Latest news with #A321neo
Business Wire
a day ago
- Business
- Business Wire
Aviation Capital Group Announces Delivery of One A321neo to Sunclass Airlines
NEWPORT BEACH, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Aviation Capital Group LLC (ACG), a premier global full-service aircraft asset manager, announced the delivery of one A321neo aircraft to Sunclass Airlines. Featuring CFM International LEAP-1A engines, the aircraft was delivered to the carrier from ACG's order book with Airbus. 'We are delighted to strengthen further our relationship with Sunclass Airlines with the delivery of this fuel-efficient A321neo aircraft,' said Marine Benoit, Vice President, Marketing at ACG. 'This new aircraft will support Sunclass Airlines' fleet modernization program.' 'We're very pleased to welcome this new Airbus A321neo to the Sunclass Airlines fleet,' said Valdemar Warburg, Chief Executive Officer of Sunclass Airlines. 'Its exceptional fuel efficiency and range align perfectly with our sustainability goals and will help us reduce emissions across our operations. The A321neo also allows us to explore new destinations and further enhance the travel experience for our guests. We're grateful for our strong partnership with ACG, whose professionalism has been instrumental in supporting our fleet growth.' About Aviation Capital Group Aviation Capital Group is one of the world's premier full-service aircraft asset managers with approximately 500 owned, managed and committed aircraft as of March 31, 2025, leased to roughly 80 airlines in approximately 45 countries. It specializes in commercial aircraft leasing and provides certain aircraft asset management services and aircraft financing solutions for third parties. It was founded in 1989 and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Tokyo Century Corporation. Follow ACG on LinkedIn, and for more information, visit
Indian Express
2 days ago
- General
- Indian Express
Air India Delhi-Kolkata flight rescheduled after technical snag
An Air India flight from Delhi bound for Kolkata on Monday evening was rescheduled due to a technical issue detected by the cockpit crew, the airline said. The Airbus, A321neo, was originally scheduled for take off at 5.30 pm, according to live flight tracking website Flightradar24. It was rescheduled to depart at 9.30 pm. 'Flight AI2403 operating from Delhi to Kolkata on 21 July, 2025, has been rescheduled to depart later this evening. The rescheduling was necessitated by a technical issue detected during the take-off roll,' an Air India spokesperson said. 'The cockpit crew decided to discontinue the take-off, following Standard Operating Procedures,' the spokesperson said. 'All passengers have disembarked, and our ground colleagues in Delhi are extending support to them. Inconvenience caused to the passengers due to this unforeseen disruption is sincerely regretted…,' the spokesperson added. This development comes a few hours after an Air India aircraft operating a Kochi-Mumbai flight veered off the runway after touchdown at Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) amid heavy rain. There has been a slew of disruptions to flight operations in the aftermath of the Air India crash in Ahmedabad in June — which killed 260 people, including 241 of the 242 on board — with airlines cancelling, rescheduling, and diverting flights with more frequency. Last month, an Air India flight headed to Delhi had to return to Hong Kong owing to a technical issue. The flight, AI315, was a Boeing 788. On the same day, an Air India Express flight bound for Ranchi returned to Delhi airport due to a suspected technical snag. On June 13, an Air India flight heading to New Delhi from Phuket received a bomb threat and made a precautionary landing back at Phuket.
