On the evening of Thursday, January 17th 2013, two jets collided at Miami International Airport.

The two jets, an Aerolineas Argentinas (AR1304) Airbus A340-300 with 240 passengers arriving from Buenos Aires, struck an Air France (AF695) Boeing 777-300ER with 350 passengers on board, that was getting ready to take off for Paris Charles de Gaulle. Both aircraft were taxing.

Part of the Aerolineas Argentinas A340 wing tip fell of and what remained was slight bent upwards. The Air France B777 had damages done to it’s tail section, by the wing of the A340 cutting into the fuselage.

The collision happened between Concourse J and H, a passenger named Veronica Ramudo, told The Miami Herald that she was walking to her seat 49F, when it felt like an earthquake was happening, she managed to remain standing though. She told that, an announcement in three languages was made in the aircraft intercom, that another aircraft had hit them.

Although many passengers were shook up and angry because many missed their connecting flights, no one was injured during the collision.

The NTSB is currently investigating the incident at MIA. The FAA says this particular area of the airport is normally controlled by the airline and will look into, if they need to start up a full accident investigation. Many passengers were already pointing fingers at the ground crew, as they could see them from the cabin, walking around on the tarmac waiving red lights frantically. the MIA authorities says, this has nothing to do with the airport, this is under the airlines and federal bureaus to investigate and explain.

^{Aerolíneas Argentinas Airbus A340-300}

^{Air France Boeing 777-300ER}

The Norwegian Government has denied Norwegian Air Shuttle’s wish to change the immigration law of Norway, so they can hire Asian personnel on their future long haul routes. Apparently the companies stock plummeted after the discovery of this new event.

Norwegian is planning to start long haul travel to New York on June 1st 2012, later in the year Bangkok. On board they were hoping to have mostly Asian personnel with a hub in Thailand for their future fleet of Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft and at the same time, they had requested the Norwegian Government to make it possible for the company to hire personnel outside of the EU, by changing the country’s immigration law. Apparently Norwegian Air Shuttle has threatened the Government, by saying it would move it’s long haul business to Sweden instead.

The Government of Norway want’s to avoid social dumping, by assuring the terms of employment are not jeopardized, by lowering standards. The Government refuses to be the forerunner for such a change and has therefor denied the companies wish to change the law. The Minister of Labour and Social Inclusion, Anniken Huitfeldt said this in a press release. One of her Government colleagues from the Ministry of Transport and Communication want’s to start a further investigation, enlightening the problems of the increased competition on international travel.

The press release was announced around 1500 hrs in the afternoon on January 15th 2013. Shortly after, the Norwegian Air Shuttle stock plummeted in the light of the press release, sending it down by 3.28 percent, shaving of a couple of 100 million Norwegian Kroners of their market value.

In light of the recent press release, it seems Norwegian Air Shuttle is heading into troubled water. It may be difficult to keep the scheduled deadline for launch on June 1st 2013, when the plan to hire Asian personnel has been cartwheeled. Also 50 aircraft have been grounded worldwide, major airlines have ceased all operations with the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. There is some speculation, wether Boeing is forced to make adjustments to the assembly line and subsequently also delaying the production of new Dreamliner aircraft. If so, Norwegian could risk, not having their 787′s delivered on schedule, then having to delay their inaugural flight to New York or be forced to lease a substitute aircraft to meet the deadline.

SAS Scandinavian Airlines is cancelling 6 scheduled long haul flights this weekend, due to unforeseen technical difficulties with the companies long haul fleet. SAS’ long haul fleet consists of 4 A330-300 and 7 A340-300. The summer of 2012 was a nightmare for SAS, with a relatively large amount of cancellations on their long haul flights. Mainly due to technical problems, such a faulty air-conditioning units and damages happening on the ground. Most cancellations were on routes served by their A330 fleet. The culprit is an Airbus A330-300, which is undergoing a maintenance check in Madrid this weekend, so scheduled flights to Shanghai, Chicago and New York has been cancelled. These cancellations is affecting over 1200 passengers this weekend alone. SAS is also cancelling a return trip to Washington D.C. on January 24th 2013 – Affecting a total of 1600 passengers.

Over the summer of 2012, SAS had to lease a Boeing 777 reserve aircraft to meet demands and to replace unusable equipment. From June 1st 2013, SAS has leased yet another reserve aircraft from LAN Chile, an Airbus A340-300. The decision to lease a reserve aircraft over the summer of 2013, is a direct result of last years cancellation, which affected over 40 flights and over 10000 passengers.

It seems that United Airlines can’t find any aircraft to replace the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner which flies from Los Angeles LAX – Tokyo Narita NRT as UA32. This 787 route only started a few weeks ago on January 3rd.

Not only is the battery problems causing all the 787 aircraft to be grounded, but it also seems airlines are finding it hard to replace their grounded 787′s with other types of aircraft. United has now had to cancel two flights to Tokyo completely and it seems tomorrows flight is also cancelled. This doesn’t bode well for those passengers who was booked on the 787 Dreamliner. Not only grounded flights, but now also cancelled flights due to lack of available equipment.

Looking at FlightAware at noon today, it seems that two Boeing 787 Dreamliners are in fact still flying, that is 3 down from yestersday. I really don’t know, how much I can trust FlightAware, but it seems to be the only “real time” flight radar online, the other search engines aren’t so precise.

• Qatar Airways – Zurich to Doha – QR62 (This might just be Qatar Airways wanting their 787 back home to Doha, as I am sure parking fees are much less on home ground, than at Zurich Airport)
• Qatar Airways – Doha to Kuwait – QR140

I am not one to point fingers, cause quite frankly, I think the media has gone a little overboard with this. I was watching CNN yesterday, all day and the “popular journalistic” was annoying… “Is this the end of Boeing” and “Will airlines cancel their orders”, what about the “Boeing stock” “Who could be possible buyers for Boeing”! STOP it, I hate this kind of journalistic, it’s this kind of attitude that makes the market tremble and become unsure, instead of just looking at the facts; we have some faulty batteries, YES it needs sorting, but stop all the dooms day flutter and focus on the fact, the FAA, NTSB, battery manufacturer GS Yuasa, Boeing and the airlines are working round the clock to fix this and prevent too many grounding days, this is cost millions if not billions of dollars and the press is not helping. At least websites like Aviation Week and Air Transport World are more subjective in their airticles, but they are also more passionate about this industry than the general public, like myself.

Looking at FlightAware, it seems that an ANA – All Nippon Airways Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, NH203 departed from Tokyo Haneda Airport at 0108am JST, set to arrive at 0431am CET at Frankfurt International Airport. It does seem that United Airlines has cancelled their scheduled 787 flight UA32 from Los Angeles to Tokyo today, it was scheduled to depart LAX at 1115am

According to FlightAware there are currently 5 787′s flying:

• Qatar Airways (Munich – Doha) QR4
• United Airlines (Chicago – Houston) UA1510
• ANA (Tokyo – Frankfurt) NH203
• LOT (Warsaw – Chicago) LO3
• ANA (Frankfurt – Tokyo) NH204

Thai Airways is reaffirming it’s plan to still buy 8 Boeing 787-8 Dreamliners. Chokchai Panyayong, CEO of Thai Airways has expressed, that they are not discouraged by the recent problems of the 787 and are confident the problems will be resolved by the time, they are expected to start delivery in 2014.