On Thursday, Nov 14th, Iberia airlines flight IB347 landed at Boston Logan International Airport, completing the first ever scheduled Trans-Atlantic flight of Airbus A321neo-xlr. 

The A321neo-xlr is a new version of the Airbus A321neo family. The reason why this aircraft is so unique, is simply because of its size and range. The aircraft with a sitting capacity of 180-220, could handle flights as long as New York - Rome.  For the first time in history a commercial aircraft so small, can fly so long.

Because of this, the aircraft is set to change the aviation industry, with its fuel efficiency, airlines could use the aircraft on routes not too high on demand, increasing their networks. The aircraft is a perfect example of the future of aviation. 

NA Aviation was there to record the completion of the 7 hour and 28-minute flight, from Madrid Barajas Interantional Airport to Boston Logan Interantional Airport. MAD-BOS is the launching route of the aircraft with more destinations added soon. You can witness the NA Aviation's converge of the event at the link, on top of the page.

Vanio P, NA Aviation

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At NA Aviation, our goal is to always bring accurate news stories. We believe in sharing facts not opinion. However, a recent event prompted us to write a story about a delay not well handled by the Spanish flag carrier Iberia, on a flight from Boston to Madrid. 

On Thursday October 10, Iberia Airlines flight IB6166 from BOS to MAD was scheduled to depart BOS at 4:40pm. However, in the early hours of that day, on flight tracking apps a passenger noticed that the airplane hadn't left Madrid, presuming a huge delay. After numerous calls, the airline denied any delay. The flight was scheduled to leave MAD at 1:00pm and arrive to BOS at 3:05 before its turnaround. 

At 7:30pm Spanish time, the plane still hadn't departed. Both Boston Logan and Iberia continued denying any delay. It wasn't until passengers arrived at the airport on time to check in, that they were notified of a delay. The announcement came from the people at the desk, with no certain time on when the new departure was, but it wouldn't be prior to 12:00am. Some passengers then called the airline to ask about connecting flights they'd miss. Iberia still denied any delay and said that in their system the flight was on time. This was told to passengers at 5:10pm, with the originally scheduled departure being at 4:40pm. It wasn't until an hour after the aircraft took from Madrid with an 8-hour delay, that airline finally acknowledged the situation. 

Instead of landing in BOS at 3:05pm, the aircraft landed at 10:31pm. The plane then ended up departing BOS around 1:00am instead of 4:40pm. This delay resulted in ticket cancelations, and a lot of frustration among the unnotified passengers. The unacceptable part was the airline denying any sort of delay, while the workers on the counter were well aware. The airline reported "not being notified by the airport" of the delay, however, Iberia staff at Boston Logan said that wasn't true, and claimed the airline's actions as "ridiculous".  Delays happen, and it always creates inconvenience for passengers and airlines, however an airline must be aware of its flights and at least the active location of their aircraft. In conclusion the delay was as a result of a maintenance issue on the Airbus A330-200. 

Vanio P, NA Aviation

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With the current crisis in the Middle East, every day is a challenge for many in the region. But how have the current events shaken the aviation industry? As of now, Israel's primary international airport Tel Aviv Ben Gurion Airport remains in operation with scheduled passenger flights, as well as Lebanon's Beirut Rafic Hariri Airport. Both airports, however, have seen significant restrictions to the airspace available leading to altering patterns in approaches and departures. 

Today following the attacks on Israel by Iran, a heavily used airspace region over Iran and Iraq, was avoided. This impacted the approaches into many famous airports including Dubai DXB, Doha DOH, Abu Dhabi AUH, and many others. On flight tracking apps it was seen that the planes circled over eastern Egypt and continued on over Saudi Arabia when heading towards those airports. This led to high levels of disruption, with many delays. 

Apart from that various countries have now began evacuating their citizens out of Lebanon with chartered or government owned aircraft. Bulgaria used its government owned Airbus A-319, usually used to fly the president, to evacuate its citizens in Lebanon. Currently, there have been two evacuation flights done by the country. Many other countries have done the same or advise their citizens to use the commercial flights available. 

As high escalations continue NA Aviation remains in solidarity with all of the innocent people and victims of this war, in hope for a peaceful end soon. Stay strong. 

Vanio P, NA Aviation

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On Friday Delta Airlines announced the brand-new routes that will be debuting in the upcoming summer season 2025. With major expansion in Italy the airline announced various new routes from across a few of its hubs to the South European country. The new routes to Italy include: JFK- Catania, ATL-Naples, MSP-Rome, and  BOS-Milan which once was operated by Alitalia various years ago. Italy however will not be the only European country with new Delta flights, additional start up routes include: DTW-Dublin, ATL-Brussels, and BOS-Barcelona. Chances are most of the upcoming flights will be handled on Delta's A330 variants and Boeing 767's. As the winter season is approaching count on NA Aviation to catch you up with all the route announcements regarding the summer 2025 season. 

Vanio P, NA Aviation

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"Flight to Bulgaria" is a short film made by Vanio Pernikliev, NA Aviation. The movie talks about various historic and current events in the Bulgarian aviation industry that have impacted not only the country but the world.  The original idea for the movie came in February 2023, and the first email sent to the Sofia Airport press team was sent towards the middle of the month. Then various airlines and airports were contacted for info. A big contributor to historic information was Ivan Petkov. He gave three pages worth of information with sources. Apart from that various images were used from the Balkan Airlines magazine. The research period ended in late August, early September. The Script was finalized within the first weeks of September, and the movie was filmed. It took multiple hours to edit and put the movie together. The premier was in the middle of September. You can watch the movie in our YouTube channel from the link next to the article. 