India.com
2 days ago
- General
- India.com
IndiGo Flight With 140 Passengers On Board Makes Emergency Landing In Indore
The aircraft departed Goa's Dabolim Airport at 3:14 p.m. and was approaching Indore when the pilot alerted Air Traffic Control about the irregular hydraulic response linked to the landing gear. As a precaution, the plane circled Indore's airspace seven to eight times while emergency response units were mobilised on the ground. Fire brigades, medical teams, and airport officials were deployed along the runway, anticipating a potentially hazardous landing. The aircraft touched down safely at 5:08 p.m., with all 140 passengers and crew members reported unharmed. This marks the second such scare within 24 hours for the carrier. On Sunday evening, flight 6E 6591 from Tirupati to Hyderabad encountered a separate technical snag shortly after take-off. According to flight tracking data from FlightRadar24, the plane left Tirupati Airport at 7:42 p.m., but was forced to circle overhead before landing back at 8:34 p.m. That flight, also an A321neo and the last scheduled service from Tirupati to Hyderabad for the day, was cancelled. IndiGo has yet to offer a comprehensive statement regarding either incident. Aviation sources suggest both were precautionary manoeuvres prompted by cockpit alerts, not structural failures. However, the proximity of two mechanical alerts involving the same aircraft model has drawn attention from civil aviation authorities, who are expected to initiate a review of maintenance protocols and alert response strategies. Passengers on both flights have expressed relief over the crew's handling of the situations, while aviation observers await official explanations from the airline and regulators regarding any underlying causes or patterns behind the sudden malfunctions.
Hans India
2 days ago
- Automotive
- Hans India
IndiGo flight with 140 passengers on board makes emergency landing in Indore
Indore: IndiGo Airlines faced back-to-back technical challenges this week, raising fresh concerns over the operational reliability of its Airbus A321neo fleet. Flight 6E 813 operating from Goa to Indore was forced to make an emergency landing on Monday, after a suspected hydraulic malfunction in its wheel system triggered an undercarriage warning mid-air. The aircraft departed Goa's Dabolim Airport at 3:14 p.m. and was approaching Indore when the pilot alerted Air Traffic Control about the irregular hydraulic response linked to the landing gear. As a precaution, the plane circled Indore's airspace seven to eight times while emergency response units were mobilised on the ground. Fire brigades, medical teams, and airport officials were deployed along the runway, anticipating a potentially hazardous landing. The aircraft touched down safely at 5:08 p.m., with all 140 passengers and crew members reported unharmed. This marks the second such scare within 24 hours for the carrier. On Sunday evening, flight 6E 6591 from Tirupati to Hyderabad encountered a separate technical snag shortly after take-off. According to flight tracking data from FlightRadar24, the plane left Tirupati Airport at 7:42 p.m., but was forced to circle overhead before landing back at 8:34 p.m. That flight, also an A321neo and the last scheduled service from Tirupati to Hyderabad for the day, was cancelled. IndiGo has yet to offer a comprehensive statement regarding either incident. Aviation sources suggest both were precautionary manoeuvres prompted by cockpit alerts, not structural failures. However, the proximity of two mechanical alerts involving the same aircraft model has drawn attention from civil aviation authorities, who are expected to initiate a review of maintenance protocols and alert response strategies. Passengers on both flights have expressed relief over the crew's handling of the situations, while aviation observers await official explanations from the airline and regulators regarding any underlying causes or patterns behind the sudden malfunctions.
