Air Tracker February 5 , 2018 Vol1 Ep15 Sarah Smith

Good Morning. I'm Sarah Smith, a senior associate in the Valuations group at mba, hosting your mba Air Tracker daily news for February 5th, 2018: The UK Civil Aviation Authority announced on February 3, that it has launched a review of airline allocated seating policies. The review will determine whether any operators have been purposely separating passengers intending on traveling together to additionally charge them for allocated seats that would allow them to sit together. The European Aviation Safety Agency and Airbus Helicopters have just implemented a new single Production Organization Approval to streamline certification processes. This POA replaces previous national approvals with a single, integrated framework allowing for simplified industrial exchanges between Airbus Helicopters’ manufacturing facilities across Europe. In Fleet Delivery News today… Tianjin Airlines took delivery of one A320neo Air Baltic took delivery of one Bombardier CSeries CS300 Virgin Atlantic Airways took delivery of one Airbus A330-200 News from Manufacturers today. Bell Helicopter said it experienced a 75% increase in global commercial orders in 2017. Contributing to that was the more than 200 orders the manufacturer received from China alone. Boeing debuted the first 737 MAX 7 at the company's Renton, Washington, factory. The MAX 7 is the third and newest member of Boeing’s 737 MAX family to come down the assembly line. The jet is designed for up to 172 passengers and a maximum range of 3,850 nautical miles, which is the longest range of the MAX airplane family. In Operator News flyadeal, the LCC owned by flag carrier Saudi Arabian Airlines, launched services to Abha on February 1st, with double-daily flights from both Riyadh and Jeddah Thai AirAsia launched two new routes from Thailand to China on 1 February with services commencing from Bangkok Don Mueang to Chengdu, and from Phuket to Kunming Despite the latest crash in Bitcoin and other digital currencies and the recent hacking of a major Japanese cryptocurrency exchange, Japan’s top budget carrier, Peach Aviation, still plans to accept bitcoin for airline tickets. However, the timing of the start of this service is in question, having originally planned to start accepting the cryptocurrency by the end of 2017, then pushing the start to early 2018 and this most recent announcement that they are waiting for the cryptocurrency market to settle. Air Baltic and Surf Air are currently the only airlines that accept Bitcoin as payment for flights. Thanks for listening and please join us again next time for more aviation news!