Storm-hit Houston airports George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) and William P. Hobby (HOU) will reopen for limited operations on Wednesday at 4 p.m. CT, days after deadly flooding from Tropical Storm Harvey forced them to close. “It’s going to be a phased process that will begin with limited domestic flights,” said Houston Airports System spokesman Bill Begley, adding that only a “handful” of flights will be offered Wednesday. Air services in the region had been crippled since Friday by the storm, as historic flooding swallowed roads leading into airports and created dangerous travel conditions. By Wednesday, conditions had improved, but enough problems persisted to only allow for very limited service. United, which has cancelled thousands of flights as a result of the storm, said it would resume limited hub-to-hub flying on Wednesday with three inbound and three outbound flights at Bush Intercontinental. American Airlines said it would not resume flights at Bush Intercontinental until Thursday, Aug. 31, and at Hobby until Friday, Sept. 1. Flights on Southwest, one of the region’s largest carriers, remain suspended at Hobby through noon on Saturday, Sept. 2. Government officials said they do not expect full operations to ramp up until next week. <br/>
general
A potent cocktail of rising costs and falling returns are behind declining first-half core profits at China’s largest airlines, in a sign of the stronger headwinds they face as they compete to expand their route networks. The state-owned airlines serve the world’s fastest growing air travel market but their margins are being dampened by their aggressive expansion of plane fleets and unhedged positions on fuel which has made them vulnerable to a 28 percent rise in price over the period. Air China and China Southern Airlines respectively posted a 3.8% and 11.6% decline in profits. China Eastern Airlines’s profit rose 34.5%, but this was boosted by a sale of its air freight unit. Costs grew significantly, with China Southern saying that its flight operation expenses rose by 30.5% while China Eastern’s operating expenses increased by 11.7% on a 45% jump in its total aircraft fuel costs. “We forecast pre-exceptional earnings to continue to decline as Chinese airlines struggle to pass through the higher costs,” Jefferies analyst Andrew Lee said. Juneyao Airlines, one of China’s largest private carriers, similarly blamed higher fuel costs for its 12% fall in H1 net profit. Yields on international routes in particular declined over the period for the three big airlines. Apart from capacity expansion, analysts also said cancellation of lucrative routes to South Korea as Beijing pressured South Korea over Seoul’s deployment of a US missile defence system, played a role. <br/>
Mexico is trying to crack down on airline fees and flight delays. The carriers are having none of it. Mexico’s consumer-protection agency fined five airlines including JetBlue a combined 22.4m pesos ($1.27m) for alleged transgressions such as charging fliers for their first checked bag. The entity, not known for taking on major corporations, is also monitoring whether airlines comply with a new requirement to compensate passengers when flights have major delays. The question is whether Profeco, as the regulator is known, can make the fines stick -- and defeat a legal challenge by the airlines in Mexican courts. The carriers are still charging for luggage on flights to the US and Canada, saying an international treaty supersedes the new laws. The companies declined to say if they’ve paid any levies Profeco has assessed. That makes Mexico City the latest front in the clash between passengers’ rights and airline fees. “This case is pitting the airlines’ economic freedom to do business against a large part of the population that uses these services,” said Julio Salazar, the legal director at Power to the Consumer, an advocacy organization that supports the effort to restrict the fees. “A4A has engaged with both Mexican and U.S. government officials to express our concerns on the effect of the new regulations regarding checked baggage fees on the US-Mexico air services agreement,” said Kathy Allen, an A4A spokeswoman. “We remain committed to ensuring that the rights of US carriers are being honoured.”<br/>
Luton airport has been named the worst in the UK for the fifth consecutive year, after passengers branded it a “rip-off” charging penny-pinching prices despite constant overcrowding. The Bedfordshire hub received a score of 29%, the lowest ever in the annual airports survey carried out by Which? consumer group. Home to short-haul airlines easyJet and Monarch, London Luton has been undergoing a GBP110m expansion Doncaster Sheffield notched up the top overall score (87%) in the poll of passengers’ experiences of the UK’s 31 airport terminals, published on Thursday in Which? Travel. Disgruntled Luton users gave the hub the lowest possible score – one star out of five – in five of the 10 categories, including queues at security, range of shops and food outlets, provision of seating, toilet facilities and staff helpfulness. In the other five, Luton garnered only two stars – queues for bag drop, check-in and security control, shop prices and baggage reclaim. Which? said: “The £110m Luton expansion project, which began last year and aims to increase capacity by 50% by 2020, cannot have helped the appallingly low customer satisfaction score of 29%.<br/>
Wellington Airport has become the first in the country to reach a deal with Uber, allowing drivers with the ride-sharing company to pick up and drop off passengers from a specific area of the airport. Starting this Friday, Uber is allowed to operate within the airport grounds. Riders can be dropped off in the public drop-off zone outside the check-in area and Uber drivers will have a designated area where they will be able to pick up customers from. Uber will charge an additional $3 for airport rides, both pick-ups and drop-offs. This money will be collected on behalf of the airport company and is the same fee taxi drivers are charged. Uber remains unable to operate in Auckland and Christchurch airport grounds.<br/>