Australian Aviation

The northern tunnel borers for the Western Sydney Airport metro have reached the halfway mark en route to the new interchange at St Marys. When complete, the full metro line will connect the Bradfield “aerotropolis” in the south to the Sydney Trains network at St Marys in the north.

The Antonov airliner, the world’s heaviest aircraft, was destroyed during the opening days of the Ukraine War at Antonov Airport in northwestern Kyiv in February 2022.

Images posted on social media showed the wingtips of VH-VZW, which had operated flight QF939 from Brisbane, and VH-XZP (pictured at Townsville), which had operated QF857 from Canberra, shortly after the collision at around 9pm local time. Nobody was injured in the incident.

The airline’s electric tugs and service vehicles at Wellington will be charged using hydrogen fuel cells over the next few weeks, as part of a trial program involving Air New Zealand, Wellington Airport, Toyota New Zealand, and Hiringa Energy.

Avia completed its purchase of Skytrans this month, having announced the deal in late January, and has signalled plans to expand the carrier into wet leasing and jet operations. At the time of the announcement, Avia held 11 air operator certificates in different countries.

The partnership comes after an Airservices report released last month indicated that drone use in Australia is expected to rise from 1.5 million flights per year in 2023 to 60 million in 2043, or an average of 20 per cent per year for the next 20 years.