Boeing Co said Wednesday it had booked firm orders for 80 of its 737 MAX 8 aircraft, valued at US$8.8b at list prices, upping its 2016 tally but leaving it short of its goal. The orders mean the plane maker clinched at least 536 net jetliner sales last year compared with its target of selling as many commercial jets as it delivers, a total it puts between 745 and 750. Through November, Boeing had delivered 681 planes. Boeing's order tally could climb again Friday, as the company posts its final update for 2016. The company has orders equivalent to about 7 years of production, but the majority are single-aisle 737 planes, and sales of its more expensive widebodies like the 777 remain sluggish. <br/>
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New York governor Andrew Cuomo Wednesday unveiled a US$10b plan to improve John F. Kennedy International, the latest piece of a costly infrastructure initiative the Democratic governor is pushing this year. The plan calls for road expansions in the area, modernising a Long Island Rail Road station connecting to JFK, new security measures, expanding and building new terminals so they become interconnected, and raising the number of flights out of the airport. The Van Wyck Expressway that services the airport would widen from 3 lanes to 4 in both directions, and the Kew Gardens Interchange, a busy junction leading to the airport, would also be expanded. The plan also calls for an overhaul to the Jamaica LIRR station in Queens, and for AirTrain service, a railway to the airport, to be doubled from 2 to 4 cars per train. <br/>
In the wake of the arrest of a pilot who was tested at 3 times the legal alcohol limit before he was removed from a cockpit in Calgary, Canada’s transport minister is addressing confusion among airlines and regulators about measures to ensure pilots are fit to be behind the controls of aircraft with hundreds of passengers on board. The federal transport minister, Marc Garneau, is said to be “very concerned” by the incident in Calgary. "In order to ensure the highest safety standards, he is writing to all passenger airline companies that operate in Canada asking them to confirm that their protocols and Safety Management Systems are up to date and being enforced with all required resources, including measures designed to confirm pilots’ fitness to fly,” Garneau’s director of communications, wrote Wednesday. <br/>
Hadi Sirika, minister of aviation, says Nigeria will have a very strong, viable national airline before the end of 2017. Wednesday, Sirika said the project would be private sector driven, and the federal govt may own only 3% of the airline. “When we came in we were very clear on our targets and goals and what we set out to achieve, and we did say that Nigeria does need a national airline. The national airline will be one that the govt will have no hand in; normally it can have 3%,” he said. “It will be private sector-led, private sector-driven. Except with the Ethiopian airline it has been proven that govt doesn’t do well with this kind of venture.” He said the carrier is necessary, considering the size of the market available in west and central Africa — equivalent to that of the US and Europe. <br/>
Dubai International witnessed a 9.4% increase in passenger traffic throughout Nov 2016, according to the monthly report issued Wednesday by operator Dubai Airports. The airport registered a total of 6,581,805 passengers in November, compared to 6,013,911 passengers during the same month in 2015. Up until that point in the year, traffic at Dubai international totalled 75,947,899 passengers, up 7% compared to 70,961,598 passengers recorded during the first 11 months of the year in 2015. The report also revealed that throughout November, the top regions in terms of percentage growth were Eastern Europe, which saw 26.5% growth as a destination, Asia (17.3%), followed by the GCC (17%). That same month, London, Doha, Mumbai and Riyadh were the top destination cities, in that order. <br/>