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International Airport News

Discussion in 'Airports & FBO's' started by Jet News, Jan 14, 2013.

  1. Jet News

    Jet News JF News Editor Staff Member

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    The brand new £2.5bn Heathrow Terminal 2, The Queen’s Terminal, opened at 6am on Wednesday 4 June 2014 and for passengers who arrived in London there’s a wide range of London hotels to choose from just a 15 minute train journey away on the Heathrow Express. Passengers aboard a United Airlines flight from Chicago, ware due to land at 05.55 on 4th June 2014, will be among the first to experience the new Heathrow Terminal 2, known as Terminal 2 – The Queen’s Terminal, in honour of Her Majesty The Queen.
  2. Jet News

    Jet News JF News Editor Staff Member

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  3. Jet News

    Jet News JF News Editor Staff Member

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  4. Jet News

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  5. Jet News

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    As Birmingham Airport approaches its 75th birthday, it has revealed that more than two hundred million passengers have travelled through its doors since records began. The Midlands airport was officially opened on a rainy Saturday on the 8th July 1939 by HRH The Duchess of Kent, but just two months later the Second World War broke out and the Air Ministry requisitioned the airport so all civil flying was stopped.

    On Monday 8th July 1946, exactly seven years after the airport’s official opening, the facility was reopened for civil flying and over the next seven and a half decades more than 200 million people have used the airport.
  6. Jet News

    Jet News JF News Editor Staff Member

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    Passenger traffic through Dubai's main airport fell 2.5 percent from a year earlier to 5.09 million people in May because of construction work on its two runways, operator Dubai Airports said on Monday. Dubai International, one of the world's busiest airports, is cutting back flights for an 80-day period from May 1 as first one runway and then the other is closed for resurfacing and other construction work. Under a plan announced in April, flights through Dubai are to be cut by 26 percent during the period. Eight airlines flying into Dubai are to divert to the emirate's new Al Maktoum Airport, boosting the flights it handles each week to over 600 from 80.

    During the first five months of this year, Dubai International's passenger traffic rose 9.2 percent to 29.61 million people. "Passenger traffic growth is expected to remain flat or marginally decline until the runway refurbishment programme is completed on July 20, and as the result of a lull in passenger numbers typically recorded during the holy month of Ramadan," which began on Sunday, Dubai Airports said. It predicted passenger traffic would then resume growing strongly. Cargo volumes at Dubai International fell 13.3 percent to 182,028 tonnes in May after all dedicated freighter flights moved to Al Maktoum. Cargo volumes for the first five months rose 0.8 percent to 1.0 million tonnes.

    (Reuters)
  8. Jet News

    Jet News JF News Editor Staff Member

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    A day in the life at Changi International Airport, Singapore.

  10. Jet News

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    China will lift on Friday air traffic control measures imposed to allow military exercises which have caused major delays and flight cancellations. Flights in the country's eastern, central and southern regions will return to normal once the restrictions are lifted, the Civil Aviation Administration of China said in a statement posted on its website late on Thursday.

    The Public Security Bureau had said flights could still be affected until mid-August. Xinhua said military exercises will continue in coastal areas in the southeast after the air control restrictions are lifted. Hundreds of flights have been delayed or cancelled since July 20 due to the air traffic controls. In one of the most serious disruptions, authorities issued a red alert on Tuesday, resulting in a near shut down of 20 airports in east China for much of the afternoon.

    The military exercises, which political analysts say are larger in scope and duration than in years past, come as tensions with Japan and other Asian nations increase, although the government has called them annual and routine. Defence Ministry spokesman Geng Yansheng said the exercises are not targeted at any other country.

    "We hope parties concerned do not to make groundless links. It is one's own problem if he is suspicious of China's military drills and takes it personally," the official Xinhua news agency quoted Geng as telling a monthly news briefing on Thursday. He added the drills are annual routine events aimed at strengthening real-combat training and military preparation, and improving the capability of countering various security threats.

    (Reuters)
  11. Jet News

    Jet News JF News Editor Staff Member

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    Halifax Stanfield International Airport is the first airport in North America to offer self-serve baggage drop for all passengers. “This new, fully automated, self-serve baggage drop system uses the latest technology to simplify the check-in process for airline passengers,” says Joyce Carter, Halifax International Airport Authority (HIAA) President & CEO.

