All Nippon Airways is set to increase its Australian footprint by launching nonstop flights between Tokyo and Perth.

An industry source in Tokyo has confirmed that All Nippon Airways is expected to announce within weeks that it will start direct flights between Perth and Tokyo next year.

The daily service, understood to be operated by Boeing 787-9s, is expected to bring an additional 70,000 Japanese visitors to Western Australia every year.

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AirlineRatings.com understands from the source that the airline may launch the flights as early as April, although no flights are yet available for booking.

The airline’s former president and chief executive, Osamu Shinobe, expressed interest in Perth as a destination three years ago.

Mr Shinobe told media at a Star Alliance conference in Chicago in November 2015 that the airline wanted to fly to other Australian destinations after the re-launch of a Sydney service that had been axed in 1999.

At the time he said that a “surge in economic activity between Australia and Japan” had tipped the scale in favor of Australia as a destination and Perth was next on the airline’s radar.

Neither WA Tourism Minister Paul Papalia nor Perth Airport Chief Executive Kevin Brown would comment because the deal is at a sensitive stage.

It is understood, however, from the Tokyo source that All Nippon Airways’ management has approved the deal.

The service is a big win for the State Government, which has made tourism a high priority.

Mr Papalia, Premier Mark McGowan, and Mr. Brown have all visited Tokyo to lobby for the service.

They have been assisted in Tokyo by Australia’s ambassador, former WA premier Richard Court.

As well as inbound Japanese tourists there has been a very high level of interest from West Australians in the service, which will connect to 50 domestic destinations in Japan.

Qantas withdrew from the Tokyo-Perth route in 2011 because the airline was using the Boeing 767 and it was on the route as it was at the limit of its economic range.

All Nippon Airways, which was formed in 1953, is Japan’s biggest airline with a fleet of 232 aircraft and with another 81 on order.

It is understood that the airline will use the 787-9 on the Perth route. These aircraft have various configurations seating between 215 and 395 seats.

The aircraft to be used for Perth is likely to have 40 business class, 14 premium economy and 192 economy seats for a total of 246 seats.

All Nippon Airways was the launch airline for the Boeing 787.

Questions have been raised about Lion Air maintenance procedures and work done on a crucial angle of attack sensor the airline’s logs say was replaced and tested ahead of last month’s fatal flight.

They come after Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee released a preliminary report on the October 29 fatal crash of a Boeing 737 MAX 8 that confirmed the aircraft experienced problems on four previous flights.

See: Dispelling the myths about flying. 

The report also appears to confirm that the pilots in the fatal crash of the doomed plane did not follow the same procedures as a Lion Air crew that landed the same plane safely the night before after experiencing a similar problem.

The problems on the four previous flights occurred in the three days before Boeing 737 MAX 8 slammed into the sea with 189 people on board after leaving Jakarta.

READ Lion Air aware of new 737 flight system.

The report confirmed that the captain on Denpasar-Jakarta flight on October 28 discussed maintenance done on the plane with an engineer and was told the angle of attack sensor had been replaced and tested.

When the plane took off from Denpasar, however, a stick shaker designed to warn of an impending aerodynamic stall activated and at 400ft the captain noted that an indicated airspeed (IAS) disagree warning was showing on the primary flight display.

He also noticed that the aircraft was automatically trimming nose down and after this happened three times the co-pilot, who was flying the aircraft, commented that the control column as too heavy to hold back.

The pilot then moved to shut down the automatic trim system by moving the STAB TRIM switches to the cut-out position.

This was in accordance with the runaway stabilizer non-normal checklist in the 737 MAX Flight Crew Operations Manual and was the procedure that was the subject a Boeing bulletin and a US Federal Aviation Administration emergency airworthiness directive.

The co-pilot then continued the flight with manual trim and without auto-pilot to land safely in Jakarta.

However, the report noted that three non-normal checklists performed by the crew did not contain instructions to land at the nearest suitable airport.

There have been questions about why the aircraft was allowed to continue to fly and why,  if it had been fixed, it was still malfunctioning.

Manufacturer Boeing noted in a statement the report did not include records as to the installation or calibration of the new sensor nor whether it was new or refurbished.

“Although the report states that the pilot was satisfied by the information relayed by the engineer that the AOA sensor had been replaced and tested, on the subsequent flight the pilots again experienced problems with erroneous airspeed data, and also experienced automatic nose down trim,” Boeing said.