Vanio P, NA Aviation

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Unfortunately on January 31 the last Boeing 747 was produced. Today we will take a look at the history of the aircraft and what made it a legend. Sadly at this moment no doble deck aircrafts are produced or planned to be. Boeing was created in 1916, and the 747 created on February 9th 1969 according to Boeing. Many variants of the aircraft have been released in it's 54 year history. Some of those models include that Boeing 747sp, the Boeing 747-400, Boeing 747-800, and many more. Many airlines have flown with the aircaft, all three major carriers of the Us have operated it at some point. American, UNited and Pan-Am operated the 747-sp, while Delta operated the 747-4 after it's merger with Northwest airlines. The last aircraft produced was a Boeing 747-8F for Atlas Air, a cargo air carrier. It was delivered on January 31st according to different aviation sources. It is quite sad that the most iconic aircraft is no longer produced, it will always be the Queen Of The Sky.

Vanio P, NA Aviation

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As you may have heard the two US airlines, Spirit and Frontier, will be merging together. It is not clear what the name of the new airline will be, but we do know it will be the fifth largest airline in the US.  Currently Frontier is headquartered Denver, Colorado. While Spirit is headquartered in Miramar, Florida. It will be a 6.6-billion-dollar deal. Not a lot of information has been revealed, but we all hope to find out more soon.

Vanio P, NA Aviation

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A tragic event shocked the world today as we learned the news of a China East Airlines plane crashing, killing over 130 people. The aircraft was a Boeing B737-800 on route from Kunmig to Guangzhou. The flight was scheduled to take off at 1:10pm local time and land 3:05pm. The aircraft took off at 1:11pm from Kunmig Changshui International Airport. Being tracked on airplane radars, the flight seemed fine during the first 1st hour. Which is extremely unusual given the fact that a lot of plane crashes happen right after take-off or during landing. The aircraft reached a height of 29,100 feet. Then with less than 30 minutes left of the flight, the aircraft began losing altitude and started falling vertically from the sky, losing over 25,000 feet in about 2 minutes. Unfortunately, there were no survivors. Boeing and China East Airlines partnered up in an investigation to determine the cause of the unusual event. In the meantime, the airline has grounded all Boeing 737-800 in its fleet. The image shows a China East Airlines plane parked at Frankfurt Airport. We express our deepest condolences to the loved ones of the victims. 

Vanio P, NA Aviation

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As you may already know Emirates has operated the Boeing B777 and Airbus A380 for a long time, and today we'll take a look at some new aircrafts that will soon be joining the fleet. The airline has 30 orders of the brand-new Boeing B787-9. The airline is also planning on growing its airbus fleet, with an order of 50 Airbus A350's.  According to different sources deliveries are planned to start by 2023. The airline is also planning to purchase over 100 Boeing B777X's. The airline in the past has operated different variants of aircrafts such as the Airbus A340 and Boeing B727. Emirates is currently the largest airline in the UAE, with over 250 aircrafts. The airline is also the largest operator of the Airbus A380, but it leads people to wonder will all of the future orders be an attempt to replace the aircraft, we will find out. 

Vanio P, NA Aviation

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With a country as large as the US air travel is a keyway of connecting the country from ocean to ocean. Therefor the US has some of the largest airports in the world and today we have rated the top 20 largest airports in the US. The rating is based on number of gates and terminals not square footage. At number 20 we have Baltimore Thurgood Marshall Int, at 19 we have Charolette Douglas Int, in 18th place is Pheonix Sky Harbor Int, at 17 is Orlando Int, in 16th place is Washington Dulles Int, at 15th we have Houston Geroge Bush Int, at 14th is Minneapolis St Paul Int, in 13th place is Boston Logan Int, at 12th is Denver Int, and in 11th place is Las Vegas Harry Reid Int. In our top ten, at 10th place is San Francisco Int, in 9th place is Newark Liberty Int, at 8th place is Philadelphia Int, in 7th place is Detroit Metropolitan Airport, at 6th place is Miami Int, and in 5th place we have New York John F Kenedy Int, at 4th place is Los Angeles Int, at 3rd place is Dallas Fort Worth Int, in 2nd place is Chicago O'Hare Int, and in first place is Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson International, the largest airport in the US! 

Vanio P, NA Aviation

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The Airbus a380 is one of the largest planes ever created seating up to 850 passengers. Its boom came earlier in the last decade after its launch in 2007. Like we know the pandemic tore aviation in many ways, and unfortunately most airlines grounded their fleets of the A380. The only airlines to regularly fly the aircraft were Emirates and China Southern Airlines. But now it seems that tides are changing for the double decker because since the beginning of 2022 numerous airlines have brought it back. First to bring back the aircraft was British Airways, on flights mainly to the US. Followed by Qatar Airways they flew their a380 to London and Paris and will soon add more routes. Qantas also started operations with the double decker primarily to LA and Singapore, while Korean Air started flying to New York. Singapore Airlines started a stopover route from Singapore to New York, with a stop at Frankfurt. And now Lufthansa and Asiana Airlines are also bringing back the airbus aircraft. But why are all of these airlines suddenly returning an aircraft they didn't want back to their fleets? For a few it's a capacity issue, with the delayed deliveries of the Boeing 787 and 777er, for some airlines such as Qatar Airways it's the A350 paint scandal that is causing the new change. But whatever reason it is people are happy to see the endangered plane back in the skies.

Vanio P, NA Aviation

For more interesting stories check NA Aviation weekly and follow us on social media.