Taking care of duties

After years of prodding by Western aerospace giants and Russian airlines, the Russian government indicated last month that it would lower duties on foreign-made aircraft.

Russian Transportation Minister Igor Levitin told journalists that the government had tasked him with reducing duties on products with “no Russian equivalent,” according to the Moscow Times.

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EADS still looking at U.S. acquisitions

After several years of looking, the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. may be getting closer to acquiring a United States–based company, according to Defense Daily.

The idea of buying a medium-sized company—preferably one involved in systems integration—is still a priority, Ralph Crosby, EADS North America’s CEO, said in the report. “We’ll keep working at that, [and] maybe we’ll have something to announce before not too long,” he told reporters in July. “Nothing very big, but our view is to pick out a few things in designated segments and go after them to build our presence.”

Currently, EADS is studying four sectors of the U.S. defense market: systems integration, defense electronics, training and simulation, and testing and services. Integrating full defense systems is “where we’d like to be,” Crosby said in the story. Defense Daily said Crosby declined to name which sector or which company EADS is considering specifically right now. But, according to the Defense Daily story, “We’re not going to go out and double our size with an acquisition tomorrow,” Crosby said.

IN BRIEF

Lockheed Martin sees bright future in maritime partrol, despite MMA loss

Even though Lockheed Martin’s Orion 21 bid for the Navy’s Multi-mission Maritime Aircraft program lost out to Boeing, the company is still very optimistic about the market opportunities for the current worldwide fleet of around 450 P-3 maritime patrol aircraft, Defense Daily said.

“We see that there are well over 100 life-extension opportunities,” Tom Weatherall, director of P-3 programs for Lockheed Martin, said in a Defense Daily report. “If you combine that with mission system upgrades, et cetera, we see upwards of $1 billion to $2 billion worth of business.”

Weatherall characterized a variety of factors that could aid P-3 modernization and upgrade efforts. At present, 15 nations actively use the plane. Since the MMA announcement, Lockheed Martin began to receive significant input from operators and potential operators still interested in P-3, the article said.

“Almost to a country, it was interesting, they said, ‘Well, MMA is great, that was nice for the U.S. Navy,’” Weatherall said in the article. “But one after another they announced that they were going to be flying the P-3 well into the next decade—and beyond 2025 in some instances.”

TSA begins registered traveler pilot program; 10,000 to take part

In an effort to help speed passengers through security checkpoints, the U.S. Transportation Security Administration last month began its registered traveler pilot program with Northwest Airlines at Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport.

By midafternoon on the day the system made its debut in Minneapolis/St. Paul, 74 passengers had passed through a walkway reserved for them at the main terminal, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

Like all passengers, they still had to submit to initial screening at a metal detector and X-ray machine for carry-on items. But their status as registered travelers exempted them from random secondary screening.

TSA officials said about 2,000 passengers will participate this summer, according to Aviation Daily. Passengers in the pilot program agreed to have their backgrounds checked and their fingerprints and iris images stored electronically in return for becoming part of the system.

Los Angeles, Houston Intercontinental, Boston and Washington National airports also will take part in the trial. The program will run for 90 days at each airport.

Air-cargo demand continues to rebound

Air cargo continues to rebound from a severe slump in 2001-2002 as demand for timely deliveries of goods and equipment grows, a Seattle Times article said.

According to the story, the Air Transport Association said total cargo was up 7.5 percent in May compared with May 2003. For the first five months of the year, growth is up 6.2 percent compared with the first five months of 2003.

A breakout by region shows the strong growth in Asia. For the first five months of 2004, air cargo is up 13.1 percent compared with the year-before period. Indeed, the Times story said, air-freight demand from Asia to the United States was so high earlier this year that backlogs developed in China, Hong Kong and other key shipment areas.

But air-cargo growth is slower or declining in other areas. The Atlantic market is up about 5 percent so far this year compared with last, and the Latin American market is down 2.6 percent. A Boeing representative told the Times that the company sees air-cargo growth continuing at 7 to 8 percent a year through 2021.