Star Alliance operator EgyptAir is preparing to offer additional capacity on the route from Cairo to London, following the temporary suspension of British Airways services. The Egyptian ministry of civil aviation says it has "increased" the seat capacity of EgyptAir flights on the London Heathrow sector in response. British Airways is halting flights to Cairo for a week owing to security concerns, although it has not specified their nature. EgyptAir says that "additional flights" have been assigned to accommodate passengers affected by cancellations from other airlines. Extra services will be provided through deployment of a Boeing 787 on the Heathrow route, says the civil aviation ministry. Lufthansa had reportedly intended to suspend Cairo flights as well, but appears to have backtracked on the decision.

Source: FlightGlobal

Czech investigators have determined that a Boeing 737-800 crew's failure to comply with sterile cockpit procedures during an approach to a wet runway contributed to its landing long and overrunning onto rough ground. The US-registered Swift Air aircraft had been operating from Heraklion to Pardubice on 1 August last year. Cockpit-voice recordings captured a "lively discussion" between the pilots on topics "not directly related to the flight performance" for the "whole time of approach and landing", says Czech investigation authority UZPLN. The aircraft overflew the threshold of runway 27 at a height of 64ft and touched down at 965m (3,166ft) – almost 40% along the 2,500m runway – after a prolonged flare. UZPLN says the crew "did not perform" a landing calculation in spite of acknowledging the wet runway status from approach control and the tower. The selection of 30° flap and the 'autobrake 2' setting was "most likely only by guess and prior experience" with landing at Pardubice, it adds. While the first officer, who was flying, queried whether to use a higher autobrake setting, the captain responded that this would not matter because reverse-thrust would be available.

Source: FlightGlobal

Airbus is developing a fix to an A321neo pitch-up issue, featuring a flight-control system update, which it expects will become available in the third quarter of 2020. The anomaly is the subject of a European Union Aviation Safety Agency directive requiring operators to introduce temporary revisions to the flight manual. EASA issued the directive following analysis of behaviour by the A321neo's elevator and aileron computer. FlightGlobal has learned that issue – which can result in excessive pitch-up – only affects the A321neo in particular remote conditions when combined with specific commanded manoeuvres. Four conditions are required. These comprise a low approach altitude, below 100ft, in a specific landing condition, with the aircraft characterised by a particularly aft centre-of-gravity, and the crew engaged in performing a dynamic manoeuvre – such as a go-around. Under these conditions the aircraft could enter a pitch-up situation which EASA has described as "excessive". FlightGlobal understands the crew would be able to react to the pitch-up to bring the aircraft immediately under safe control, and that there would be no automatic take-over of manual crew input by automatic aircraft systems.

Source: FlightGlobal