over a decade after they were suspended in the wake of a truck bombing of a hotel in the capital, which killed dozens.
(AP, 6/3/19)
2019 Jun 3, An Indian air force aircraft with 13 people on board went missing in remote northeastern mountains bordering China.
(Reuters, 6/3/19)
2019 Jun 4, Scandinavian Airlines said it will stop selling duty-free goods on planes to reduce weight and save fuel as part of a wider range of measures to cut emissions.
(AP, 6/4/19)
2019 Jun 19, In Singapore one of two runways at the main airport closed for short periods over the last 24 hours because of "confirmed sightings of unauthorized drone flying.
(Reuters, 6/19/19)
2019 Jun 20, A strike by flight attendants at EVA Air, Taiwan's second-largest airline, left thousands of passengers scrambling for alternative transport.
(AP, 6/21/19)
2019 Jun 21, Marlene Mizzi (55), a former supervisor at Kennedy Airport, admitted that she took bribes to allow Qatar and other countries to park their planes overnight during the United Nations General Assembly.
(AP, 6/21/19)
2019 Jun 21, Major airlines from around the world began rerouting their flights to avoid areas around the Strait of Hormuz following Iran's shooting down of a US military surveillance drone there.
(AP, 6/21/19)
2019 Jun 21, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree banning Russian airlines from flying to pro-Western Georgia from July 8 late today in response to anti-government rallies in the ex-Soviet neighbor.
(AFP, 6/22/19)
2019 Jun 21, In South Africa cleaners found an abandoned fetus blocking the toilet of a domestic FlySafair plane, prompting the offloading of passengers and a police investigation.
(AFP, 6/21/19)
2019 Jun 22, Russia's travel industry and ordinary Russians hit out at a decision by the Kremlin to suspend flights to Georgia as a politically motivated move that has little to do with safety concerns.
(AFP, 6/22/19)
2019 Jun 25, Canadian aerospace company Bombardier announced the sale of its regional jet program to Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. for $550 million.
(AP, 6/25/19)
2019 Jun 27, Canada's flagship airline Air Canada announced that it has reached a deal to buy tour operator Transat for Can$520 million (US$396 million) in cash or Can$13 per share.
(AFP, 6/27/19)
2019 Jul 2, Aeroflot and two other Russian airlines canceled several flights to and from the Czech Republic after the Czech Transport Ministry withdrew permits for the flights. The Czech ministry said it took action after Russia limited the right of national carrier Czech Airlines to use routes across Siberia on its flights from Prague to Seoul. A Russian decision early today to grant temporary access to the transit routes until July 7, enabled the Czech ministry to authorize Russian carriers' flights to the Czech Republic until that date to provide time for negotiations.
(Reuters, 7/2/19)
2019 Jul 11, Former astronaut Terry Virts landed back at NASA's Kennedy Space Center after helping to shatter a pair of records for a round-the-world airplane flight over the North and South poles. Virts' former space station crewmate, Russian Gennady Padalka, was on the first two legs of the flight.
(AP, 7/11/19)
2019 Jul 17, Boeing Co said it will dedicate half of a $100 million fund it created to address two crashes of its 737 MAX planes to financial relief for the families of those killed, with compensation expert Ken Feinberg hired by the world's largest plane maker to oversee the distribution.
(Reuters, 7/17/19)
2019 Jul 19, The US Department of Transportation (DOT) granted American Airlines Group Inc and Qantas Airways Ltd final approval to operate a joint venture after a prior effort was rejected in 2016.
(Reuters, 7/19/19)
2019 Jul 20, British Airways said it was suspending flights to Cairo for seven days for unspecified reasons related to safety and security. Lufthansa also suspended flights to Cairo but resumed service the next day.
(AP, 7/20/19)(SFC, 7/22/19, p.A2)
2019 Jul 22, Pilot union BALPA said British Airways pilots overwhelmingly voted for strike action, in a dispute over pay that could disrupt the peak summer holiday season of the British flag carrier.
(AP, 7/22/19)
2019 Jul 23, Kenya's parliament voted to nationalize the country's main airline Kenya Airways to save it from mounting debts.
(AP, 7/23/19)
2019 Jul 24, Boeing Co posted its largest-ever quarterly loss, diving nearly $3 billion into the red as it wrestles with a longer-than-expected grounding of its best-selling 737 MAX.
(Reuters, 7/24/19)
2019 Aug 7, British Airways canceled almost 100 flights to and from London airports after its check-in systems were hit by computer problems.
(AP, 8/7/19)
2019 Aug 12, All flights were cancelled at Hong Kong airport after thousands of demonstrators entered the arrivals hall to protest at police use of force in a night of violent scenes in the city.
(SFC, 8/13/19, p.A3)
2019 Aug 13, Protests forced Hong Kong’s airport to suspend check-ins for departing flights -- its second straight day of major service disruptions -- as embattled local leader Carrie Lam warned that the city risked sliding into an “abyss".
(Bloomberg, 8/13/19)
2019 Aug 14, Unions representing Ryanair cabin crew in Spain announced plans to hold 10 days of strikes in September unless the Irish airline changes its plans to close several bases in the country.
(Reuters, 8/14/19)
2019 Aug 14, Japan advised more than 300,000 people to evacuate their homes and airlines cancelled hundreds of scheduled flights as tropical storm Krosa bore down on the archipelago.
(Reuters, 8/14/19)
2019 Aug 14, Unions representing Ryanair cabin crew in Spain announced plans to hold 10 days of strikes in September unless the Irish airline changes its plans to close several bases in the country.
(Reuters, 8/14/19)
2019 Aug 15, Iraqi PM Abdul-Mahdi issued a ban on all unauthorized flights throughout the country, including reconnaissance, fighter jets, helicopters and drones of all kinds.
{Iraq, Aviation}
(AP, 8/16/19)
2019 Aug 16, Cathay Pacific Airways CEO Rupert Hogg resigned in a shock move, amid mounting Chinese regulatory scrutiny of the Hong Kong carrier over the involvement of its employees in the city's anti-government protests. Cathay Pacific, which has already terminated two pilots for engaging in illegal protests at the behest of the Chinese aviation regulator, named Augustus Tang as its new CEO.
(Reuters, 8/16/19)
2019 Aug 16, The US-led coalition against the Islamic State group in Iraq says it will comply with new orders issued by the country's prime minister regarding unauthorized flights in Iraqi airspace.
(AP, 8/16/19)
2019 Aug 19, It was reported that Norwegian Air has agreed to sell its stake in banking company Norwegian Finans Holding for 2.22 billion crowns ($246.7 million), boosting the loss-making airline's finances and sending its shares sharply higher.
(Reuters, 8/19/19)
2019 Aug 21, Ireland's high court granted Ryanair an injunction to prevent its Dublin-based pilots from going on strike this week in a setback to union hopes for a wave of industrial action against Europe's biggest budget airline.
(Reuters, 8/21/19)
2019 Aug 23, South African authorities impounded an Airbus 220-300 aircraft leased by Tanzania's national flag carrier.
(Reuters, 8/24/19)
2019 Aug 28, United Airlines said it is starting to move its 14 Boeing 737 MAX jets to short-term storage in Phoenix, Arizona, which has better weather for stored aircraft and where it will be easier to prepare them for commercial flight again.
(Reuters, 8/28/19)
2019 Aug 28, In Hong Kong hundreds of people protested to denounce Cathay Pacific Airways for dismissing crew taking part in or supporting anti-government rallies that have swept the Chinese-ruled city for weeks.
(Reuters, 8/28/19)
2019 Aug 28, Russia unveiled its new passenger plane MC-21, billed as a competitor to Boeing and Airbus even as the project was overshadowed by sanctions and setbacks with its predecessor, the Superjet. An MC-21 prototype made its maiden flight in 2017 but serial manufacturing has been delayed, in part due to US sanctions affecting the production of its carbon composite wings.
(AFP, 8/28/19)
2019 Aug 29, Ireland-based Ryanair said it has cancelled less than one percent of its daily schedule of flights to and from Spain over the first two days of planned strikes by Spanish cabin crew.
(Reuters, 8/29/19)
2019 Sep 1, In France a computer breakdown briefly disrupted all air traffic and caused a cascade of delayed flights in multiple countries, the last day of European summer holidays.
(AP, 9/1/19)
2019 Sep 1, Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters obstructed access to the Hong Kong airport after police arrested dozens the night before and deployed water cannon and tear gas in response to activists lobbing petrol bombs and bricks.
(AP, 9/1/19)
2019 Sep 1, Libya's only functioning Mitiga airport in Tripoli was closed after being struck by artillery fire overnight.
(Reuters, 9/1/19)
2019 Sep 5, Shares in Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd fell nearly 4% in early trade following the resignation of its chairman after the market closed on the previous day. The departure of John Slosar was announced less than three weeks after mounting Chinese regulatory scrutiny led to the shock exit of its chief executive, Rupert Hogg.
(Reuters, 9/5/19)
2019 Sep 5, Tanzania's national carrier suspended its flights from the commercial capital Dar es Salaam to Johannesburg, citing ongoing violence that was a risk to its passengers.
(Reuters, 9/5/19)
2019 Sep 6, Dozens of flights were canceled and parks were closed in South Korea as powerful Typhoon Lingling gained momentum on its path toward the Korean Peninsula.
(AP, 9/6/19)
2019 Sep 7, In San Francisco flights delays began to accumulate at the SF Int'l. Airport as a three-week, $17.2 million construction project began on the airport's busiest runway.
(SFC, 9/9/19, p.C4)
2019 Sep 9, British Airways canceled almost all its flights for 48 hours, affecting as many as 195,000 travelers, due to a strike by pilots over pay.
(AP, 9/9/19)
2019 Sep 11, Ryan Air and its pilot's union said pilots in Germany have reached a wage agreement with Ryanair for the first time, a boost to the budget carrier which is facing industrial unrest elsewhere in Europe.
(Reuters, 9/11/19)
2019 Sep 19, All flights into Houston's international airport, were halted as Tropical Depression Imelda inundated southeastern Texas with heavy rains and triggered flash flood warnings. More than 900 flights were cancelled or delayed. Tropical Storm Imelda left four people dead in the Houston area.
(Reuters, 9/19/19)(SFC, 9/20/19, p.A6)(SFC, 9/21/19, p.A6)
2019 Sep 24, In NYC $258,000 was stolen at JFK Int'l. Airport. Quincy Thorpe, a Delta Airlines baggage handler, was soon arrested on charges of stealing the cash in one of eight bags being loaded onto a Miami-bound Delta flight.
(SFC, 9/28/19, p.A5)
2019 Sep 24, Slovenia's Adria Airways cancelled almost all of its flights for today and tomorrow, potentially affecting around 3,700 passengers, because it has been unable to access cash to continue flying.
(Reuters, 9/24/19)
2019 Sep 25, China's President Xi Jinping opened a futuristic new airport in Beijing, which is expected to become one of the busiest in the world.
(AFP, 9/25/19)
2019 Sep 27, Slovenia's debt-laden Adria Airways said it was cancelling most of its weekend flights and many scheduled for Sept. 30 as it battles to hang on to its operating license.
(Reuters, 9/27/19)
2019 Oct 1, United Parcel Service Inc said it won the US government's first full approval to operate a drone airline, which gave it a lead in the nascent US drone delivery business over rivals Amazon.com Inc and Alphabet Inc.
(AP, 10/1/19)
2019 Oct 2, The United States won approval to impose tariffs on $7.5 billion worth of European goods over illegal EU subsidies handed to Airbus, threatening to trigger a tit-for-tat transatlantic trade war as the global economy falters. Tariffs were set to begin on Oct. 18.
(Reuters, 10/2/19)(SFC, 10/3/19, p.D1)
2019 Oct 2, The US Federal Aviation Administration said that aircraft operators must inspect 165 Boeing 737 NG airplanes for structural cracks within seven days after the issue was found on a small number of planes.
(Reuters, 10/2/19)
2019 Oct 2, It was reported that the United States is withholding its dues to the UN's aviation agency, arguing the body needs to move quickly with reforms like expanding public access to documents and giving greater protections to whistleblowers.
(Reuters, 10/2/19)
2019 Oct 9, Southwest Airlines Co and Brazil's Gol Linhas Aereas said they have grounded a total of 13 Boeing Co 737 NG airplanes, after US regulators ordered urgent inspections.