    ”With airline customer service agents available to assist passengers if necessary, this improved level of service speeds up the check-in process and makes it possible for passengers to avoid line ups at counters.” HIAA worked closely with its airline partners to develop this new passenger processing model.
  12. Jet News

    Jet News JF News Editor Staff Member

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    Finavia is getting ready for Helsinki Airport terminal expansion

    The visit of A350 not only was a happy event for us, but also useful for testing purposes. It confirmed that we are ready for new wide-bodied aircraft models. A350 will be introduced for traffic next year, says Ville Haapasaari, Director of Helsinki Airport from Finavia. One of the main goals of Finavia’s development programme 2014–2020 is to develop Helsinki Airport’s transit capacity. The aim is to build more space for wide-bodied aircrafts, among others.

    According to Haapasaari the development programme is progressing on schedule. Demolition related to the expansion of the terminal and traffic areas will be launched in late summer. The plan is to launch new construction in 2016. The first step is to demolish the former thermal plant and the water tower. Excavation will commence during the autumn. Just like the demolition, excavation will create the foundation for new construction in the area.

    The development programme will be executed step by step in phases. This gives us the opportunity to react to market changes in a flexible way, Haapasaari says. The aim of Finavia’s development programme is to ensure that Helsinki Airport will be able to maintain its strong competitive position, especially in transit traffic between Europe and Asia. The passenger volumes between Helsinki and Asia have increased steadily for several years now.

    Helsinki Airport already is one of the most important transfer airports in Europe. For example, in traffic between Europe and Japan, it is the fourth most important, Haapasaari says. The seven-year development programme mainly focuses on increasing the transit and check-in capacity of Helsinki Airport and on improving the traffic arrangements. The details and schedule of the terminal expansion will be decided during 2014.
  14. Jet News

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    A man was killed and two policemen were wounded in an attack on Quetta airport in western Pakistan on Thursday night, officials said, but the attackers did not breach the perimeter. The dead man was not identified. He was killed near an air force base that shares a runway with the civilian airport. Local residents heard at least eight blasts and gunfire that continued for around half an hour. Helicopters buzzed overhead, they said.

    Sarfraz Bugti, home minister in the provincial government of Baluchistan, confirmed an attack had taken place. He said rockets had been fired but did not land in the base. Four bombs were defused near another air force base in Quetta called Khalid, he said. He did not say who had carried out the attack. Pakistan has suffered several recent attacks on its airports. In June, a Taliban attack killed 30 people at Karachi airport, the southern city home to 18 million people.

    The same month, militants fired on a plane landing in Peshawar, a provincial capital in the northwest, killing one woman passenger and narrowly missing the pilot. Peshawar airport was also attacked in 2012, when nine people were killed. In 2012, nine people were killed in an attack on an air force base in the northern city of Kamra. In recent days, the attention of Pakistani security agencies has been focused on two large anti-government protests that are due to reach the capital on Friday.

    (Reuters)
  15. Jet News

    Jet News JF News Editor Staff Member

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    Plot to blow-up Manila's International Airport Foiled

    Four men arrested after trying to detonate devices in a white truck outside of the International Airport in Manila.
  16. Jet News

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    A380 Continues To Pose Challenges For Heathrow

    If Airbus chief salesman John Leahy had to pick one airport to demonstrate the need for a large aircraft such as the A380, he would certainly pick London Heathrow: dense, high-yield traffic flows and severe capacity limitations. But increasing A380 operations at Heathrow also show more operational challenges that could emerge at other legacy airports, too. Some 15 A380s operate into Heathrow daily. Emirates flies A380s on all five of its daily London-Dubai rotations, while Singapore Airlines uses the type on three of its four daily flights. And the number looks set to rise, with British Airways taking delivery of more A380s in the coming months, to be joined by Qatar Airways and Etihad in October and December, respectively. But ever-increasing A380 operations at Heathrow could also potentially have a negative impact on what is the world’s busiest two-runway international airport, suggest officials from the U.K.’s air navigation service provider, NATS.

