Airbus has completed the first flight of the company’s A320 development aircraft MSN001 F-WWBA fitted with the new ‘Sharklet’ wing-tip devices. Airbus A320 MSN001 F-WWBA takes off for its first flight equipped with “Sharklets” This flight marks the start of the early flight-test campaign to capture data for fine-tuning the flight control laws required for the fly-by-wire controls, as well …

It appears that delivery Air India’s Boeing 787 Dreamliners are delayed, yet again, this time in to 2012. Air India has chosen the General Electric GEnx-1B engine to power its 787 fleet. According to a report from Flightglobal, due to a lack of production aircraft at Boeing, the airframer is unable to complete the final certification requirements of the US …

Earlier this week, Air India, the beleaguered Indian national carrier, announced that it would be utilizing a sale-leaseback arrangement to evade the divisive lawsuit filed by the Air Transport Association (ATA), a US airline lobby group, over Us $ 3.4 billion worth of financing for the carrier’s order of 27 Boeing 787 and 3 777-300ER widebody jets. The lawsuit from …

Yesterday, Air India chief executive Rohit Nandan announced that Air India would be withdrawing one of its two daily Delhi-London-Heathrow flights from February 2012 and auctioning off the slots. Currently, Air India competes on the sector with Kingfisher, British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, and Jet Airways; all of whom offer more consistent products and command higher fares than Air India. The …