(Reuters, 10/9/19)
2019 Oct 9, British Airways announced the launch of a new flight from London's Gatwick Airport to the Turkish resort of Antalya, once one of Thomas Cook's most popular routes, as airlines jostle to fill the void left by its collapse.
(Reuters, 10/9/19)
2019 Oct 17, In Alaska a commuter plane carrying 42 people overshot a runway in Unalaska. One of two passengers, who suffered critical injuries, soon died.
(SFC, 10/19/19, p.A6)
2019 Oct 20, Australia's Qantas airline completed the first nonstop commercial flight from New York to Sydney. The flight lasted 19 hours and16 minutes.
(SFC, 10/21/19, p.A2)
2019 Oct 20, In Chile any flights into Santiago airport were suspended as crew were unable to get to work. A curfew, a public transport shutdown and continued rioting left flight crews struggling to get to work.
(Reuters, 10/20/19)
2019 Oct 23, South African Airways (SAA) and Comair began returning grounded planes to service a day after South Africa's air safety regulator flagged maintenance problems.
(Reuters, 10/23/19)
2019 Oct 26, Remnants of Tropical Storm Olga caused soggy conditions in Mississippi and Alabama and dozens of flights were canceled or delayed at New Orleans' main airport after two power outages.
(AP, 10/26/19)
2019 Oct 28, Zimbabwe's national airline resumed flights to South Africa, after a halt last week when South Africa's state-run airports management firm barred the airline from using the country's airports over unpaid fees.
(Reuters, 10/28/19)
2019 Oct 29, Indian budget carrier IndiGo said it has placed an order for 300 Airbus A320neo-family jets worth at least $33 billion at recent catalog prices, handing the European plane maker what could be its biggest ever order from a single carrier.
(Reuters, 10/29/19)
2019 Oct 30, Boeing Co Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg acknowledged the company made mistakes in the development of a key safety system known as MCAS at the center of two fatal 737 MAX crashes, at a US House hearing.
(Reuters, 10/30/19)
2019 Nov 5, Air France-KLM outlined plans to expand its budget Transavia business and push the core French carrier upmarket, while overhauling its fleet in pursuit of improved sales and profitability.
(Reuters, 11/5/19)
2019 Nov 5, Norwegian Air said it is planning a share issue and a $175 million bond, raising enough cash to meet the struggling budget airline's needs through 2020 and beyond.
(Reuters, 11/5/19)
2019 Nov 7, Germany's Lufthansa airline announced plans for more cost cuts and delivered better-than-expected results, sending shares higher even as a cabin crew strike posed a further challenge to its efforts to revive profits.
(Reuters, 11/7/19)
2019 Nov 11, The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) downgraded Malaysia's air safety rating, restricting the country's airlines from adding new flights to the United States.
(Reuters, 11/11/19)
2019 Nov 12, South Africa's struggling state-owned airline South African Airways (SAA) said it could cut more than 900 jobs as it restructures to stem severe financial losses.
(Reuters, 11/12/19)
2019 Nov 13, South African Airways (SAA) said it might never recover if a strike by labor unions goes ahead this week, underscoring how close the state-owned company is to collapse. Unions representing around 3,000 of SAA's 5,000-strong workforce said that cabin crew and other workers at SAA would go on strike on Nov. 15 over the airline's refusal to give in to salary hikes and its plan to cut more than 900 jobs.
(Reuters, 11/13/19)
2019 Nov 15, South African Airways (SAA) said its future is hanging in the balance after its workers went on strike to demand higher wages and protest planned job cuts, forcing the struggling state-owned carrier to cancel all flights.
(Reuter, 11/15/19)
2019 Nov 17, Authorities at Libya's Misrata airport seized a Libyan Airlines aircraft operating from Benghazi in the east of the country.
(Reuters, 11/17/19)
2019 Nov 19, South African Airways (SAA) resumed some regional flights but warned that only a deal with striking unions can resolve its current crisis, with no prospect of more money from the government.
(Reuters, 11/19/19)
2019 Nov 22, South African Airways (SAA) signed a wage deal with trade unions to end an eight-day strike that brought the cash-strapped state airline to the brink of collapse.
(Reuters, 11/22/19)
2019 Nov 23, Tanzania's government said it has summoned Canada's envoy to protest after a DHC Dash 8-400 turboprop, set to be delivered to state-owned Air Tanzania, was impounded earlier this week in a land compensation dispute. A retired Tanzanian farmer claimed compensation over what he says was the expropriation of his land several decades ago.
(Reuters, 11/23/19)
2019 Dec 2, Norwegian Air became the first airline to sign the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) pledge, committing to become climate neutral by 2050.
(Travel+Leisure, 12/5/19)
2019 Dec 4, Loss-making budget airline Norwegian Air said it is selling its Argentinian subsidiary Norwegian Air Argentina (NAA) to JetSMART Airlines for an undisclosed sum.
(Reuters, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 11, The United States imposed new sanctions on Iran's biggest airline and its shipping industry, accusing them of transporting lethal aid from Iran to Yemen and weapons of mass destruction proliferation.
(AP, 12/11/19)
2019 Dec 12, Libyan authorities re-opened the capital's main airport, after closing it nearly three months ago amid heavy fighting between rival militias.
(AP, 12/12/19)
2019 Dec 16, Boeing Co suppliers, customers and financiers braced for a possible freeze in Boeing 737 production for the first time in more than 20 years as the grounding of the best-selling MAX looks set to last well into 2020.
(Reuters, 12/16/19)
2019 Dec 23, Boeing Co ousted Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg as the world's biggest plane maker sought to control an escalating crisis that has seen it halt production of its best-selling 737 MAX jetliner following two fatal crashes.
(Reuters, 12/23/19)
2020 Jan 31, The Iranian government banned flights to and from China. An analysis of flight tracking data by BBC Arabic later found that Mahan Air, a privately owned airline, flew between Iran and China 157 times between early February and March.
(The Telegraph, 5/5/20)
2019 Dec 31, Turkish Airlines said it has agreed a compensation deal with plane maker Boeing Co over the grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX following two fatal crashes.
(Reuters, 12/31/19)
2020 Jan 6, American Airlines Group Inc said it had reached a confidential agreement with Boeing Co to address damages the airline incurred in 2019 due to the ongoing grounding of its fleet of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft.
(Reuters, 1/6/20)
2020 Jan 7, In France the lifeless body of a young African stowaway was found in the landing gear of an Air France flight from Ivory Coast.
(SFC, 1/9/20, p.A2)
2020 Jan 10, It was reported that Boeing Co's ousted chief executive officer, Dennis Muilenburg, is leaving the company with $62 million in compensation and pension benefits but will receive no severance pay in the wake of the 737 MAX crisis.
(Reuters, 1/10/20)
2020 Jan 10, Boeing Co's biggest supplier, Spirit AeroSystems Holdings Inc, said it plans to lay off more than 20% of the workforce at its Wichita-Kansas base as it grapples with halted production and uncertainty over when 737 MAX jets will return to service.
(Reuters, 1/10/20)
2020 Jan 14, In southern California Delta Airlines Flight 89 enroute to China turned back to Los Angeles Int'l. Airport minutes after takeoff and dumped fuel that fell on fie elementary schools. The FAA soon promised an investigation.
(SFC, 1/16/20, p.A7)
2020 Jan 20, Kosovo and Serbia agreed to launch direct commercial flights after a two-decade interval in a deal mediated by the United States in an attempt to push the two former foes closer to normalizing relations.
(Reuters, 1/20/20)
2020 Jan 22, In Libya the only functioning airport in Tripoli reopened after coming under attack, despite a tenuous truce that world powers have pushed warring parties to respect. Authorities at Mitiga airport said six Grad missiles had crashed into the tarmac.
(AP, 1/22/20)
2020 Jan 24, More airports began to screen passengers arriving from China amid growing concerns over the outbreak of a new virus there that has already killed more than two dozen people and sickened hundreds.
(AP, 1/24/20)
2020 Jan 28, A team overseeing SAA's bankruptcy protected restructuring said that cash-strapped state carrier South African Airways (SAA) will receive 3.5 billion rand ($244 million) of emergency funding from the Development Bank of Southern Africa.
(Reuters, 1/28/20)
2020 Jan 29, American Airlines said it is suspending two routes to China, citing "significant decline in demand for travel to and from China."
(Good Morning America, 1/29/20)
2020 Jan 29, British Airways announced that it has suspended all flights to and from mainland China "with immediate effect," as the country struggles to contain the outbreak of the new coronavirus.
(Good Morning America, 1/29/20)
2020 Jan 29, Germany-based Lufthansa said it is suspending its own, Swiss and Austrian Airlines flights to and from China until Feb. 9.
(Reuters, 1/29/20)
2020 Jan 29, Tanzania’s national carrier said it will have to postpone its maiden flights from commercial capital Dar es Salaam to China, citing concerns over the spread of a coronavirus that has killed 133 people.
(Reuters, 1/29/20)
2020 Jan 30, Ethiopian Airlines said that its flights to China are operating normally, hours after its passenger call center told Reuters that all flights were suspended.
(Reuters, 1/30/20)
2020 Jan 30, Cash-strapped state carrier South African Airways (SAA) said it would "cancel and consolidate selected flights" to lower costs, days after it received a 3.5 billion rand ($244 million) government bailout to ease a mounting cash-flow crunch.
(Reuters, 1/30/20)
2020 Jan 31, French prosecutors said that European plane maker Airbus bribed public officials and hid the payments as part of a pattern of corruption that led to a record $4 billion bribery settlement with France, Britain and the United States.
(Reuters, 1/31/20)
2020 Jan 31, Vietnam Airlines said it will suspend its flights to destinations in China from next week over coronavirus concerns.
(Reuters, 1/31/20)
2020 Feb 1, Delta Air Lines said it will accelerate the suspension of flights in and out of China from the United States after the White House said it was imposing new restrictions on visitors starting on February 2.
(Reuters, 2/1/20)
2020 Feb 1, Three Philippine airlines cancelled flights to China, joining many others around the world that have done the same, after health officials confirmed the Philippines' first case of coronavirus.
(Reuters, 2/1/20)
2020 Feb 2, Vietnam Airlines and Vietjet Air resumed flights to Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau, after the Hanoi government eased restrictions over virus concerns.
(Reuters, 2/2/20)
2020 Feb 3, Pakistan, a close Chinese ally, said it was resuming air travel to China after a three-day suspension.
(Reuters, 2/3/20)
2020 Feb 11 Japan's Mitsubishi Aircraft Corp unannounced commitments from customers to buy hundreds of its SpaceJet M100 regional jets, but its first focus is on certifying its larger introductory model, the M90.
(Reuters, 2/11/20)
2020 Feb 15, The US Federal Aviation Administration said that American civilian flights can resume operations over much of the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman region, loosening restrictions announced five weeks ago amid heightened tensions between the US and Iran.
(AP, 2/15/20)
2020 Feb 15, European aerospace group Airbus said it deeply regretted the US decision to increase tariffs on aircraft imported from the European Union and said it would hurt US airlines and their customers.
(Reuters, 2/15/20)
2020 Feb 19, A Syrian passenger jet landed in Aleppo from Damascus, marking the resumption of domestic flights between the two cities for the first time since 2012. The government's onslaught continued nearby with airstrikes reported in several rebel-held towns and villages.
(AP, 2/19/20)
2020 Feb 20, Iraqi Airways suspended flight service to neighboring Iran as a protective measure against the coronavirus outbreak.
(Reuters, 2/20/20)
2020 Feb 21, Boeing Co said it has found debris in the fuel tanks of dozens of undelivered 737 MAX jets amid ongoing inspections as the Chicago-based plane maker struggles to restore the trust of airlines and the wider public in the grounded fleet.
(Reuters, 2/22/20)
2020 Feb 22, A South Korean Air flight with 188 passengers that landed at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport was taxied away from the allotted terminal while authorities allowed only 11 Israelis to enter the country. The next day the plane returned to South Korea with the rest of the passengers.
(AP, 2/23/20)
2020 Feb 25, American Airlines Group Inc said it has signed a strategic partnership deal with Qatar Airways and is reviving its codeshare agreement.
(Reuters, 2/25/20)
2020 Feb 25, Japan's ANA Holdings Inc said it will buy 15 Boeing Co 787 Dreamliners worth $5 billion at list prices, the first commercial order announcement for the US plane maker this year as it wrestles with the grounding of the smaller 737 MAX.
