AirAsia X flies into loss for 2018

AirAsia X posted a full-year operating loss of MYR204 million ($50 million) in 2018, reversing last year’s operating profit of MYR113 million as flat revenue and higher fuel costs took a hit on the operator. Revenue for the year fell by 0.4% to MYR4.54 billion. Expenses rose 5.9% to MYR4.78 billion, as higher fuel prices […]

source http://www.ncairways.co/aviation/airasia-x-flies-into-loss-for-2018/

Delta outlines A330-900 seating plans

Delta Air Lines plans to outfit its new Airbus A330-900neo aircraft with 281 seats, including its new business class suite product. The Atlanta-based carrier will configure the A330-900 with 29 business class suites, 28 premium economy seats, 56 extra-legroom economy and 168 economy seats, a seating diagram in Delta’s application for new Tokyo Haneda flights […]

source http://www.ncairways.co/aviation/delta-outlines-a330-900-seating-plans/

American, Delta, United go big for new Tokyo Haneda flights

American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Hawaiian Airlines and United Airlines have applied for nearly double the 12 new flights available to US carriers at Tokyo Haneda International airport. American is seeking four flights, Delta six, Hawaiian three and United six for a total of 19 proposed flights to the close-in Tokyo airport in separate applications […]

source http://www.ncairways.co/aviation/american-delta-united-go-big-for-new-tokyo-haneda-flights/

PICTURES: Delta opens engine test cell in Atlanta

A newly opened jet engine test cell facility at Delta Air Lines’ technical operations centre in Atlanta is part of the company’s aim of growing its MRO business revenue by $1 billion annually for the next five years. Engineers at Delta TechOps will use both the new test cell facility and its new engine repair […]

source http://www.ncairways.co/aviation/pictures-delta-opens-engine-test-cell-in-atlanta/

Gayle breaks Afridi’s record of most sixes in international cricket

Swashbuckling West Indies batsman Chris Gayle has broken Shahid Afridi’s record of hitting the most number of sixes in international cricket.

Gayle achieved this feat during his knock of 135 in the first ODI against England at the Kensington Oval in Bridgetown on Wednesday.

Gayle, who smashed 12 sixes during on way to his 24th ODI ton, now has 477 sixes to his name. He achieved this feat in his 444th match while Afridi had smashed 476 sixes from 524 matches.

Gayle has now smashed 276 sixes in ODIs, 103 sixes in T20Is and 98 maximums in the longest format of the game.

Recalled by the Windies for the first two ODIs against England in preparation for this year’s World Cup, Gayle, last played for the Windies during a home series against Bangladesh last July.

Gayle has the most ODI hundreds (24) for West Indies, is their second-leading run-scorer in the 50-over format with 9,727 runs, trailing only Brian Lara (10,405) and his 215 against Zimbabwe in the 2015 World Cup is the highest limited-overs score by a West Indies batsman.

Gayle’s record-breaking feat and his century sadly came on a day when England batsmen Joe Root and Jason Roy also smashed centuries to help their team successfully chase a mammoth target of 361 with six balls to spare.

Pitch to put solar panels on Longmont schools sparks renewable energy debate

Benefits of adding solar generation without energy storage being weighed by Front Range leaders

Longmont City Councilwoman Marcia Martin is skeptical of a proposal a green energy advocacy group is exploring by going door to door in Northern Colorado inquiring about resident support for placing solar panels on schools.

The group, Community for Sustainable Energy, is led by Fred Kirsch, a Fort Collins city council candidate.

Its organizers have been asking Longmont, Loveland and Fort Collins residents whether they would support a rooftop rental pilot program, allowing the respective municipal utilities, or Platte River Power Authority — which provides wholesale energy to all three cities plus Estes Park — to lease space on schools and other large buildings and maintain ownership of the power produced by solar panels.

