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The EU proposed new rules Thursday to more effectively tackle alleged unfair competitive practices by foreign airlines as it seeks to ensure European carriers can withstand fierce competition overseas. The move comes after repeated complaints from some European airlines, notably Air France KLM and Lufthansa , about Gulf carriers receiving illegal government subsidies, charges Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad all deny. The proposal, which needs to be approved by the European Parliament and EU member states before becoming law, would allow EU governments and airlines to submit complaints to the EC about any alleged discriminatory practices they face in non-EU countries or illegal subsidies benefiting non-EU airlines. Should the Commission find that the practices of a third country or airline are causing injury, or threat of injury, to European airlines it will be able to impose financial penalties or suspend some ground and other services, but not flights, and rights of the overseas airline in Europe. "We want to ensure that Europe remains a leader in international aviation, well connected to fast-growing markets, with efficient European skies," EU Transport Commissioner Violeta Bulc said. The proposal will not interfere with bilateral air services agreements between countries setting out where and how often airlines can fly. "In aviation there is never going to be a level playing field," an EU official said. "We're not here to protect those airlines if they have not put in place a good business model."<br/>

Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao distanced herself from President Donald Trump’s searing assessment of the US air-traffic system in her testimony before a House committee on a plan to strip it out of government. "They are protecting our safety," Chao said Thursday in response to a lawmaker’s question about Trump’s criticism of the performance of the Federal Aviation Administration’s air-traffic controllers. "Those are not my words." Chao stood with Trump on Monday at a White House ceremony in which he endorsed splitting off the FAA’s air-traffic system and placing it under a non-profit corporation. The president repeatedly attacked the existing system. He called it “horrible," saying it had wasted billions of dollars and used outdated technology. He contended its leaders didn’t know what they were doing. "You stood right there next to him and yet what we’re hearing from you today is a little different,” Representative Dina Titus, a Nevada Democrat, said to Chao at a hearing before the House transportation committee. "So I’d like to go back over some of the things and see who we should believe." "I believe that the FAA is doing a good job," Chao said. She was testifying at a House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hearing and stopped short of directly criticising her new boss in the White House. Chao is a long-time Republican loyalist. She has vigorously defended the Trump plan at two Congressional hearings in two days, sometimes under aggressive opposition from lawmakers of both parties. “It’s a big step,” she told the House committee Thursday. “But after 30 years of debate, we believe the country is ready.”<br/>

Airbus said the next UK government must guarantee the planemaker’s ability to move people between plants in Britain and continental Europe in order to safeguard the long-term future of production in the country. It’s also vital for aerospace manufacturing to remain exempt from import duties once Britain quits the EU, Airbus CEO Tom Enders said Thursday. He spoke just as polls closed following the UK general election. Airbus employs 15,000 people in Britain at sites including the giant Broughton plant in north Wales, which makes wings for all of the company’s jets. The manufacturer also has a wing-design facility at Filton, in southwest England, as well as space and satellite factories in Portsmouth on the south coast and at Stevenage near London. “We are a company that obviously has an interest in a free flow of people,” Enders said. “Mobility between our sites in Europe is crucial. Sending people from Toulouse to Broughton, from Broughton to Hamburg and so on, that is very important.” While the UK sites are among the most efficient in the entire group, “any tariff barriers could also potentially impact the competitiveness of our activities in Britain,” the CEO warned. Enders added that while he’s hopeful the new British administration will understand the “huge importance” of the aerospace and defense industry to the country, there can be no certainties. <br/>

Delays to the first flight of Airbus SE’s revamped A330neo jetliner stem from an unexpected requirement for extra testing of the model’s Rolls-Royce Holdings engines, according to the planemaker. Rolls-Royce is struggling to find the capacity on its test-beds to complete the extra trials, Airbus’s head of programs, Didier Evrard, said in an interview. That has pushed back the jet’s inaugural flight from spring to late summer, with service entry now scheduled for the end of the first half of 2018. While the A330neo’s Trent 7000 turbine is derived from an engine already used on the Boeing Co. 787, Rolls-Royce added ducts that will divert, or “bleed,” hot air over the Airbus plane’s wings for de-icing purposes. The Boeing aircraft employs a completely different cold-weather system featuring embedded heating mats. “The main issue is not the product itself, it’s the workload at Rolls-Royce and, particularly, the testing capacity,” Evrard said. “We have added some functions like the bleed function, which is not on the 787, so you have to go on the whole development cycle again. This requires a lot of testing to certify the engine.” Rolls-Royce said that it is continuing to work closely with Airbus on the A330neo program and that it aims to dispatch the initial set of Trent 7000 engines “in the coming days.” <br/>

Boeing is looking ahead to a brave new world where jetliners fly without pilots and aims to test some of the technology next year, the plane maker said. The idea may seem far-fetched but with self-flying drones available for less than $1,000, "the basic building blocks of the technology clearly are available," said Mike Sinnett, Boeing's VP of product development. Jetliners can already take off, cruise and land using their onboard flight computers and the number of pilots on a standard passenger plane has dropped to two from three over the years. Sinnett, a pilot himself, plans to test the technology in a cockpit simulator this summer and "fly on an airplane next year some artificial intelligence that makes decisions that pilots would make", he said. Self-flying aircraft would need to meet the safety standards of air travel, which had its safest year in 2016, according to the Aviation Safety Network. They would also need to convince regulators who don't yet know how to certify such planes. "I have no idea how we're going to do that," Sinnett said. "But we're studying it right now and we're developing those algorithms." Airlines are among those backing the idea, in part to deal with a projected need for 1.5m pilots over the next 20 years as global demand for air travel continues to grow.<br/>