Commencement Ceremony Celebrates First Next-Gen Narrowbody Delivery

Italian national carrier ITA Airways, took delivery of its first A330-900 from Air Lease Corporation. The carrier made a big to-do about the handover, performing it at a small ceremony in Toulouse, France to commemorate the occasion. The A330neo will join the ITA Airways fleet in June to serve its long-haul routes and new intercontinental destinations.

Air New Zealand to Objectify its Customers

In an apparent bid to alienate passengers and bring about the alacritous demise of the island nation’s national airline, New Zealand’s Civil Aviation Authority has prevailed upon Air New Zealand to weigh passengers departing on international flights from Auckland International Airport (AKL) through 02 July 2023.

Planegiarism

China’s first domestically-produced airliner, the Comac C919, made its inaugural revenue flight on Sunday, 28 May 2023. Operated by China Eastern Airlines, the flight conveyed some 130 paying passengers between Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport (PVG) and Beijing’s Capital International Airport (PEK). The 164-seat, narrow-body aircraft—of which China Eastern took delivery in December 2022—was manufactured by China’s state-owned Commercial Aviation Corporation of China (Comac).

After 2 years in Storage, Etihad's Biggest Birds Return to Service 

After years of being packed away, Etihad has begun readying their Airbus A380 aircraft for passenger service once again. The aircraft were stowed away during the nadir of pandemic-era passenger loads, when the high costs of operation vastly outweighed the utility of keeping the aircraft in service. Now, as things have rebounded, the accountants have given their blessing to A380 service.

The Light in Ameriflight

On 30 May 2023, Ameriflight announced it had received approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to operate drone aircraft. The approval renders Ameriflight the first Part 135 Cargo airline to receive such exemption and allows the air-carrier to conduct Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) operations under its current Part 119 Air Carrier Certificate for Part 135 operations. Moreover, the FAA has granted Ameriflight approval to add Matternet’s M2 UAS—the first drone-delivery system granted standard Type Certification by the Federal Aviation Administration—to its fleet, thereby heralding the launch of the United States’ first fully operational, large-scale drone-delivery operation.

Racing to the Bottom

In a baffling move at once reactionary and self-defeating, South Korea’s Asiana Airlines has stopped selling certain emergency row seats in the wake of a 26 May 2023 incident in which a passenger aboard one of the airline’s Airbus A321s opened the third of the jet’s four portside emergency exits as the airliner was attempting to land at Daegu, South Korea’s Gukje Gonghang International Airport (TAE).