The World of Aviation

Airservices Australia says the benefits of its ‘Accelerate’ restructuring program will allow it to deliver real cost reductions to its aviation industry customers across the next five years. The government-owned air navigation service provider and aviation firefighting operator released its latest five-year corporate plan on Tuesday, detailing its forecasted financial performance through to the end

Virgin Australia says it is has commenced work equipping its Boeing 737-800 narrowbodies with inflight internet wi-fi. The announcement on Thursday follows the start of a trial on board a single 737-800 VH-YIG that commenced at the end of April. Under the rollout schedule, Virgin Australia said the “majority” of 737-800s would feature inflight internet

Qantas says redeploying two Boeing 717s from its intrastate WA network will be offset by increasing the utilisation of its Perth-based Fokker 100 fleet. Two QantasLink 717s currently operating in Western Australia will be refitted from 125-seat all-economy class configurations to two-class 110-seat (12 business and 98 economy) interiors, Qantas says, as the airline continues

The Royal Australian Air Force is facing a three-year gap in operating an unmanned aircraft (or remotely-piloted aircraft systems – RPAS – to use the RAAF’s preferred nomenclature) following the retirement of the IAI Heron in June. Three Herons were leased in late 2009 to meet an urgent operational requirement to provide surveillance support to

Airservices Australia board chair Sir Angus Houston has told a Senate committee that the air navigation service provider is “99 per cent ready to go” to sign contracts for the new OneSky air traffic management system. Since February 2015 Airservices has been negotiating with Thales as its preferred supplier for the OneSky project for a

The third Australian F-35A Lightning II has received vertical tails made by Australian company Marand as production of the aircraft nears completion. The aircraft, AU-3, is currently on the production line at Fort Worth, Texas and becomes the first F-35A for the RAAF to receive Australian-made vertical tails. “Examples like this prove that Australian industry