CCS seeking feedback on planned SIA-Air New Zealand tie-up

The Competition Commission of Singapore (CCS) is seeking public feedback on a proposed strategic alliance between Singapore Airlines (SIA) and Air New Zealand as the agreement could restrict competition on air travel between the two countries.

In a media release, CCS said it received a notification on 30 January about the proposed strategic alliance between SIA and Air New Zealand.

Earlier in January this year, both airlines announced plans for a tie-up which will enable SIA to operate its Airbus A380 superjumbos to New Zealand for the first time, progressively replacing daily services using the smaller Boeing 777-300ER.

Air New Zealand will launch daily services between Auckland and Singapore. SIA's daily Singapore-Christchurch service will continue as part of the alliance.

Besides SIA and Air New Zealand, other airlines that connect Singapore and New Zealand include Qantas's budget unit Jetstar and Malaysia Airlines.

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SIA grounds A380 after scratches found on fuselage

Singapore Airlines said Wednesday it had grounded an Airbus A380 superjumbo for further inspection after scratches were found on its fuselage.

The scratches were discovered after the double-decker plane, the world's biggest passenger aircraft, arrived in Frankfurt on Sunday from New York, SIA said in a statement.

There were 126 passengers and 26 crew onboard.

"The aircraft was subsequently grounded for checks and passengers were either transferred to other airlines or accommodated in hotels," the statement said.

"Following inspections by engineering teams in Frankfurt, it was determined that the scratches posed no safety issue and the aircraft was cleared for departure."

The plane arrived in Singapore on Tuesday after a 23-hour delay and has been grounded for further checks.

SIA said the cause of the scratches has yet to be established.

"Our engineers are currently performing further checks on the aircraft, and it will resume service once cleared," the airline said.

It was the second incident for SIA in less than a month involving an A380.

On January 6, an SIA A380 en route from London to Singapore lost cabin pressure, forcing the pilot to make an emergency landing in the Azerbaijan capital of Baku.

Oxygen masks were activated during the emergency procedure which some passengers described as "frightening".

The stranded 467 passengers and 27 crew on board were flown back to Singapore with a replacement aircraft.

The plane involved in the Baku incident was back in service, SIA said Wednesday, but added that the "root cause" of the incident remained under investigation.

SIA had previously said that focus of the probe was a door on the main deck that appeared to have suffered a leak, leading to the change in cabin pressure.

There are 119 Airbus A380s in operation globally, according to latest data from the company.

Singapore Airlines currently has a fleet of 19 A380s, with five others on order.

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Virgin Atlantic pulls out of Australia

British billionaire Richard Branson's Virgin Atlantic said Wednesday it was axing Sydney to Hong Kong services due to increasing costs, leaving British Airways the last major European carrier flying to Australia via Asia.

Virgin chief executive Craig Kreeger said ballooning costs coupled with a challenging economic environment had affected the airline's profitability in a move that will be a boost for Qantas and Cathay Pacific, which also ply the route.

"Despite the best efforts of our employees, external factors such as increasing costs and a weakening Australian dollar have affected our profitability," he said.

"These are still difficult times for the airline industry and as part of our strategy to operate more efficiently we need to deploy our aircraft to routes with the right level of demand to be financially viable."

The last flight from Sydney will be on May 5, although Virgin will continue to operate its Hong Kong-London segment.

Branson's Virgin Group owns 51 per cent of Virgin Atlantic. The mogul also holds a stake in Virgin Australia, an airline he co-founded in 2000.

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Badly-trained crew blamed for 2012 Pakistan air crash

The pilots of a Pakistani jetliner that plunged to the ground outside Islamabad in 2012 and killed 127 people were not trained to use its automated flight deck, investigators have found.

The Bhoja Air Boeing 737 from Karachi crashed in fields and burst into flames as it came in to land at the capital's Benazir Bhutto International airport during a storm in April 2012. There were no survivors.

In its official report Pakistan's Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) blamed the crew and Bhoja management for the crash, the second deadliest in the country's history.

The captain and his co-pilot had been trained to fly the Boeing 737-200 but not the more advanced 737-236 model which crashed, the CAA report said.

