But headquartered in the same region is Oshkosh Corp., which—among other functions—is a major player in fire truck manufacturing. The firm also specializes in aircraft rescue and firefighting (ARFF) equipment with its line of specialized trucks.

Oshkosh Corp. has carved a niche in the firefighting industry with its line of airport fire trucks. These specialized vehicles are designed to handle the unique challenges posed by aviation accidents, offering a level of capability that sets them apart.

Among these are water tanks that are significantly larger than those of traditional municipal fire trucks, ensuring that firefighters have ample water to combat large-scale fires without needing frequent refills. The fire trucks boast powerful pumps capable of delivering high-pressure water streams, essential for penetrating the outer skin of aircraft and reaching internal fires. Many of these vehicles are also outfitted with advanced foam systems that can create a blanket over fires, helping to suppress flames and reduce the spread of smoke.

The company’s Striker 8×8 model can hold up to 4,500 gallons of water and 630 gallons of foam at a time. In comparison, a normal municipal fire truck can hold around 1,500 gallons of water alone.

In addition to their water capacity and firefighting capabilities, these vehicles are designed to handle various terrain, including runways, taxiways, and grassy areas. Some of Oshkosh’s Striker models can go from 0 to 60 mph in approximately 35 seconds.

Over 5,000 Oshkosh Striker vehicles have been made and shipped to airports around the globe. The company is also rolling out an electric fire truck called Volterra, which has already been adopted by some airports.

AirlineGeeks had the opportunity to visit Oshkosh’s manufacturing facility in its namesake city. A video from the tour is below:

Editor’s Note: This article first appeared on AirlineGeeks.com.

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The new route, which begins on November 4, will offer up to three daily round-trip flights between the two airports. This marks a significant expansion for Harbour Air, as it has traditionally only operated seaplanes.

“We’re very excited to launch our first-ever wheeled flights between YVR’s South Terminal and YYJ Victoria International Airport and provide passengers with new flexible early morning and late evening commuting options,” said Chris Fordyce, Harbour Air Group’s commercial chief, in a news release.

Editor’s Note: This article first appeared on AirlineGeeks.com.

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Nearly 11,000 Stearmans were built, but only around 1,000 are still flying. Earlier this week, a handful of these biplanes descended on Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport for a special mission.

Founded in 2011, a charity called Dream Flights provides veterans with the “adventure of a lifetime” flying in a Stearman biplane. The nonprofit organization conducts these flights all around the U.S. free of charge.

• READ MORE: Two Legendary Ace World War II Pilots Return to the Skies

The group’s visit to DFW was even more special, flying its 7,000th participant in 99-year-old WWII veteran Carlyle Hayes, who joined three other senior veterans.

“I’ve never ridden in an open cockpit aircraft, so this will be [the] first time,” U.S. Air Force veteran Jerry Brown told KTVT-TV.

The flights lasted around half an hour, arriving and departing from DFW, which is the world’s third-busiest airport. Both American Airlines and the Allied Pilots Association (APA) sponsored the event.

Editor’s Note: This article first appeared on AirlineGeeks.com.

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Bloomberg reports that the training sessions will begin as early as November, lasting into 2025.

The requirement extends to all of the airline’s nearly 11,000 pilots with training sessions taking place for one day at its Dallas headquarters. A company memo cited by the news outlet said the training sessions are intended to discuss “specific events and working together as a flight crew to appropriately manage risks.”

In April, a Southwest Boeing 737 Max 8 dropped within 400 feet of the Pacific Ocean near Lihue, Hawaii. Later, two separate Southwest flights received low altitude alerts, descending within hundreds of feet over Oklahoma City and Tampa, Florida, while still several miles from the respective airfields.

Another Southwest flight from Portland, Maine, to Baltimore took off from a closed runway in June.

In the same memo, the airline acknowledged the spike in incidents, adding that “meaningful work is underway to address these events and advance our safety.”

The FAA is currently conducting a safety audit on the carrier, similar to what United Airlines faced earlier this year.

Editor’s Note: This article first appeared on AirlineGeeks.com.

