Aviation International News senior correspondent Ian Goold has been involved in aerospace since 1964 and in aviation media for more than 40 years. He enjoyed a 20-year career at Flight International magazine, where he was latterly air-transport editor before turning freelance in 1993. A winner of the European Regions Airline Association Hank McGonagle award for excellence in aerospace journalism and a Royal Aeronautical Society Aerospace Journalist of the Year global&nbsp;award, he has edited or contributed to aerospace and aviation magazines, special publications, and websites in Africa, Asia/Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America. Ian entered aerospace as an apprentice at the British Aircraft Corporation at Brooklands (Weybridge), where he worked on production and final assembly lines of the Vickers Super VC10, and BAC One-Eleven , and manufacture of Concorde major sub-assemblies. He subsequently graduated from the BAC Design Training School to work in the airframe structures drawing office (including design of international future projects, such as the Panavia Tornado multi-role combat aircraft) before joining Flight International in 1973. Apart from years of reading aircraft magazines and books, his first direct contact with aviation media had come during the early 1970s when he was involved at Brooklands with the Weybridge Man-powered Aircraft Group, which designed and built the tenth aircraft to fly under purely human power. As an aviation journalist, he has worked at more than&nbsp; 50 of the major biennial&nbsp;global and regional international aerospace industry shows at Le Bourget, Farnborough, Singapore, and Dubai (having missed attending only one "Farnborough" since 1960), plus innumerable NBAA, HAI, (U.S.) AOPA, and EBACE Conventions and ERA Assemblies. His favourite aircraft is the Hawker Hunter, of which – as a schoolboy – he heard hundreds make their first flights from Dunsfold, where also on September 24, 2013, he saw the penultimate landing of the VC10 (happily involving an example of which he had witnessed the maiden takeoff in 1970) a day before the last example made the design's final flight (unless, of course....).

Senior correspondent

Ian Goold

Speaking on the sidelines about FlyDubai’s order announcement for 50 Boeing 737-800s on Monday, Emirates Airline deputy chairman Maurice Flanagan made it clear that his airline hasn’t suffered from the business woes about which other airlines are complaining. “There has been no downturn whatsoever,” said Flanagan here at Farnborough. “We have exceeded our revenue forecast. It is an exciting situation.”
The operator has been one of the world’s most successful since its establishment in 1985. Contrary to what it sees as popular misconception, the airline claims to receive no subsidy from its government owner; rather, it was famously given a couple of aircraft, some seed capital, and told not to came back for more. Apart from its second year of business, Emirates has always been profitable–a status to which local competitors such as Etihad Airways and Qatar Airways continue to aspire as they invest heavily to promote business and tourism and establish appropriate infrastructure.
Asked about the likely impact of current record high oil prices, Flanagan is dismissive of fears about impending world recession. “It is [a result of] speculation and [the market will] soon bust. The present fuel price is beyond the normal range of supply and demand [considerations].”
Flanagan disclosed that in the past two years, fuel has accounted for an ever-greater proportion of the airline’s operating costs. “It has gone from 30 percent to about 42 percent. But we have always been very good at hedging [our supply].” Emirates is supporting the establishment of new local low-cost carrier FlyDubai until its services begin in mid-2009.

Emirates: “no downturn whatsoever”

Speaking on the sidelines about FlyDubai’s order announcement for 50 Boeing 737-800s on Monday, Emirates Airline deputy chairman Maurice Flanagan made it c

2024 Corporate Aviation Leadership Summit

AIN Products

SUBSCRIPTIONS

RESOURCES

ABOUT AIN