The newer model was equipped with an automated flight deck which the crew had not been trained to use, the report said.

"The information with regards to automation capacities of aircraft was not in the knowledge of cockpit crew even after the formal ground schooling, as the ground schooling did not cater for the automation of aircraft," said the report, parts of which were seen by AFP.

In their concluding remarks the investigators said that "ineffective management of the basic flight parameters" such as air speed and rate of descent were among the main causes of the tragedy.

The eight-member investigation team was headed by an air commodore and included engineers, commercial and air force pilots, doctors and aviators.

Discussing the black-box recording of the cockpit conversation and air traffic control tower, the team observed that panic gripped the pilot in the severe weather conditions.

The captain was heard suddenly remarking that it had become dark, but he did not take any action to discontinue the approach.

He appeared not to trust the plane's automatic technology and at one point seemed confused that the plane was travelling at 220 knots instead of 190.

The crash was Islamabad's second in less than two years, after an Airblue plane hit the Margalla hills in July 2010 while coming in to land in bad weather, killing 152 - Pakistan's deadliest air accident.

Parts of the Bhoja Air plane's fuselage dragged across the ground for several kilometres in the crash and many of the bodies were charred beyond recognition.

No one from the airline, which had its operations suspended by the CAA soon after the crash, was available for comment.

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Week 44: PPL Flight School Week 13

Monday
It was a hot day above 30'C. My flight was scheduled in mid-day at 1400hrs. There were no clouds and winds were blowing at speeds of above 10kts. My flight was to be my third solo and this time round I will fly one more round than the previous solo flight.

Up I went for my solo check with my instructor and conditions were the tough like heck! I was thrown about badly by turbulence, I was having trouble maintaining my altitude and I had to fight it to get my direction correct. It was seriously terrible. My height was so screwed up that my base and finals were also not to correct profile.

The finals was terribly bumpy and at a time I even bust the airspeed limit for flaps extended. Some of my final approaches were way too flat too. The only saving grace were my safe landings. I thought I was going to fail my check but to my surprise, my instructor was confident enough to let me go solo. Before he hopped off the aircraft, he said "no matter what, BE SAFE".

I imprinted those two words in my mind and went into the skies again on my own. With the pressure off, I seemed to be flying better. The lesser weight made me float longer on the runway during landing made worse by the rising heat on the hot tarmac. I took longer than usual to land the plane properly. On one occasion, I ballooned a little but manged to salvage it by adding in a wee bit of power and restart the flaring.

All was good and I did four rounds of circuit, came back safely with the plane and completed my third solo flight. Instructor was happy and so was I. This was by far the toughest condition I was subjected to during my solo flight.

My shadow watches on as it stayed grounded due to strong crosswind

Missing the feeling of being on the tarmac

Spent the first day of CNY burning calories

CNY Day 2 dinner!!

Flies, why you do this infront of me

Ending the week with a glass of milk, my laptop and the TV

And that's it. After a whirlwind of three solo flights in five days, I didn't get to fly again for the next six days due to bad winds and high temperatures. Tough luck, hoping for a better week ahead. Happy Lunar New Year to all Chinese out there!

South African Airways turns again to state for survival

Hapless and helpless, South Africa's struggling national carrier awaits news on a state cash injection vital to stay in the skies, but which shows up its inability to make money.

Eighty years after its creation, loss-making South African Airways (SAA) battles with an ageing fleet and a weak national currency.

"It's not a secret that our balance sheet is very weak," chief financial officer Wolf Meyer admitted.

"There are currently discussions with the national Treasury, we hope that we get good news soon on the capitalisation," he said.

State intervention is key to SAA's survival and Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan is expected to shed more light on saving the airline during his annual budget speech in parliament this month.

In the meantime, the government has extended a two-year guarantee of five million rands (US$444,000) issued in 2012 in exchange for a vast restructuring.

When that guarantee was first approved, irate opposition parties accused the government of wasting taxpayer money, while some companies said it was distorting the market.