After reaching Jakarta, the captain informed an engineer about the aircraft problem and entered indicated airspeed and altitude disagree as well as feel differential pressure (on the control column in the flight log. He also reported it through an electronic reporting system

The engineer flushed the left pitot air data module (ADM) and static port ADM to rectify the altitude disagree problem and performed a ground test.

There is no suggestion the the angle of attack sensor from the October 28 flight was replaced or repaired.

When Lion Air Flight 610 took off from Jakarta on October 29, the pilots again faced a stick shaker on rotation which continued throughout the flight.

The pilots also faced a difference between left and right angle of attack readings of about 20 degrees that again continued throughout the flight.

The co-pilot asked an air traffic controller to confirm the attitude of the aircraft and asked for the speed as shown on the radar display. He reported there was a flight control problem.

When the flaps retracted, the report said, the flight data recorder showed automatic nose down trim for 10 seconds followed by a nose up response from the flight crew.

This stopped when the flaps extended but began again when they were once more retracted and continued for the rest of the flight with the crew repeatedly commanding nose-up trim to counter the automatic system.

At one stage, the captain advised air traffic control that the aircraft’s altitude could not be determined because all the instruments were giving different readings.

Although not mentioned in the report, the downward trim was due to to a flight control law,  the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS),  added to the 737 MAX to help pilots cope with a stall.

The main intent of MCAS is to make the MAX respond to a stall in a way pilots would find consistent with other 737 models.

It is essentially software that helps push down the nose if the aircraft’s computers detect a high angle of attack.

There has been controversy among US pilots about whether Boeing flagged the feature sufficiently.

However, it is disabled if the crew follow the runaway stabilizer protocols followed by the crew on the October 28 flight.

Yet there is no mention, as Boeing pointed out, of the crew following the same procedure as their counterparts the previous night.

“Data from the flight data recorder summarized in the report also makes clear that, as on the previous flight, the airplane experienced automatic nose down trim,’’  the manufacturer said.

“In response, the flight crew repeatedly commanded nose up trim. This sequence repeated for the remainder of the flight, during which the flight crew was able to maintain control of the airplane for approximately ten minutes.

“Unlike as is stated with respect to the prior flight, the report does not state whether the pilots performed the runaway stabilizer procedure or cut out the stabilizer trim switch.’’

The search for the cockpit voice recorder continues and the committee told Lion Air, which has taken a number of safety actions,  to improve aspects of its safety culture.

It said that parts of the operation manual relating to discontinuing a flight when there is problem be implemented “to enable the pilot to make a proper decision to continue the flight”

It also said that all operations documents be properly filled out and documented after the weight and balance sheet for the flight said there were five flight attendants when there were six.

Preliminary reports deal with facts surrounding an accident and an analysis will not come until the full report.

A safety manager who was commissioned to look into Lion Air’s operations between 2009 and 2011 paints a worrying picture of a “bad approach to safety” with shortcuts at all levels.

The former 737 pilot and now safety consultant, was brought in as Lion Air’s safety manager from 2009 to 2011 on orders from insurance companies, told AirlineRatings.com that the airline had “an average of one major engineering issue every three days, despite most of its fleet being, new.”

“You can buy all the latest-generation planes, but it will all be in vain if you don’t have systems in place that prioritize safety,” he said.

READ: Reports of Lion Air’s final moments raise questions

For instance, the pilot said pilots were working far too many hours.”

“What I saw was an airline from the very top down, whose motto was saving money and they spent the minimum on pilot training, salaries, and management,” he said.

“It’s easy to blame people but it was the system.”

And in an extraordinary claim, the former safety manager said the airline “sent pilots for training that did not even have their instrument rating” which indicated a lack of understanding by management of what was required.

The pilot added that if an aircraft had a broken part preventing it from being dispatched because it exceeds the Minimum Equipment List standard the engineers would simply swap the broken part with another aircraft. (The M.E.L. is an industry standard set by the manufacturer that outlines how many systems must be operating to dispatch an aircraft. Aircraft have multiple backups and aircraft can be dispatched with one not operating because of the redundancy built in.)

The safety manager also told Airlineratings.com that many aircraft incidents were covered up. “Many were kept quiet.”

“They also used to buy off air traffic controllers with free tickets to give Lion Air flights priority.”

However, since 2011, Lion Air has apparently taken stock and was able to obtain a lifting of a ban to fly to Europe and the USA and then was able to achieve the International Air Transport Association Operational Safety Audit (IOSA).

But after the loss of Lion Air Flight 610 on October 29, many safety consultants are asking if anything has really changed.