Economic Times
2 days ago
- Automotive
- Economic Times
Tariff engineering: How companies are outsmarting Trump
Delta Air Lines pulled off an age-old trick on US President Donald Trump who has imposed steep tariffs on imports which are pinching American companies. Delta took brand-new Airbus jets sitting in Europe, yanked out their US-made engines, shipped those engines back to the States, and left the rest of the aircraft To avoid Trump's to a July 11 report by Bloomberg, Delta has been cannibalising new A321neo aircraft, assembled in Europe and fitted with Pratt & Whitney engines, for parts to keep its grounded US fleet flying. By removing the engines, which are manufactured in the US, and shipping them home separately, Delta avoids the 10% import duty levied on European-made aircraft under Trump-era trade policies. The planes themselves remain parked in Europe. They can't fly in the US yet anyway, their seats haven't cleared US regulatory certification. So instead of paying duties on entire aircraft, Delta is importing only the parts it needs, duty-free. CEO Ed Bastian was frank about the tactic. 'We are not planning to pay tariffs on aircraft deliveries,' he said during the company's latest earnings call, adding that Delta will continue using the workaround. Earlier this year, Delta routed new Airbus long-haul jets through Japan before bringing them into the US, another move to dodge import in 2020, the airline used similar tactics, redirecting deliveries through places like Amsterdam, Tokyo, and El Salvador to avoid tariffs during peak trade isn't a one-off. It's a workaround might look extreme, but it's hardly unusual. US companies across industries, from sneaker makers to car manufacturers, have been using similar strategies to avoid rising import duties. Call it tariff engineering or just smart loophole hunting. The goal is simple: cut import costs without breaking the law. And this is entirely Foote, a customs lawyer at Kelley Drye & Warren in Washington D.C., sees no issue with the practice. 'There is nothing inherently illegal or even untoward about leveraging strategic design choices that result in creating different products that are subject to different tariff classifications and duty rates,' he told CNBC. 'Tariff engineering is one of the few things you can do to try to get it right and reduce your duty liability.' What is tariff engineering? Tariff engineering is the art of designing or altering a product, legally, to qualify for a lower import tax. It doesn't mean cheating the system. It just means working within the rules and playing them to your advantage. Merritt v. Welsh (1882) Tariff engineering isn't new. One of the earliest examples dates back to the 1881 US Supreme Court case Merritt v. Welsh, when a sugar importer found that coating lighter sugar with molasses helped avoid higher tariffs. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled that as long as the goods were honestly declared and inspected, there was nothing illegal about gaming the system. At the time, the US taxed sugar based on its colour, using something called the Dutch standard. Darker sugar = lower quality = lower what did the importer do? He took highly refined (white) sugar and added molasses to darken it. That way, it looked like low-grade sugar and qualified for a lower should've worked, until the Port of New York stepped customs office didn't buy it. They ran chemical tests, found the sugar had been intentionally darkened, and slapped on the higher tariff anyway. But the case reached the Supreme Court, and the justices sided with the importer. Why? Because the law at the time said tariffs had to be based only on colour, not chemical analysis or Matthews was of the opinion that even if the sugar was darkened on purpose, that wasn't illegal. 'Great stress is laid on the charge that sugars are manufactured in dark colors on purpose to evade our duties. Suppose this is true; has not a manufacturer a right to make his goods as he pleases?... If the duties are affected, there is a plain remedy. Congress can always adopt such laws and regulations as it may deem expedient for protecting the interests of the government.' Fast-forward to today, and tariff engineering is practically a full-time job for trade compliance teams across corporate America. Take Columbia Sportswear. They've been upfront about it. 'I have a whole team of people that work … with the designers and developers and merchandisers and with customs,' said Jeff Tooze, the company's VP of global customs and trade, in a 2019 interview with Marketplace. Their mission: bake tariff classification into the product design process. For instance, CNN reported that adding small zippered pockets below the waist on shirts is a simple tweak that can shift the product into a lower-duty category. That's how you end up with shirts sporting oddly placed zippers, designed not for fashion or function, but for tariff relief. Footwear brands play the same game. Converse, for instance, has been known to put felt soles on some All Star sneakers. The reason? Classification. Felt soles can move the shoes into the 'house slipper' category instead of 'athletic footwear', and house slippers come with significantly lower around the world use a system of more than 5,000 product classification codes to determine how much tariff to apply to imports, according to manufacturing the shoes overseas with felt soles, Converse can make a case to US customs that