Panasonic Avionics yesterday introduced what it calls a “global communications suite” designed to provide world leader head-of-state aircraft with the ultimate in airborne connectivity. Branded as eXConnect and eXPhone, the Ku-band satellite services will make their debut in a Boeing Business Jet within the coming weeks. Additional customer discussions are ongoing to outfit the [...]

It would have been impossible to open the 62nd NBAA Convention without squaring off with the 500-pound economic gorilla in the room. NBAA president Ed Bolen didn’t mince words: “Ladies and gentlemen, it’s been quite a year.”

There was no place to go but up as Bolen introduced a series of guests, from [...]

When Honda Aircraft (Booth No. 5394) announced a one-year delay to its business jet program last spring, some feared the worst as the U.S. economy struggled. It turned out the Japanese aircraft maker had fallen victim to many of the same supplier problems other OEMs were experiencing, a problem that translated into some new [...]

The GE Honda joint venture last Thursday fired up the first conforming version of its new 2,095-lb-thrust HF120 engine currently slated for certification  in 2011. Initial engine tests are typically completed in a sea-level test cell, with high-altitude performance testing conducted onboard an aircraft. GE Honda used an altitude chamber for this first run [...]

Here at NBAA as a first-time exhibitor, Liebherr-Aerospace (Booth No. 4073) is rapidly gaining ground in the Americas and other parts of the world and developing new products for aircraft interiors. Its parent company, Liebherr-International in Bulle, Switzerland, opened its first U.S. operation in Saline, Mich., and recently has moved more aggressively to gain [...]

United Airlines parent UAL Corp. suffered a $57 million net loss in the third quarter, or $63 million excluding noncash hedge gains and other charges, greatly narrowed from the $792 million deficit reported in the year-ago period, and is “poised to see better year-over-year unit revenue performance as economies begin to recover and business [...]