IndiGo and Norse Rip Up Their 787 Deal
For a few months, the world’s cheapest big airline flew the world’s trendiest long-haul jet. It did not last. IndiGo — India’s low-cost giant, and the largest airline in the country by a country mile — is tearing up its damp-lease deal with Norway’s Norse...
The FedEx Crew Who Rolled a DC-10 to Survive
Twenty minutes out of Memphis, First Officer Jim Tucker heard a sound he had never heard on an aeroplane: a metallic ring, again and again. It was a claw hammer coming down on the skull of his flight engineer. In the next few seconds a man would try to murder all...
Two Firefighting Helicopters Collide West of Athens
They had done it hundreds of times. Dip the snorkel, scoop a tonne of water, climb, run in low over the burning ridge, release, and turn back for more. On Sunday afternoon, over a wind-whipped fire front west of Athens, two firefighting helicopters flew that same...
WestJet Grounds Its Entire Mainline Fleet
Just after midnight on Sunday, the busiest travel weekend of the Canadian summer fell silent. Roughly 150 WestJet aircraft that should have been shuttling holidaymakers between Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto and a long list of sun destinations stayed exactly where they...
The Atlantic Crossing Nobody Remembers
Everyone remembers Charles Lindbergh. Almost nobody remembers the three men who, a year later, flew the Atlantic the hard way — against the wind, from Europe to America — and nearly died doing it. Their aircraft was called the Bremen, and their forgotten...
A Rare P-51 Mustang Flies Again
In August 1944, a young Minnesotan named Ken Dahlberg shot down three German aircraft in a single swirling dogfight, took a bullet through his oil system, and bailed out into the clouds over occupied France. Sheltered by the Resistance and — by one account...
The Airliner You Boarded Inside the Wing
Imagine buying an airline ticket and being shown not to a seat in the fuselage, but into the wing itself — a little cabin built into the leading edge, with a big curved window giving you the pilot’s own view of the world rushing toward you. That was the...
Britain Builds an Islander Again After 60 Years
It is one of the least glamorous aircraft in the sky and one of the most useful: a boxy, high-wing twin that lands in under a thousand feet, seats nine, and turns up wearing airline colours, army camouflage and even spy fits. Now, for the first time in almost sixty...
WestJet Braces for a Long-Weekend Strike
Canada is heading into its August long weekend with a familiar knot in its stomach: another airline, another strike clock ticking. On 30 July, the flight attendants who staff WestJet’s cabins served the airline with 72 hours’ strike notice. WestJet fired...
Allegiant Finally Pours a Free Drink
For years, flying Allegiant meant paying for everything that was not the seat itself — the carry-on, the boarding pass at the airport, and yes, the cup of soda. That is the whole point of an ultra-low-cost carrier: a rock-bottom fare, then a menu of extras. So...
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