Cover Photo: A6-EOM, an Emirates Airbus A380-861, is seen here sporting a special livery in support of United for Wildlife, a charity that helps fight illegal wildlife trade. This aircraft features six endangered species on the side.

United Airlines (CALA) will begin new daily service from Leon (BJX) to Chicago O’Hare (ORD) on October 28.

Norwegian (6NRF) has wet-leased Hi Fly (29HF) Airbus A340-300s to operate nearly half of its Paris de Gaulle (CDG) to Los

Angeles (LAX) and New York Kennedy (JFK) schedule from mid-May through late July. 1

Norwegian will wet-lease a Wamos Air (Z9WF) Boeing 747-400 to operate one of its two daily flights from London Gatwick to New York Kennedy from today through July 23. The Wamos 744s seat 475 passengers. 2

Norwegian will begin 2x weekly flights from Rome (FCO) 3 and Madrid (MAD) to Fort Lauderdale (FLL) on October 30 and 31, respectively. 4 Additionally, 2x weekly service from Stockholm Arlanda (ARN) to Orlando (MCO) will begin on October 29. 5All routes will be operated by Boeing 787 equipment.

From June 14, Interjet (23IF) will adjust its daily Mexico City (MEX) to Orlando operations, with flights switching from Orlando Sanford

(SFB) to Orlando International. 6

Singapore Airlines (SBOF) will resume its ultra-long haul flights from Singapore (SIN) to Newark, New Jersey (EWR) on October 11.

This 19-hour flight will be operated by Airbus A350-900 equipment 3x weekly to start before going daily from October 18. The aircraft will have a special

configuration of 67 business class seats and 94 premium economy seats. 7 This route was previously operated from 2004 until 2013 by Airbus A340-500 equipment but proved economically unviable with high-fuel prices at the time.

Singapore will also resume direct flights from Singapore to Los Angeles on Airbus A350-900 equipment later this year. 8

South Korea’s Jeju Air (3JUF) will begin daily Seventh Freedom service from Osaka (KIX) to Guam (GUM) on July 21. This flight will be operated by

Boeing 737 equipment. 9

Southwest Airlines (SWAA) is adding nine new domestic routes from November 4. Click here to review.

Southwest will add weekend service from Chicago Midway (MDW) to Los Cabos (SJD) on November 4. This route, subject to final government approval, will be operated by Boeing 737-700 aircraft. 10

LEVEL (ILAF) will move their 2x weekly seasonal Barcelona (BCN) to Oakland (OAK) service to San Francisco (SFO) on

November 4. This route is operated by Airbus A330-200 equipment and will conclude for the season on March 9, 2019.

After just starting the route on April 9, Norwegian is already pulling back on flights from Denver (DEN) and Paris de Gaulle, with the year round flight being switched to a seasonal operation from late March through the end of October.

United Airlines will end several United Express branded regional jet routes in Mexico in the coming months:

Service from Mexico City to Denver will end on June 23; service from Mexico City to Los Angeles

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will end on October 4. Service from Leon to Los Angeles will end on October 4 as well. June 23 will see the conclusion of service from Houston Intercontinental (IAH) to Huatulco (HUX), while flights from Houston Intercontinental to Villahermosa (VSA) will cease on June 28. With this, Villahermosa will cease to operate as a Last Point of Departure (LPD) airport to the U.S. Finally, flights from Mazatlan (MZT) to Houston Intercontinental and Chicago O’Hare will end on August 18. 11

United Airlines is ending United Express branded regional service from Newark, New Jersey to Baltimore (BWI), Des Moines (DSM), and Hartford (BDL) on October 4. 12

Virgin Atlantic (VAWF) will end daily service from London Gatwick (LGW) to Las Vegas (LAS) on March 31. This route is presently operated

by Boeing 747-400 equipment. 13

Norweian Air UK (9NRF) will suspend their 3x weekly service from London Gatwick to Austin (AUS) from October 28 through February 28, 2019. Service resumes 3x weekly on March 1 using Boeing 787 equipment. 14

Interjet has scrapped its planned daily new service from Leon to Houston Intercontinental and San Antonio (SAT), both of which were planned to begin on June 22 using Sukhoi SSJ-100 equipment. 15

Delta Air Lines (DALA) will end weekly service from New York Kennedy to Havana (HAV) on September 1. This route is presently

operated by Airbus A319 equipment. 16

Primera Air (63UF) will cease their 6x weekly service from Birmingham (BHX) to Newark, New Jersey on June 20. This route is

currently operated by wet-leased Boeing 757-200 equipment. 17

AeroMexico (ASMF) has canceled their planned 3x weekly Mexico City to Barcelona flight, just three weeks after opening reservations.

