What we’re reading: China Eastern acquires Shanghai Airlines, five airlines join biofuel group, airlines study black boxes alternatives

by Stephanus Surjaputra on July 15, 2009

China Eastern acquires Shanghai Airlines for $1.32 billion

China Eastern has finalized a deal that allowed it to acquire Shanghai Airlines for $1.32 billion.

CEA said in a statement released yesterday that it will conduct the acquisition through a share swap of 1.3 China Eastern shares for each Shanghai Airlines share, a transaction that still requires the approval of both a shareholders’ conference and relevant government organs. Both carriers resumed trading yesterday. According to the statement, SAL will become a wholly owned subsidiary of CEA but will keep its brand in order to “maintain a stable operation”

Industry push for sustainable jet fuel gets a lift

Boeing reported that five additional airlines have joined the group that envisions sustainable fuel in the future.

The “Sustainable Aviation Fuel Users Group” launched in fall 2008 and already includes Air France, Air New Zealand, All Nippon Airways, Cargolux, Gulf Air, Japan Airlines, KLM, SAS and Virgin Atlantic Airways. Joining are Alaska Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, TUIfly and Virgin Blue.

Airlines study alternatives to jets’ black boxes

Faced with the loss of the black boxes from the recent crashes of Air France and Yemeni Airways, the industry is looking at alternate ways of sending real-time data to another place.

When an airplane is crossing an ocean and out of radio range, only the most important information is sent, since communication must be by satellite and transmission is expensive. Airlines can select what kind of flight data is worth the price of satellite time.

According to a statement from Airbus, even using the normal radio signal to send all the information about a flight would require enormous bandwidth.

Even sending it in real-time is not easy.

Mike Poole, an air crash investigator with CAE Flightscape, an aviation safety company in Canada, said that transmitting all that data in real time “sounds really attractive” but was not that easy.

Mr. Poole, who is also the chairman of the flight recorder working group of the International Society of Air Safety Investigators, said complicating factors include the number of planes in flight at any one time, the need for planes to have a clear line of sight to connect with the satellite, and the integrity and confidentiality of the data being sent.

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Tagged as: biofuel, black boxes, China Eastern, Shanghai Airlines

  • Cyndi

    So, they can give the passengers mobile phone coverage and internet access — but they can’t send the critical flight information in real time…. Whaaaaat??? Oh yeah, I forgot, they can CHARGE the passengers for mobile phone and internet access.
    Ridiculous that they can’t seem to justify the cost of safety.

  • Lyngengr

    I for one am growing weary of all the excuses being published from “experts” regarding the inability of modern aircraft to stream flight data. In the article quoted above, there was one other opinion that was not included:

    But Krishna Kavi, a professor of computer science and engineering at the University of North Texas, said that might not be the case. In 2001, Mr. Kavi proposed transmitting in real time just the information from the flight data recorder. “The amount of data is very small compared to video photos that you receive on smartphones,” he said. Mr. Kavi said his plan was even more achievable today.

    Last time I checked, this is the 21st century. To continue recording key flight performance parameters on ANALOG tape, and then hoping to find the recorder after a crash, is insane. Stop quoting the naysayers and let’s get on with developing a wireless digital system.

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