    Senior NATS air traffic controllers say the biggest impact comes from the spacing requirement for the aircraft, which is in the “super” wake vortex category. As an A380 departs, it requires up to 3 min. of spacing between it and the next aircraft if—as it often is at Heathrow—it is a smaller narrowbody type, such as an Airbus A320 or Boeing 737.

    Because the airport routinely operates at around 99% of its runway capacity, the 3-min. hold time before the aircraft behind the A380 can depart can have a significant impact on the number of aircraft that can use the runway per hour. Greater distances between traffic are also required on approach. According to International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) guidelines, minimum separation for a “heavy” category aircraft such as a Boeing 747 behind an A380 is 6 nm., two more than behind another 747. The restrictions only apply below 10,000 ft. Medium-size aircraft up to the Boeing 757 have to keep a 7 nm. separation and smaller aircraft eight. Heathrow aims for around 42-44 movements or departures per hour and runway, but if that figure dips below 36, operations managers may not be able to fit the day’s schedule into one day, affecting the airport’s hub operations. Significant impacts are also felt with the A380’s relatively high runway occupancy time (ROT)—for landing run and taxi-off—as well as line-up (for takeoff) times (LUT).

    According to Jon Proudlove, NATS general manager at Heathrow, Boeing 747s can take around 45 sec. to taxi onto the runway and line up ready for departure, but A380s are taking around 65 sec. A Heathrow report on A380 operations states that on one occasion, it took an A380 as long as 111 sec. to line up on runway 27L. “Heathrow operates on a knife edge,” says Proudlove. “The impact of these aircraft nibbles away at runway capacity. “By 2030 we expect to handle up to 60 A380s a day, but there is no plan for that, we can’t plan for that,” he says. With 104 weekly A380 flights, Heathrow handles the second-most A380 flights worldwide. Because Emirates’ fleet of 50 A380s is based in Dubai, that airport is the busiest for the type, with 297 weekly departures. Dubai is exceptional, as a lot of the latest airport infrastructure investments have been planned around A380 operations—Emirates even operates into an A380-dedicated terminal. The airport also underwent runway and taxiway upgrades this year that allowed smoother operations, but they were not directly linked to A380 services.

    What Heathrow is facing today could well look like a glimpse into some of the future issues faced at other airports seeing increasing numbers of A380s. Singapore has 104 and Paris Charles de Gaulle 94 weekly flights; Frankfurt has 76 (and Emirates is adding a daily roundtrip this week); Seoul Incheon 75 and Los Angeles International 70. Sydney has 47 weekly A380 flights. The level of current issues is different at these locations, however. Charles de Gaulle generally has ample runway capacity and continues to add terminal space. Frankfurt opened a fourth runway and therefore has more capacity than it currently needs, its limits are dictated by passenger terminal constraints. And A380 operations have already been taken into account in Seoul Incheon’s planning process.

    Mainly because of its space constraints, Los Angeles International (LAX) is probably another really challenging case and could prove to become even more difficult in the future. There are several approaches to mitigating the A380’s impact. In theory, with more A380s operating into Heathrow, the aircraft could be grouped on departure, allowing an A380 to leave after another A380 within a minute or so, but opportunities to do this are few and far between.NATS and the airport authorities have been working with the airlines on reducing the ROT and LUT times and NATS says performance is significantly enhanced by the use of Airbus’s Brake To Vacate (BTV) system. According to Airbus, nine of the current 11 A380 operators have picked BTV comparable with smaller narrowbody types. Airbus Test Pilot Jean-Michel Roy says airlines that have chosen BTV routinely use it, but runway occupancy times for Heathrow landings suggest that pilots may not consistently apply it. And only three of the five A380 operators flying to Heathrow have BTV installed.

    The system functions when the aircraft is in autoland mode. BTV tells the pilots on the primary flight display where the earliest possible position on the runway will be during dry or wet conditions, and with a preselected deceleration rate in place. The crew can then select an exit after that position and BTV will automatically decelerate the aircraft in the most efficient way to a taxi speed of 10 kt., at which point pilots will take full manual control again. According to Roy,

    airlines can therefore reduce runway occupancy time from around 90 to 60 sec. Once pilots prepare BTV during the approach, the computer will tell them the expected ROT. The crew can therefore tell air traffic control in advance how much time it expects will be needed until the aircraft has left the runway again. Airbus argues this will make it easier for ATC to plan spacing in the arrival pattern. Airbus also has been working with ICAO to re-address the minimum separation criteria put in place for the A380. The latest round of flight tests—involving several smaller aircraft types flying behind A380s at various angles, speeds and other changing conditions—took place in 2010, and working groups are still assessing the data. Airbus has been trying to persuade authorities to move the A380 back into the “heavy” category from its own “super-heavy” definition. The outcome of those talks and the timing of any conclusions is still unclear.

