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Jumbo jets built by Boeing Co. are being brought out of desert storage as surging bookings spur carriers including British Airways Plc and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. to return 747s, their biggest planes, to traffic.

 British Airways will recall a 747-400 for flights to Dallas in its winter schedule starting in October, freeing a Boeing 777 for an extra New York trip, and Cathay Pacific has reinstated five freighters. United Airlines took a jumbo out of storage in California in June for use as a spare during the summer months.

 Wide-body planes accounted for about 25 percent of the 200 aircraft retrieved from storage in May and June as carriers sought to tap rising demand for long-haul trips and a leap in cargo shipments.

 The number of 747s recalled in June exceeded those mothballed for the first time since January, 2009, statistics compiled by aviation consultant Ascend Worldwide Ltd. show.

 Of the 112 jumbos mothballed since the start of last year, 40 are still in storage, according to figures from Ascend.

 "Wide-bodies have lagged behind the overall market but they're showing signs of health," said Andy Golub, an analyst at Ascend in New York who describes the high-capacity 747 as a "bellwether" for airline confidence.

"If people are paying for that high-priced seat or moving expedited products in the belly of an aircraft that's a very good sign," he said.

 "Everybody is getting very excited about passenger and cargo volumes coming back, but there's a great temptation to add too much capacity," said Chris Tarry, an independent airline analyst and strategy consultant in London who has followed the industry for almost three decades.

 "What may be rational fleet decisions for individual airlines can add up to a problem for the industry when taken together."

 British Airways and Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific have idled planes near Victorville on the southern edge of the Mojave Desert in California. Hot, dry conditions are favored for storage because they hamper corrosion.

 International passenger traffic rose 12 percent in June, the most recent month for which figures are available, according to the International Air Transport Association.

 That prompted a jump in second-quarter yields at carriers including Deutsche Lufthansa AG, Europe's second-biggest airline, and British Airways. Cargo traffic rose 27 percent in the month.

 Lufthansa is looking to reactive a single jumbo stored in Germany after returning about a dozen short-haul planes and smaller wide-bodies to service, spokesman Peter Schneckenleitner said.

 London-based British Airways is increasing winter capacity about 7 percent from a year earlier, spokesman Euan Fordyce said.

 Air France-KLM Group, Europe's biggest carrier, is phasing out 747s from its Paris-based Air France unit with the entry into service of Airbus SAS A380 superjumbos and Boeing 777-300ERs, spokesman Marina Tymen said.

 Cathay Pacific will transfer four 747-400 cargo aircraft to Air China Cargo, in which it has a 49 percent stake, by the end of 2011. The departures will be balanced by deliveries of Boeing's new 747-8 freighter, spokesman Elin Wong said.

A tragic plane crash occurred near Dillingham, Alaska, claiming the lives of five people, including former United States Senator Ted Stevens, and injuring four others on Monday, August 9, 2010. National Guardsmen apparently attributed the remaining four victims’ survival to a group of brave volunteers, as reported by ABC News.

According to Alaska National Guard spokesperson Maj. Guy Hanes, the pilot of a passing aircraft noticed the wrecked 1957 DeHavilland DHC-3 Otter aircraft and subsequently notified the Guard of the crash around 7 p.m. Monday. However, weather conditions initially hindered rescue operations.

Nonetheless, four Good Samaritans, including two emergency medical technicians, a doctor and a nurse, were dropped near the crash site by plane. They then proceeded to hike more than 1,000 feet before coming into contact with the downed aircraft.

The volunteers subsequently began to tend to the injured survivors and remained with them overnight. National Guardsmen Senior Master Sgt. Jonathan Davis stated, “They were all conscious, able to speak.”

“Undoubtedly, if they [the volunteers] hadn’t been there, not only might they not have survived the night, our extraction would’ve been much more difficult… They helped us enormously,” added National Guardsman Technical Sgt. Kristofer Abel.

Alaska Department of Public Safety (DPS) officials identified the plane wreck survivors as former NASA chief Sean O’Keefe, who suffered critical injuries in the aviation accident; O’Keefe’s son; 13-year-old William “Willy” Phillips Jr.; as well as lobbyist and former Stevens aid Jim Morhard.

Five others were not so fortunate. Those fatally injured in the Alaska plane crash were identified as Ted Stevens; 62-year-old pilot Theron “Terry” Smith; William “Bill” Phillips Sr.; along with 48-year-old Dana Tindall and her 16-year-old daughter Corey Tindall, according to the Alaska DPS.

Reports noted that Ted Stevens was aboard a Learjet aircraft that crashed on December 4, 1978, killing five people aboard. Stevens’ wife was among those fatally injured in that particular aviation accident.

Officials from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) were expected to conduct a full probe into the deadly Alaska plane crash.

For Dallas-based Southwest Airlines Co., bigger may be better. Bigger planes, that is.

The low-cost carrier confirmed Friday that it is kicking the tires ofBoeing Co.'s 737-800 planes, which are larger and can carry more passengers than the series -700, -500 and -300 Boeing 737s that Southwest currently flies.

More seats on each plane would give Southwest flexibility to have fewer daily flights out of cities where slot controls limit the airline's ability to add more individual flights, such as New York's LaGuardia Airport. Bigger planes also would lower the carrier's cost per seat flown on long-haul flights where profits are thin.

"Since the decision to add the -800 has not been finalized, any details regarding configuration, timing and quantity of deliveries are still to be determined," Mike VanDeVen, Southwest's executive vice president and chief operating officer, wrote on the carrier's blog Friday.

Southwest's -700 and -300 series planes seat 137 in its all-coach configuration. Boeing says the -800 series would seat up to 189 passengers in a single-class configuration, but the model would hold 175 passengers the way Southwest would configure it.

While Boeing seems willing to let Southwest substitute the bigger models for current orders of -700 series planes, Southwest will need to reach agreements with its pilots' and flight attendants' unions before making the order.

A spokesman for the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association said the union's current contract lets the parties reopen it to discuss rates of pay for flying new types of aircraft. The Transport Workers Union, which represents flight attendants, plans to start immediate negotiations, president Thom McDaniel said in a message to members Friday.

The carrier said it needs to have its new labor deals in place and decide to buy the planes by Dec. 1 in order to take delivery of the planes in 2012. If it can't meet that deadline, it wouldn't rule out a purchase with later deliveries, said spokeswoman Katie Coldwell.

"Response from our employees has been very positive" regarding the prospect of flying larger planes, she said.

A bigger plane might take longer to load and unload than Southwest's current fleet, but schedule planners have built more flexibility into the airline's schedule to allow for longer "turn times" – the time it takes to get a plane in and out of a gate.

The list price for the bigger plane ranges from $72.5 million to $81 million, Boeing's website says. That compares to the range of $58.5 million to $69.5 million for the -700 model. Southwest, which buys all its planes from Boeing, receives significant discounts from those list prices.