While Taiwan’s air force is well trained and well equipped, mostly with US-made equipment, it is dwarfed by China’s. Beijing views the democratic island as its own territory and has never renounced the use of force to bring it under Chinese control.
Taiwan’s air force said two air force F-5E fighters, each with one pilot aboard, crashed into the sea off the island’s southeastern coast after they apparently collided in mid-air during a training mission.
One pilot was found and airlifted to hospital by helicopter but later died, while the other is missing, air force Chief of Staff Huang Chih-wei told reporters, adding the aircraft were in good working order.
The air force has now grounded the F-5 fleet and suspended all training missions, he said.
The US-built F-5 fighters first entered service in Taiwan in the 1970s and have been mostly been retired from front-line activities, though some are still used for training and as a back-up for the main fleet.
Another F-5 crashed in October, killing the pilot. The following month a much more modern F-16 crashed off Taiwan’s east coast, and the pilot of that aircraft also died.
In January of last year, Taiwan’s top military official was among eight people killed after a helicopter carrying them to visit soldiers crashed in a mountainous area near the capital Taipei.
The incidents have raised concern about both training and maintenance, but also the pressure the air force is under to respond to repeated Chinese flights near the island.
Taiwan’s Defense Ministry has warned Chinese aircraft, including drones, are flying repeatedly in Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, seeking to wear out Taiwan’s air force.
Boeing sold 82 aircraft in February and logged 51 cancellations, marking the first time since November 2019 that monthly sales outpaced scrapped orders.
The Covid-19 pandemic continues to weigh on sales of new planes as airlines largely try to conserve cash wherever they can. Some carriers, however, are starting to prepare for a recovery in travel demand by buying new planes.
Boeing’s February sales included 25 Boeing 737 Max planes to United Airlines and 27 KC-46 tankers. The Chicago-based aircraft manufacturer posted 51 cancellations, including 32 Max planes. Singapore Airlines replaced an order for 19 787-10 Dreamliners with one for 11 777X jets, Boeing’s long-delayed new plane. The company expects that twin-aisle, long-range jet to enter commercial service in late 2023.
Boeing’s backlog now stands at 4,041 planes.
Boeing delivered 22 aircraft last month, including 18 737 Max planes. The Federal Aviation Administration in November cleared the jets to fly again after a 20-month grounding that followed two deadly crashes. Most other aviation regulators have followed suit, allowing Boeing to resume deliveries of the more than 3,000 Max planes it has had on backorder.
(Bloomberg) — General Electric Co. is nearing an agreement to combine its jet-leasing business with Ireland’s AerCap Holdings NV, said people familiar with the matter, in a potential deal that would join the world’s two biggest aircraft financiers in a market roiled by the coronavirus pandemic.
A transaction may be announced as soon as Monday, said one of the people, who both asked not to be named discussing the matter. The deal is expected to have a value of more than $30 billion, said the Wall Street Journal, which reported the talks earlier Sunday. Between them, GE Capital Aviation Services, or Gecas, and AerCap have almost 3,000 aircraft owned, managed or on order.
A combination would speed GE Chief Executive Officer Larry Culp’s push to streamline the U.S. industrial icon after an epic corporate meltdown. While terms of the potential agreement with AerCap are unclear, a sale of Gecas could garner GE about $25 billion, Bloomberg Intelligence said in a report in 2019. Last year, GE completed the sale of its bio-pharmaceutical business to Culp’s former employer, Danaher Corp., for $21.4 billion.
“The old world where you needed a leasing a company to support your manufacturing is gone,” Bloomberg Intelligence analyst George Ferguson said in an interview. “For AerCap, this could be something that’s too good to refuse.”
GE declined to comment, and AerCap representatives couldn’t immediately be reached for comment outside regular business hours on Sunday.
Aviation Pain
AerCap, based in Dublin and listed on the New York Stock Exchange, has a market value of $6.6 billion. The shares advanced 11% this year through March 5 after a 26% drop last year. GE has jumped 26% this year following a 3.2% decline in 2020.
