Week in brief 29 July 2010

Dr David Warren, inventor of the Black Box flight data recorder, passed away on 19 July at the age of 85. Born in 1925 at a remote mission station in far north-east Australia, Dr Warren served as Principal Research Scientist at the Defence Science and Technology Organisation's Aeronautical Research Laboratories (ARL) in Melbourne, from 1952 - 1983. Early in his career, Dr Warren was involved in accident investigations related to the mysterious crash of the world's first jet airliner, the Comet, in 1953. He advocated the use of a cockpit voice recorder as a useful means of solving otherwise inexplicable aircraft accidents. He designed and constructed the world's first flight data recorder prototype at the ARL in 1956. This device became known as the 'black box'. It took five years before the value and practicality of the flight data recorder concept was realised and a further five years until authorities mandated they be fitted to cockpits in Australian aircraft.

IATA has released international scheduled traffic statistics for June which showed continued strong demand growth as the industry recovers from the impact of the global financial crisis. Compared to June 2009, international passenger demand was up 11.9 per cent while international scheduled freight traffic showed a 26.5 per cent improvement. Capacity increased only slightly above demand improvements during the month, keeping load factors in line with historical highs at 79.8 per cent for passenger traffic and 53.8 per cent for freight. “The industry continues to recover faster than expected, but with sharp regional differences. Europe is recovering at half the speed of Asia with passenger growth of 7.8% compared to the 15.5% growth in Asia-Pacific,” said Giovanni Bisignani, IATA’s Director General.

Meanwhile, the IATA 127th Schedules Conference will be held 11 – 14 November this year at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, in Australia. The Schedules Conference is a " Working Conference" with over 1000 delegates, from some 300 airlines and representatives of over 200 schedules-facilitated or fully coordinated airports. This semi-annual meeting is IATA's largest event. The goal of the conference is for airlines and airports to obtain the slots that will give them the best possible schedule to offer their customers. The meeting has grown over the years to include a large exhibition. Booths and sponsorship opportunities are still available! For more information, please visit: http://www.iata.org/events/sc127/Pages/index.aspx

Emirates has announced the appointment of Barry Brown as its Vice President for Australasia, following the May departure of Stephen Pearse. Brown, originally from Sydney, has more than 23 years experience in the airline industry and in his new role will be responsible for Emirates’ commercial operations in both Australia and New Zealand. Prior to his appointment at Emirates, Brown was employed as the Chief Commercial Officer with Oman Air and before that he held similar positions with SriLankan Airlines and Hazelton Airlines in Australia.

The US Environmental Protection Agency has told the General Aviation Avgas Coalition that it will work with the general aviation industry and the FAA) to continue to seek a safe, viable alternative to the current avgas, which uses a lead additive. The commitment to work with industry came in a written response to several questions submitted to the agency by the avgas coalition. The agency told the coalition, "EPA has not established or proposed any date by which lead emissions from aircraft operating on leaded avgas would need to be reduced. In fact EPA does not have authority to control aviation fuels." EPA is responsible for determining which chemical or physical properties of a fuel or fuel additive endangers the public health. However, only the FAA has the authority to regulate which fuels aircraft may burn.