While the investigation is still in its early stages, the facts that have emerged paint an alarmingly similar picture to the airline that the safety manager found in 2009.

Lion Air has denied the company cut corners and said the company’s twin priorities were growth and safety.

Details of the struggle by the pilots of Lion Air Flight 610 to maintain control of the Boeing 737 MAX have again underscored the questions surrounding the accident ahead of the release this week of a preliminary report into the disaster.

They include why the plane continued to display faults that had been present on previous flights after the airline reportedly fixed them and whether the pilots attempted to follow a procedure that would have neutralized a new system that may have contributed to the crash.

The Boeing 737 MAX 8  slammed into the sea on October 29 just 13 minutes after taking off from Jakarta, killing all 189 on board.

Investigators have already revealed that an angle of attack sensor was feeding bad data to the aircraft’s flight computers and causing a new safety system that helps prevent an aerodynamic stall, the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), to push down the plane’s nose.

This resulted in a Boeing safety bulletin and a strongly-worded US Federal Aviation Administration emergency  Airworthiness Directive warning pilots to follow existing procedures to turn off the autopilot and trim stabilizer if they found themselves in a situation similar to that experienced by Lion Air.

Reported comments by a senior safety official to the Indonesian Parliament last week indicated this did not happen in the Lion Air crash.

CNN Indonesia reported on November 22 that Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee official Nurcahyo Utomo told the parliament that the plane experienced a stick shaker warning of an impending aerodynamic stall and this prompted the MCAS to push down the aircraft’s nose.

Nurcahyo said the pilots kept opposing the MCAS until “the end of flight”.

He said the pilots trimmed the plane when the system pushed the nose down but finally the number of trims by the pilots shrank, the load on the control yoke became heavier “and the plane dropped”.

The safety official pointed to the similar problems plaguing the plane on the previous night as it operated a flight from Bali to Jakarta.

He said pilot in that case had turned off the stabilizer trim to stop the MCAS from moving.

Bloomberg reported the pilots faced “a cacophony” of warnings and fought to pull the aircraft out of a dive in the plane’s final moments by applying as much as 100lbs of pressure to the control column.

The news service said the pilots repeatedly countered the plane’s attempt to lower the nose by trimming it in the opposite direction and pulling on the control yoke.

This saw it lose and gain moderate amounts of altitude until the final dive.

The FAA’s AD warned that an erroneous high single angle of attack sensor input received by the flight control system could lead to repeated nose-down trim commands of the horizontal stabilizer.

“This condition, if not addressed, could cause the flight crew to have difficulty controlling the airplane, and lead to excessive nose-down attitude, significant altitude loss, and possible impact with terrain,’’ it said.

The AD required flight crew to comply with the runaway stabilizer procedure in the Boeing operating procedures manual. This includes disengaging the autopilot, moving the stabilizer trim cutout switches to cutout and controlling the aircraft pitch attitude with the control column and main electric trim. It echoed a Boeing safety bulletin issued earlier.

Investigators are still searching for the cockpit voice recorder which is expected to further flesh out details of the pilots’ actions in the plane’s final moments.

Boeing has also come under fire from some US pilots who say it failed to provide flight crew and airlines with details about the MCAS system, a control law added to the plane’s flight control software to ensure the MAX feels the same to pilots as a older 737s when it enters and recovers from a stall.

The Allied Pilots Association criticised Boeing’s assertion that a safety bulletin issued after the crash was meant to reinforce procedures already in the 737 MAX flight manual.

“They (Boeing) didn’t provide us all the info we rely on when we fly an aircraft,” association spokesman Dennis Tajer told CNN. “The bulletin is not re-affirming, it’s enlightening and adding new info.”

However, Boeing’s chairman and chief executive Dennis Muilenburg vigorously defended the company, denying that the company hid details of the MCAS.

Muilenburg said the company’s service bulletin and the FAA’s AD pointed to existing procedures to handle inaccurate angle of attack data.

Also in the spotlight are Lion Air’s maintenance procedures.

The plane had suffered problems with speed and angle of attack readings, which measure the angle of the aircraft’s nose relative to the oncoming airflow, on previous flights.

READ: Lion Air had the same problems on four previous flights.

The airline said it had addressed the problem and replaced a faulty sensor after a flight from Bali to Jakarta sent the flight into a wild dive and made passengers sick.

Lion has accreditation under the respected International Air Transport Association Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) and has been removed, along with other Indonesian carriers, from the EU’s blacklist.