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The expansion includes additional heavy check maintenance work at the airline’s bases in Charlotte, North Carolina, Pittsburgh, and Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The additional headcount includes over 385 aviation maintenance technician (AMT) roles, the Fort Worth, Texas-based carrier said.

This announcement builds on American’s ongoing commitment to growing its aviation maintenance workforce. In 2023, the company added over 300 jobs to its Tulsa maintenance base with the help of a grant from the state of Oklahoma.

“American is excited to grow our talented Technical Operations workforce with more high-paying, skilled aviation maintenance positions,” said Greg Emerson, American’s vice president of base maintenance and facilities, in a press release. “It’s an opportunity to grow our maintenance capacity and capabilities in the near-term and preserve them over the long run by continuing to build our pipeline of future maintenance team members—which is important work American has been doing for some time.”

Job Openings Now Available

The new aviation maintenance positions are available for immediate application on the American Airlines careers website. The breakdown by location is as follows:

• Charlotte: 133 openings, including 122 AMTs
• Pittsburgh: 44 total openings, including 40 AMTs
• Tulsa: 321 total openings, including 227 AMTs

The airline’s mechanics are jointly represented by the Transport Workers Union (TWU) and the International Association of Machinists (IAM) unions. In 2020, the airline and its mechanics signed a new $4.2 billion contract that will become amendable in March 2025.

Editor’s Note: This article first appeared on AirlineGeeks.com.

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Dubuque Regional Airport (KDBQ) in Iowa announced on Tuesday that a new carrier will begin serving the city this fall.

Dubuque is located just over 200 miles east of Des Moines and saw a sharp decline in air service coming out of the pandemic. It joins a long list of about 70 other similarly sized markets that American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and United Airlines also dropped since 2020.

American was the only carrier serving the airport, ending its daily route from Chicago O’Hare International Airport (KORD) in September 2022. At the time, the airport’s director said the airline’s decision to leave the market was due to the “national pilot shortage.”

Regional carriers bore the brunt of the post-pandemic pilot shortage as major airlines hired new aviators at record-setting rates. This rapid movement within the pilot ranks caused some markets—including Dubuque—to lose daily service altogether.

Six months after American exited the market, ultra-low-cost carrier (ULCC) Avelo started flights from Dubuque to Las Vegas and Orlando, Florida. These flights were operated less-than-daily and eventually became seasonal.

Avelo was set to return to Dubuque in November 2024 but nixed those plans last month, citing increasing costs in Orlando along with aircraft availability issues.

A New Airline

Earlier this week, Dubuque Mayor Brad Cavanagh announced that Denver Air Connection will launch flights to Chicago O’Hare on November 4. The new route is slated to operate daily on an Embraer E145.

“The return of daily flights to and from a major hub is cause for celebration,” said Cavanagh in a press release. “We are excited to welcome Denver Air Connection to the Dubuque Regional Airport, and I encourage all travelers, whether for leisure or business, to take advantage of the convenient connections across the country and around the world that this service will provide.”

Based in Colorado, Denver Air Connection has continued to expand eastward in recent months. Dubuque will be the carrier’s first market in Iowa.

Editor’s Note: This article first appeared on AirlineGeeks.com.

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According to WSB-TV, one Delta employee and a contractor were killed as they were removing the tire.

Another airline employee was seriously injured as a result of the incident. In a statement to the news outlet, Delta confirmed the report.

“The Delta family is heartbroken at the loss of two team members and the injury of another following an incident this morning at the Atlanta Technical Operations Maintenance facility (TOC 3),” a Delta spokesman said. “We have extended our full support to family members and colleagues during this incredibly difficult time…The Delta family is grateful for the quick action of first responders and medical teams on site. We are now working with local authorities and conducting a full investigation to determine what happened.”

Few details are available as to what caused the incident. The involved aircraft is reportedly registered as N683DA, a 31-year-old Boeing 757-200 that had just flown from Las Vegas to Atlanta on Sunday evening.

Editor’s Note: This article first appeared on AirlineGeeks.com.

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In June, U.S. scheduled carriers added just over 200,000 jobs.