The flight was due to begin on November 1 with Boeing 787-8 equipment. 18

TSA discovered 90 firearms in carry-on bags for the week ending May 6, 19 84 for the week ending May 13, 20 101 for the week ending May 20, 21 and 84 for the week ending May 27. 22 TSA has now found 1,665 guns in carry-on bags in 2018. Click here to see how many guns have been found at each airport so far this year.

A nearly 60-year-old man punched a deaf, pregnant woman and her service dog on a Frontier Airlines (F3LA) flight in mid-May. The man

was angered as he felt the dog was taking too much room on the plane – he punched the dog before being confronted by the dog’s owners, including the 21-year-old pregnant woman who he also punched. When police arrived to meet the flight, the aggressor said “it took you all long enough to get here.” 23

A passenger on a May 21 Frontier Airlines flight from Denver to Charleston, South Carolina (CHS), was arrested upon arrival after inappropriately touching a female passenger and then micturating on the seat in front of him (an act which was photographed by another passenger and has been shared widely online). The man faces federal charges. 24

Nine airline employees at Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW), including seven with Envoy Air (SIMA), were arrested in mid-May and face federal drug trafficking charges. The employees used their status as airline employees to bypass physical security measures and help smuggle over 60 kilograms of illegal drugs on various flights; one of the defendants later said he could transport guns on

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flights and even mused about transporting explosives. 25

Lufthansa (DLAF) has revised their new livery, which was unveiled in February. The revision has a larger circled

crane and a lighter shade of blue; the original darker blue appeared almost black in certain light.

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) of Pakistan reported on May 10 that 24 pilots and 67 crew-members from Pakistan

International Airlines were found to hold fake degrees. Reports are not clear if these degrees were aviation accreditations or from various educational institutions. 26

United Airlines sent an internal memo to its employees in mid-May urging them to tighten up on personal grooming and appearance. Part of the memo states: Common deviations we see are skirts that are too high, wearing of non-uniform or worn out footwear, wrinkled or stained uniform shirts, and personal grooming issues. We need to restore the pride and purpose of what it means to be a United flight attendant and set the standard for the industry.” 27

Korean Air (KALF) expanded its codeshare service with Delta Air Lines (DALA) on Delta operated flights from Atlanta (ATL) and

Seattle (SEA) on dozens of routes in May. 28

China Eastern (NZXF) has also added codeshares on 11 Delta flights from May. Click here to review.

112 people were killed on May 19 when a Boeing 737-201 operated by a Mexican airline crashed shortly after departing Havana on a domestic flight to Holguin (HOG). Only three people survived the crash; the cause has yet to be determined. 29

Qatar Airways (QYCF) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Akbar Al Baker, newly elected as Chairman of the International Air Transport

Association (IATA), ruffled feathers on June 5 when he stated that “of course [Qatar Airways] has to be led by a man because it is a very challenging position." 30

Separately, Qatar Airways warned that 2018 may be another loss-making year, as the airline remains impacted by a trade embargo launched in June 2017 by Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Let’s take a look at passenger traffic in April at some of our Texas airports: Dallas/Fort Worth saw 5,562,581 passengers in April, a 5.7% year-on-year increase. 31 Dallas Love Field (DAL) saw 1,327,326 April passengers. 32 1,324,938 passengers traveled from Austin in April, the busiest month in airport history. 33 Houston Intercontinental reported 3,546,210 April passengers, a 7.7% year-on-year upswing; Houston Hobby (HOU) enjoyed a five percent annual increase to 1,169,870 passengers in April.

