general

An Islamist militant cell that last week used a van to kill 13 people in Barcelona had planned one or several major bomb attacks, possibly against churches or monuments, one suspect told a court on Tuesday, according to sources close to the investigation. They said the group was led by an imam who tutored its members in jihad and told them "martyrdom is a good thing, according to the Koran," Mohamed Houli Chemlal told a Spanish High Court judge. After a day-long hearing of four suspects in the plot, Judge Fernando Andreu late on Tuesday ordered Chemlal and a second defendant, Driss Oukabir, remanded on charges of membership of a terrorist group and murder. Chemlal was also charged with explosives possession. A third suspect, Salh El Karib, who ran an internet cafe in a northeastern Spanish town where most of the alleged members of the cell lived, will remain in police custody for now pending further investigation. The fourth man, Mohamed Aalla, was released on certain conditions. According to Judge Andreu's court order, in the ruins of the house in Alcanar, southwest of Barcelona, police found several plane tickets to Brussels in Es Satty's name issued by the Spanish airline Vueling. The air tickets will raise questions about possible links of the group to Belgium, where a number of Islamist militant plots have been hatched or carried out.<br/>

Hong Kong upgraded the storm warning to the highest for the first time in five years and canceled its morning trading session as Severe Typhoon Hato drew closer to the financial centre. The Hong Kong Observatory issued No. 10 Hurricane Signal at 9:10 a.m. local time. It’s the first time since Typhoon Vicente in July 2012 that the city has issued the highest storm warning. Should the signal remain in effect by noon, trading on the world’s fourth-largest equity market will be scrapped for the day, according to Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd. rules. At 9 a.m., Severe Typhoon Hato was centered about 80 km south of Hong Kong, the Observatory said. It is forecast to move west-northwest at about 25 kilometers per hour toward the vicinity of the Pearl River Estuary. Hato, named after the Japanese word for pigeon, is expected to skirt about 50 km to the south of Hong Kong in the coming few hours. About 420 flights have been canceled at Hong Kong International Airport, according to the Airport Authority. Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. said a majority of flights to and from Hong Kong between 6 a.m. and 5 p.m. on Wednesday have been suspended.<br/>

Authorities said they are questioning a man after he made a bomb threat at Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport early Tuesday that caused an evacuation and hours of delays for travelers. No bomb was found after an investigation, and no one was injured, officials said. The incident started about 1 a.m. when a man left his bag unattended at a baggage claim area, according to Deputy Bruce Bouch, a spokesman at the Maryland State Police Fire Marshal’s office. “He wanted to go back to get it,” Bouch said, and became frustrated when he was told he couldn’t go back into that area. It was not clear why he could not go back into the area. “He made a comment about it being a potential bomb involved,” Bouch said. At that point, officials “out of an abundance of caution” evacuated the A and B security areas of the airport. An X-ray and investigation of the man’s carry-on bag were conducted, and Bouch said an image that appeared “to look like a hand grenade device” was seen on the X-ray. A robot was sent to examine the package. When it was opened, nothing dangerous was found, officials said. “There was indeed no threat,” Bouch said. He said the image seen on the X-ray happens at times and is known as a “ghost image.” Five hours after passengers and employees were evacuated, they were let back into the areas.<br/>

A new international commercial service airport in Williston, North Dakota received a boost Aug. 21 when FAA awarded $20m in discretionary funds toward the project, as part of the US Department of Transportation (DOT)’s latest airport improvement program grants. Construction of the new Williston Basin International Airport broke ground in October 2016; the project—which will replace the city’s existing Sloulin Field International Airport—will cost an estimated $265m, of which $145m is expected to be federally funded. Much of the increased commercial air traffic in the region, located in northwest North Dakota, is driven by the state’s energy-related growth, as the city of Williston is located in the center of the Bakken Shale formation, “the largest continuous oil reserve ever assessed by the US Geological Survey,” according to the Sloulin Field website. The new airport is slated to open in late 2018-early 2019.<br/>

Britain's airports could see passenger numbers plunge by as much as 40% unless the government strikes an interim aviation deal with the European Union by October 2018, according to an industry report seen by Reuters Tuesday. The study, commissioned by leading British airports including London's Heathrow and Gatwick, said flights could be grounded and Britain's economy would be hit without a guarantee of future access to the EU's single aviation market. Britain is due to leave the EU in March 2019, but with many air passengers booking months in advance, the government needs to secure a deal well before then to reduce uncertainty, the report said. Unlike other areas, such as trade, there is no automatic fallback position if no deal is reached. In its most pessimistic scenario, the report said there could be a 41% plunge in passengers at Britain's biggest airports between March 2018 and March 2019. Its central scenario, assuming uncertainty over the status of flights, is for an 11.5% drop during that period. "The risk of no deal creates uncertainty for the industry," it said. "Although an 11th hour deal may prevent planes from being grounded, damage to the aviation industry and the wider economy would have already been done." Given what's a stake, however, it described the chances of Britain and the EU not achieving a deal as "remote".<br/>