The Department of Transportation (DOT) requires passenger, cargo, and charter carriers operating at least one aircraft that has more than 60 seats or the capacity to carry a payload of passengers, cargo, and fuel weighing more than 18,000 pounds to report workforce statistics on a monthly basis. Since 1990, the DOT’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics has compiled this data.

Scheduled passenger carriers employed 546,446 staff members in June, the most in over two decades. Cargo operators had 452,155 workers during the same month. Notably, FedEx consolidated its various operating companies to form Federal Express Corp., which in turn increased the number of U.S. airline workers.

Cargo airlines represent 45 percent of the industry-wide employment total, while passenger carriers hold the majority at 55 percent. In June, Delta Air Lines added 1,217 employees, American Airlines added 193, and SkyWest Airlines added 181 with passenger airlines growing their workforces by nearly 2,000 employees month over month.

“These 1 million men and women are the backbone of our industry, which is why A4A member airlines continue to invest significantly in current and future employees to ensure that we have people trained and in the right places at the right time in order to accommodate the demand for air travel and shipping,” Rebecca Spicer, senior vice president of communications for trade group Airlines for America (A4A), said in a news release. “We are grateful for our employees’ dedication to getting millions of travelers to their destinations safely and tons of cargo delivered every single day across the country and around the world.”

DOT data also shows that the number of full-time employees grew slightly higher between May and June. Of the 26 scheduled passenger airlines reporting data for June, they employed 517,526 full-time equivalents (FTEs), an increase of 1,030 over May.

Editor’s Note: This article first appeared on AirlineGeeks.com.

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The NJASAP represents NetJets’ 3,430 pilots and recently signed a new contract with the world’s largest private jet operator. 

In a news release published on Monday, the NJASAP alleged the two pilots were terminated because of their role in negotiating the five-year agreement, which was overwhelmingly ratified in April. The union also said the termination decision was “unlawful, unjust and in retaliation for the $1.6B in improvements the pilots negotiated during midterm bargaining that concluded earlier this year.”

NetJets said it had no comment on the matter. 

The terminated pilots included the NJASAP vice president and strategy group chairman. According to the union, they were both captains with 23 and 18 years at the company, respectively. The two pilots had “unblemished professional records,” NJASAP president Captain Pedro Leroux said in the release. 

“Choosing to terminate two high-ranking union leaders is not simply another hurdle to resetting the landscape, but a move reflective of a strategy that is not sustainable in the long term,” Leroux said.

This move is the latest in an ongoing back-and-forth between NetJets and its pilots union. In June, the company sued the NJASAP for defamation over safety and pilot training claims. 

The post High-Ranking NetJets Pilots Union Leaders Handed ‘Unprecedented’ Termination appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

The Santa Clara, California-based company has operated a corporate shuttle for decades, which moves employees through its various West Coast facilities. Commonly referred to as “Intel Air,” the aircraft fly on regular schedules with up to 24 flights per day before the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to Cirium Fleet analyzer data, the Intel Air Shuttle has four active aircraft in its fleet, including two Embraer E145s plus two E175s. The company has hangars at Phoenix Mesa Gateway Airport (KIWA), Sacramento Mather Airport (KMHR) in California, and Hillsboro Airport (KHIO) in Oregon. It also operates flights to San Jose, California.

First reported by The Oregonian/Oregon Live, the shuttle’s permanent shutdown joins a long list of other scaled-back employee benefits.

“We really aren’t in a situation where we could continue to afford benefits and programs that are above market practice,” Intel human resources chief Christy Pambianchi told employees.

Intel just recently resumed operating the shuttle in April 2024 after a year-long pause. At the time, a company spokesperson said the shutdown was intended to “reduce employee travel as part of our ongoing cost-cutting efforts.”

The four aircraft are operated by GMJ Air Shuttle, which uses the call sign “High Tech.” GMJ is part of the Florida-based private aviation firm XOJet and operates under FAA Part 125 rules.

Intel did not immediately respond to AirlineGeeks’ request for comment on the shutdown.

Editor’s Note: This article first appears on AirlineGeeks.com.

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