(Reuters, 2/25/20)
2020 Feb 25, The United Arab Emirates became the latest to clamp down on Iran, halting all passenger and cargo flights to and from the country due to the coronavirus outbreak, a similar move to other nearby countries including Armenia, Kuwait, Iraq and Turkey.
(AP, 2/25/20)
2020 Feb 27, The British Court of Appeal ruled that a plan to build a third runway at London's Heathrow Airport was unlawful because it violated Britain's commitments to climate change.
(SFC, 2/28/20, p.A2)
2020 Mar 3, UAE major international airline Emirates said it is asking staff to take unpaid leave for up to a month at a time due to the rapidly spreading coronavirus that has led to flight cancellations around the world.
(Reuters, 3/3/20)
2020 Mar 4, In Florida veteran airline mechanic Abdul-Majeed Marouf Ahmed Alani (60) was sentenced to three years in prison for sabotaging an American Airlines jetliner with 150 people aboard in a bid to earn overtime fixing the plane.
(AP, 3/4/20)
2020 Mar 4, Germany-based Lufthansa said it has cut its flight capacity in a move equivalent to grounding almost a fifth of its fleet, response to the coronavirus epidemic.
(AP, 3/4/20)
2020 Mar 4, In Libya the only civilian airport in Tripoli came under direct attack late today by eastern-based opposition forces. There were no reports of causalities.
(AP, 3/5/20)
2020 Mar 5, Portugal's flag carrier TAP said it has cancelled a total of around 1,000 flights this month and next due to a fall in demand over concerns about the spreading coronavirus.
(Reuters, 3/5/20)
2020 Mar 6, Boeing's proposal to leave wiring bundles in place on the grounded 737 MAX failed to get the backing of US aviation regulators, potentially delaying the plane's return to service.
(Reuters, 3/9/20)
2020 Mar 6, Iraq said it will halt border trade with Iran and Kuwait between March 8 and 15 to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
(AP, 3/7/20)
2020 Mar 11, Lebanon suspended flights from countries hit hardest by the novel coronavirus after announcing its second death from the pandemic in two days.
(AFP, 3/11/20)
2020 Mar 14, The Dominican Republic said it will suspend all flights from Europe and the arrival of all cruise ships for a month in order to prevent the spread of coronavirus. So far 11 cases of coronavirus have been detected.
(Reuters, 3/15/20)
2020 Mar 14, Saudi Arabia said it would halt all flights to the kingdom for two weeks beginning March 15.
(AP, 3/14/20)
2020 Mar 15, Airlines called on the British government to help ensure their survival during the coronavirus crisis after the US extended restrictions on European travelers to include Britain.
(Reuters, 3/15/20)
2020 Mar 17, It was reported that a TSA officer at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport has tested positive for COVID-19. This marked the 8th TSA officer to test positive for COVID-19. The other cases were in California, Florida and Georgia.
(Good Morning America, 3/17/20)
2020 Mar 20, South Africa said coronavirus cases have jumped to 202, the most in the sub-Saharan region, while the continent's busiest airport said foreigners cannot disembark. State-owned South African Airways suspended all international flights until June.
(AP, 3/20/20)
2020 Mar 21, Nigeria announced it is closing airports as of March 23 to all incoming international flights for one month due to the coronavirus pandemic.
(AP, 3/21/20)
2020 Mar 22, Albania said it will suspend all commercial flights to and from the country from midnight, allowing only flag carrier Air Albania to fly to Turkey and operate humanitarian flights. There have been 76 coronavirus cases in Albania and two deaths.
(Reuters, 3/22/20)
2020 Mar 23, Boeing Co. said it is temporarily shuttering its Seattle-area factories, compounding hurdles for a company already reeling from the grounding of its top-selling plane. The shutdown will begin March 25 and last 14 days.
(Bloomberg, 3/23/20)
2020 Mar 23, The United Arab Emirates, home to the world's busiest international airport in Dubai, announced it was suspending all passenger flights and the transit of airline passengers in the country for two weeks to stymie the spread of the new coronavirus.
(AP, 3/23/20)
2020 Mar 25, Air Namibia said that all domestic and inter-African flights will be suspended effective March 27 until April 20. The airline said it will remain available to offer charter flights for humanitarian purposes, as well as airlifts of pharmaceutical supplies and consumables.
(Reuters, 3/25/20)
2020 Mar 26, The Russian government ordered the grounding of all international flights as part of new measures against the coronavirus pandemic, with the exception of flights evacuating Russian citizens from abroad. Kremlin spokesman Dmitri S. Peskov told reporters: “There is de facto no epidemic" in Russia.
(Good Morning America, 3/26/20)(NY Times, 4/14/20)
2020 Mar 27, Russian low-cost airline Pobeda, a subsidiary of flagship carrier Aeroflot, said it will suspend all its domestic flights and stop flying altogether from April 1 until the end of May.
(Reuters, 3/27/20)
2020 Mar 28, Turkey halted all intercity trains and limited domestic flights, as the number of coronavirus cases jumped by a third in a day to 5,698, with 92 dead.
(Reuters, 3/28/20)
2020 Mar 28, Vietnam began limiting domestic flights and stop public gatherings for two weeks, as it aimed to keep down the number of coronavirus cases. The health ministry reported an additional 11 coronavirus cases, bringing the total number in the country to 174. There are 1,729 suspected cases in the country.
(Reuters, 3/28/20)
2020 Mar 29, American Airlines Group Inc said it is set to sharply increase the number of jets it is planning to retire beyond its announced plans as it accelerates a fleet transformation to respond to the coronavirus crisis.
(Reuters, 3/31/20)
2020 Mar 30, Israel said it is offering its second-biggest airport as a place for foreign carriers to park planes grounded by the coronavirus outbreak.
(Reuters, 3/30/20)
2020 Mar 30, United Arab Emirates carrier flydubai said it will reduce pay for its employees for three months from April due to the impact of the global coronavirus crisis on its business.
(Reuters, 3/30/20)
2020 Mar 31, Southwest Airlines Co said it will cut more than 40% of flights from May 3 through June 5 amid a sharp decline in travel demand from the coronavirus pandemic.
(Reuters, 3/31/20)
2020 Mar 31, Air Canada announced it will temporarily lay off nearly half of its employees -- affecting some 15,200 staff and about 1,300 managers -- and reduce activity by up to 90 percent.
(AFP, 3/31/20)
2020 Mar, The government of Somalia banned international flights, including khat planes, as part of its efforts to contain coronavirus.
(BBC, 5/13/20)
2020 Apr 1, Swedish airline BRA said it was pausing all traffic as demand had ground to a halt amid the coronavirus pandemic. Privately held BRA said it was cancelling all flights between April 6 and May 31.
(Reuters, 4/1/20)
2020 Apr 6, Sweden's government said it will act to keep vital domestic airline routes open, despite the impact on travel caused by the coronavirus.
(Reuters, 4/6/20)
2020 Apr 7, The Trump administration granted a license to General Electric Co to supply engines for China's new COMAC C919 passenger jet.
(Reuters, 4/7/20)
2020 Apr 8, JetBlue Airways Corp said it is consolidating flights in five US metropolitan areas into just one or two airports and also asking the US Department of Transportation to exempt it from flying at other airports where current demand does not support its service.
(Reuters, 4/8/20)
2020 Apr 14, The US Transportation Department awarded nearly $10 billion to US airports struggling with a massive falloff in travel demand because of the coronavirus pandemic.
(Reuters, 4/14/20)
2020 Apr 14, Boeing Co reported another 75 cancellations for its 737 MAX jetliner in March, as the coronavirus crisis worsened disruptions from the grounding of its best-selling jet.
(Reuters, 4/14/20)
2020 Apr 14, Industry sources said Delta Air Lines has taken over an order worth roughly $3 billion at list prices for 10 Airbus A350 jetliners from Latam Airlines Group.
(Reuters, 4/14/20)
2020 Apr 15, Greece said it is extending a temporary ban on all flights to and from Italy, Spain, Turkey, the U.K. and the Netherlands by a month to May 15 to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Exceptions included cargo and humanitarian flights.
(Bloomberg, 4/15/20)
2020 Apr 28, Airline Icelandair said it would cut 2,000 jobs across its entire operation to stop the outflow of cash primarily going to salaries, as the firm struggles to keep going during the coronavirus pandemic.
(Reuters, 4/28/20)
2020 Apr 29, It was reported that BP is donating 3 million gallons of jet fuel to FedEx and Alaska Airlines to help with the distribution of personal protective equipment in the battle against the new coronavirus.
(Reuters, 4/29/20)
2020 Apr 29, Austria and Switzerland pledged to help Lufthansa with state-backed loans as the German airline pursues talks with Berlin over a 9 billion euro ($9.8 billion) rescue package.
(Reuters, 4/29/20)
2020 May 1, Hungarian budget carrier Wizz Air flew into London's Luton airport from Sofia, becoming one of the first European airlines to restart routes during the coronavirus pandemic.
(Reuters, 5/1/20)
2020 May 1, Kazakh airlines made their first regular domestic flights in more than a month, with rows of passengers seated alongside empty middle seats, after the vast Central Asian nation eased coronavirus lockdown rules.
(Reuters, 5/1/20)
2020 May 3, Norwegian Air said it had secured support from enough bondholders for a $1.2 billion debt-for-equity swap, a vital step in helping it survive the coronavirus crisis.
(Reuters, 5/3/20)
2020 May 6, Nigeria said it will extend a ban on all flights by four weeks as part of measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
(Reuters, 5/6/20)
2020 May 7, In Texas Junin Ko (22) was struck and killed late today on a landing strip at Austin-Bergstrom Int'l. Airport after being hit by Southwest Airlines Flight 1392.
(SFC, 5/9/20, p.A3)(SFC, 5/13/19, p.A4)
2020 May 7, Portugal's flag carrier TAP resumed some of its international operations with a flight to London as lockdown measures imposed to combat the spread of the coronavirus are slowly being lifted in the tourism-dependent country.
(Reuters, 5/7/20)
2020 May 9, It was reported that the British government has told airlines it will introduce a 14-day quarantine period for most people arriving from abroad to try to avoid a second peak of the coronavirus pandemic.
(Reuters, 5/9/20)
2020 May 10, Colombian airline Avianca filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in a court in New York City, and liquidated its subsidiary Avianca Peru, becoming one of the major airlines to filed for bankruptcy due to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis.
{Colombia, Aviation, Bankruptcy}
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avianca)
2020 May 18, Qatar Airways said its cabin crew will begin wearing protective suits and passengers will have to wear face masks on board.
(Reuters, 5/18/20)
2020 May 19, Britain's EasyJet said that hackers had accessed the email and travel details of around nine million customers, as well as the credit card details of more than 2,000 of them, in a "highly sophisticated" attack. Hacking tools and techniques used to access the travel records of millions of customers of easyJet pointed to a group of suspected Chinese hackers thought to be behind multiple attacks on airlines in recent months.
(Reuters, 5/19/20)
2020 May 20, England-based airline engine maker Rolls-Royce announced plans to cut 9,000 workers as it grapples with the collapse in air travel due to the pandemic.
(AP, 5/20/20)
2020 May 21, The Trump administration notified international partners that it is pulling out of a treaty that permits 30-plus nations to conduct unarmed, observation flights over each other’s territory, because Russia is violating the pact, and imagery collected during the flights can be obtained quickly at less cost from US or commercial satellites. The treaty entered into force in January 2002. Currently, 34 nations have signed it.
(AP, 5/21/20)
2020 May 22, Ten EU countries expressed concern over US plans to withdraw from the 2002 international treaty that allowed nations to conduct unarmed, observation flights over each other’s territory.
(SFC, 5/23/19, p.A2)
2020 May 26, Chile's LATAM Airlines Group filed for US bankruptcy protection, becoming the world's largest carrier so far to seek an emergency reorganization due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Chile was averaging 4,000 new coronavirus cases daily.
(Reuters, 5/26/20)(SFC, 5/27/19, p.A4)
2020 May, ATSG-owned charter airline company, Omni Air, secured a $67 million bailout as part of the US congressional coronavirus relief package. That came on the heels of a $77.65 million contract with the Department of Defense for “international charter airlift services." ATSG donates exclusively to Republican candidates through its political action committee. When ATSG released its first-quarter earnings, it noted that “revenues were up 12 percent, or $41.1 million, to $389.3 million." The increased revenue was the result “mainly from growth in Omni Air" and another subsidiary, Air Transport International.
