Right here at the newspaper in almost-April, there’s big, fluffy snowflakes falling outside the newsroom window.
The uncanniness of springtime snow is making it hard to concentrate.
So I thought I’d ask: How’s the wild weather affecting your workday or business? Headed home early? Worried about roads? Daydreaming about Christmas trees and warm mugs of cocoa?
In a surprise to practically no one, the British government has named a consortium led by Airbus parent European Aeronautic Defense and Space (EADS) as the winner of a major tanker refueling contract for the British armed forces.
EADS offered a tanker version of its A330 commercial airliner and Boeing had offered a version of its 767. Those were the same two planes that went head-to-head in a contest to win a $40 billion U.S. Air Force contract for 179 new aerial tankers. An EADS-Northrop Grumman consortium won that bid.
The British contract is worth an estimated $26.1
…The Boeing Co. today took action to get a firmer grip on some of the supplier issues that have delayed the final assembly of its 787 Dreamliner.
Boeing said it has agreed to buy Vought Aircraft Industries’ interest in Global Aeronautica LLC, a South Carolina facility that assembles fuselage sections of the Dreamliner.
Global Aeronautica was a joint venture between Vought, which makes the sections of the aft fuselage of the Dreamliner in an adjacent plant in Charleston, S.C. and Alenia North America, a subsidiary of Italy’s Alenia Aeronautica. Alenia manufactures the center fuselage of the Dreamliner.
A new survey by J.D. Power and Associates rates Alltel Wireless as the top quality cell phone provider in three of six national regions including the West.
The problem for Puget Sound area cell phones users: Alltel doesn’t offer service here.
J.D. Power’s arbitrarily defined western region includes such obviously western states as Washington, California and Oregon, but it also includes such east-of-the-Rockies states as Minnesota and Nebraska. That explains in part why not all providers such as Alltel serve the whole region.
The Power survey ranks Bellevue’s T-Mobile in second place in the West followed by
…SeaTac’s Alaska Airlines says it’s not expecting to ground planes or cancel flights to carry out federally mandated aircraft inspections as other airlines have done.
Alaska has 51 planes in its fleet, 10 MD-80s and 40 737-400s, subject to recent Federal Aviation Administration airworthiness directives.
Both American and Delta airlines have canceled hundreds of flights after they discovered discrepancies in their inspection records of MD-80 wiring issues.
The FAA has also required airline owners of older 737s to inspect bolts on the planes’ wing slats that could work loose and pierce the planes’ fuel tanks.
Alaska
…American Airlines canceled two Dallas flights from Sea-Tac Airport today as it continued inspections of wiring in its fleet of MD-80 airliners.
American cancelled both its 9:50 a.m. and its 11:05 a.m. flights to Dallas-Fort Worth today as it continued inspections of wiring bundles that power an auxilary hydraulic system in the McDonnell-Douglas-built aircraft.
Those flights were among 132 flights American was to cancel nationwide today. The airline cancelled 318 flights Wednesday. Only one of those flights originated at Sea-Tac.
Meanwhile, Delta Airlines, which is also reinspecting wiring on its MD-88 aircraft, canceled no Sea-Tac flights today.
Sea-Tac’s newest foreign carrier, Hainan Airlines, today announced a $580 introductory roundtrip fare from Sea-Tac to Beijing.
That fare does not include $68 in extra security fees and taxes.
That fare is good for travel beginning from Seattle between June 9 and June 30. Returns must depart Beijing by July 31. The tickets must be reserved by April 15.
Hainan, China’s largest privately owned airline, will use Airbus A330-200 aircraft with 36 business class and 186 economy class seats on the route.
The airline will provide the only
…Turkmenistan Airlines has ordered three Next Generation Boeing 737s, The Boeing Co. confirmed today.
Those aircraft, one 737-700 and two 737-900ERs, are valued at $221 million at list prices.
Boeing has now logged more than 7,800 orders for its 737, the world’s most popular jetliner. The company’s order book contains unfilled orders for more than 2,100 737s valued at $150 billion.
At present production rates, that backlog represents nearly six years’ production at Boeing’s Renton plant.
The 737 decades ago was selling so poorly that Boeing considered discontinuing the aircraft’s production. Boeing expects to introduce
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