Alaska and Hawaiian Hit 150 Starlink Jets

Alaska and Hawaiian Hit 150 Starlink Jets

The Wi-Fi on your next Alaska or Hawaiian flight may now be faster than the connection in your living room. Alaska Air Group says roughly 150 of its aircraft are flying with SpaceX’s Starlink internet — and for a lot of passengers, it is free.The group...
Lufthansa’s €600 Million Robot Cargo Hub Opens

Lufthansa’s €600 Million Robot Cargo Hub Opens

At Frankfurt Airport, the busiest cargo gateway in Europe, Lufthansa Cargo has switched on the first piece of a €600 million bet on automation. The centrepiece is a warehouse 42 metres tall that, for the most part, runs itself.The new fully automated high-bay...
Two Drones, Two New York Airports, One Week

Two Drones, Two New York Airports, One Week

United Flight 1513, a Boeing 737-700 inbound from Key West with 106 people on board, is on final approach to Newark Liberty on a Friday afternoon when the crew sees a small circular object — perhaps three feet across — flash past about a hundred feet...
The Call-Sign Mix-Up That Stopped Flight 308

The Call-Sign Mix-Up That Stopped Flight 308

It is just after six o’clock on a Saturday evening at Miami International Airport. American Airlines Flight 308, an Airbus A319 loaded with passengers bound for Bermuda, has been cleared onto Runway 8 and is beginning to roll. Then the crew sees something that...
What Actually Happens Inside a Wind Tunnel

What Actually Happens Inside a Wind Tunnel

Every aircraft you have ever seen in the sky was first tested in a room where nothing flies at all. Wind tunnels are, conceptually, the simplest tools in aerospace engineering: take a tube, put air in one end, put a model in the middle, and measure what happens. In...
The Bent Wingtips That Save Billions in Fuel

The Bent Wingtips That Save Billions in Fuel

Sit in a window seat over the wing of almost any modern airliner and you will see it: the wingtip, instead of ending in a clean point, bends sharply upward into a fin. It looks like a small design flourish. It is not. That upturned tip is quietly one of the most...