they qualify for the lower-duty category. It's not about aesthetics but a strategic design decision aimed at cutting costs. The loophole economy isn't just about design Sometimes, companies don't bother changing the product. They change the route. Or the label. Or where the product waits. Delta's stripped-down aircraft are one version of this. Another is the bonded of it as international limbo. Goods can enter the US and sit inside a government-regulated storage facility, as long as they remain locked up in a customs-regulated warehouse, for up to five years, duty-free, until the importer decides the timing is right to clear them through only pay the current tariff rate when they take goods out of storage. It's a bet that tariff rates will go down in the short or medium Hartry, who runs Howard Hartry, a customs brokerage by the Port of Los Angeles, says the demand for bonded warehouses has exploded since Trump's tariffs took hold. She told CNN that 95% of inquiries she receives now involve goods from no cap on the value a company can store in a bonded warehouse, the only real limit is physical to Hartry, her clients are stashing everything from lithium batteries and metal rods to TVs and treadmills. The value of these goods ranges between $37,000 and $500,000. She's well aware of how hard tariffs have hit her clients. But for her business, they've been a lifeline. 'It's saving our business, which we're grateful for,' she told CNN's Julia Vargas. Why all of this still works Despite the Trump administration's aggressive tariff hikes, loopholes remain. Sometimes products are explicitly exempt. Sometimes a lower rate applies if you swap a fabric or a metal. Other times, it's about knowing the right Harmonised Tariff Schedule (HTS) code, a system with over 5,000 lawyers are seeing a boom in business. Erik Smithweiss, a partner at GDLSK, said that companies come to his firm asking whether tweaks to their products might qualify them for a more favourable code.'We are working with companies who say, 'Gee, I really want to be on this list, look at my tariff codes,'' he told CNN. If the product can be modified, legally and substantially enough, his team will help make it tariff engineering has its limits, and pushing too far can backfire. Customs officials have the authority to test materials, scrutinise designs, and if they suspect deception, they can impose steep fines. Ford learned that the hard way The automaker was accused of sidestepping a steep 25% tariff, known as the 'chicken tax', by disguising cargo vans as passenger vehicles. The 'chicken tax' dates back to 1964, when the US imposed a 25% tariff on imported light trucks in retaliation for European restrictions on American workaround? Ford shipped Turkey-assembled Transit Connect vans to the US with temporary rear seats and minor interior tweaks, just enough to classify them as passenger vehicles and qualify for a much lower 2.5% import duty. Once the vans cleared customs, the seats were removed, and the vehicles were sold as cargo and Border Protection and the Department of Justice called it a clear attempt to dodge higher tariffs, saying the rear seats were never meant to carry passengers and were simply 'an artifice or disguise.'The case spanned years and involved hundreds of thousands of vans imported between 2009 and 2013. Courts consistently ruled in the government's favour. The Supreme Court refused to hear Ford's appeal in March 2024, Ford agreed to pay $365 million, roughly half in back duties, the rest in penalties. The company said it 'strongly disagreed with many of the characterisations' but chose to settle and end the legal battle. It did not admit fine is one of the largest customs penalty settlements in recent history. The risky business of skating the line Not all industries can play this game equally. Apparel and footwear can get by with easy tweaks and quick wins, but for aerospace, electronics, and medical devices, it's a completely different ballgame.'You might be looking at another 12 to 24 months of testing, certification, and validation in order to get that done,' said Andrew Wilson, a supply chain strategist at Supplino, to CNBC. That's time, money, and regulatory for many companies, the savings are worth it. Izzy Rosenzweig, CEO of logistics firm Portless, told CNBC that one of his clients switched hoodie production from synthetic to cotton to save 15% in duties. That's a serious margin in Industries, the RV giant, said earlier this year that it's actively working with trade experts to explore mitigation strategies, tariff engineering and deferrals it's not just the goods themselves. Even small tweaks to product add-ons can lead to big savings. Customs lawyer John Foote described to CNBC a lapel pin that was redesigned to include small pieces of cubic zirconia. That change moved it out of the 'festive article' category (14% tariff) into the 'jewellery' category (lower tariff). A small shift with a big game has rules. You just have to learn them. Tariff engineering is not fraud. But it is a tightrope walk. There's a fine line between clever strategy and misclassification. Companies can request a binding ruling from US Customs and Border Protection to confirm whether a classification will hold. But that comes with a risk: once you ask, you can't walk it back. If Customs disagrees, you're is why many firms prefer to stay just under the radar. Quietly adapting. Carefully designing. Relentlessly optimising.