(Yahoo News, 6/23/20)
2020 Jun 3, The Trump administration moved to block Chinese airlines from flying to the US starting June 16. This followed China's failure to allow United and Delta Airlines to resume flights this week to China.
(SFC, 6/4/20, p.A3)
2020 Jun 9, Cyprus reopened its airports following an 11-week ban aimed at curbing the spread of COVID-19. Cyprus permitted 19 countries with low coronavirus infection rates for commercial flights.
(AP, 6/9/20)
2020 Jun 24, Pakistan's aviation minister Ghulam Sarqar Khan said 262 out of 860 Pakistani pilots had "fake" licenses. The following day Pakistan Int'l. Airlines (PIA) said it will ground 150 pilots accusing them of obtaining licenses by having others take exams for them.
(SFC, 6/26/20, p.A4)
2020 Jun 30, The EU announced that it will reopen its borders to travelers from 14 countries and possibly China soon, but most Americans would be refused entry for at least another two weeks due to soaring coronavirus infections in the US.
(SFC, 7/1/20, p.A5)
2020 Jun 30, The European Union's aviation safety agency said that Pakistan’s national airline will not be allowed to fly into Europe for at least six months after the country’s aviation minister revealed that nearly a third of Pakistani pilots had cheated on their pilot’s exams.
(AP, 6/30/20)
2020 Jul 8, Pakistan's national carrier said it is firing 28 pilots found to have tainted licenses. 262 pilots are currently grounded in the country.
(SFC, 7/9/20, p.A2)
2020 Jul 22, The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it was proposing the first US emissions standards for commercial aircraft. The proposed regulation seeks to align the United States with the 2016 International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) standards.
(Reuters, 7/22/20)
2020 Jul 22, Long-haul carrier Qatar Airways said it has launched international arbitration seeking at least $5 billion from four boycotting Arab countries for blocking its flights from their airspace and their markets.
(AP, 7/22/20)
2020 Jul 23, Baghdad International Airport reopened for scheduled commercial flights after months of closure during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has hit Iraq especially hard in recent weeks. The country has recorded 102,226 coronavirus infections and 4,122 deaths. Today's tally was 2,361 new cases.
(Reuters, 7/23/20)
2020 Jul 24, Europe's Airbus said it would increase loan repayments to France and Spain in a "final" bid to reverse US tariffs and jog the United States into settling a 16-year-old dispute over billions of dollars of aircraft subsidies.
(Reuters, 7/24/20)
2020 Jul 29, Berlin's Tegel airport began large scale coronavirus testing, as airports across Germany prepared for the advent of free, compulsory testing for many passengers from next week.
(Reuters, 7/29/20)
2020 Aug 20, American Airlines Group Inc said it plans to suspend flights to 15 US airports in October as travel demand remains low as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
(Reuters, 8/20/20)
2020 Aug 23, American Airlines said it is preparing to begin spraying its airplane cabins with a disinfectant proven to fight COVID-19 on surfaces for up to seven days that has been granted emergency approval by the US Environmental Protection Agency for use in Texas.
(Reuters, 8/24/20)
2020 Aug 25, American Airlines said it will eliminate 19,000 jobs in October as it struggles with a sharp downturn in travel because of the pandemic.
(AP, 8/25/20)
2020 Aug 28, Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport announced that it will cut hundreds of jobs as it warned that air traffic likely will not return to pre-coronavirus pandemic levels until 2023-25.
(AP, 8/28/20)
2020 Aug 30, United Airlines announced that it was permanently eliminating a $200 fee for changing tickets for domestic travel, a move expected to put pressure on other carriers to drop the fees too.
(The Week, 8/31/20)
2020 Aug 31, An Israeli airliner made a historic first flight from Tel Aviv to the United Arab Emirates, emphasizing new diplomatic ties between the two countries.
(The Telegraph, 8/31/20)
2020 Sep 2, United Airlines said it is preparing to furlough 16,370 workers on Oct. 1 as the coronavirus pandemic continues to devastate the airline industry.
(Reuters, 9/2/20)
2020 Sep 2, Saudi Arabia announced that flights to and from the United Arab Emirates “from all countries" will now be able to use its airspace — a statement apparently allowing flyovers by Israel following a deal to normalize UAE-Israel relations.
(AP, 9/2/20)
2020 Sep 4, Virgin Atlantic announced 1,150 more job cuts due to the coronavirus crisis, saying its 1.2 billion pound ($1.6 billion) rescue deal alone was not enough to secure its future.
(Reuters, 9/4/20)
2020 Sep 23, The first known direct commercial flight between Israel and Bahrain landed in the island kingdom, just a week after it signed a deal alongside the UAE to normalize relations.
(AP, 9/23/20)
2020 Oct 1, South Africa reopened to international flights, ending a more than six-month ban on international travel that was part of its restrictions to combat the spread of COVID-19.
(AP, 10/1/20)
2020 Oct 2, Qatar Airways examined a number of female passengers bound for Sydney and nine other unnamed destinations after a newborn baby was found abandoned. The forced vaginal examination triggered outrage in Australia.
(AP, 10/30/20)
2020 Oct 13, Int'l. arbitrators said the EU can impose tariffs and other penalties on up to $4 billion of US goods and services over illegal American support for plane maker Boeing.
(SFC, 10/14/20, p.A2)
2020 Oct 23, Lufthansa's Austrian Airlines said it is offering rapid pre-boarding coronavirus tests free to passengers on one of its routes as part of a group-wide plan to make such tests standard.
(Reuters, 10/23/20)
2020 Oct 31, In Germany the new Berlin Brandenburg Airport Willy Brandt opened, nine years late and far above its original budget.
(SSFC, 11/1/20, p.A6)
2020 Oct 31, The Dutch government put on hold its plan to bail out KLM, the Dutch arm of Air France, after pilots rejected a wage-freeze until 2025.
(Reuters, 11/1/20)
2020 Nov 9, The EU said it would begin imposing sweeping tariffs on around $4 billion worth of American aircraft, food, drinks and other products beginning Nov. 10.
(SFC, 11/10/20, p.C1)
2020 Nov 18, The Federal Aviation Administration cleared Boeing’s 737 Max to fly again. The plane had been grounded for 20 months after two fatal crashes.
(NY Times, 11/19/20)
2020 Nov 26, The low-cost carrier FlyDubai began regular flights to Tel Aviv, the latest sign of the normalization deal taking hold between the United Arab Emirates and Israel.
(AP, 11/26/20)
2020 Dec 2, The US Transportation Dept. issued a final rule saying only dogs can be service animals on airlines, and companions used for emotional support don't count.
(SFC, 12/3/20, p.A6)
2020 Dec 2, Boeing Co's 737 MAX took off on its first public appearance with media onboard since being grounded over fatal crashes, as one of its biggest customers, American Airlines, seeks to prove it is safe for passengers.
(Reuters, 12/2/20)
2020 Dec 9, Brazil’s Gol Airlines became the first in the world to return the Boeing 737 Max jetliners to its active fleet, using a 737 MAX 8 on a flight from Sao Paulo to Porto Alegre.
(AP, 12/9/20)
2020 Dec 12, The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it had approved the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine by pilots and air traffic controllers.
(Reuters, 12/12/20)
2020 Dec 16, Britain's Supreme Court overturned a Court of Appeal judgement that had stopped the expansion of Heathrow Airport.
(Econ., 12/19/20, p.89)
2020 Dec 19, The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it had approved the use of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine by pilots and air traffic controllers.
(Reuters, 12/19/20)
2020 Dec 20, Lockheed Martin said it is buying rocket engine manufacturer Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings for $4.4 billion in a deal that brings together companies that already had been working together in the aeronautics industry.
(AP, 12/20/20)
2020 Dec 20, Canada joined a growing number of European countries late today and banned passenger flights from Britain, effective as of midnight, as southern England grapples with a new variant of COVID-19. The ban will be in place for 72 hours.
(The Week, 12/20/20)
2020 Dec 20, Several European countries, including Germany, France, Italy, Ireland, Belgium, and the Netherlands, imposed bans on flights and ferries from the United Kingdom, after reports that a new, more infectious variant of the coronavirus is spreading in southeast England.
(The Week, 12/20/20)
2020 Dec 20, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Oman said they are closing their borders and suspending commercial flights over fears about a new coronavirus strain.
(Reuters, 12/21/20)
2020 Dec 21, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said British Airways has agreed to allow only passengers who test negative for the novel coronavirus to fly to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, as international leaders reacted to news of a highly infectious new strain.
(AP, 12/21/20)
2020 Dec 22, Iraq said it is banning air travel to or from eight countries to guard against the spread of a new variant of the coronavirus, and is ordering public venues like shopping malls and restaurants to close.
(Reuters, 12/22/20)
2020 Dec 26, Montenegro Airlines ceased its operations after the small country’s new government refused to continue financing the indebted national carrier. The government said it plans to form a “completely new" airline in the months to come.
(AP, 12/26/20)
2020 Dec 28, The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said it was finalizing the first-ever proposed standards regulating greenhouse gas emissions from airplanes.
(Reuters, 12/28/20)
2020 Dec 29, Boeing's 737 MAX resumed passenger flights in the United States for the first time after a 20-month safety ban was lifted last month.
(Reuters, 12/29/20)
2021 Jan 7, The US government said Boeing will pay $2.5 billion to resolve a Justice Department investigation into safety issues with its 737 MAX plane.
(NY Times, 1/7/21)
2021 Jan 12, Egypt reopened its airspace to Qatar flights after regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia reopened its airspace and border with the Gulf Arab state last week.
(AP, 1/12/20)
2021 Jan 14, Low-cost carrier Norwegian Air Shuttle said it will focus on European destinations and close its long-haul operations as it struggles with the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic and debt restructuring.
(AP, 1/14/20)
2021 Jan 15, Russia said that it will withdraw from an international treaty allowing surveillance flights over military facilities after the US exit from the pact, compounding the challenges faced by the incoming administration of president-elect Joe Biden.
(AP, 1/15/21)
2021 Jan 15, Syrian Air conducted its first flight in a decade between the northern city of Aleppo and Lebanon’s capital Beirut early today, resuming a round-trip route that's been halted since Syria’s conflict began in 2011.
(AP, 1/15/21)
2021 Jan 21, Norway’s government said it will help ailing low-cost carrier Norwegian Air Shuttle - a U-turn from its previous refusal to do so - as long as the company manages to raise 4.5 billion kroner ($529 million) from other investors.
(AP, 1/21/21)
2021 Jan 29, United Airlines said it has warned some 14,000 employees that they might be furloughed, and aviation unions made a new request to Congress and Pres. Joe Biden for another $15 billion in government assistance to keep workers on the payroll through at least Sept. 30.
(Reuters, 1/29/21)
2021 Jan 29, The UK instituted a travel ban barring direct flights to the UAE over the spread of a South African variant of the coronavirus.
(AP, 1/29/21)
2021 Feb 15, The government of Namibia closed the southern African country's state-owned airline, Air Namibia, saying that it can no longer afford the financial losses.
(AP, 2/15/21)
2021 Feb 17, The United Arab Emirates, a key international travel hub, announced it has lifted its ban on Boeing’s 737 Max, allowing the plane to return to its skies after being grounded for nearly two years following a pair of deadly crashes.
(AP, 2/17/21)
2021 Feb 20, A Boeing 777-200, headed from Denver to Honolulu with 231 passengers and 10 crew aboard, suffered a catastrophic failure in its right engine and flames erupted under the wing as the plane began to lose altitude. The plane landed safely at Denver International Airport, and no one on board or on the ground was hurt.
(AP, 2/20/21)
2021 Feb 21, Boeing recommended the grounding of its 777 jets with a particular engine model until the Federal Aviation Administration determines how best to inspect them.
(NY Times, 2/22/21)
2021 Mar 5, Albania's government selected a Swiss-based corporation to build a 104-million-euro ($125 million) new international airport near the southwestern town of Vlore in an effort to promote tourism and economic development.
(AP, 3/5/21)
2021 Mar 9, Boeing Co. said that it received more new orders than cancellations for commercial airplanes in February for the first time in 15 months.
