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

European Airlines have announced plans to link Dubai nonstop to Scandinavia and by business-class-only service to the UK and the U.S. Unlikely though it might seem, no UAE carrier currently provides nonstop service to the Nordic region. Now, a European operator has met that challenge from the other end of the route: Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) this month launched three-times-weekly flights from the Danish capital Copenhagen to Dubai.
SAS Europe, Middle East and Africa head Per Moller Jensen cited “huge” potential to develop services to other Gulf Cooperation Council points such as Bahrain and Oman. “The Middle East will play an integral role in our 2011 strategy,” said Jensen. The airline’s plans include both leisure- and business-travel developments.
SAS will operate a three-class, 245-seat Airbus A340 on Sunday, Monday and Thursday on the northbound service (the aircraft having arrived overnight from Denmark). The general manager of Dubai Airport’s airline development department, Mohammed Ahmad bin Ghannam, said the route, which would be served throughout the coming winter season, had seen 20-percent annual growth (via an intermediate stop). In the first nine months of 2007, SAS handled more than 25 million passengers and expects to see strong growth from regional points serving Dubai.
Another European carrier starting operations here is British business-class airline Silverjet, which plans to begin overnight service from Luton Airport, north of London, on November 18, followed by a daylight return flight to the UK. Northbound service will connect after a short two-hour wait with Silverjet’s established overnight Newark (New York) service. U.S.-originating passengers can enjoy an almost 12-hour UK business day following their overnight transatlantic crossing before continuing to Dubai.
Round-trip Newark-Dubai fares on the 100-seat Boeing 767-200ER begin at about $4,200 (before taxes). Silverjet plans to increase its fleet from three to five aircraft by mid-2008. Passengers flying to Luton on the first service and returning on the first available service two days later would be charged a standard round-trip fare (including taxes) of AED 8,638 ($2,400). In October, Silverjet enjoyed a 58.5-percent passenger load factor on its Luton-Newark service after introducing a second daily flight.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

SAS launching Denmark-Dubai nonstop

European Airlines have announced plans to link Dubai nonstop to Scandinavia and by business-class-only service to the UK and the U.S.

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