    A380 Product Marketing Director Thomas Burger claims that if air traffic control manages to group A380 arrivals, even under the current ICAO regulations A380s increase runway capacity because the restrictions do not apply when one A380 follows another and because of their high passenger capacity. Space and taxiway limitations can make ground operations more difficult for the aircraft. At Heathrow a major issue is that significant sections of the taxiway system linking Terminal 3 to Terminal 1 on the north side of the airport is not ICAO Code F-compliant, making it unavailable for use by the A380 because of its 79.75- meter (261-ft.) wingspan. As a result, A380s landing on the northern runways—09L or 27R—can only vacate the runway at two intersections, forcing ground controllers to take the aircraft on lengthy routes around the airfield to reach their stands. Use of the northern taxiways will only be possible once Terminal 1 and its associated piers have been demolished to make way for the new Heathrow East development, part of which is already complete with the construction of the new Terminal 2.

    For operators using Terminal 4 on the south side of the airport, such as Malaysian Airlines, A380 operations are complicated by the fact that only a small triangle of the taxiway which links the front of the terminal to the southern runway is currently Code F-compliant.
    “The aircraft arrives on one of the world’s busiest runways and then has to cross it again in order to get to Terminal 4,” says Proudlove. On departure, these aircraft have to cross back over the runway again. He adds that Qatar Airways and Etihad will face a similar issue when they begin A380 operations, as both airlines also use Terminal 4. The airport is making more parking stands A380 compatible as more are used into the airport.In Los Angeles, similar restrictions apply for A380 ground operations. Not all taxiways and runway exits can be used and the aircraft generally have to be accompanied by ground vehicles during taxi to ensure no obstacles are hit. Even so, there have been several minor collisions. Airbus says it plans to use ADS-B data to monitor other aircraft traffic during taxi and show taxi clearances on the primary flight display in the future.
  17. Jet News

    Jet News JF News Editor Staff Member

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    An extreme storm surprised residents of San Diego on Tuesday and caused major damage at the Montgomery Field Airport (MYF). The city, which is generally blessed with sunny skies and moderate temperatures, was hit hard by a severe storm resulting from a monsoonal heat wave. Lightning, heavy rain, hail and winds that became so severe that some people described them as a microburst or tornado hit the area.

    The on-field restaurant at Montgomery, Casa Machado, and several hangars and airplanes at the airport were severely damaged. One experimental airplane, which was tied down with chains, was tossed up in the air and landed on two cars on the other side of the airport fence. Airport worker Douglas Berube said he was still shaken up as he described the event to local news station ABC 10News. "I'm looking in front of me and all the planes are flying everywhere, the roofs getting ripped off the buildings," he said. (FLYING)
  18. Jet News

    Jet News JF News Editor Staff Member

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    I've been seeing reports that the main terminal of the international airport in Ukraine has been destroyed by fire. Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian rebels were allegedly fighting.
  19. Jet News

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    A fire tore through 14 hangar bays and destroyed several GA airplanes on Monday night at Grove Field in Camas, Washington, near the border with Portland, Oregon. Officials said no one was hurt when the fire broke out in the airport's E Hangar, but damage to airplanes was expected to reach into the millions of dollars. Firefighters responded and had the flames under control in about an hour, preventing the blaze from spreading to other hangars.
  20. Jet News

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    Medical teams at New York's JFK airport, armed with Ebola questionnaires and temperature guns, began screening passengers from three West African countries on Saturday as US health authorities stepped up efforts to stop the spread of the virus. John F Kennedy Airport is the first of five US airports to start enhanced screening of US-bound travellers from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Those countries have seen most of the deaths from the outbreak, which has claimed more than 4,000 lives.