(AP, 3/9/21)
2021 Mar 14, In Colorado more than 2,000 flights were cancelled over the last 24 hours as a major snow storm struck the region.
(SSFC, 3/14/21, p.A7)
2021 Mar 23, Frontier Airlines said it expects to raise about $630 million from an initial public offering of a small portion of its stock, a deal that it hopes will value the budget airline at about $4.5 billion.
(AP, 3/23/21)
2021 Mar 29, US budget carrier Southwest Airlines Co said it had reached a deal with plane maker Boeing Co for an order for 100 aircraft of 737 Max variant, with the first 30 jets scheduled for delivery in 2022.
(Reuters, 3/29/21)
2021 Apr 1, Denver-based Frontier Airline and its private owners hoped to raise $570 million before costs from their IPO after pricing 30 million shares at $19.
(AP, 4/1/21)
2021 Apr 7, United Parcel Service said it has agreed to buy 10 electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft from Vermont-based startup Beta Technologies to speed up deliveries in small markets. The first 10 planes will start arriving in 2024.
(Reuters, 4/7/21)
2021 Apr 9, Airlines pulled dozens of Boeing Max 737s out of service for inspections after the aircraft maker told them about a possible electrical problem, the latest setback for plane.
(AP, 4/9/21)
2021 Apr 10, French lawmakers voted late today to abolish domestic flights on routes than can be covered by train in under two-and-a-half hours, as the government seeks to lower carbon emissions even as the air travel industry reels from the global pandemic.
(Reuters, 4/11/21)
2021 Apr 19, A travel bubble opened between Australia and New Zealand. Flights between the two countries jumped from 2-3 per day to 30.
(SFC, 4/20/21, p.A6)
2021 Apr 23, The Kremlin said Russia plans to resume direct flights to Egypt’s Red Sea resort towns after the 2015 downing of a Russian airliner over the Sinai Peninsula. In 2017, it started flying to Cairo again, but direct trips to the two Red Sea resort towns have remained halted.
(AP, 4/23/21)
2021 Apr 24, Alaska Airlines banned Alaska state Senator Lora Reinbold for refusing to follow mask requirements. Reinbold has been a vocal opponent to COVID-19 mitigation measures.
(AP, 4/25/21)
2021 May 1, It was reported that the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has extended a requirement that passengers on planes, trains and buses wear face masks. The rule was set to expire May 11 but will run through Sept. 13.
(AP, 5/1/21)
2021 May 2, Dubai's budget carrier flydubai reported a loss of $194 million in 2020 as revenue fell by more than 50% in what it described as one of the toughest years in the aviation industry.
(AP, 5/2/21)
2021 May 13, Delta Air Lines said it will require all new hires in the United States to be vaccinated against COVID-19, one of the first major companies to issue such a mandate.
(Reuters, 5/14/21)
2021 May 18, Air France-KLM said it is sending into the air what it calls its first long-haul flight with sustainable aviation fuel. The plane is said to be using petroleum mixed with a synthetic jet fuel derived from waste cooking oils.
(AP, 5/18/21)
2021 May 21, Start-up low-cost US airline Breeze Airways said it would begin service next week, focusing on flights between smaller US cities that don't have direct service from larger carriers.
(AP, 5/21/21)
2021 May 22, Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc, British billionaire Sir Richard Branson's private spaceship company, completed its first manned space flight from its new home port in New Mexico. Branson founded the company in 2004 and this is the third time his company reported reaching space.
(Reuters, 5/22/21)
2021 May 23, A Ryanair tourist flight from Athens to Vilnius was forced to land in Belarus by a MiG-29 fighter jet after a bogus bomb threat so authorities could arrest Roman Protasevich (26), a journalist opponent of hardman president Lukashenko.
(https://tinyurl.com/nzjefv5m)
2021 May 24, Britain barred Belarus’s national airline and instructed UK aircraft to avoid Belarussian airspace after a Ryanair passenger jet was forced to land in Minsk.
(AP, 5/24/21)
2021 May 25, The US Federal Aviation Administration said it has downgraded Mexico's aviation safety rating after finding that the country does not meet standards set by a United Nations aviation group.
(AP, 5/25/21)
2021 May 25, Belarus’ isolation deepened as commercial planes avoided its airspace, the European Union worked up new sanctions, and a senior UN official said he was concerned for the welfare of Raman Pratasevich, the opposition journalist arrested in Minsk after his plane was diverted there. The UN human rights watchdog demanded that Belarus release Protasevich.
(AP, 5/25/21)(Reuters, 5/25/21)
2021 May 26, CEO Jacob Schram said low-cost carrier Norwegian Air Shuttle “has been saved," adding it had “written history" as the ailing airline had struggled with fallout from the coronavirus pandemic and a debt restructuring plan.
(AP, 5/26/21)
2021 May 27, US federal officials said Boeing will pay at least $17 million and take steps to fix production problems on its 737 jets including the Max planes built between 2015 and 2019.
(SFC, 5/28/21, p.B2)
2021 May 27, Russia blocked at least two European planes from landing in Moscow because they planned to avoid Belarusian airspace.
(Axios, 5/27/21)
2021 May 27, A Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen acknowledged having equipment on an island in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait where a mysterious air base is now under construction.
(AP, 5/27/21)
2021 May 29, The head of Belarusian national airline Belavia condemned as "despicable" the decision by numerous EU countries to impose airspace restrictions on the carrier following the forced landing of a passenger jet in Minsk.
(Reuters, 5/29/21)
2021 Jun 3, United Airlines said that it plans to buy 15 jets from Boom Supersonic with an option for 35 more once the start-up company designs a plane that flies faster than the speed of sound while meeting safety and environmental standards.
(AP, 6/3/21)
2021 Jun 4, The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) said it and the European Union have concluded the world's first bloc-to-bloc air transport agreement, to allow their airlines to easier expand services to and within the respective regions.
(Reuters, 6/4/21)
2021 Jun 9, A top European Union court annulled the EU's approval of 550 million euros ($670 million) in state aid for German airline Condor, backing a challenge by budget carrier Ryanair but suspending the application of the ruling because of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
(AP, 6/9/21)
2021 Jun 15, The US and the EU reached a deal to end their long-running dispute over subsidies to Boeing and Airbus. This will mean the phase-out of billions in punitive tariffs and ease trans-Atlantic tensions.
(SFC, 6/16/21, p.B2)
2021 Jun 17, Germany-based Lufthansa said it will allow passengers to use new digital COVID-19 vaccination certificates at check-in for their flights.
(Reuters, 6/17/21)
2021 Jun 30, The Indonesian airline Garuda started administering free coronavirus vaccinations to holidaymakers and travelers, part of efforts to reduce the impact of the virus in one of Asia's worst-affected countries.
(AP, 6/30/21)
2021 Jul 8, Russia said its airlines can resume charter flights to Egyptian resorts, which had been banned for more than five years after the suspected bombing of a Russian airliner in which 224 people died.
(AP, 7/8/21)
2021 Jul 11, Richard Branson, the British billionaire who leads a galaxy of Virgin companies, took off from New Mexico as a crew member on a test flight for Virgin Galactic’s space plane.
(NY Times, 7/11/21)
2021 Jul 25, Two Israeli airlines launched their first commercial flights between Israel and Morocco, less than a year after the countries officially normalized relations.
(AP, 7/25/21)
2021 Jul 29, The US Association of Flight Attendants-CWA said more than 4,000 flight attendants had to deal with unruly passengers in the first half of 2021, with one in five facing physical altercations.
(Reuters, 7/29/21)
2021 Jul 31, Indonesia's biggest budget airline operator Lion Air Group announced plans to furlough around 8,000 employees as travel businesses suffer disruption due to COVID-19 restrictions.
(Reuters, 7/31/21)
2021 Aug 1, In Wisconsin the annual, week-long EAA AirVenture jamboree wrapped up in Oshkosh with a record attendance. It was reported that United Airlines plans to hire 350 pilots this year, 1,500 by 2022 and 3,000 by 2023.
(Reuters, 8/1/21)
2021 Aug 4, Israeli airline El Al said passengers on an El Al flight from New York to Tel Aviv will be tested for the coronavirus on the plane itself or before boarding on Aug. 5 to speed up procedures upon arrival in Israel, where infections are on the rise.
(AP, 8/4/21)
2021 Aug 5, In Alaska a sight-seeing plane crashed in the area of Misty Fyords National Monument near Ketchikan, killing all six people on board.
(SFC, 8/7/21, p.A5)
2021 Aug 5, Qatar Airways said it has grounded 13 Airbus A350s over what it described as fuselages “degrading at an accelerated rate" in the long-range aircraft, further escalating a months long dispute with the European airplane maker over the issue.
(AP, 8/5/21)
2021 Aug 6, United Airlines said it will require employees in the US to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by late October, perhaps sooner, joining a rising number of big corporations that are responding to a surge in virus cases.
(AP, 8/6/21)
2021 Aug 9, More than 300 flights were canceled at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago after severe weather prompted a ground stop and an evacuation of the airport’s control tower.
(NY Times, 8/10/21)
2021 Aug 9, Russia resumed flights to Egyptian Red Sea resorts, ending a ban that had lasted almost six years following the Oct. 2015 bombing of a Russian airliner that killed all 224 people onboard.
(AP, 8/9/21)
2021 Aug 10, Abu Dhabi’s national carrier Etihad reported core operating losses of $400 million for the first half of the year, driven by a 68% drop in passenger revenue.
(AP, 8/10/21)
2021 Aug 18, In Belgium pilot Zara Rutherford (19) took off at the start of a three-month bid to become the youngest woman to fly solo round the world.
(Reuters, 8/18/21)
2021 Aug 19, The FAA said that its latest round of fines are part of its crackdown against outlandish behavior on US flights. Rowdy airline passengers have now racked up more than $1 million in potential fines this year with federal officials announcing fines against 34 additional individuals.
(AP, 8/19/21)
2021 Aug 22, US Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III has ordered six commercial airlines to provide passenger jets to help with the growing US military operation evacuating Americans and Afghan allies from Kabul, the Afghan capital.
(NY Times, 8/23/21)
2021 Aug 25, Delta Air Lines said employees will have to pay $200 more every month for their company-sponsored healthcare plan if they choose to not vaccinate against COVID-19.
(Reuters, 8/25/21)
2021 Aug 26, India's air safety regulator said it had cleared Boeing Co's (BA.N) 737 MAX aircraft to fly with immediate effect, ending its nearly two-and-a-half-years of regulatory grounding in a key travel market for the plane maker.
(Reuters, 8/26/21)
2021 Sep 6, Philippine Airlines said it will return 22 aircraft, mostly Airbus and Boeing jets, to lessors as it pursues a financial restructuring program to survive after the pandemic has decimated global travel.
(Reuters, 9/6/21)
2021 Sep 9, The first international commercial flight, since the end of the chaotic Western airlift from Afghanistan last month, departed from Kabul Airport. It was about 90% ready for operations and full re-opening was planned gradually.
(Reuters, 9/9/21)
2021 Sep 10, A second charter flight left Afghanistan carrying foreigners and Afghans to Qatar in a sign the country's main airport was close to resuming commercial operations.
(AFP, 9/10/21)
2021 Sep 13, It was reported that the Biden administration is making $482 million available to aviation industry manufacturers to help them avert job or pay cuts in the pandemic.
(AP, 9/13/21)
2021 Sep 15, Iran resumed commercial flights to Afghanistan that had been halted after the Taliban assumed power.
(AP, 9/15/21)
2021 Sep 23, Jubilant South African Airways (SAA) staff at the country's biggest airport broke into song and dance as the airline took to the skies for the first time in around a year.
(Reuters, 9/23/21)
2021 Sep 24, In Italy hundreds of striking air workers blocked the highway to Rome's main airport as they called on the government to avoid job losses in the transition between Alitalia and a new carrier dubbed ITA.
(Reuters, 9/24/21)
2021 Sep 26, The Taliban government in Afghanistan appealed for international flights to be resumed, promising full cooperation with airlines and saying that problems at Kabul airport had been resolved.
(Reuters, 9/26/21)
2021 Oct 3, Egypt's national carrier made its first official direct flight to Israel since the two countries signed an historic 1979 peace treaty as an EgyptAir jet landed at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport. The airline's affiliate, AirSinai, has for decades operated flights to Israel without the company logo, out of fear of public backlash.
