The middle seat is getting harder to avoid. As planes fly at record capacity and new cabin configurations squeeze in ever more passengers, airlines are, intentionally or not, nudging fliers into paying extra to avoid drawing the proverbial short straw. Southwest, which does not assign seats, raised the price of an early-boarding pass to US$15 from $12.50 last month. For those who do not pay up, it is a mad rush when online check-in opens 24 hours before the flight. Delta’s Basic Economy fare does not allow seat assignments to be made until after check-in, when higher-paying customers have had a chance to claim window and aisle seats. American and United plan to introduce similar fares this year. Neither would confirm whether selecting a seat would be one of the perks eliminated, but one airline analyst said it was likely, given the competition legacy airlines face from low-fare carriers. <br/>
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Calls for action to mitigate the threat to passenger aircraft from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) came from Europe’s main regional airline trade group and others following an April 17 incident at Heathrow. A BA Airbus A320 on approach to the airport collided with what is believed to have been a small drone. No damage was caused to the aircraft but the collision has strengthened calls for governmental action in the face of an upsurge of the number of people owning UAVs. The incident highlighted the threat that drones posed to the safety of European airspace, said the European Regions Airline Association Meanwhile, the UK’s main commercial pilots’ union, BALPA, reiterated that UAVs are rapidly becoming a danger to commercial flights, with a spate of near-misses prior to the April 17 incident. <br/>
Hong Kong International Airport recorded a 4.8% rise in the number of passengers handled in March 2016 compared to March 2015, with a total of 6m passengers. Aircraft movements were also up by 2.2% year-over-year to 35,060. HKIA management described March growth as “steady”; indeed, January 2016 saw a much larger 16% growth. An HKIA official said the airport was concentrating on developing smart airport technologies to enhance operational efficiency and passenger experience. One example he cited is HKIA’s Self Bag Drop service, which has so far been adopted by Cathay Pacific and Hong Kong Airlines. “This new service enables passengers to cut processing time by half compared to queuing at traditional check-in counters.” <br/>
When Airbus reported 2015 results in February, the company said it planned to deliver more than 650 new commercial jets this year and to take more than that many net new orders to add to its backlog. Airbus executives reportedly said they expect new orders to top 700 in 2016, about 35% below the number of new orders the company added last year. Airbus wrote 1,080 new commercial jet orders in 2015, down from 1,456 in 2014. Orders so far in 2016 have been disappointing at best. At the end of Q1 Airbus had taken a total of just 32 new orders, against deliveries of 125 new planes. Adjusted for cancellations, net new orders in Q1 totaled exactly 10. That total does not include an expected order for 118 new planes from Iran Air in a deal worth US$27b. The order, when it is finalised, is expected to include 45 A320 narrow-body jets and 73 wide-bodies. <br/>