The World of Aviation

Finnair’s Australian boss Geoff Stone says stopping over in Asia on the way to Europe is coming back into favour amid geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. Although Finnair does not serve this market with its own aircraft, the airline has codeshare arrangements with British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, as well as interline agreements

Cathay Pacific has boosted the strength of its Hong Kong hub with the reopening of business class lounge “The Pier” as it takes the fight up to its rivals for premium passengers amid sluggish market conditions. Following the upgrade, The Pier business class lounge has been expanded by 1,000 square metres (to 3,306 square metres)

  Airservices is reminding pilots 179 ground-based navigation aids will be progressively switched off from 0400 Thursday. The decommissioning, which also affects associated non-precision approach procedures, is prescribed in Civil Aviation Order 20.18 and comes after the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) mandated the use of GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) as the primary needs of navigation

Virgin Australia’s ATR 72-500/600 turboprop fleet of 14 aircraft will carry a protective exterior coating from Permagard Australia. The work to clean, prepare and apply the clear polymer seal to the aircraft exterior takes two days per frame and is being conducted at Virgin’s Brisbane engineering facility, Permagard said in a statement. The contract to work

Qantas has boosted its frequent flyer offering for travellers to North America with an expanded partnership with Canadian airline Westjet. Under the new arrangement, announced on Wednesday, members of Qantas’s frequent flyer program can earn points when travelling on any Westjet flight from May 25 onwards. Members of the Qantas program can also redeem points

Airbus Helicopters will provide a fleet of H135s and H145s helicopters to the United Kingdom’s Military Flying Training System (UKMFTS) after being selected by Ascent, the UK’s Ministry of Defence’s (MoD) appointed training partner, as the preferred provider for the £500 million, 17-year contract. Starting in April 2018, the new contract will provide 28,000 hours