The pandemic has hammered the aviation industry and pushed airlines around the world to cancel new jetliner orders, push back delivery dates and defer lease payments. But a combination would be likely to receive scrutiny from antitrust authorities, other regulators and business partners, given the weight of the two companies in global aircraft finance.
For GE, a tie-up would extend a shift away from the company’s longtime business model of using its powerful leasing platform to generate sales of commercial aircraft powered by the company’s jet engines. GE’s finance arm has been significantly pared back since it nearly crippled the company during the 2008 financial crisis.
Culp has been shedding assets in recent years as part of his broader turnaround effort at GE after a collapse that wiped out a total of more than $200 billion in market value during 2017 and 2018. Under his leadership, the Gecas portfolio has been left in something akin to “caretaker status,” Ferguson said.
Asset Sales
In 2019, GE agreed to sell an aircraft-financing business for $3.6 billion to Apollo Global Management and Athene Holding Ltd. as the ailing manufacturer slimmed down its once-vast lending arm. The same year, Culp sped up a plan to sell off GE’s stake in oilfield-services provider Baker Hughes in a push to refocus GE’s once-sprawling industrial businesses.
The asset sales have raised critical cash that GE has used to repay its bloated debt load, one of Culp’s top priorities in his turnaround drive. The company has cut some $30 billion in debt since 2019, including $16 billion last year. GE had total borrowings of about $75 billion at the end of 2020.
A deal with Gecas would likely elevate the profile of Aengus “Gus” Kelly, AerCap’s hard-charging CEO. He emerged on the global stage in 2014 with AerCap’s $7.6 billion acquisition of leasing pioneer ILFC from American International Group. By pooling assets, the new entity may be able to access the capital markets more cheaply than Gecas could acting under GE’s corporate umbrella, Ferguson said.
Gecas had about $35.9 billion in assets at the end of last year, with about 1,650 aircraft owned, serviced or on order. AerCap, with assets of $42 billion, owned 939 aircraft and managed 105, according to a regulatory filing. It also had 286 planes on order, including jet models such as the Airbus SE A320neo and Boeing Co. 737 Max.
Gecas CEO Greg Conlon said at the Airline Economics conference in January that the company was looking at mergers and acquisitions and portfolio purchases, and that he saw opportunities in cargo aircraft and engine leasing. Kelly spoke at the same conference and said fewer airline customers were seeking deferrals.
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In the last few hours, Air Calédonie has sent its entire fleet to Brisbane, Australia. The airline is protecting its fleet from the incoming cyclone Niran, which has maximum sustained wind of 204 km/h, according to local reports.
Air Calédonie moved its four ATR aircraft to Brisbane, to keep them away from the cyclone Niran. Photo: Air Calédonie.
Moving the planes from the path of the cyclone
Currently, the tropical cyclone Niran is moving southeast over the Coral Sea towards New Caledonia. Earlier today, the cyclone center was located approximately 980 kilometers north-west of the Belep Islands of New Caledonia. It had maximum sustained wind of 204 km/h.
According to local sources, Niran is expected to pass along the western coast of western New Caledonia on March 6. The maximum sustained wind could reach velocities of 210 km/h.
Because of this, the French Collectivity issued a Level two Cyclone Alert and expects heavy rain, strong winds, and high waves.
Air Calédonie, the local carrier, wasted no time. According to stats from RadarBox.com, the airline moved its four ATR aircraft to Brisbane, Australia, on March 5.
The four aircraft landed between 18:43 and 20:43, Australian Eastern Time at Brisbane International Airport.
We contacted Air Calédonie for more information. So far, we haven’t received an answer. We’ll keep you updated if that changes.
The flight was only tracked part-way. Flight data: RadarBox.com
What should an airline do to face a hurricane?
Hurricanes and cyclones can be disruptive to airline operations. Most of the time, we hear of airlines issuing travel waivers and canceling flights due to weather forecasts.