A year and a half later, the turn-around strategy still has not been implemented and main opposition party the Democratic Alliance (DA) has renewed its call to privatise the carrier.

"Government needs to stop throwing good money at a bad problem," the party said last week. "We simply cannot continue with 'business as usual' any longer."

Last Wednesday, SAA reported improved results for the financial year that ended in 2013, but the situation remains bleak.

Though better than the 1.3 billion rand loss a year before, the 991-million-rand operating loss was still a glaring indicator of existing problems.

The results were released months behind schedule because talks between the treasury and the actual shareholder, the ministry of public enterprises, dragged on, said Meyer.

Despite the losses, the 13.5 percent increase in revenues indicates market potential even in the face of aggressive competition from companies based in the Gulf.

But the company warned of rising fuel costs and the rand's slide against the dollar, which ate into earnings.

In the domestic market, low-cost subsidiary Mango cashed in on two competitors going out of business.

On the international front, SAA, which is member of the Star Alliance group, is building a name for itself, Meyer said.

"We are very proud of our Africa growth strategy, it's really working well," he said.

Air traffic across the continent is soaring and SAA has toiled to build from its traditional European routes, though with mixed success.

"Buenos Aires route was loss-making, and the Cape Town-London, and the Beijing route, and the (Burundi capital) Bujumbura route were also loss-making routes," said Meyer.

Accordingly, some flights will be axed, like the Argentina route in March.

But others, especially when diplomatic interests are at stake, will survive.

Ever anxious about relations with its main trading partner China, the government has insisted to keep the Beijing route open.

SAA has halted plans to buy around 20 new aircraft, but will still acquire 20 Airbus A320s which will be delivered by 2017.

"There is an urgent need for SAA to replace its long haul fleet," said Meyer, adding that the public enterprises minister wanted the acquisitions to benefit more local companies.

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SIA resumes flight training for grounded cadet pilots

Singapore Airlines has resumed flight training for about 80 cadet pilots who were grounded last year amid a business downturn.

Among the measures to manage excess crew, the recruits were pulled out midway through their training and assigned administrative and other non-flying related duties.

This went on for six to seven months on average, and up to eight months for some of the cadets.

Flight training resumed last week, The Straits Times found out.

It will take about 16 months for the cadets to complete their course and become first officers, SIA spokesman Nicholas Ionides said.

Meanwhile, the airline is still not accepting fresh recruits.

It has not been decided when the hiring freeze, which was imposed in early 2012, will be lifted, Mr Ionides said.

Last year, SIA, which now has about 2,200 pilots, let go of 76 expatriate pilots who were on three-year contracts.

Pilots were also asked to consider unpaid leave.

The decision to resume flight training for the cadet pilots signals that things may be picking up in the sluggish premium air travel market, industry analysts said.

Captain William Teng, chairman of the SIA branch of the Air Line Pilots Association-Singapore (Alpa-S), said: "It is a positive development for pilots in general and for the cadets in particular."

Going forward, SIA is expected to take delivery of its first Airbus 350 twin-aisle plane next year.

The airline has an order for 40 A-350s and five more Airbus 380 superjumbos.

In its latest update on the premium air travel market, the International Air Transport Association (Iata) said that the downward pressure on demand in the segment has eased in recent months.

While challenges remain, global business confidence is the strongest it has been since the first quarter of 2011, with Europe and the United States - both key markets for SIA - showing signs of economic improvement, Iata said.

As it holds out for full recovery in the high-end long-haul segment, SIA is preparing to launch its new Indian carrier later this year. The New Delhi-based start-up is a joint venture with Indian conglomerate Tata.

SIA also continues to focus on the more buoyant regional air travel and low-cost sector.

Its subsidiary, SilkAir, will take delivery of its first new Boeing 737 jet - part of an order for 54 new Boeing planes - in a few weeks' time.

Long-haul budget arm Scoot, which started operating about 18 months ago, has announced plans to set up a new carrier in Bangkok jointly with Thai Nok Air.

NokScoot, which will be 49 per cent owned by Scoot and 51 per cent by the Thai carrier, is expected to start flying in the middle of this year.

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