The proposed UN accord to limit pollution from international flights could cost airlines billions. For passengers, the price may be less than an in-flight glass of pinot noir. The UN’s aviation organization has estimated the measure being debated this week in Montreal may cost airlines between $2.9b and $12.4b annually by 2030. That could add between 31 cents and $12.10 per seat, according to Bloomberg calculations. The deal, which would be the first global climate accord for a single industry, calls for companies to offset their emissions growth after 2020 by funding environmental initiatives. While the price of that effort is forecast to grow to as high as $23.9b by 2035, the amount would be a tiny fraction of airlines’ budgets. It will be up to individual companies to determine how to recover the costs. The expense is so low that customers may never notice. “This is a highly competitive industry,” said Haldane Dodd, a spokesman for the Air Transport Action Group. “Some airlines might pass the cost onto consumers, others won’t.’’<br/>
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The airline industry’s plan to ease its impact on global warming hinges on fuels made from vegetable oil, corn and household garbage. The hitch: nobody has ever been able to produce the stuff in the volumes needed. JetBlue Airways, United Continental and Virgin Group have begun blending eco-friendly substitutes into traditional jet fuel made from kerosene. Even with that backing, there’s still only a handful of producers of the fuels. They lack the capacity to crank out the billions of gallons needed to supply the global aviation fleet, and the pace of investment is slowing. Even so, airlines are staking their low-carbon future on renewable fuels. The aviation industry, responsible for more than 2% of greenhouse gases, is being pushed to act this week by delegates from 190 nations, who are debating a UN accord in Montreal that would cap emissions from international flights. Ultimately, that means burning less fossil fuel. With electric planes still experimental, airlines and aerospace companies say biofuels are their best bet. “There is a tremendous amount of determination to make biofuel work because we just don’t have any alternative,” said Julie Felgar, Boeing’s MD of environmental strategy and integration.<br/>
Airlines are canceling some flights to the Caribbean and even the mainland US as Hurricane Matthew is expected to spin toward Florida later this week. By late Tuesday, American Airlines had canceled about 120 flights through Saturday, a spokesman said. Nearly half were departures from Miami, mostly to Caribbean destinations. Delta planned to check the latest storm-tracking models on Wednesday before deciding whether to scrap any Florida flights, according to an airline spokesman. Many US airlines are letting passengers change travel plans without penalty if their trip might be affected by the hurricane, which pounded Haiti on Tuesday and caused flooding that was blamed for several deaths.<br/>
Sri Lanka will pay $170m to AerCap Holdings, the world's largest independent aircraft leasing company, for cancelling a lease signed by the previous government for four A350s, Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake said Tuesday. The government is in the process of finalizing a partner to revive the national carrier. The government cancelled four A350 aircraft it had signed to lease from AerCap. It has placed orders for another four A-350 with Airbus Group SE. "The cost will be $170m for the cancellation and it will be paid for AerCap," the finance minister said. Karunanayake later told the parliament that state-run Sri Lankan Airlines do not require A350s as its longest flight time is around 10 hours. Government officials have said the remaining four A350s are scheduled to be delivered toward 2020 but the government is yet to take a decision on them. Since coming to power in January last year, President Maithripala Sirisena's administration has taken several steps to reduce losses by the national carrier.<br/>
Boeing still believes it can reach its target of roughly matching jet deliveries with new orders this year, the aerospace company’s CE said Tuesday. A slowdown in sales of widebody jets has left Boeing less than half way to reaching its goal of a book-to-bill ratio of around one for the year, with deliveries in 2016 expected to be between 740 and 745 jets. “We continue to trend towards a book to bill of about one,” CEO Dennis Muilenburg said. Boeing had booked just 357 new orders as of its last update on Sept. 27, excluding 67 cancellations. That leaves its book-to-bill ratio at around 0.5 compared with orders for 499 jets and a ratio of 0.7 at the same time last year. The ratio last year reached 1.34. Analysts have grown increasingly skeptical Boeing can reach its goal this year, but Muilenburg said it wasn’t “a pressing business issue” if some orders slipped into the first half of 2017 and left the company short in 2016.<br/>
Operations at Belfast International Airport were disrupted Oct. 4 after a TNT Airways-branded Boeing 737-400 freighter was involved in a landing gear incident, blocking both of the airport’s runways. According to Flightradar24, the 24-year old aircraft is operated by ASL Airlines Belgium and was flying in TNT colors at the time of the incident. After operating a previous sector from Liege in Belgium to East Midlands, OE-IAG departed for Belfast at 0520 and landed at 0556. A Belfast International spokeswoman said the aircraft had issues with its undercarriage and came to a halt at the intersection of the two runways, which are laid out in a t-shape. Nobody was injured in the incident. The disabled aircraft halted all arrivals and departures from the airport. Flights resumed about 90 minutes later, using just one departing runway with a restricted length of 1,900m, with the stranded aircraft still in place at the runway junction.<br/>