President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Elaine Chao, the former labour secretary and wife of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, to be his choice for transportation secretary, an official briefed on the matter said Tuesday. The announcement is expected to come Tuesday afternoon. Chao served as secretary of labour under President George W. Bush from 2001 through 2009 -- the longest tenure in the position since World War II -- and has been married to McConnell since 1993. She was the first Asian-American woman to serve in a Cabinet position. Chao also served as the deputy secretary of transportation under President George H.W. Bush from 1989 to 1991. Following her time in government, Chao has held a position as a distinguished fellow at the Heritage Foundation in addition to conducting media appearances. At the Transportation Department, Chao would have a key role in helping Trump get an infrastructure spending bill passed through Congress and start government-backed works projects -- a role likely to be complicated by her relationship with McConnell, who will also be a critical player in any infrastructure bill negotiations.<br/>
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Hundreds of workers are striking at Chicago O'Hare International Airport on Tuesday. Janitors, baggage handlers, cabin cleaners and wheelchair attendants are asking for a $15 hourly wage. Some currently make $10.50 an hour, which is the minimum wage in Chicago. The effort is part of a broader "Day of Disruption" planned by activist group Fight for $15, which advocates for raising the minimum wage. Uber drivers, fast food workers and home care aides will also walk out on Tuesday. The Chicago Department of Aviation said that despite the work stoppage operations at the nation's second busiest airport continued to run smoothly. Federal employees, including air traffic controllers and security screeners, are not joining the strike. The striking workers aren't aiming to disrupt travel, a spokeswoman for the Service Employees International Union said at a press conference last week. "They do want to gain public support," she said. The airport workers aren't part of the Service Employees International Union, but the group is backing them. Though the walkout isn't likely to strand passengers, it could cause some operational hiccups.<br/>
Flights departing Hong Kong’s International Airport were halted for 15 minutes Tuesday after what was the most significant fault to hit the Civil Aviation Department’s new, HK$1.56b flight navigation technology. In a rare display of transparency from the department, and following weeks of controversy over leaked information, director of civil aviation Simon Li Tin-chiu said a data processor had caused the computerised air traffic system to fail to display flight details for some 26 seconds. The aviation regulator chief said preliminary investigations had shown the system failed temporarily while it was backing up flight data information. The department last week said radar technology hardware, which supplied information to air traffic control (ATC), was causing issues for the newly-installed Raytheon Auto Trac III system. Raytheon has been asked to find a fix for the system within 48 hours, and senior executives from the US firm have been asked to meet the civil aviation chief to explain the incident and other teething issues. The department said it is seeking solutions to make the system more reliable. Hong Kong aviation chief admits ‘more frequent’ glitches with new air traffic control system “We will not compromise any flight safety. If we see there is any risk to the system that will cause a safety implication, we will certainly think about switching back to the existing system,” Li said. The department said repeat failures of air traffic technology would mean more flights being delayed to “safeguard aviation safety”.<br/>
Ask a harried air traveller about the basics of modern flight, and you’ll probably elicit surprise when they discover commercial airplanes fly only as fast as they did in the 1950s. Given the range of aerospace advances in the past half-century, plus the technological leaps in almost every other area of human endeavor, it seems reasonable to ask: Why can’t we fly faster? That’s the question driving a startup called Boom Technology, which says it’s time to bring supersonic jet travel into the mainstream—in a modern way. The company is pursuing speed with an audacious idea: a 45-seat aircraft that cruises at Mach 2.2 (1,451 miles per hour), faster than the defunct Concorde and certainly faster than the standard 550 mph, with fares no more expensive than a current business-class round trip, which ranges between $5,000 and $10,000. Yet long before travellers can marvel at a quick hop across the Atlantic, Boom will need to sell the airlines not just on a technically disruptive aircraft, but also on one that can accomplish such feats of velocity cost-effectively. It must earn a solid profit—no middling returns allowed—and this, of course, has been a key reason the Concorde was an aberration rather than the harbinger of universal supersonic travel. Boom is likely to encounter deep skepticism in a conservative industry that still relies heavily on a fundamental airplane design devised 70 years ago. The major global airlines Boom will court operate with two cardinal maxims: It’s really hard to make money with small airplanes, and it’s really, really hard to make money with supersonic airplanes, which are renowned for their fuel inefficiency. “I have no problem seeing the demand for this airplane,” says Marty St. George, a JetBlue Airways executive and industry veteran. “The issue is can you do it and make the numbers work?”<br/>
Airbus has announced 1,164 job losses as it simplifies its business structure and seeks to cut costs. The layoffs will be tempered slightly by the creation of 230 jobs in other areas of the group as it continues its digital transformation. Airbus said the job losses will mainly affect support functions. The announcement includes the final stages in the move of its corporate headquarters from Paris and Munich to Toulouse. Overall, 325 jobs will move to the new HQ location. Airbus wants to negotiate “appropriate social measures” on the job losses by the middle of next year it said in a statement. “This is a logical and necessary step in our integration journey,” Airbus CE Tom Enders said. “The integration will ultimately strengthen Airbus in its ability to ensure future competitiveness and to remain a global leader in the aerospace industry.” Airbus Group announced in September it would merge with its commercial plane-making division in a move scheduled for completion in January 2017.<br/>