A new tool

Currently, homes and businesses with solar generation systems are rewarded by municipal utilities through a billing policy known as net metering, by which customers own the power they generate and sell any excess back to the grid. While the concept is consistent across Longmont, Loveland and Fort Collins, the incentives for solar and billing structures vary between the cities. Fort Collins has a higher adoption rate, since the other two cities charge solar power generators a greater monthly service fee than standard customers.

But Kirsch said he believes allowing property owners to lease space on their roofs to utilities for solar generation creates a more equitable gateway to renewable energy, especially if the program were to expand to homeowners who have optimal roofs for solar but can’t afford a five-figure down payment on a generation system.

A similar model was immediately popular when it launched in San Antonio in 2015.

“Net metering is very popular on the residential side, and we’re not advocating a replacement of that,” Kirsch said.

Rather, Community for Sustainable Energy sees the idea as a tool to help communities reach their full solar potential, according to its website.

Fort Collins Utilities has kept the rooftop rental program on its list of ideas to study further, Energy Services Manager John Phelan said, adding there are “benefits and challenges.”

Longmont Councilwoman Martin, however, claims the rooftop rental program is economically unfeasible. Kirsch contends a utility could pay up to $2,000 for enough rooftop space to generate one megawatt of solar power and still break even. One megawatt can meet the instantaneous power demand of 750 homes, according to the California Energy Commission.

Martin said adding more solar generation systems to homes and businesses throughout the city without an energy storage component is counterproductive to helping Longmont and its fellow Platte River Power members reach their goal of a grid delivering purely renewable energy by 2030. Nearly a third of Platte River’s power comes from renewable sources now, and it has plans to add 170 megawatts of wind and solar power assets to achieve 50 percent renewable energy generation by 2021.

“If somebody asked me about solar panels right now, I would say wait two years and then buy solar and a battery,” Martin said. “Right now we’re at a point where adding local solar is not very valuable in terms of its social good. It’s a lot better to have dispatchable supply in the form of batteries.”

Meeting storage at ‘crossroads’

She is worried there won’t be enough storage capacity on the grid as Longmont’s and Platte River’s supplies approach a greater percentage of renewable energy, resulting in a glut of solar generation in the afternoon, making energy almost free to consume then, and a corresponding drop-off in production during the nighttime until sunrise, making power expensive at that time. That schedule would reverse the current trend, which sees the price of power increase with a higher demand in the afternoons when people simultaneously run air conditioners.

On a fully renewable grid, energy usage during the night would have to be curtailed or deferred to times when the sun is shining to keep it at a stable price, unless enough solar power captured during the day can be stored and released as needed. Adding storage mechanisms is especially crucial for realizing the full environmental benefit of using renewable energy to power increasingly popular electric vehicles that are charged overnight, Martin said.

“In a very few years, there will be an excess of solar power on the grid as we approach 100 percent renewable,” Martin wrote this month in an email to Councilwoman Joan Peck. “Platte River has privately said they expect to reach 80 percent by 2025, and that it gets very difficult after that because of the problem of matching demand to supply. That’s the opposite of what they do now.”

But Blake Jones, cofounder of Boulder-based Namasté Solar, which performs home and business solar installations throughout Boulder County, believes Longmont is still a ways from reaching the point at which adding more solar without storage is a problem.

“In a few years, storage is going to be so much cheaper, and the technology is going to be so much better, we should be trying to meet it at the crossroads by putting solar in every available space,” Jones said.

While he said the “jury is still out,” on rooftop rental programs like San Antonio’s, Jones would support adding the option as an entry into the solar market. But he said it won’t necessarily augment the chances for low-income households to participate in the solar movement, as no-money-down financing options for generation systems have been available to such residents for years.

Available land a factor

Plus, the rooftop rental program being pushed by Community for Sustainable Energy might not be necessary for cities like Longmont that are surrounded by plenty of undeveloped land, according to Steve Szabo, a Colorado Renewable Energy Society board member who lives just outside Longmont city limits.

