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The NOTAM outage and subsequent ground stop, why Amazon Air is selling cargo capacity, the runway incursion at JFK, the Airbus automated emergency diversion system, and an Australia News Desk report.
Aviation News
Here’s the latest on the NOTAM outage that caused flight delays and cancellations
On January 11, 2023, the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system failed and the FAA issued a domestic ground stop, leading to thousands of delayed and canceled flights. A corrupt database file has been cited as the cause of the failure. NAV CANADA reported issues with their NOTAM system on the same day. At the time, they did not believe the Canadian outage was related to the FAA outage. See FAA’s NOTAM computer outage affected military flights.
Amazon Air to Sell Surplus Capacity Onboard its Jets Ahead of Predicted Market Slump
In 2023, the global air freight market is forecast to shrink by about 25%. Amazon Air has decided to sell excess air freight capacity on its fleet of 97 wet-leased planes.
The FAA is investigating a near-miss between two passenger planes at JFK airport
A Delta Air Lines 737-900 (Flight 1943) was on its takeoff roll when ATC noticed an American Airlines Boeing 777 (Flight 106) crossing the active runway. The Delta plane stopped about 1,000 feet before the crossing. The American 737 returned to the gate and passengers disembarked. Due to a crew resource issue, the flight resumed the next morning. Customers were given overnight accommodations.
Airbus tests pilot assist that can automatically divert flights
Airbus is testing a pilot assistance feature called DragonFly, which can automatically divert a flight in an emergency. The system can pick a flight path to the best airport and communicate with air traffic control and an airline’s operations center. Even if the pilots are incapacitated, DragonFly can land the aircraft safely.
Australia News Desk
This week we have a follow-up on the news about Bonza Airline’s air operators certificate, which was approved by the regulator the day last week’s episode went live. There’s some consternation among the travel agent sector over Bonza’s decision not to service Sydney at all, but as we talked about last week, they’re trying a different strategy. Time will tell if it works or not.
On the tourism front, two of China’s three major carriers – Air China and China Southern – are boosting their schedule for flights to Australia, in a move that many hope will see the lucrative inbound Chinese tourist market ramping back up.
China Southern, Air China boosting flights to Australia
And a new network of satellites from Skykraft, sporting significant levels of Australian-made components, has been successfully deployed over the country, in a move that will eventually allow more accurate and reliable tracking of aircraft and WHF communications in some of the more remote areas of the continent.
Australia’s largest ever satellite constellation now active
Mentioned
Airline Pilot Study – A questionnaire for pilots to learn about what aspects of innovation might make an airline more attractive to pilots when they decide which airline to apply to fly for.
Rob’s Newest jet:
Hosts this Episode
Max Flight, Rob Mark, and David Vanderhoof.