(AP, 10/3/21)
2021 Oct 6, Indonesia conducted its first test flight using jet fuel partially from palm oil, as the country plans to commercialize the fuel as it seeks creative ways to use the edible oil domestically.
(Reuters, 10/6/21)
2021 Oct 8, India's government said Tata Sons will resume control of Air India after bidding $2.4 billion, including equity and debt, marking the end of years of struggle to privatize the financially troubled airline.
(Reuters, 10/8/21)
2021 Oct 10, Southwest Airlines canceled more than 1,000 flights and just over 800 a day earlier, wreaking havoc on weekend travel plans for thousands of passengers. Air traffic control staffing shortage and weather in Florida was blamed. The disruption appeared to be limited to Southwest.
(NY Times, 10/10/21)
2021 Oct 11, Southwest Airlines canceled hundreds more flights following a weekend of major service disruptions.
(AP, 10/11/21)
2021 Oct 14, Reliable Robotics, a Silicon Valley startup aiming to automate conventional fixed-wing planes to ferry cargo and eventually passengers, said it has raised $100 million from investors.
(AP, 10/14/21)
2021 Oct 14, Italy's bankrupt Alitalia national airline made its final flights after 74 years of operations.
(SFC, 10/15/21, p.A5)
2021 Oct 14, Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) suspended flights to Kabul after what it called heavy-handed interference by Taliban authorities.
(Reuters, 10/14/21)
2021 Oct 19, Israeli startup AIR unveiled its first "easy-to-operate" electric, vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft that it aims to sell directly to consumers predominantly in the United States starting in 2024.
(Reuters, 10/19/21)
2021 Oct 26, In Japan startup A.L.I. Technologies, backed by soccer player Keisuke Honda, put their 77.7 million yen ($680,000) hoverbike on sale. It promised to fly for 40 minutes at up to 100 kph (62 mph).
(Reuters, 10/26/21)
2021 Oct 28, The US State Department said the Russian government last week approved US air carriers' requests for overflights. Some cargo and passenger airlines sought additional flights.
(Reuters, 10/28/21)
2021 Oct 30, American Airlines said it has canceled more than 1,400 flights over the weekend due to staff shortages and unfavorable weather.
(AP, 10/30/21)
2021 Oct 31, American Airlines canceled nearly 850 domestic and international flights, citing staffing shortages and unfavorable weather, pushing total cancellations to 1,739 and counting since Oct 29.
(Reuters, 10/31/21)
2021 Nov 8, A US federal judge ruled that United Airlines Holdings Inc can impose a COVID-19 vaccine mandate on its employees that only provides unpaid leave for workers who are exempted for medical or religious reasons.
(Reuters, 11/8/21)
2021 Nov 11, The European Commission said the EU will seek to blacklist airlines that transport to Belarus migrants who later attempt to cross the EU border and will coordinate its planned sanctions against Minsk with the United States.
(Reuters, 11/11/21)
2021 Nov 13, Syria’s private Cham Wings Airlines suspended flights between Damascus and the Belarus capital of Minsk because of the “critical circumstances" along the Belarus-Poland border where thousands of migrants have been trying to cross into the European Union.
(AP, 11/13/21)
2021 Nov 14, Dubai began banning travelers from Iraq from passing through the emirate on their way to Belarus, cutting off the last major air route from the Middle East to Minsk. The UAE barred Afghan, Syrian, Yemeni and Iraqi citizens from flights to Minsk.
(NY Times, 11/14/21)(Reuters, 11/15/21)
2021 Nov 15, Los Angeles-based Air Lease Corp. sealed a deal to acquire 111 new aircraft from European plane maker Airbus at the Dubai Air Show.
(SFC, 11/16/21, p.C2)
2021 Nov 16, India's Akasa Air placed an order for 72 Boeing 737 MAX jets, valued at nearly $9 billion at list prices - a deal that could help the US plane maker regain lost ground in one of the world's most promising markets.
(Reuters, 11/16/21)
2021 Nov 17, Indian budget airline SpiceJet said US plane maker Boeing had agreed to settle the outstanding claims related to the grounding of its 737 MAX aircraft.
(Reuters, 11/17/21)
2021 Nov 21, A cyberattack disrupted access to Iran's privately owned Mahan Air, marking the latest in a series of cyberattacks on Iranian infrastructure that has put the country on edge.
(Reuters, 11/21/21)
2021 Nov 29, It was reported that a dispute between Airbus and Qatar Airways over paint and surface flaws on A350 jets stretches beyond the Gulf, with at least five other airlines raising concerns since the high-tech model entered service.
(Reuters, 11/29/21)
2021 Dec 1, Japan's flag airlines halted new reservations and the government widened a travel ban amid escalating alarm over Omicron after a second case of the coronavirus variant was detected in the country. Japan's ban on incoming int'l. flights was retracted the next day.
(Reuters, 12/1/21)(SFC, 12/2/21, p.A6)
2021 Dec 2, China's aviation regulator cleared the Boeing 737 Max to return to flying with technical upgrades.
(SFC, 12/3/21, p.C2)
2021 Dec 10, The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority announced that it was restricting Emirates to just one weekly flight from 21 that had been initially approved. The Emirates airline in response said it will suspend all flights to Nigeria from next week.
(Reuters, 12/10/21)
2021 Dec 12, Nigeria said it plans to ban flights from Argentina, Britain, Canada and Saudi Arabia from this week in retaliation for being added to those countries' red lists over the detection of the Omicron coronavirus variant last month.
(Reuters, 12/12/21)
2021 Dec 13, A divided US appeals court rebuffed a request by six employees to block United Airlines from enforcing a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for workers that imposes unpaid leave on those who are granted religious or medical exceptions.
(Reuters, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 13, UK-based Virgin Atlantic said it has received 400 million pounds ($530 million) of new funding from its shareholders to help the airline ride out the coronavirus pandemic.
(AP, 12/13/21)
2021 Dec 13, The operator of Ghana's main international airport said it will fine airlines $3,500 for every passenger they fly in who is not vaccinated against COVID-19 or who tests positive for the coronavirus upon arrival.
(Reuters, 12/13/21)
2021 Dec 15, Citing high-quality filtration systems aboard planes, Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly stated that “masks don’t add much, if anything, in the air cabin environment." On Dec 17 Kelly tested positive for COVID-19 after returning home from the Senate hearing.
(AP, 12/17/21)
2021 Dec 16, Australia-based Qantas Airways picked Airbus as the preferred supplier to replace its domestic fleet, switching from Boeing in a major win for the European plane maker that also triggered an upheaval in engine supplies.
(Reuters, 12/16/21)
2021 Dec 20, Qatar Airways said it is taking Airbus to court charging the manufacturer of failing to correct what it says is accelerated surface degradation impacting the Airbus A350 aircraft.
(AP, 12/20/21)
2021 Dec 24, FlightAware, a flight tracking firm, said the current number of Christmas Eve flights canceled globally is 2,029, with 448 canceled in the United States, as the spreading COVID-19 Omicron variant takes a toll on its flight crews and other workers. Commercial airlines around the world canceled more than 4,500 flights over the Christmas weekend.
(Reuters, 12/24/21)
2021 Dec 25, US airlines canceled close to 900 flights, the second straight day of massive cancellations as surging COVID-19 infections have sidelined some pilots and other crew members, upending plans for tens of thousands of holiday travelers over the Christmas weekend.
(Reuters, 12/25/21)
2021 Dec 26, US airlines called off hundreds of flights for a third day in a row as surging COVID-19 infections due to the highly transmissible Omicron variant grounded crews and forced tens of thousands of Christmas weekend travelers to change their plans.
(Reuters, 12/26/21)
2021 Dec 26, In Japan more than 100 domestic flights were grounded due to heavy snow in the northern and western parts of the country.
(Reuters, 12/26/21)
2021 Dec 27, At least 2,300 more flights were canceled globally as travel disruptions from one of the year’s busiest weekends for flying spilled into the workweek. Rising COVID-19 cases, along with bad weather, caused US airlines to cancel more than 1,000 flights, and the spread of the Omicron variant prompted the US government's top infectious disease expert to suggest the government consider mandating vaccines for domestic flights.
(NY Times, 12/27/21)(Reuters, 12/27/21)
2021 Dec 28, US carriers Delta Air Lines and Alaska Air Group cancelled hundreds of flights due to adverse weather conditions and rising cases of the Omicron variant.
(Reuters, 12/29/21)
2021 Dec 28, Indonesia said it has lifted a ban on the Boeing 737 MAX, three years after the crash of one of the aircraft operated by domestic carrier Lion Air with the loss of all 189 people on board.
(Reuters, 12/28/21)
2021 Dec 31, Thousands of flights within the United States and internationally were delayed or canceled, adding to the travel disruptions during the holiday week due to adverse weather and rising cases of the Omicron coronavirus variant.
(Reuters, 12/31/21)
2022 Jan 1, Hong Kong flagship carrier Cathay Pacific Airways said two of its aircrew whom have tested positive for the Omicron variant were sacked for breaching medical surveillance regulations.
(Reuters, 1/1/22)
2022 Jan 2, More than 3,600 flights were cancelled around the world, more than half of them US flights, adding to the toll of holiday week travel disruptions due to adverse weather and the surge in coronavirus cases caused by the Omicron variant.
(Reuters, 1/2/22)
2022 Jan 5, Nevada-based low-cost carrier Allegiant Air confirmed plans to buy 50 new Boeing (BA.N) 737 MAX jets worth $5.5 billion at list prices in a switch of supplier and strategy as it gears up for a post-pandemic rebound in tourism.
(Reuters, 1/5/22)
2022 Jan 7, More than 400 flights were delayed or canceled at New York, Boston and Washington airports as a winter storm dumped more than a half a foot of snow in parts of the eastern United States.
(Reuters, 1/7/22)
2022 Jan 12, China ordered the suspension of six more US flights in coming weeks after a surge in passengers testing positive for COVID-19, rising to 70 cancellations mandated this year in a schedule that had already been cut back drastically.
(Reuters, 1/12/22)
2022 Jan 14, China suspended dozens of international flights amid a global surge in Omicron cases. Shanghai curbed tourist activity as it rushed to head off local COVID-19 infections as imported cases rose. Zhuhai city in the southern Guangdong province found seven coronavirus infections during testing schemes in local areas, with the Omicron variant detected according to preliminary sequencing result.
(Reuters, 1/14/22)
2022 Jan 15, Greece's largest carrier Aegean Airlines said it had suspended all flights to Beirut pending the results of an investigation into the cause of damage to one of its planes that flew to the Lebanese capital.
(Reuters, 1/15/22)
2022 Jan 16, The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it had cleared an estimated 45% of the U.S. commercial airplane fleet to perform low-visibility landings at many airports where 5G C-band will be deployed starting Jan. 19.
(Reuters, 1/16/22)
2022 Jan 17, Thousands of US flights were canceled and more than 100,000 homes and businesses lacked power as a snowstorm crept up the East Coast to New England and Canada, where forecasters said it could drop more than another foot (30 cm) of snow.
(Reuters, 1/17/22)
2022 Jan 18, AT&T said it would agree to temporarily defer turning on some wireless towers near key airport runways to avert a looming aviation crisis but the White House is still pushing Verizon Communications to follow suit.
(Reuters, 1/18/22)
2022 Jan 18, China's aviation regulator suspended another eight incoming US flights by US airlines, bringing the total cancellation this year to 84 over COVID-19 cases.
(Reuters, 1/18/22)
2022 Jan 19, Global airlines cancelled or rejigged dozens of flights as the on-off rollout of 5G mobile in the United States triggered what one airline pilot called a "nightmare" of scheduling for carriers grappling with fast-changing airplane restrictions.
(Reuters, 1/19/22)
2022 Jan 20, British-Belgian teenager Zara Rutherford (19) became the youngest woman to fly solo around the world and the first person to do so in a microlight plane after a five-month, five-continent odyssey in her Shark ultralight.
(Reuters, 1/20/22)
2022 Jan 20, It was reported that Turkey and Qatar have reached agreement on ensuring security at Kabul's main airport should they be awarded the mission amid ongoing talks with the Taliban government.
(Reuters, 1/20/22)
2022 Jan 20, Airbus revealed it was walking away from a contract with Qatar Airways for A321neos in skeletal arguments presented during a scheduling session over the A350 dispute at a division of Britain's High Court. Qatar has claimed for more than $600 million in compensation over A350 flaws penciled in for the week of April 26 in London.