Dallas/Fort Worth opened the first free-standing emergency room on an airport ground in the world this month. 34

Fort Myers, Florida (RSW) reported a nine percent year-on-year decline in passenger traffic in April, with 939,957 passengers. 35

Colorado Springs (COS) surged 21.4% in April over last year’s passenger count with 69,555 passengers. 36

Las Vegas handled 4.2 million passengers in April and 15.48 million in the first four months of 2018,

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putting the airport on pace to break its annual record of 48.5 million set last year. 37

60% of all domestic flights in Nigeria were delayed in the first three months of the year, with 8,825 flights of 14,633 seeing disruptions. 38

An American Airlines (AALA) Airbus A319-132 (N806AW) came out worse for wear after encountering a severe hail storm on a June 3

flight from San Antonio to Phoenix (PHX). The flight safely landed in El Paso (ELP).39

Photos by David Badillo.

Sun Country Airlines (SCNA) opened voting to employees early this month on a possible new livery, and the winning design has now been chosen:

Mexican airport operator Grupo Aeroportuario del Centro Norte, better known as OMA, saw a 10% total increase in passengers in May. 1,788,633 passengers flew from OMA’s 13 Mexican airports in May. 40

Iran Air retired EP-IAC, the last commercially operating Boeing 747SP in the world, on May 22. This aircraft was delivered new to Iran

Air on May 27, 1977. Only 45 747SPs were built- Special Performance models designed for long range flights.

Ken Fielding, Wiki Commons.

The Transportation Safety Board (TSB) of Canada has released a report on a March 7, 2017 incident in which a WestJet

(WJ0F) flight landing at Sint Maarten (SXM) in poor conditions was forced to initiate a go-around .30 nautical miles from the runway at an altitude of just 40 feet. 41 Here is a YouTube of the incident as well, from inside and outside the aircraft.

2017 U.S. AIRLINE CEO TOTAL COMPENSATION

AIRLINE 42 CEO TOTAL

Delta Ed Bastian $13.2 million American Doug Parker $12.2 million

United Oscar Munoz $9.5 million Southwest Gary Kelly $7.5 million

Alaska Brad Tilden $5.7 million JetBlue Robin Hayes $3.3 million Spirit Bob Fornaro $2.2 million

Volaris (Z5XF) flew 1.501 million passengers in June, a 10.5% year-on-year increase. System-wide load factor was 85.8% for the month. 43

Grupo AeroMexico transported 1.824 million passengers in May, a 6.8% year-on-year increase. This includes passengers on AeroMexico and

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AeroMexico Connect (LVQF) flights. System-wide load factor across the network was 80.7%. 44

Western Global Airlines (9WGA), will invest $3 million into renovations of a 152,000 square-foot hangar at Shreveport (SHV) where it will conduct heavy maintenance on its fleet of 16 Boeing 747 and McDonnell Douglas MD-11 aircraft. The new facility is expected to provide 170 jobs in the next few years. 45

14 CFR 121.575 declares: "No person may drink any alcoholic beverage aboard an aircraft unless the certificate holder operating the aircraft has served that beverage to him."

The headquarters building of the now defunct Longaberger Company, a manufacturer of baskets, located in Ohio.

N869GA, a McDonnell Douglas MD083 (DC-9-83) with Allegiant Air (WX0A),

was withdrawn from use (wfu) and ferried on May 16 to Victorville, California (VCV) for part-out and scrap.

B-2498, a Boeing 767-36D with Shanghai Airlines, was wfu and ferried on June 1 to Marana, Arizona (MZJ) for storage.

B-2067, a Boeing 777-2J6 with Air China (CAAF), was wfu and ferried on May 30 to GWO for part-out and scrap.

N8972E, a Canadair CRJ-200 with Endeavor Air (REXA), was wfu and ferried on May 30 to IGM for storage.

The Aviation Update is compiled by Greg Gayden from open source material gathered across the internet, and features news regarding international operations

to/from the United States and the commercial aviation industry in general. To subscribe, simply send a request. The Update is published multiple times each month as news warrants. Unless otherwise noted, IATA codes used for airports & FAA designator codes for airlines.

The Third Edition of Commercial Aviation 101, a 245 page book which explores current security programs and the basics of the aviation industry, is now available on Apple iBooks, Amazon and available in PDF format. Paperback copies can be ordered here.

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