A row over access for Qataris to Islam's annual haj pilgrimage is further poisoning relations between their country and Saudi Arabia and aggravating a wider diplomatic rift with other Arab powers. Qatar has accused Saudi Arabia, which hosts and supervises the haj, of deliberately making it hard for its pilgrims to obtain permits to go to Mecca. Saudi Arabia says Qatar is seeking to politicize the ritual for diplomatic gains. A deal last week to let some Qataris cross the desert border into Saudi Arabia appeared initially to signal an easing of tensions, but subsequently led to even more acrimonious exchanges. Many would-be Qatari pilgrims say they will not travel to the haj out of safety concerns, or because they fear becoming pawns in the political struggle. For Saudi Arabia, custodian of Islam's holiest places, much is at stake. The kingdom ventures its reputation on organizing haj, a pillar of Islam which every able-bodied Muslim who can afford to is obliged to undertake at least once. Qatar has also criticized a Saudi offer to fly Qataris to the haj on Saudi Arabia Airlines, rather than allowing Qatari or other carriers to take them to Mecca.<br/>

Pratt & Whitney’s $10b bet on a new jet engine is faltering after a troubled rollout, and buyers are rushing to a General Electric Co. model instead. The GE turbine has won 10 times as many orders this year to power a narrow-body Airbus SE plane on which the two suppliers compete head to head. Pratt has signed just one buyer in that span to supply its geared turbofan engine for the aircraft, according to data provided to Bloomberg by Flight Ascend Consultancy. The figures paint a stark picture for Pratt and parent United Technologies, which billed the so-called GTF as a technological breakthrough that was supposed to help reverse GE’s recent market dominance. Instead, weak demand for the engine is fueling doubts about the long-term payoff of Pratt’s most important product. “It reflects a concern about the engine and where it’s going to go from its rather checkered start,” said aviation consultant Robert Mann. The GTF has “had its share of teething problems and those have yet to be sorted out. And even if sorted out, it’s delaying a lot of aircraft deliveries. It gives people who made the initial choice of the GTF pause.” Customers’ decisions about engines for the Airbus A320neo are crucial, because of the one-on-one matchup with GE and the plane’s importance for airlines. Along with the Boeing 737, the single-aisle A320 family is a workhorse of the global jetliner fleet, far outnumbering the wide-bodies used on long-haul routes. The A320neo, Airbus’s latest version of the aircraft, will be flying for decades. That represents a long-term revenue stream for engine makers, which rely partly on service deals to recoup heavy initial investments.<br/>

With little fanfare, Airbus SE is about to mark an unusual milestone in aviation: simultaneous production of the same aircraft on three continents. The company will hand over the first A320 to roll out of its Mobile, Alabama, assembly plant on Aug. 25, meaning North America will join Europe and Asia in producing the most popular airliner in the world. The Alabama facility opened in 2015 and has thus far produced three dozen of Airbus’s larger A321. The first US-built A320 will be handed over Friday to Spirit Airlines, which has ordered 98 of the planes. By year’s end, Airbus plans to reach a production rate of four aircraft per month at the Mobile facility. “The sun never sets on Airbus manufacturing!” company spokeswoman Mary Anne Greczyn wrote in an email. “Internationalization, coming closer to our customers, and a global industrial footprint are part of our overall strategy.” Airbus opened its first assembly plant outside Europe in 2008 in Tianjin, China, where it produces A319s and A320s; European A320 production takes place in Toulouse, France. The European company is also building a completion center in Tianjin for wide-body A330 models.<br/>

Every traveler has a story to tell. This is just as true of the Ark at JFK, the gleaming new animal transportation center at Kennedy International Airport, as it is at the human passenger terminals. Eight months after its high-profile opening, the Ark — nestled along the winding back roads of Kennedy’s cargo country among mysterious boxy buildings and power plants — is starting to live up to its name. In addition to cats and dogs and goats and horses, the Ark has hosted a potbellied pig who needed a place to wait after missing a connecting flight, 235 racing pigeons that got stranded for three days, and an agouti, a giant 8-pound rodent that the Minnesota Zoo was shipping to the Bermuda Zoo. The Ark replaced the airport’s old animal terminal, Vetport, a run-down barn a couple of miles away. Among frequent animal shippers, the Vetport is not mourned. “It was an abomination,” said Paul Weygand of Mersant International, a courier with offices just outside the airport’s border. “I literally had rats run across my feet.”<br/>

Auckland International Airport lifted annual profit 27% with growth from domestic and international passengers, and expects underlying earnings growth in 2018. Net profit rose to NZ$332.9m in the year ended June 30, from $262.4m a year earlier, the company said. Underlying earnings advanced 17% to $247.8m on a 9.7% revenue lift to $629.3m, while expenses rose 8.8% to $156.2m. The company expects underlying profit for 2018 between $248m and $257m, which would deliver underlying earnings per share growth of up to 3.7% compared with the 2017 financial year's underlying EPS of 20.8 cents, and would include the impact of its new aeronautical prices introduced in the financial year. "The 2017 financial year was another strong year of growth right across our business with the company continuing to focus on upgrading its airport infrastructure, growing and supporting tourism and providing the best possible customer experience during a time of significant change," chair Henry van der Hayden said.<br/>