general

A preliminary investigation at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport found no evidence of gunfire inside one of its terminals on Sunday despite earlier reports of shots being heard, the airport's operator said. No gun casings were found after a search of Terminal 8, where reports of gunshots in the departures area led to an evacuation, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said. "The terminal was evacuated out of an abundance of caution," the agency said. "Travellers should contact their carriers." Video and photos posted on social media showed hundreds of people streaming out of Terminal 8, used by Air Berlin, Alaska Airlines, American Eagle, American Airlines, Finnair and other carriers for departures. Sherwin Bryce-Pease, a correspondent with South African Broadcasting Corp based in New York, was on a Norwegian Airlines flight from Paris that landed at JFK shortly before 10 p.m. EDT. "They told us nothing from the flight deck. Only that the earliest the gate will be available will be in an hour 15 minutes from when we landed, an announcement greeted by huge sighs on our Norwegian Airlines flight from Paris," he said. <br/>

Airlines will likely suffer more disruptions like the one that grounded about 2,000 Delta flights this week because major carriers have not invested enough to overhaul reservations systems based on technology dating to the 1960s, airline industry and technology experts told Reuters. Airlines have spent heavily to introduce new features such as automated check-in kiosks, real-time luggage tracking and slick mobile apps. But they have avoided the steep cost of rebuilding their reservations systems from the ground up, former airline executives said. Scott Nason, former CIO at American Airlines Group Inc, said long-term investments in computer technology were a tough sell when he worked there. "Most airlines were on the verge of going out of business for many years, so investment of any kind had to have short pay-back periods," said Nason. The reservations systems of the biggest carriers mostly run on a specialized IBM operating system known as Transaction Processing Facility, or TPF. It was designed in the 1960s to process large numbers of transactions quickly and is still updated by IBM, which did a major rewrite of the operating system about a decade ago. A host of special features, ranging from mobile check-ins to seat selection and cabin upgrades, are built on top of the TPF core, or connected to it. "They have surrounded that old industry infrastructure with modern technology," said Bob Edwards, United Continental Holdings Inc's former CIO until 2014. "Those systems have to always reach back into the old core technologies to retrieve a reservation or to figure out who flies between Dallas and New York City."<br/>

Millions of flyers in China may soon see their wish come true: authorities are considering lifting restrictions on the use of mobile phones on planes, paving the way for wider in-flight connectivity that is now available only in developed markets. A legislation to amend regulations that limit the use of electronic devices on board is underway and the norms will be relaxed by the end of this year or early 2017, Zhu Tao, director of the air transportation division at the Civil Aviation Administration of China, said in an interview. The changes follow revised safety standards issued about three years ago by regulators in the US and Europe. The amendment, if approved, will enable passengers to surf the internet, use applications such as WeChat, and shop online at cruising altitudes with smartphones, the most preferred device for web browsing in the world’s most populous nation. For the 50 odd Chinese airlines fighting for a slice of the world’s No. 2 air-travel market, it provides e-commerce opportunities as they tap the purchasing power of the nation’s newly rich while they are airborne. The global market for in-flight e-commerce is set to reach $1.7b by 2020 from $1.4b in 2015, according to Frost & Sullivan. <br/>

Since construction began this summer to overhaul New York’s aging La Guardia Airport, many travellers say things have gotten worse. The plan sounded good: Officials promised to overhaul the dingy, congested corridors and roadways of the airport, which had been compared to a Third World country by Vice President Joe Biden. In its place, officials described a soaring, light-filled haven, with a new central entry hall, revamped terminals, expanded parking and longer taxiways to reduce delays. “It will be very beautiful and very helpful,” said a customer care worker for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. That isn’t the current reality. Earlier this week, the worker said his bus to the airport was rerouted, stopping more than a mile away and forcing everyone to walk the rest of the way back in the heat. “It’s hard for everybody,” he said. La Guardia, which sits on 680 acres in Queens, is the smallest of the three airports serving New York City. It served 28m passengers last year, compared with 37m at Newark Liberty International Airport and 57m at John F. Kennedy International Airport, according to the Port Authority.<br/>

The operator of the Indonesian capital's main airport has apologized to passengers for flooding at its brand new terminal after rains overcame drainage pipes and inundated the arrivals area on Sunday. The $560m terminal opened last week to domestic flights by national carrier Garuda but has been plagued by complaints about its lack of readiness. The airport operator and government hope the new terminal, and a third runway that is under development, will relieve over-crowding at Soekarno-Hatta airport and make Jakarta a rival to Singapore and Bangkok for international stopovers in Southeast Asia. PT Angkasa Pura II, the airport operator, said it brought the flooding under control within an hour and is investigating the cause. Local media said drains might have been clogged by construction debris. The company plans for other airlines to gradually move their flights to the terminal and it plans to start refurbishing two old terminals, built in 1984 and 1992, later this year.<br/>