Lebanon monitored the brothers accused of plotting to blow up a flight from Sydney to Abu Dhabi for over a year and coordinated with the Australian government on it for a long time, the Lebanese interior minister said on Monday. Australian police this month charged Khaled Khayat and Mahmoud Khayat on two counts of planning a terrorist attack after conducting raids to disrupt what authorities described as an Islamic State-inspired plot to bomb an Etihad Airways flight. Lebanese Interior Minister Nohad Machnouk said that one of the men's brothers, Tareq Khayat, had moved to the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa in Syria and become a commander in the jihadist group more than a year ago. Lebanon's Internal Security Force (ISF) then placed Tareq, Khaled and Mahmoud Khayat, and a fourth brother Amer Khayat, under surveillance. Khaled, Mahmoud and Amer were all living in Australia but sometimes visited Lebanon, he said, speaking in Beirut. Machnouk said the brothers were Lebanese. Machnouk said that Amer Khayat had arrived in Lebanon on July 15, the day Australian police have said the plotters tried to smuggle a bomb onto a flight from Sydney to Abu Dhabi. Australian police had earlier said that a man had tried to check in luggage without knowing that it contained a bomb, hidden in a meat grinder, that his brother had given him. The plot was foiled because the luggage exceeded the airline's weight limit, Machnouk said.<br/>
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Before arriving at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, Joe Carella, the assistant dean of executive education at the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona’s Phoenix campus, checks the airport’s Facebook page. The airport also has a Twitter handle, @PHXSkyHarbor, with more than 21,000 followers. That account toggles between passenger needs and promotion of airport services. Over Memorial Day weekend, it mollified one passenger who complained about rudeness, and that was followed by another who wanted to know if PlayStation 4s are allowed in airplane cabins. (They are.) “The goal is to communicate with customers with timely relevant information and promote services,” said an airport spokeswoman. With airplanes often filled almost to the brim and air travel increasingly unpredictable, airports have begun using social media to communicate with passengers. The hope is to turn what the industry calls dwell time, the two to three hours that passengers spend between curbside check-in and boarding, into a positive experience — one that can be lucrative for the airport. “They want to make sure the passenger feels his or her time and money is well spent,” said Henry Harteveldt, a travel industry analyst at Atmosphere Travel Group. The most recent study on airports and social media, “The Power of Social Media for Airports,” conducted in 2013 by the management consultants LeighFisher, found that nearly a third of airports worldwide maintained Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts. European and Canadian airports were the leading users.<br/>
Already under pressure from discounters at home, major US airlines are facing a tighter squeeze abroad as low-cost rivals ramp up service across the Atlantic. At American Airlines Group, a measure of trans-Atlantic fares just plunged 9.1%, the most since right after the recession ended in 2009, as European budget carriers such as Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA added more flights. Delta also recorded a sharp drop in the same yardstick. United Continental eked out a tiny gain. While that’s great news for bargain-hunting travellers, it’s a blow for traditional airlines. The increased seat supply is dragging down fares in a lucrative overseas market just as a rebound in domestic pricing is starting to look shaky. American and United rattled investors last month when they forecast tepid revenue growth and signaled that an already tenuous grip on ticket prices was slipping. European discounters can hurt revenue at big US airlines “by taking incremental bookings and forcing them to lower their own fares,” said Michael Bentley of consulting firm Revenue Analytics. “I don’t see any reason why they can’t cause trouble with the major carriers.” American cited the low-cost competitors as it reported a second-quarter drop in the average fare per mile for Atlantic flights, while Delta blamed discounted leisure fares for its 7.1% decline. Trans-Atlantic yields have slumped at the two biggest US carriers since Q2 2015. United’s yield rose just 0.7%.<br/>
Beatrice Municipal Airport, nestled in the southeast corner of the farm-dotted state of Nebraska, normally gets a flight or two an hour. On Monday, because it’s located directly within the band of the sun’s total eclipse, US aviation officials installed a temporary air-traffic tower to handle as many as 200 planes expected to land there. "It’s probably the largest amount of traffic and aircraft that we’ve seen in one day," said Diana Smith, the airport manager. The US FAA has taken steps to keep up with expected high demand for eclipse viewers as well as ensuring that things like scientific balloons don’t interfere with flight paths. The agency installed four temporary air-traffic "towers" at airports in Oregon and Nebraska, including Beatrice, that are considered prime spots for viewing the eclipse. It also installed temporary radio equipment in Des Moines, Iowa, to support the effort. The agency is also issuing eclipse-specific notices to pilots to accommodate unusual activity in the skies Monday. The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration, in conjunction with researchers and colleges across the country, is launching almost 100 high-altitude balloons with camera and sensor packages to study the sun during the eclipse, and the agency needs to make sure they don’t come near high-altitude airline flight tracks.<br/>
Hundreds of holidaymakers have been left without their luggage after a failure at Gatwick Airport saw them arrive at their destinations bagless. Over the weekend, a number of bags were not put on flights leaving the North Terminal because of problems with the system. A Gatwick Airport spokesman said: "A small number of bags were not put on departing flights over the weekend due to an issue with the baggage system. The issue has since been rectified. Gatwick recognises the inconvenience that this issue has caused and would like to apologise to anyone affected. Passengers should contact their airline for the latest information on their missing luggage." A spokesman for easyJet said: "Due to a baggage belt failure at London Gatwick Airport yesterday, easyJet, like other airlines, experienced delays in the delivery of hold luggage to departing aircraft. This resulted in a number of flights departing without all of the luggage stowed in the hold." He added that the airline was working to return the luggage to passengers as soon as possible.<br/>
Research commissioned by Norwegian airports operator Avinor has concluded that 30% of Norway’s aviation fuel could be sustainable by 2030, but this depends on available funding. The report, by Danish consultancy firm Rambøll in partnership with research firms Vista Analyse and Sintef, looked at biofuel production technologies and the funding needed to make them a reality at Norwegian airports. Avinor, LCC Norwegian, Scandinavian carrier SAS and the Federation of Norwegian Aviation Industries were all involved in the project, along with potential biojet producers, funding agencies and environmental organizations. Fleet renewal and new technology play the biggest role in cutting emissions, but sustainable biofuels will help the industry go further. “A new report from Rambøll now shows that 30% or 400m litres of all aviation fuel used at Avinor’s airports could be sustainable by 2030. This fuel would be created from forestry waste and pulpwood from Norwegian forests,” Avinor said. However, limited production means the small amount of biofuel available is not competitively priced. “Achieving the target of a 30% blend, and the corresponding cut in emissions, would only be possible with the help of public funding,” the airports operator said. Increased production would also create new businesses and jobs.<br/>