Two deliveries of "first" of aircraft model occurred on March 27th.

Airbus delivered the first A330-300 to Finnair, out of an order for eight. Powered by General Electric CF6-80E1 engines, the new aircraft is in a two class configuration 42 Business, 229 Economy for a total seating for 271 passengers.

On the same day, Boeing delivered the first 777 Freighter to Emirates SkyCargo via Dubai Aerospace Enterprise (DAE). Coincidentally, Dubai Aerospace Enterprise Capital, the leasing arm of DAE, also has a total of eight 777 Freighters on order.

Images courtesy and copyright of Airbus and Boeing

According to OAG's (Official Airline Guide) March 2009 report, the world's airlines have scheduled 4.9% fewer flights for March 2009 compared with the same month last year, with a 3.3% drop in capacity, according to the latest statistics from OAG, the world's leading aviation data business.

This is the eighth successive month of declines, and represents a reduction of more than 122,000 flights and 9.8 million seats year on year. The total number of flights scheduled to operate worldwide this month is 2.38 million, offering 289.8 million seats to travellers around the globe.

Within this global figure of all scheduled passenger flight operations, the low cost sector accounts for 419,000 flights (18%) and 61.9 million seats (21%). Frequencies and capacity in the low cost sector are both showing a marginal 0.8% decline for March 2009 compared to March 2008.

Global airline schedules for the first quarter 2009 have dropped by 6.7%, or 491,000 fewer flights, the first since the double impact of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the burst of the dot.com bubble. Capacity for this quarter also has fallen by 4.4%, representing a reduction of 38.6 million seats.

Download the full report here.

Two Air India employees have been arrested after the vigilance department of the airline found they were allegedly involved in human trafficking and transported two women to the US showing them as their wives.

Deepak Salvi, a office superintendent, and Hemant Morade, an operator, were arrested for allegedly illegally transporting two women posing as their wives to the US and returning alone, police said.

Another accused Ejaz Ansari, a resident of Nagpada in south Mumbai, was arrested today for allegedly assisting in transporting the women.

The two airline employees had used free tickets entitled to employees' relatives to transport the women, police said.

Salvi had travelled to the US in September 2007 and Morade in April 2008 with women who posed as their wives but returned alone, prompting the vigilance department of the Air India to make inquiries, they said.

Air India officials, after confirming that the women were not the employees real wives, informed the US Consulate and sought additional information in December 2008.

US authorities confirmed the women were impostors and had travelled on fake passports to New York.