Grand jury focuses on convicted felon in airport deal

Scot Spencer is a name some of us will remember as one of the sordid players in commercial aviation.

Spencer and co-investors purchased Braniff II from the Hyatt family in the late 1980s and proceeded to run it into bankruptcy. Out of those ashes rose Braniff III, which promptly also went into bankruptcy. Spencer and some of the same co-investors wound up convicted of bankruptcy fraud. The US Department of Transportation banned Spencer from commercial aviation. It’s been assumed by many that this meant airlines but others believed the ban was much broader.

After serving his time, Spencer wound up in San Bernadino (CA), running another airline (which DOT shut down) and incredibly, this smooth-talker wound up managing the former Norton AFB for a transition to a civilian airport with a goal of commercial airline service.

Airbus affirms A350-800 future, but skeptics doubt it

Airbus confirmed at the Paris Air Show what we reported two weeks earlier, and that is the A350-1000 was going to be rescheduled to allow Rolls-Royce and Airbus to tweak the airplane for more power, longer range and higher payload.

At the same time, Airbus announced an 18 month rescheduling of the A350-800 to divert resources to the A350-900, the first of the three models planned to enter service, now promised for late 2013–a slide of at least a half year already.

In conjunction with the -800′s rescheduling, Airbus announced that 42 orders shifted from the -800 to the -900. While slightly more than 100 orders remain and Airbus denied market questions about whether the -800 will survive, one aerospace analyst would view cancellation of the -800 in a positive light.

Here is the story we did last week for Commercial Aviation Online.