The World of Aviation

Airservices Australia announced on December 17 that it has commissioned Australia’s first advanced surface movement radar, at Melbourne Airport. The $35 million Advanced Surface Movement Guidance and Control System (A-SMGCS) aggregates surveillance data from multiple sources and helps to improve controllers’ situational awareness of possible ground conflicts, particularly at night or during bad weather. “While

Qantas has confirmed that Jetstar has entered into talks with AirAsia over a “potential cost saving joint venture”, although indications are that it will not involve merging the two low cost carriers. Qantas released a statement to the Australian Securities Exchange on December 18 confirming that the two have been involved in preliminary discussions, but

The International Air Services Commission has made a determination which will allow Strategic Airlines to operate its planned services from Brisbane to Denpasar. The IASC has allowed for the transfer of 408 seats originally allocated to Ozjet on the Indonesia route to Strategic. In addition, Strategic will be required to seek an additional 50 seats

New data from the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics shows that passenger load factors on domestic services increased during October, despite a marginal decrease in passenger numbers. For the month, network-wide load factor increased by 1.9 percentage points to 83.5 per cent compared to the same time last year, while passenger numbers decreased

Pacific Air Express has been awarded an allocation of 17.5 tonnes of cargo capacity on the Papua New Guinea route, which will allow it to operate one weekly Boeing 737-300F service. PAE will be required to utilise the capacity by March 31 2010.

The High Court in the UK has issued an injunction against the Unite union preventing British Airways cabin crew from taking a 12 day strike over the Christmas period. “We are delighted for our customers that the threat of a Christmas strike has been lifted by the court,” BA said in a statement. “It is