Spain's Air Nostrum partners Italian start-up Kairos Air

Canada's Conair Aviation buys 11 Q400s for firefighting ops

Conair Aviation (FGD, Abbotsford) has bought eleven DHC-8-Q400s from Hamburger EmissionsHaus, in a transaction facilitated by Skyworld Aviation. The airline will now convert the turboprops into DHC-8-Q400(AT) firefighting variants.

"After more than a decade of research and development, Conair’s answer to the future of aerial firefighting is the Q400AT, the most advanced airtanker in the world today. The purchase marks the most significant investment Conair has made to date towards developing a fleet of Next Generation aircraft designed to better fight wildfires for years to come," the Canadian special mission operator said in a press release.

"We evaluated 29 aircraft before selecting the Q400 for modification into an aerial firefighting tool. The unanimous opinion of our flight operations experts was that the Q400 exceeds all the Next Generation performance criteria within a manoeuvrable and stable platform. The Q400AT is fast, fuel-efficient, and tactically flexible, operating both initial attack as well as sustained support actions," Director of Business Development at Conair Jeff Berry added.

The 11 turboprops were previously operated by flybe....

Editorial Comment: Corrected the fleet summary for Hamburger EmissionsHaus from two E170s to two E175s. - 19.01.2021 - 06:51 UTC

Estonia's Diamond Sky to add maiden CRJ

Diamond Sky (DMS, Tallinn Lennart Meri) is set to take delivery of its first CRJ200ER in the form of ES-MCR (msn 7622), Skyliner Magazine has reported.

The 18.9-year-old regional jet, previously operated by Air Nostrum (YW, Valencia Manises), is currently undergoing pre-delivery maintenance. Although it has been seen featuring an Estonian registration number, it had yet to be formally added to the country's register as of December 15, 2020.

The airline did not respond to ch-aviation's query about the expected delivery or service entry date.

The Estonian charter specialist currently operates a fleet of smaller aircraft consisting of one Hawker 400A, one Piaggio Avanti, one Diamond DA62, one BN-2B Islander, one Piper (twin piston) PA-34 Seneca, and one Eurocopter EC135 helicopter.

Brussels shuts state aid probe into Air Nostrum CRJ purchase

The European Commission has closed its in-depth investigation into a EUR9 million euro (USD10.6 million) Spanish regional government disbursement to regional carrier Air Nostrum (YW, Valencia Manises) for the renewal of its fleet, finding it to be in line with current EU state aid rules.

Brussels launched its probe in October 2019, into the Valencian regional government’s funds to help Air Nostrum acquire ten “environmentally friendly” CRJ1000s from then-manufacturer Bombardier Aerospace (BBA, Montréal Trudeau).

The municipality had approved in 2018 up to EUR3 million in subsidies to Air Nostrum to fund the purchase, saying it was part of plans to boost the economic development of the region. It then revealed that it would disburse up to EUR6 million more to the airline over the period 2019-2020.

Spain argued that the assistance fell under state aid rules for environmental protection under the 2014 General Block Exemption Regulation (GBER), but the European Commission had its doubts. Brussels wanted to find out whether the investment would have been carried out anyway, even without the public...

Spain’s Air Nostrum needs 25% wage cost cut to survive