(Reuters, 1/21/22)
2022 Jan 21, The US government said it would suspend 44 China-bound flights from the United States by four Chinese carriers in response to the Chinese government's decision to suspend some US carrier flights over COVID-19 concerns.
(Reuters, 1/22/22)
2022 Jan 24, Brazilian plane maker Embraer SA announced that US lessor Azorra has placed an order for 20 new E2 aircraft and has signed a deal for purchase rights on an additional 30 aircraft. The transaction was valued at $3.9 billion.
(Reuters, 1/24/22)
2022 Jan 24, Turkish authorities temporarily halted all flights at Istanbul Airport due to heavy snowfall in the city. Winter weather snarled transportation across the country.
(Reuters, 1/24/22)
2022 Jan 27, India's Tata Group took control of state-run carrier Air India, regaining ownership of the airline after nearly 70 years and marking a victory for PM Narendra Modi's privatization push.
(Reuters, 1/28/22)
2022 Jan 27, Taiwan's China Airlines Ltd said its board had approved the purchase of four more Boeing Co 777F freighters, adding to an earlier order for six of the same model as it steps up capacity to support the island's booming exports.
(Reuters, 1/27/22)
2022 Jan 28, US carriers canceled thousands of flights through the weekend in anticipation of a winter storm forecast to bring high winds and heavy snow across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic.
(Reuters, 1/28/22)
2022 Jan 29, Kuwait Airways said it has suspended its flights to Iraq due to "the current situation there".
(Reuters, 1/29/22)
2022 Feb 1, Ethiopian Airlines said it has resumed flights with the Boeing 737-Max nearly three years after a crash of one of the aircraft outside the country's capital killed 157 people.
(AP, 2/1/22)
2022 Feb 2, More than a dozen states were under some type of winter weather warning, as an enormous storm began its push across a large swath of the United States, with moderate snow falling from New Mexico to Illinois. Airlines canceled more than 1,300 flights.
(NY Times, 2/2/22)
2022 Feb 2, A Fly One Armenia plane, with 64 passengers on board, landed at Istanbul Airport as Charter flights between Istanbul and Yerevan resumed following a two-year hiatus amid efforts by Turkey and Armenia to normalize strained ties.
(AP, 2/2/22)
2022 Feb 3, Israel's flag carrier El Al Airlines, forced to slim down following a government bailout during the pandemic, said it has entered a non-binding memorandum of understanding to buy smaller local rival Arkia.
(Reuters, 2/3/22)
2022 Feb 4, Hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses were without power after a winter storm dumped sleet and heavy snow on a wide swath of the central United States this week. Airlines canceled nearly 3,000 flights. More treacherous weather threatened parts of the Plains and New England.
(Reuters, 2/4/22)
2022 Feb 7, Spirit Airlines and Frontier Airlines, two prominent budget carriers, announced plans to merge, a combination that would create the fifth-largest US airline by market share.
(NY Times, 2/7/22)
2022 Feb 16, The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said a total of 80 unruly airplane passengers have been referred to the FBI for potential criminal prosecution.
(Reuters, 2/16/22)
2022 Feb 16, Brazil-based Embraer said its electric aircraft subsidiary Eve has received orders from Australian charter firms Aviair, HeliSpirit and Microflite for up to 90 electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft (eVTOLs).
(Reuters, 2/16/22)
2022 Feb 18, Strong winds battered parts of Britain and Northern Europe, damaging buildings and severely disrupting travel. A total of 436 flights were cancelled across the United Kingdom amid record winds from storm Eunice. The 2nd major storm in three days, known in Germany as Storm Zeynep, smashed through northern Europe. At least 12 people were killed in Belgium, Britain, Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands
(NY Times, 2/18/22)(Reuters, 2/18/22)(SSFC, 2/20/22, p.A5)
2022 Feb 23, US airlines canceled more than 2,000 flights by the end of the day as a major storm disrupted travel from central Texas to the Great Lakes.
(SFC, 2/25/22, p.A5)
2022 Feb 24, Russia's Aeroflot was banned from flying to the United Kingdom after President Vladimir Putin ordered an invasion of Ukraine.
(Reuters, 2/25/22)
2022 Feb 25, British transport minister Grant Shapps said in a tweet that no Russian private jet can fly in UK airspace or touch down, effective immediately.
(Reuters, 2/25/22)
2022 Feb 26, British Airways canceled dozens of flights from Heathrow Airport as it struggled to fix “technical issues" that hobbled booking and check-in systems.
(AP, 2/26/22)
2022 Feb 25, It was reported that Virgin Atlantic has cancelled its cargo-only flights between London and Shanghai while it looks at ways to re-route the service following a decision to avoid Russian airspace for overflights.
(Reuters, 2/25/22)
2022 Feb 25, Russia said it has banned British airlines from landing at its airports or crossing its airspace. The move follows London's ban on the flights of Russian flag carrier Aeroflot imposed in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
(Reuters, 2/25/22)
2022 Feb 27, Canada closed its airspace to Russian aircraft operators effective immediately due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, joining other countries in announcing similar measures in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
(Reuters, 2/27/22)
2022 Feb 28, Russia closed its airspace to airlines from 36 countries, including all 27 members of the EU, in response Ukraine-related sanctions targeting its aviation sector.
(Reuters, 2/28/22)
2022 Mar 4, Canadian business jet maker Bombardier Inc said it has suspended all activities with Russian clients, as more companies cut ties in the country following the introduction of sweeping sanctions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
(Reuters, 3/4/22)
2022 Mar 7, United Airlines said it has indefinitely suspended two flights to India after halting flights that flew over Russia last week.
(Reuters, 3/7/22)
2022 Mar 9, Britain said it had impounded a plane connected to a Russian billionaire under new aviation sanctions which give authorities the power to detain any Russian aircraft and to ban exports of aviation or space-related goods to Russia. The private jet was linked to Eugene Shvidler, a billionaire business associate of Roman Abramovich.
(Reuters, 3/9/22)
2022 Mar 10, It was reported that China has refused to supply Russian airlines with aircraft parts, after Boeing and Airbus halted their supply of components.
(Reuters, 3/10/22)
2022 Mar 10, It was reported that Ethiopian Airlines has emerged as the unidentified buyer of five Boeing current-generation 777 freighters reported this week.
(Reuters, 3/10/22)
2022 Mar 10, Russia published a draft law that could prevent its airlines returning leased aircraft, raising the stakes in a showdown with Western finance over $10 billion of jets.
(Reuters, 3/10/22)
2022 Mar 13, Bermuda's aviation regulator said it is suspending certification of all Russian-operated airplanes registered in the British overseas territory due to international sanctions over the war in Ukraine, in a move expected to affect more than 700 planes.
(Reuters, 3/13/22)
2022 Mar 13, Serbia’s populist president, Aleksandar Vucic, said AirSerbia will go back to one flight to Moscow a day following “the witch hunt" against his country. Serbia has refused to introduce international sanctions against its ally Russia.
(AP, 3/13/22)
2022 Mar 13, South Africa's civil aviation regulator grounded Comair's planes indefinitely, saying the airline had not adequately addressed safety issues, in a move that also affects passengers of low-cost airline Kulula and British Airways.
(Reuters, 3/13/22)
2022 Mar 14, Australia and the Netherlands said they had begun joint legal action against Russia at the United Nations' aviation agency over the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 on July 17, 2014.
(Reuters, 3/14/22)
2022 Mar 14, A law allowing Russian airlines to register inside Russia planes leased from abroad came into force, creating a new obstacle for leasing firms and lenders seeking to repossess more than 500 jets before sanctions kick in.
(Reuters, 3/14/22)
2022 Mar 16, The US-based aircraft leasing firm owned by Japan's Marubeni Corp and Mizuho Leasing Co Ltd said has recovered two of the 12 aircraft it has been leasing to Russian airlines.
(Reuters, 3/16/22)
2022 Mar 16, Brazilian plane maker Embraer SA said that its electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft subsidiary Eve has signed a letter of intent with Global Crossing Airlines for the sale of up to 200 eVTOLs.
(Reuters, 3/16/22)
2022 Mar 17, Mexican airline Grupo Aeromexico said that it has emerged from bankruptcy protection, adding it now plans to spend $5 billion over the next five years on fleet modernization and other upgrades.
(Reuters, 3/17/22)
2022 Mar 18, The US Commerce Department said it will move to effectively ground 100 airplanes that have recently flown to Russia and are believed to violate US export controls, including a plane used by Russian businessman Roman Abramovich.
(Reuters, 3/18/22)
2022 Mar 21, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador inaugurated a new Mexico City airport, over three years after he scrapped a separate $13 billion hub under construction by the previous government that he cast as a symbol of corruption.
(Reuters, 3/21/22)
2022 Mar 23, Russia's PM Mikhail Mishustin said the government has transferred more than 50% of foreign aircraft to Russia's own registry as it takes measures to start using foreign aircraft located in Russia. Russian airlines have 515 jets leased from abroad.
(Reuters, 3/23/22)
2022 Mar 29, Carrier Air Canada and Mexico's Aeromar said they have signed an agreement to jointly market routes through Mexico.
(Reuters, 3/30/22)
2022 Mar 30, Air France-KLM and its Dutch subsidiary KLM lost their challenge against million-euro fines re-imposed by EU antitrust regulators five years ago for taking part in an air cargo cartel two decades ago.
(Reuters, 3/30/22)
2022 Apr 5, It was reported that Airbus has revoked the contract for a third A350 ordered by Qatar Airways after the Gulf carrier rejected delivery in an ongoing dispute over damage to the surface of the long-haul jets.
(Reuters, 4/5/22)
2022 Apr 8, Airbus took the rare step of reversing the two deliveries to Russia that contributed to forecast-beating 2021 results and put aside money to be refunded whenever sanctions allow. The jets, stored in central France, are back on sale.
(Reuters, 4/12/22)
2022 Apr 13, The Biden administration extended a US mandate requiring travelers to wear masks on airplanes, trains and in transit hubs through May 3. The United States renewed the COVID-19 public health emergency, allowing millions of Americans to keep getting free tests, vaccines and treatments for at least three more months.
(NY Times, 4/13/22)
2022 Apr 15, Tunisia offered for sale its shares in the Nouvlair airline company confiscated from a son-in-law of late President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali who was toppled in the 2011 uprising. The last date for submitting offers is May 19.
(Reuters, 4/15/22)
2022 Apr 17, China Eastern Airlines said it has started putting its Boeing 737-800 jetliners back in use for commercial flights less than a month since a crash killed 132 people and led the company to ground 223 of the aircraft.
(Reuters, 4/17/22)
2022 Apr 23, Amsterdam's Schiphol airport urged travelers to stay away for several hours as a strike by ground personnel at the start of a school holiday caused chaos at Europe's third-busiest airport.
(Reuters, 4/23/22)
2022 Apr 26, Delta Air Lines, which is facing another attempt to unionize its flight attendants, said it will begin paying cabin crews during boarding as of June 2, a first for a major US airline.
(AP, 4/26/22)
2022 Apr 26, A British judge denied a bid by Qatar Airways to reinstate a jet contract cancelled by Europe's Airbus in the latest twist to a dramatic feud playing out in UK courts.
(Reuters, 4/26/22)
2022 Apr 29, Flag-carrier Avianca said it has agreed to merge with Viva, another of Colombia's most important commercial airlines, while keeping separate branding and strategies.
(Reuters, 4/29/22)
2022 May 5, Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun said the company headquarters would be moving from Chicago to Arlington, Virginia.
(SFC, 5/7/22, p.A2)
2022 May 6, The Airline Operators of Nigeria association said Nigerian airlines will stop operations from May 9 until further notice due to the high cost of jet fuel. The plan to stop operations was scrapped on May 8.
(Reuters, 5/6/22)(Reuters, 5/8/22)
2022 May 14, China completed a test flight of the country's first C919 jetliner to be delivered.
(Reuters, 5/15/22)
2022 May 16, JetBlue said that it was taking its offer to acquire Spirit Airlines directly to that carrier’s shareholders, after Spirit’s board rejected a takeover proposal and decided to stick with its plan to merge with Frontier Airlines.
