New opportunities for defence firms as EU steps up support for Ukraine
The European Commission is looking for startups and other innovators to address challenges across the land, air and sea domains.
American Eagle Airlines has reported December 2009 and full calendar year traffic figures for itself and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Executive Airlines.
In December, American Eagle itself generated 581,732,000 revenue passenger miles (RPMs), a 7.2% increase on December 2008’s 542,624,000. Available seat miles recorded went up by 6.2% to 802,558,000 from 755,989,000 for the respective periods.
This resulted in a slight rise of 0.7 percentage points (pp) in Eagle’s load factor, up to 72.5% from 71.8%. The number of passengers boarded in December was 1,296,631, a 7.8% increase on the 1,203,115 carried in 2008.
Executive Airlines recorded 45,300,000 RPMs in December compared with 45,587,000 in December 2008, a 0.6% decrease. ASMs dropped by 1.0% to 80,529,000 from 81,320,000.
The load factor rose by 0.2 pp to 56.3% from 56.1% in December 2008, while passengers boarded numbered 230,713, up 5.7% from 218,211.
For the whole of 2009, American Eagle generated 7,145,639,000 RPMs, 3.2% down on 2008’s 7,382,935,000, while ASMs fell 5.4% to 9,809,580,000 from 10,369,728,000.
The full year load factor for Eagle was 72.8%, up 1.6 pp from 2008’s figure of 71.2%, with the airline carrying 16,012,967 passengers compared with 16,558,248 in 2008, a 3.3% decrease.
In 2009, Executive Airlines recorded 544,747,000 RPMs, slightly down – by 0.4% – from 2008’s 542,444,000. ASMs were up by 2.8% at 947,616,000 from 922,117,000.
These figures resulted in an annual load factor of 57.5%, down 1.3 pp from the 58.8% recorded for 2008. Passengers carried in 2009 totalled 2,735,866, an increase of 7.5% year-on-year over 2008’s figure of 2,544,835.
The European Commission is looking for startups and other innovators to address challenges across the land, air and sea domains.
Multiple countries have been deploying small arms as the last line of drone defence due to their multiple operational and tactical advantages.
The Singapore-based technology company unveiled its new rifle family at this week’s airshow. Chen Chuanren spoke with the ST Engineering’s head of small arms to find out more about how the weapons have been refined.
Any potential ‘Arctic Sentry’ mission would be months in the planning, but with tensions high in the region given the US’s push for Greenland, NATO countries will need to continue to emphasise their commitment to the region, analysts have said.
Defence Minister Gen Vladimir Padrino López has declared that the Venezuelan armed forces “will continue to employ all its available capabilities for military defence”.
The UK’s defence spending commitments remain uncertain as the government’s Defence Investment Plan, which had been due by the end of 2025, is yet to be published.