However, an investigation by The New York Times claimed that Lion Air was so obsessed with growth that it failed to build a proper safety culture.

Government safety investigators told the TImes the company’s political ties allowed it to circumvent their recommendations and to play down instances that would cause alarm elsewhere.

Former employees told the paper the airline became adept at passing malfunctioning equipment from plane to plane rather than fixing problems.

Lion Air has denied the company cut corners and said the company’s twin priorities were growth and safety.

For Marcus Graff, 26, engineer and aviation enthusiast it’s an idea he has been wanting to test but he needed all the stars to align so he could capture the perfect starry night.

Passionate aviation photographer, Mr. Graff has specialized in night photography of aircraft but taking a picture of the night sky from an aircraft is about as hard as it gets.

Read: Spectacular night photos fuel passion

“I’ve been wanting to try this for few years but didn’t really fly enough to get anywhere with it, said Mr. Graff.

“Once I started flying up north for work I picked up a small Sony mirror-less body that I could fit in with my site gear without too much trouble.”

“And finally all the stars were really aligned,” said Mr. Graff.

The platform was flight QF2653 from Newman to Perth in a Fokker 100.

“Winter is statistically the best time for this as the core of the Milky Way rises in the east just after sunset and sets to the west just before sunrise so you’ve got two windows each day to try and get something.”

“After a few near misses, courtesy of turbulence, high altitude cloud, the moon, schedule changes things came together nicely on Wednesday evening.”

“Conditions were pretty unsettled, with turbulence persisting through much of the flight before everything flattened out as we were approaching to our decent point into Perth which provided a chance to get get some shots.”

“With a 3 or 4 second shutter speed and shooting handheld turbulence can quickly put a stop to any chance of a stable shot!”

The red color of the wing is the reflection of the aircraft’s beacon.

Singapore Airline’ low-cost carrier Scoot suspend services to Hawaii from the middle of 2019 as the group shuffles routes and merges regional wing SilkAir with its mainline operations.

The move, announced Wednesday, is part of a raft of route changes that will mostly see Scoot take over services currently operated by SilkAir.

Scoot entered the US market via Honolulu in December 2017 and said the decision to suspend the route from June 2019 was due to weak demand. It will also be converting its Mandalay route to a seasonal service.

SIA announce in May that it will fit SilkAir aircraft with lie-flat business seats and add an inflight entertainment system in all cabins as part of the merger with the parent airline.

The changes, which also include some routes moving from Scoot to SilkAir or SIA, are part of a three-year transformation program aimed at improving the customer experience, growing revenue and improving operational efficiency.

Read: Singapore the world’s best airline in 2019.

They are expected to take place between April 2019 and the second half of 2020, although the airline said timetables are indicative at this stage and subject to regulatory approval.

Routes moving from SilkAir to Scoot are Singapore to:

 Luang Prabang and Vientiane in Laos, in April 2019

 Coimbatore, Trivandrum and Visakhapatnam in India, between May 2019 and October 2019

 Changsha, Fuzhou, Kunming and Wuhan in China, between May 2019 and June 2019

 Chiang Mai in Thailand, in October 2019

 Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia, in December 2019

 Balikpapan, Lombok, Makassar, Manado, Semarang and Yogyakarta in Indonesia, between May 2020 and July 2020.

Sccot will cede two routes that are existing SIA destinations, Bengaluru and Chennai in India, to the mainline carrier in May 2019 and May 2020.

Shenzhen in China will move to Scoot from SilkAir from June 2019, as will  Kochi in India, from October 2019. Both are existing SilkAir routes.

The airline said customers with existing bookings would be provided the option to switch to the new Scoot, SIA or SilkAir flights where possible, or be provided refunds.

“We are now at the half-way mark in our three-year Transformation Programme, and today’s announcement represents another significant development,’’ SIA chief executive  Goh Choon Phong said in a statement.

“The route review will strengthen the SIA Group for the long term, with the right vehicles in our portfolio of airlines deployed to the right markets.”

Singapore Airlines Group earlier this month reported a 69 percent fall in first-half net profit due to higher fuel prices and non-cash losses from its stake in Virgin Australia.

Group net profit for the first half fell to $S196m from $S435m in the previous first half. Excluding one-offs, the first-half profit was down 36 percent to $S312m.

The fall included a $S116m non-cash loss relating to its 20 percent investment in Virgin Australia. This was a result of Virgin “derecognized” $A452m in deferred tax assets in its first half.

The group’s net profit of $S56m for the quarter ended September 30 was down 81 percent from $S293m a year earlier.