Those seat-back screens that have long been part of in-flight entertainment systems are preparing to depart from many airplanes, experts say, and will gradually be replaced by content streamed to passengers’ electronic devices through improved wireless service. But as with a delayed flight, don’t expect the changes to take off in a hurry. For airlines, the switch would save money and cater to customers’ changing viewing habits, which rely increasingly on tablets and smartphones, William Hoppe, the leader of travel, logistics and hospitality at Intelenet Global Services, said in an email. Jon Cobin, the CCO at Gogo, which provides Wi-Fi service on more than 2,900 commercial planes, said in an email that “virtually everyone is connected at all times on the ground today.” “That behaviour doesn’t change when you get in the air,” he added. With built-in screens, airliners provide passengers with a set menu of content through boxes that power the in-flight entertainment system. The screens appeared in their most primitive form in the late 1980s with a few movies played on a loop. By the early 2000s, they had advanced to allow passengers to make choices on demand. By streaming content over wireless systems, passengers will have a wider array of content and the carriers will not have to maintain screens because passengers will bring their own portable devices on board. Figures for how many planes are solely equipped to stream content were not available. But screens are “definitely decreasing in popularity,” and most new plane models do not include them, Hoppe said.<br/>
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Building a new A$5b (US$3.86b) airport in Sydney is not economically feasible without government aid, the operator of the existing airport in the Australian city said on Thursday, raising doubts about its likely participation in the project. "On the present terms, it is a deeply uneconomic investment proposition," Kerrie Mather, chief executive of Sydney Airport Holdings Ltd, said at an earnings briefing, referring to the airport proposed to be built in the western outskirts of Australia's largest city. "It would be decades before you see reasonable cashflows on a very significant outlay. Perhaps it does make sense for the government to be playing a role in that," Mather said. Sydney Airport has first right of refusal to build the airport, which the Australian government hopes will boost inbound air passenger numbers to Sydney by about a quarter, or 10m people per year, from current levels within five to 10 years of opening. It has until May 8 to take up its development rights. If Sydney Airport declines, the government can build the airport itself or offer the development to other groups, such as pension funds and infrastructure funds. But that would mean losing its monopoly status in Australia's most populous city when the new airport opens in a decade. Being a monopoly has helped it charge the highest landing fees in Australia and generate large sums of cash, endearing it to investors.<br/>
A walk out by ground staff at Berlin’s Tegel and Schönefeld airports caused the cancellation of over 200 flights on Thursday. The Verdi union called the strike from 16:00 until 22:00 in support of a wage claim for an increase in hourly rates of one euro. The union says workers currently receive about EUR€11 an hour. Tegel saw cancellations of around 150 flights and Schönefeld over 50. Other flights were delayed or diverted to other airports during the work stoppage. The union said there were more than 2,000 workers at the two airports covered by the collective bargaining agreement. The agreement applies to all ground service companies at both airports. The airport operator requested passengers to contact their airline as there was still some disruption to services after the strike ended. There may also be some minor disruption to services on Friday morning.<br/>
It was about 8:20 a.m. on Monday morning and there was a bustle of passengers in the departure hall of Kuala Lumpur airport's budget terminal when the two women moved in on Kim Jong Nam, estranged half-brother of North Korea's leader. A few steps away from a Starbucks cafe and a Puffy Buffy Malaysian food stall, one of the women stood in front of their quarry to distract him. Her accomplice approached from behind, pulled a cloth drenched in some chemical from a blue handbag, reached around his head and clamped it onto his face. That was enough to deliver a deadly poison to the portly 46-year-old relative of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, according to a senior Malaysian government source and Malaysian police official Fadzil Ahmat, who both spoke to Reuters. After the attack, Kim Jong Nam approached a help desk and explained that someone seemed to have grabbed or held his face and now he felt dizzy. He was taken to the Menara Medical Clinic, a small glass-fronted surgery one floor down near the arrivals area. "He still felt unwell there, so they decided to send him to the hospital, and he died in the ambulance on the way to Putrajaya Hospital," said Ahmat. Media reports said the two women fled the airport in taxis. Malaysian officials have publicly released little about the killing. Indeed, it was 36 hours after the murder before they acknowledged it had happened, and then only after the news was broken by South Korean media. Story has more details.<br/>
Bombardier ended 2016 with higher revenues, margins and aircraft deliveries than forecast. Ramp-up of CSeries airliner production is on track with the company’s turnaround plan, Bombardier president and CEO Alain Bellemare said as the company’s 2016 full-year results were posted Feb. 16. Overall, Bombardier ended 2016 with better-than-expected revenues of $16.3b, versus $18.2b the previous year, and earnings of $427m before interest, taxes and special items. The net loss was $981m. For Q4, the company posted revenues of $4.4b versus $5b the previous year and a net loss of $259m.<br/>