Slimmer seats installed on Alaska Airlines’ new Boeing jets will add an inch more legroom for coach passengers, the airline said today.

The new seats will be installed on new Boeing 737-900ER jets Alaska will receive from Boeing beginning this fall through 2014.

Built by German seatmaker Recaro, the leather-covered seats are slimmer, thus giving passenger an additional inch of legroom without reducing the capacity of the aircraft, the airline said.

The new seat design also moves the magazine pocket on the seatback upward to just under the tray table to make more room

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Taiwan’s EVA Air has finalized orders for three Boeing 777-300ER long-haul jetliners, Boeing announced today. EVA’s order also includes purchase rights for four additional 777s.

At list prices, the Everett-built jets are worth nearly $300 million each.

“The 777-300ER is the flagship of our long-haul fleet and will play an important role in growing our global operations,” said Chang Kuo-wei, president of EVA Air. “The highly efficient, technologically advanced airplane will enhance the premium flying experience for passengers and will also allow us to open new destinations around the world.”

EVA Air also announced plans to lease four more …

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Fewer than one in 10 flights departed Sea-Tac Airport last month behind schedule, a new report shows, putting the airport at the top of the list of North American airports for on-time departures.

FlightStats.com, a Portland-based flight-tracking company, said 91.78 percent of Sea-Tac flights departed the airport on time. Sea-Tac barely edged out Salt Lake City, which was second on the list with 91.54 percent of its flights leaving on time.

Portland was also over 90 percent, 90.86 percent, as was Minneapolis-St. Paul with a 90.2 percent on-time departure record.

Sea-Tac’s second-busiest airline, SeaTac-based Horizon Air, was first in …

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When the newest version of Boeing’s best-selling 737 airliner, the 737 Max, debuts in four years, it won’t be hard to tell that plane from its predecessors by sight.

The Max, Boeing announced today, will sport a new v-shaped winglet. A winglet is a wingtip extension that improves fuel economy by breaking up the wingtip vortices, the swirling mass of air that exists at speed at the end of a straight wing.

Most present-day Boeing 737s feature a upward-shaped winglet designed by Aviation Partners/Boeing, a joint venture of Seattle-based Aviation Partners

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Air Lease Corp. today announced it is ordering eight Boeing 787 Dreamliners worth $1.8 billion at list prices.

The aircraft lessor, based in Los Angeles, will lease the planes to Vietnam Airlines. The Dreamliners are 787-9 models, a version of the Dreamliner slightly larger than the 787-8 Boeing is building now.

Air Lease previously placed an order for four 787-9s last year.

In addition to the Dreamliner order, Air Lease is negotiating with Boeing to buy 60 of the company’s new 737 Max single-aisle jets.

At list prices, that order would be

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Boeing’s itinerant 787 Dreamliner today landed in Oslo, Norway on its world tour that has thus far taken it to five continents.

The Dreamliner, a former Boeing test aircraft fitted with an airline interior, will stay in Norway for three days before flying on to Tarranto, Italy. The Dreamliner had visited London’s Heathrow Airport for a week.

The Dream Tour is designed to expose the public, Boeing Dreamliner suppliers and airline customers to Boeing’s new composite-bodied aircraft. In Norway, officials, pilots and technicians from Norwegian Airlines will view the new plane. Norwegian is a 787 customer that has yet to …

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Boeing may soon have bargain-priced Airbus aircraft on its sales block.

According to documents filed by Chinese airline China Eastern Monday, Boeing has agreed to accept the trade-in of five used Airbus A340 jets as part of its deal to buy buy 20 777 jetliners from Boeing.

The A340s are four-engine jets that in recent years have become less desirable than Boeing’s twin-engine 777 in the long-haul airline market because of higher fuel and maintenance costs.

Airbus itself, the airline said, is taking China Eastern’s five other A340s in an order for 15 Airbus A330s.

The trade-in of another planemaker’s …

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China Eastern Airlines is adding its first long-range Boeing jets to its fleet.

Boeing announced today that the airline is ordering 20 of its popular 777-300ER jets. That order is subject to government approval.

When that order is approved, it will raise Boeing’s sales of the 777 to 26 aircraft for the year so far.

At the $298.3 million list price for the 777-300ER, the order would total nearly $6 billion. Most large orders, however, earn airlines substantial discounts off the company’s list prices.

China Easter now flies single-aisle, medium-range Boeing 737s in its fleet, but no long-range …

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