Drunk Pilot suspended by Sri Lanka Airlines just before flight from Frankfurt to Colombo

In what may have prevented yet another tragic flight crash, Sri Lanka’s national carrier Sri Lanka Airlines suspended a “visibly drunk” airplane captain who failed a breathalyser test just before he was due to fly 274 passengers and crew from Frankfurt to Colombo, the airline said Sunday.

“Upon receiving the results (of the test) SriLankan Airlines took immediate steps to suspend the services of the said captain and took alternative measures to operate the flight to Colombo,” the airline said in a statement.

An airline source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Flight UL554 was held up at Frankfurt airport for more than 15 hours on Friday as staff scrambled to find another captain for the Airbus A330, according to France 24.

The crew raised the alarm after noticing that the captain was visibly drunk, the source, who has direct knowledge of the matter, told AFP. The airline said an internal investigation was underway into the incident and it would cooperate with any probe by German authorities.

The cash-strapped airline is due to stop its flights to Frankfurt from October as it slashes routes to European destinations. It is also planning to lease out some of its A330 planes to other airlines in an attempt to raise cash. Suffering from an accumulated $1-billion loss, it is seeking a foreign partner to take over its management.

Source: Zero Hedge on 21 August 2016

Delta Airlines Cyber Attack – all Delta systems are down everywhere – a system failure worldwide, all planes grounded. No passengers being checked in.

Suspected computer bug cripples Delta airline: another case of cyber attacks beating cyber security?

As technology continues to become a constant and dominating global presence, the regularity and crippling effect of cyber attacks will increase

A suspected system wide computer bug has brought the US airline Delta (and resulting other airlines) to its knees.

“Delta experienced a computer outage that has impacted flights scheduled for this morning,” it said in a statement.

Thousands of passengers are stranded.

On Twitter, Delta told passengers: “Our systems are down everywhere.”

The airline has said en route flights are unaffected, but passengers awaiting departure are currently delayed.

The bug has had such an effect that it is not possible to rebook passengers on other airline carriers.

It is a system wide failure.

This is the latest security breach following a year where smart city transport, seismic sensors, healthcare providers and a host of other ‘secure’ systems have been hacked (or have proven to be susceptible to hacks).

As technology continues to become a constant and dominating global presence, the regularity and crippling effect of cyber attacks will increase.

The digital economy and computer-controlled transport systems are two examples of how society is becoming more reliant on technology.

As we become more reliant, the effects of malware will become exponentially more severe.

The mayhem following the computer bug at Delta, which has affected many other airlines, is the latest example of this.

Source:  http://www.information-age.com/technology/security/123461807/suspected-computer-bug-cripples-delta-airline-another-case-cyber-attacks-beating-cyber-security

 

 

25% of Americans Will Cancel, Delay, Relocate, Change or Reconsider Travel Plans Before Taking a Vacation

American Travelers are Taking Terror Risk into account in Vacation Planning

Allianz Travel Insurance Vacation Confidence Index Reveals almost a Quarter of Americans Will Cancel, Delay, Relocate, Change or Reconsider Travel Plans Before Taking a Vacation

RICHMOND, VA, 7.25.2016 — The majority of Americans (86 percent) are concerned about terrorist attacks occurring while on vacation in various regions of the world in the future, prompting many to make major changes to their travel plans, according to the annual Vacation Confidence Index released by Allianz Global Assistance.

The region Americans are most concerned will be the site of an attack is the Middle East (75 percent), followed by Europe (66 per cent) and Africa (63 percent).

With recent attacks in Istanbul, Israel, Paris, Brussels, and Nice, almost a quarter of Americans (22 percent) say that the fear of further violence has influenced their vacation planning in some way; whether that be cancelling (6 percent); changing locations (5 percent), travel dates (4 percent), mode of transportation (4 percent), local tours (4 percent) or accommodations (3 percent); or by purchasing travel insurance (3 percent).

As Americans age, the fear of terror attacks happening while traveling to different regions of the world increases significantly. That trend, however, is reversed for travel within the U.S. and Canada, where millennials aged 18 to 34 have the greatest fear of an attack happening on home soil (57 percent) compared to generation X (51 percent) and baby boomers (48 percent).

Those Americans influenced by an act of terrorism are more likely to be traveling within the U.S. or Canada (50 percent), likely due to the higher number of domestic vs. international vacations planned. Internationally, Americans who have changed their plans were most likely to be visiting Europe (42 percent), followed by Asia (29 percent), Latin America (26 percent), Australia and the South Pacific (26 percent), the Middle East (22 percent) or Africa (21 percent).

An analysis of flight bookings showed a 10 percent overall increase in travel to Europe during the summer, despite recent acts of terror in Brussels, Istanbul and France. While these targeted destinations saw a significant decrease or virtually no change in U.S. travelers visiting during the upcoming summer, Europe as a whole recorded an overall increase to 515,676 travelers in 2016 compared to 471,823 in 2015.

“What we’re seeing is that the American traveler is a complex demographic that shares common fears and concerns, but deviate greatly on where they find those fears and how they face them,” said Daniel Durazo, director of communications at Allianz Global Assistance USA. “But we’re pleased to see that whatever those differences are, one thing that remains consistent is that they are finding ways to follow their passion of seeing the world despite the challenges that come with traveling in a time of terror.”

VCI Terror Risk

 

Methodology: These are some of the findings of an Ipsos poll conducted on behalf of Allianz from May 3 to 10, 2016. For the survey, a sample of n=2,007 Americans were interviewed online via Ipsos’s American online panel. The precision of Ipsos online surveys is measured using a Bayesian credibility interval. In this case, with a sample of this size, the results are considered accurate to within ± 2.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what they would have been had all Americans been polled. The margin of error will be larger within sub-groupings of the survey population.

Source: Allianz Travel Insurance Vacation Confidence Index

Royal Brunei Boeing 787-800 departing from Manila had engine shut down in flight with both engines damaged

On Oct 21st 2015, a Royal Brunei Airlines Boeing 787-800, registration V8-DLB performing flight BI-684 from Manila (Philippines) to Bandar Seri Begawan (Brunei) with 152 passengers, was climbing out of Manila when the crew stopped the climb at FL280 reported the left hand engine (Trent 1000) had failed and was shut down. The aircraft returned to Manila for a safe landing on runway 24 about 50 minutes after departure.

The flight was cancelled.

The airline confirmed the Dreamliner’s crew received abnormal indications for one engine prompting the captain to turn back to Manila for technical checks. A number of passengers have already been rerouted onto other flights, the remaining passengers were taken to hotels.

Philippines’ Civil Aviation Authority reported the crew informed air traffic control the left hand engine had failed and declared emergency.

On Oct 28th 2015 the airline reported that while preparing the change of the left hand engine a boroscopic inspection of both engines confirmed, that BOTH engines had sustained similiar damage.

The airline wrote: “Rolls Royce has conducted a detailed boroscope inspection of both engines as part of preparations to replace the affected engine, with a spare which has already been transported to MNL from BWN. However, in recent hours information has been conveyed to the airline by Rolls Royce that the second on wing engine on this aircraft has itself being the subject of similar damage. The boroscope inspection has now revealed evidence of damage to a number of blades on both engines, for reasons which are as yet unknown. At this point, there is no evidence that an external event such as a bird strike has caused this damage to both engines. Efforts to establish the cause of the damage by Rolls Royce are continuing, fully supported by the RB Engineering team.”

The airline continued that as result of this finding all Dreamliners in their fleet are to undergo boroscopic inspections now, too, causing “very severe” disruptions of flight schedule in the coming days.

Source: The Aviation Herald