Global demand for air travel rose 4.8% in February, thanks to lower fares and improving economies, with no major impact from an attempted US travel ban, IATA said Thursday. Tourism bodies have warned that travel to the US could slow this year due to a perception that it is less welcoming to travellers than before. "Although we remain concerned over the impact of any travel restrictions or closing of borders, we have not seen the attempted US ban on travel from 6 countries translate into an identifiable traffic trend," IATA DG Alexandre de Juniac said. Middle Eastern carriers, among the most affected by the attempted travel restrictions, saw demand rise 9.5% in February. Overall, capacity in February increased 2.7%, leading to the load factor rising 1.6 percentage points to 79.5 %. <br/>
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Building on its record seat deliveries in 2016, aircraft seating specialist Recaro Aircraft Seating is planning to double its Chinese production rates in 2017. Recaro delivered over 100,000 seats in 2016, setting a new record across its 4 production sites—including a record 5,000 passenger seats in one month at its Poland site. Currently the company manufactures around 30,000 seats per year at each of its facilities in Germany, Poland and the US. In 2016, Recaro’s newest site in Qingdao, China doubled its production to 10,000 seats. Recaro CE Mark Hiller said Chinese production will again be doubled to 20,000 seats in 2017 based on booked orders. The seating specialist is also investing E13.5m (US$14.3m) in a new 6,000-sq m logistics centre at the company’s Schwaebisch Hall headquarters. This will open at the end of 2017. <br/>
US military officials next month will meet with their counterparts in the airline industry to discuss how the Pentagon and commercial airlines can work together to deal with a nationwide pilot shortage, the head of Air Mobility Command said Wednesday. "We have competing resources," general Carlton Everhart said, referring to the military and the airline industry. "So how do we complement each other instead of competing against each other? And that is one of the objectives of this meeting." The head of Air Mobility Command said he stands to potentially lose 1,600 pilots who are eligible to separate from the service in the next 4 years. The command, which provides airlift and transport services, is among the first place civilian airlines look for potential hires. <br/>