(NY Times, 5/16/22)
2022 May 16, Yemen's national airline operated its first commercial flight from the capital Sanaa since 2016, raising hopes a UN-brokered truce could be a stepping stone towards a lasting peace.
(Reuters, 5/16/22)
2022 May 19, Britain said it was introducing new sanctions against the Russian airline sector to prevent state-owned Aeroflot, Ural Airlines and Rossiya Airlines from selling their unused landing slots, valued at 50 million pounds ($61.9 million), at British airports.
(Reuters, 5/19/22)
2022 May 20, India's Jet Airways said the country's aviation regulator has cleared it to resume operation of commercial flights.
(Reuters, 5/20/22)
2022 May 24, The Taliban announced a deal allowing an Emirati company to manage three airports in Afghanistan after the fall of the country's US-backed government. The United Arab Emirates confirmed the deal the next day.
(AP, 5/24/22)(Reuters, 5/25/22)
2022 May 26, A British judge granted Qatar Airways a relatively quick trial against Airbus in a row over jetliner safety but dismissed several procedural claims including a bid by the airline to split the high-profile case into two parts.
(Reuters, 5/26/22)
2022 May 26, China's finance ministry said that it would offer subsidies to Chinese airlines from May 21 to July 20 to help carriers weather the coronavirus-induced downturn and higher oil prices.
(Reuters, 5/26/22)
2022 May 27, China's aviation regulator said it has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Solomon Islands on civil air transport, laying a foundation for airlines of both countries to open air routes.
(Reuters, 5/27/22)
2022 May 27, Congo's government spokesman Patrick Muyaya announced the suspension of flights from Rwanda's national carrier and the summoning of the ambassador late today in response to what it says is Kigali's support for M23 rebels carrying out a military offensive in its eastern borderlands.
(Reuters, 5/27/22)
2022 May 29, Ireland’s Dublin airport descended into chaos when more than a thousand passengers missed flights as staff shortages forced travelers to queue for hours to pass through security.
(Reuters, 5/31/22)
2022 May 30, US airlines, which are still rebuilding flight crews after the COVID-19 pandemic travel slowdown, canceled more than 2,500 flights over the four-day Memorial Day holiday that marks the traditional start of the busy summer travel season. Airlines worldwide canceled more than 1,500 flights today.
(Reuters, 5/30/22)
2022 May 31, Russian news outlet RBK reported that China has barred Russia’s airlines from flying foreign-owned jetliners into its airspace, after President Vladimir Putin threw the aircrafts' ownership into doubt by allowing them to be re-registered in Russia to avoid seizure under sanctions over Moscow’s attack on Ukraine.
(AP, 5/31/22)
2022 Jun 1, The administration of President Joe Biden revoked a series of restrictions on flights to Cuba imposed by his predecessor, including ending a prohibition on US airline flights to Cuban airports other than Havana.
(Reuters, 6/1/22)
2022 Jun 6, It was reported that Ryanair is requiring South African passengers to prove their nationality before traveling by completing a test in Afrikaans, a language used by just 12% of the population that has long been identified with apartheid and the white minority, due to what it described as a high prevalence of fraudulent South African passports.
(Reuters, 6/6/22)
2022 Jun 8, In Italy travelers faced disruption across the country as air traffic controllers went on strike and unions also called out workers from budget airlines on four-hour stoppages, prompting the cancellation of hundreds of flights.
(Reuters, 6/8/22)
2022 Jun 12, Iranian state media said that Argentinian authorities have impounded a Boeing 747 plane that the original owner, Iran's Mahan Air, said was sold to a Venezuelan airline a year ago. On June 17 Paraguay's intelligence chief said one of the men aboard the plane has ties to Iran's Quds Force.
(Reuters, 6/12/22)(AFP, 6/17/22)
2022 Jun 14, Britain's first scheduled flight taking asylum seekers to Rwanda was set to depart, with the government warning that anyone who avoided it through last-minute legal challenges would be put on a later plane despite an outcry from critics. The flight was grounded at the last minute, after the European Court of Human Rights intervened, citing a risk of harm to migrants on board.
(Reuters, 6/14/22)(AP, 6/15/22)
2022 Jun 14, Dublin-based CEO Michael O'Leary said Ryanair has dropped a requirement for South African passengers to prove their nationality before traveling by completing a test in Afrikaans, after the policy drew a backlash among South Africans.
(Reuters, 6/15/22)
2022 Jun 16, All international flights to and from Tunisia were cancelled due to a national public strike called by the powerful UGTT union.
(AP, 6/16/22)
2022 Jun 19, It was reported that Nigeria is withholding $450 million in revenue international carriers operating in the country have earned. Nigerian officials had blamed the foreign currency shortage for not repatriating the airline revenue.
(Reuters, 6/19/22)
2022 Jun 23, Staff at British Airways voted for a walkout amid warnings the country was facing a summer of industrial discontent.
(Reuters, 6/23/22)
2022 Jun 26, Pakistan’s aviation regulator made masks mandatory on domestic flights given a gradual rise in the number of COVID-19 cases across the country. Over the past 24 hours, the national COVID positivity ratio had risen to 2.85% with 382 positive cases and two deaths.
(Reuters, 6/27/22)
2022 Jun 27, Airlines canceled over 700 flights in the United States, as adverse weather and a shortage of staff hurt their ability to keep up with a surge in summer travel demand.
(Reuters, 6/27/22)
2022 Jul 1, French airports faced disruptions as workers held a strike to demand salary hikes to keep up with inflation.
(SFC, 7/1/22, p.A12)
2022 Jul 2, Travelers across the USA faced the prospect of canceled or delayed flights as airlines and airports dealt with a combination of high demand, bad weather and staffing shortages.
(NY Times, 7/2/22)
2022 Jul 5, British Airways said it is cancelling more flights scheduled for the summer holiday season, at a time of widespread disruption at airports caused by staff shortages and a surge in travel demand.
(Reuters, 7/5/22)
2022 Jul 5, Sweden-based Scandinavian Airlines filed for bankruptcy in the US as a walkout by 1,000 pilots a day earlier had put the future of the carrier at risk.
(SFC, 7/6/22, p.C2)
2022 Jul 7, The US Transportation Department awarded $968.6 million to 85 airport projects to address the country's aging and often mocked aviation infrastructure.
(Reuters, 7/7/22)
2022 Jul 9, It was reported that Dublin-based SMBC Aviation Capital has taken a $1.6 billion hit on 34 airplanes stuck in Russia that it does not expect to get back. CEO Peter Barrett said Russian airlines have continued to fly the planes within Russia and to countries from which repossession has not been possible. Sources at Lloyd's of London, which insures leased aircraft, told The Telegraph newspaper in May that it was ready for a dogfight over losses on leased planes totaling almost $10 billion.
(AP, 7/9/22)
2022 Jul 10, Flag carrier El Al Israel Airlines said it has reached a collective agreement with its pilots to restore their salaries to pre-COVID pandemic levels and end months of labor action that led to cancelled flights. Salaries will return to previous levels by the beginning of 2023.
(Reuters, 7/10/22)
2022 Jul 11, The United Arab Emirates carrier flydubai said it has suspended operations to Colombo, Sri Lanka, until further notice.
(Reuters, 7/11/22)
2022 Jul 12, London's Heathrow Airport asked airlines to stop selling tickets for summer departures, after it capped the number of passengers flying from the hub at 100,000 a day to limit queues, baggage delays and cancellations.
(Reuters, 7/12/22)
2022 Jul 13, The US Transportation Department approved American Airlines' request to resume service to some smaller Cuban airports after President Joe Biden reversed his predecessor's policy.
(Reuters, 7/13/22)
2022 Jul 15, Saudi Arabia announced it would allow unfettered access to its airspace.
(Reuters, 7/17/22)
2022 Jul 17, The British government launched an "Aviation Passenger Charter" to help passengers know their rights if they are faced with problems at airports after the widespread disruption seen this year.
(Reuters, 7/17/22)
2022 Jul 18, Delta Air Lines said it will buy 100 Boeing 737 MAX 10 jets worth about $13.5 billion at list prices and has options to buy another 30.
(Reuters, 7/18/22)
2022 Jul 19, Scandinavian airline SAS, the flag carrier of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, confirmed that it and pilot unions have reached a wage deal, ending a 15-day strike over a new collective bargaining agreement that had grounded 3,700 flights and put the carrier's future in doubt. The deal will allow the airline to finalize plans in the next few weeks to raise $700 million of fresh financing needed to see it through the bankruptcy protection process.
(Reuters, 7/19/22)
2022 Jul 21, Boeing secured a revived order for 25 of its 737 MAX 10 airliners from Qatar Airways, as the return of Britain's Farnborough Airshow this week offered hope for the largest version of the planemaker’s troubled best-seller.
(Reuters, 7/21/22)
2022 Jul 22, United Airlines Holdings Inc and Air Canada expanded their code-sharing agreement, as the carriers look to accelerate their post-pandemic recovery and cash in on the growing international travel market.
(Reuters, 7/22/22)
2022 Jul 23, State-owned manufacturer Commercial Aircraft Corp of China (COMAC) said its homegrown C919 narrow-body jet, designed to challenge the Airbus-Boeing duopoly, is nearing certification as its test planes completed all of the test flight tasks.
(Reuters, 7/23/22)
2022 Jul 26, State media said China has granted certification to the AC352 utility helicopter it is jointly producing with Airbus, even as the European plane maker awaits Beijing's nod to sell its foreign-made equivalent in the Asian nation.
(Reuters, 7/26/22)
2022 Jul 28, JetBlue Airways reached a deal to buy Spirit Airlines, a merger that could reshape the airline industry by putting pressure on the nation’s four dominant carriers.
(NY Times, 7/28/22)
2022 Jul 31, Pilots at German flagship carrier Lufthansa voted by a margin of 97.6% in favor of industrial action, threatening further disruption during the busy summer travel season.
(Reuters, 7/31/22)
2022 Aug 2, The US Commerce Department said it will add 25 Airbus airplanes operated by Russian airlines believed to violate US export controls as part of the Biden administration's sanctions over the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
(Reuters, 8/2/22)
2022 Aug 3, It was reported that Netherlands-based Airbus has revoked its entire outstanding order from Qatar Airways for A350 jets, severing all new jetliner business with the Gulf carrier in a dramatic new twist to a dispute clouding World Cup preparations.
(Reuters, 8/3/22)
2022 Aug 4, Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific Airways said its flights are currently not flying through designated airspace zones around Taiwan, as China launched unprecedented live-fire military drills in six areas that ring Taiwan.
(Reuters, 8/4/22)
2022 Aug 7, China’s aviation regulator said in a statement that inbound international flights on a route with an identified coronavirus case will be suspended for one week if 4% of passengers test positive, and two weeks if 8% of passengers test positive.
(Reuters, 8/7/22)
2022 Aug 7, India's newest budget carrier Akasa Air, which is backed by billionaire Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, began commercial operations with a maiden flight from the financial capital of Mumbai to the city of Ahmedabad.
(Reuters, 8/7/22)
2022 Aug 8, It was reported that Russian airlines, including state-controlled Aeroflot, are stripping jetliners to secure spare parts they can no longer buy abroad because of Western sanctions.
(Reuters, 8/8/22)
2022 Aug 10, The British embassy in China said China and Britain have agreed to resume direct passenger flights between them. Flights were suspended in late 2020 over fears of a new strain of the coronavirus.
(Reuters, 8/10/22)
2022 Aug 11, Airlines canceled more than 600 flights in the United States this morning, as thunderstorms in Texas disrupted operations at one of the busiest airports in the country for a second straight day.
(Reuters, 8/11/22)
2022 Aug 17, India's Akasa Air said it would keep adding one new aircraft every two weeks after the country's newest budget carrier received its third plane. Founder and CEO Vinay Dube said the airline was well-capitalized to induct 72 aircraft over the next five years.
(Reuters, 8/17/22)
2022 Aug 19, European budget carrier Wizz Air said it has suspended plans to resume flights from the Russian capital of Moscow to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, amid mounting criticism over the relaunch decision this month.
(Reuters, 8/19/22)
2022 Aug 24, British-Belgian teenager Muck Rutherford (17) became the youngest person to fly solo around the world after a five-month journey that saw him battle monsoon rains, searing heat and frustrating bureaucracy.
(Reuters, 8/24/22)
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
Subject = Aviation
End of file