But they also protect their aircraft by sending them to secure locations. Not every aircraft, though. Flying every plane away from the storm is not very economical, considering that commercial operations cease at the very last minute.
Nevertheless, Air Calédonie could do this because it has had minimal operation in the last few months. According to RadarBox.com, the ATR fleet of Air Caledónie is averaging 1.2 hours of flight per day in the last year.
Air Calédonie has a small fleet of four ATR aircraft; it uses the Nouméa Magenta Airport as its main hub. Photo: Air Calédonie
How do airlines prepare themselves against hurricanes and cyclones?
Fortunately, forecasts now can predict a cyclone’s general track several days beforehand. This allows the airlines to make critical decisions and keep everyone safe.
The first step an airline typically does when a tropical cyclone is forecasted is to issue a travel waiver, said WorldAware. This allows passengers to protect themselves against unexpected cancellations.
As the storm approaches, the airlines start doing mass flight cancellations, scratching every operation out of airports expected to be hit by cyclones or hurricanes.
Meanwhile, the airlines are trying to rebook passengers onto earlier flights and get them into safety.
When flying, pilots usually keep clear of hurricanes. They do it by either flying above the storms or around.
Nevertheless, airliners rarely fly over hurricanes because it also poses an incredible risk and limits the pilots’ options in case of an emergency.
A brief history of Air Calédonie
Air Calédonie is a small but historical airline in Oceania. It was founded in 1954 and uses the Nouméa Magenta Airport as its main hub.
In its first 60 years of history, Air Calédonie has transported a total of 10 million passengers, said the carrier.
It currently has a fleet of four ATR aircraft, with an average age of 3.8 years. According to its website, it has three destinations: the isle of Pines, Loyalty Islands, and the North Province.
Have you ever traveled with Air Calédonie? How was it? Let us know in the comments.
The carriers USS Theodore Roosevelt and USS Nimitz and their accompanying guided-missile cruisers and destroyers are showing the US Navy’s ability to operate in highly trafficked, challenging environments, the US Navy said in statement.
The two strike groups have about 120 combat aircraft between them.
China claims almost all of the 1.3 million square mile South China Sea. Since 2014 it has transformed obscure reefs and sandbars into man-made artificial islands, fortified with missiles, runways and weapons systems — antagonizing governments with overlapping claims, including the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei and Taiwan.
“The US action is intended to drive a wedge between countries, promote the militarization of the South China Sea, and undermine peace and stability in the South China Sea,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said at the time.
In a speech Thursday, Biden described China as the US’ “most serious competitor” and outlined plans to confront Beijing’s “attack on human rights, intellectual property, and global governance.”
And in an interview with CBS News on Sunday, Biden said Washington was in “extreme competition” with China.
But Biden and officials in his administration have pledged to work with US allies when it comes to countering Beijing.
“I’m not going to do it the way Trump did,” Biden said of his predecessor’s administration, which often made policy regarding China without consulting regional players and organizations.
“We’re going to focus on international rules of the road,” Biden told CBS.
The US Navy says it has been following international rules on two occasions in the past week as it challenges Chinese claims in the Pacific. Last Thursday, the US Navy sent the guided-missile destroyer USS John S McCain through the Taiwan Strait, which separates China from self-governed Taiwan. On Friday, the same warship steamed near the Chinese-claimed Paracel Islands in the South China Sea.
Friday’s so-called freedom of navigation operation near the Paracels “upheld the rights, freedoms and lawful uses of the sea recognized in international law,” a US Navy statement said.
US Rear Adm. Doug Verissimo, commander, Carrier Strike Group Nine, led by the Roosevelt, said Tuesday’s dual carrier operation was performed “to ensure that we are tactically proficient to meet the challenge of maintaining peace and we are able to continue to show our partners and allies in the region that we are committed to promoting a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
Since assuming office on January 20, the Biden administration has reaffirmed its commitment to US allies and partners in the region, specifically letting the Philippines and Japan know that their islands also claimed by China are covered by mutual defense treaties that obligates Washington to defend them.
