Flight cancellations have begun to pile up as Hurricane Matthew continues its track toward the US coastline. As of 9 p.m. ET on Wednesday, airlines had canceled nearly 1,600 flights -- many preemptively -- through Friday in anticipation of the storm, according to flight-tracking service FlightAware.com. That total could grow depending on the storm's path. Among the 1,594 cancellations already reported, 124 were Wednesday in the US, Bahamas and Haiti, according to FlightAware. The most cancellations were in Miami with 51 and Nassau with 43. Among the 1,070 cancelled for Thursday, the most are at Miami with 512 and Fort Lauderdale with 287, according to FlightAware. The airlines most affected are American with 477 and Southwest with 145. "We expect the number of flight cancellations for (Thursday) and Friday to rise depending on how much Florida is impacted by the storm," said Daniel Baker, CEO of FlightAware. American Airlines, which operates one of its busiest hubs at Miami International, has suspended all of its arrivals there on Thursday. It says there will be "limited" departures there up to noon ET, but that all flights will be halted after that.<br/>
general
Greek air traffic controllers have called four days of strikes next week to protest changes being made to the civil aviation authority. The strikes are scheduled for Sunday and Monday, October 9th and 10th, and Wednesday 12th and Thursday 13th October. The union said only emergency flights will operate during the strikes.<br/>
Hungary’s main international airport is bouncing back from the collapse of national carrier Malev and closing in on Prague and Warsaw in the race to become the key hub in central and Eastern Europe, its CE said. Budapest Airport, which posted the steepest rise in passenger numbers in central Europe in 2015 and the first eight months of 2016, expects to keep increasing the number of people and amount of cargo it handles, CEO Jost Lammers said Tuesday. Lammers has been in charge in the period following Malev’s bankruptcy in 2012, which threatened to cost Budapest Airport as many as 40% of its passengers and half of its revenue. As discount carriers filled the void, the aerodrome recovered to post a 10.2% rise in passenger numbers through August this year, surpassing the 6.6% increase in Prague and the 9 percent expansion in Warsaw. "We benefited from the collapse of Malev in learning to be more focused on key issues and marketing, and not sit back and count on existing infrastructure to drive the business," Lammers said. "Budapest is catching up and our relative position is much closer to our regional peers." Lammers expects 11.2m travelers to use the facility this year, up from last year’s record 10.3m. <br/>
UK PM Theresa May said a decision on where to add additional runway capacity in the south-east of England will be made soon. "We will shortly announce a decision on expanding Britain's airport capacity," the Prime Minister told the annual conference of her ruling Conservative party. On Monday, Transport Secretary Chris Grayling had said he would not rubber-stamp previous Prime Minister David Cameron’s decision for a third runway at Heathrow. Grayling said that both he and the prime minister wanted to take their time to select the best option for the country. The Government is due to decide later this month on which airport will get the nod to add an additional runway after a commission recommended Heathrow.<br/>
Brazilian companies such as Embraer and Marcopolo are scrambling to close multi billion-dollar deals to sell planes and buses to Iran, seeking to navigate remaining US financial sanctions, senior officials have said. The plane-maker is in advanced negotiations to sell at least 20 E195 jets with a total list price of more than $1b, while the bus manufacturer is in talks to supply part of the 27,000 units Tehran is seeking, according to Mahdi Rounagh, a senior official at Iran’s Foreign Ministry and until recently deputy ambassador in Brasilia. The problem is that Brazilian banks are reluctant to deal with Iran for fear of penalties by the US, even after Washington lifted restrictions on non-US banks. Their concern is that their US assets and subsidiaries could classify them as US banks, according to two senior bank executives in Brasilia. Business and government officials say Brazil must try harder to find alternatives, such as using smaller European banks that don’t operate in the US. "We have been in contact with several banks to explain that it is possible to find solutions that would benefit not only Brazilian companies but the banks themselves," said Rodrigo de Azeredo Santos, Brazil’s top diplomat for trade. He didn’t name the banks because the discussions are not public. "We are talking about big contracts."<br/>
IATA released data on Wednesday for global air freight markets showing that August demand rose 3.9% compared with 2015. Capacity (in available freight tonne kilometres) increased by 4.1% in the month over the same period last year. IATA said load factors remained at historically low levels, keeping yields under pressure. "August numbers showed improvements in cargo demand. While this is good news, the underlying market conditions make it difficult to have long-term optimism”, IATA DG Alexandre de Juniac said. “Current global political rhetoric in much of the world is more focused on protectionism than trade promotion”, he added.<br/>