This Month in Aviation
Welcome to This Month in Aviation, our regular round-up of the biggest aviation stories from the last four weeks. Below are six short reports — a minute or two of reading each — with a link to the full story if you want to know more.
Air India cuts a fifth of its flights — Air India is cancelling about 22% of its flights inside India in June and July. The reason is the price of jet fuel, which has risen sharply during the conflict involving Iran. When fuel costs more, each flight earns less money. So the airline has decided to fly less for now and wait for prices to fall.
Southwest leaves two major airports — Southwest, a well-known low-cost airline in the United States, has stopped all of its flights at Chicago O’Hare and Washington Dulles. Both are large, busy and expensive airports. The airline wants to cut its costs, so it is moving back to smaller, cheaper airports. Passengers who used Southwest at these two airports will now have to choose another carrier.
Qantas tests its “Project Sunrise” jet — The Australian airline Qantas has a new Airbus A350. The aircraft made its first flight from Toulouse, in France. It is built for ultra-long-haul routes — very long flights with no stop on the way. Qantas plans to use it to fly non-stop from Sydney to London and to New York. These would be among the longest passenger flights in the world.
A US jet breaks the sound barrier — A company called Hermeus has flown a test aircraft faster than the speed of sound. The jet had no pilot on board and reached Mach 1.21 on 26 May — about 1.2 times the speed of sound. Hermeus is now the first private American company to do this. The company hopes to build very fast aircraft in the years ahead.
Investigators report a known engine risk — At a public hearing, investigators said that Boeing and the US aviation regulator had known about a safety problem for more than twenty years. The problem was a risk of cracks in the pylon — the part that joins an engine to the wing — on the MD-11 cargo aircraft. Last November this part failed during a UPS cargo flight, which led to a fatal crash.
A new website tracks the ATC rebuild — The US government has launched a website called Modern Skies. It lets anyone follow how $12.5 billion is being spent to rebuild the country’s air traffic control system. Air traffic controllers guide aircraft and keep them a safe distance apart. Much of the equipment is old, so the money will pay to make it modern. The site shows how the work is going.
Over to you: Which of these stories matters most to you — and why? Let us know in the comments.
CEFR Level B1 / ICAO Level 4