“There will be less of a need for rooftop solar, unless there are some places, like New York City, that don’t have a lot of space for utility-scale solar,” Szabo said. “Then they would rent out rooftop space from people. There is still a lot space (around Longmont) they could do utility-scale solar because it is so much cheaper than rooftop.”

Building more community solar gardens is Szabo’s suggestion for letting more people support the transition to renewable energy. The output of community gardens is currently capped at two megawatts, but a bill being considered in the state Legislature would increase that maximum to 10 megawatts.

For those without the right roof space, or who can’t afford to finance their own solar system, “you can feel you’re a part of this movement by buying a few of these panels or buying output” in a community solar garden, Szabo said.

The issue of solar power and how to effectively harness it for wide consumption will continue to be examined for years to come, said Scott Rochat, Longmont Power and Communications spokesman.

“With interest rising in self-generation and with more renewable energy coming into our mix, we will be analyzing the possible effects so that Longmont’s electric infrastructure will continue to meet the community’s needs, as it has for the past 107 years,” Rochat said.

Sam Lounsberry: 303-473-1322, slounsberry@prairiemountainmedia.com and twitter.com/samlounz.

Southwest and mechanics union clash over grounded jets

Southwest Airlines thinks the mechanics’ union might be the problem with its planes.

Since Tuesday, the airline has been forced to cancel more than 600 flights and many of those cancellations are because of mechanical issues with its aircraft.

The airline said it began to encounter a heavy volume of mechanical issues on February 12 following a negotiation with the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association, which represents our nearly 2,400 mechanics according to Southwest.

The mechanics say they’re doing their job, and chided Southwest for linking the safety issues to a collective bargaining negotiation.

The two sides have been negotiating a new contract for six years. They reached a tentative labor deal last year, but rank and file union members rejected it in a September ratification vote. Southwest said it has enhanced its offer since that vote.

But on Tuesday, Mike Van de Ven, the airline’s chief operating officer, accused the mechanics union of a “history of work disruptions” and said that the airline already has two pending lawsuits against the union. It is considering whether to file another.

The company issued an “all-hands” emergency declaration last week and canceled vacation for its mechanics.

“We are committed to operating a safe fleet, and every report is investigated, which is why we issued a notice to require an ‘all hands’ response to get out-of-service aircraft back into the fleet serving our customers,” he said.

Southwest has a fleet of 750 aircraft and has said there is no common theme with the mechanical issues.

The union responded that “scapegoating” its mechanics “does not bode well for the airline’s safe operations.” It said the problems with the out of service aircraft rests with management, not the union.

“Southwest Airlines’ mechanics are working the overtime demanded of them. But Southwest Airlines has the fewest mechanics to aircraft [ratio] of any major carrier,” said the statement from the union. “We will continue to do our job as expert craftsmen, for the safety of Southwest’s passengers.”

Helane Becker, airline analyst for Cowen, said her understanding is that Southwest has been hit by a flood of mechanics calling off sick. Those who call in sick are now required to bring a doctor’s note to verify that they are truly sick, she said. The airline did not confirm that policy.

“That [mechanics] contract has been open for a number of years now,” said Becker. “They need to sort it out, and get this behind them.”

The maintenance problems aren’t the only thing dogging Southwest right now. Earlier Wednesday the airline disclosed that it lost $60 million in revenue because of the government shutdown.

That’s far more than its original estimate of $10 to $15 million in losses, and more than the $25 million drop in revenue estimated by Delta Air Lines a month ago.

In addition, the Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the airline for the way it tracks the weight of checked bags on its flights.

The problems, described as “systemic and significant,” caused pilots to miscalculate the weight of the plane at takeoff by as much as 1,000 pounds. That probe was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

The airline told CNN that it is involved in an “ongoing effort to track and voluntarily report operational data to the FAA so that we can mitigate and eliminate any operational risks.” But it said it has already put in place controls and procedures to address weight and balance issues.

But the cascade of issues for Southwest has investors nervous. Shares of Southwest tumbled by 5% in afternoon trading Wednesday.