The World of Aviation

LAN Airlines resumed daily flights between Sydney and Santiago on November 17, having cut services during the GFC. The flights are operated by 260 seat, two-class Airbus A340-300s, via Auckland.

Jetstar’s new Darwin-Manila flights will operate thrice weekly from February 9, the airline has announced. The flights, still subject to regulatory approval, will depart Darwin at 1900 on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays as JQ75, returning the same evening and landing the following morning as JQ76. Jetstar has launched marketing of the flights with $99 one-way

Melbourne Airport exceeded 2.5 million passenger movements in October, its highest figure yet for a single month, with 27 million passengers passing through the airport for the 12 months to the end of October, also a record. International passenger traffic through Melbourne is surging, up 14.3 per cent in October compared to October 2009 to

The ATSB (Australian Transport Safety Bureau)’s final report from its investigation of the explosion of an oxygen bottle on a Qantas Boeing 747-400 in 2008 has highlighted the improbability of such an event occurring again. Despite the bottle never being recovered, “the ATSB’s investigation has proven successful in highlighting the improbability of the failure event,

Lockheed Martin has been awarded a US$3.5 billion contract for the fourth Low Rate Initial Production (LRIP 4) batch of 31 F-35 JSF aircraft. Under the contract, the company will manufacture 10 F-35As for the USAF, 16 F-35Bs for the US Marine Corps, four F-35Cs for the US Navy and, despite that country recently changing

Virgin Blue was Australia’s most on time domestic airline in October, the first month in 2010 for which it has been able to claim that honour from Qantas. Virgin Blue achieved an on time departure rate of 85.8 per cent in October, up from 79.1 per cent in September, while the percentage of Qantas’s flights