Houston’s airports began trudging back into operation Wednesday, with the first commercial traffic in three days offering a faint symbol of recovery from the devastation of Hurricane Harvey. United and Delta started service and others are expected to soon follow suit. But so far, it’s just a trickle. United, which has a major hub at George Bush Intercontinental Airport, is initially scheduling three daily arrivals and three departures. On a typical day, 480 United flights take off. The slow pace reflects what’s likely to be a slog of a rebound for most businesses in Harvey’s deadly path. After more than 50 inches of rain, Houston is a city of islands. Flood levels were dropping as the sun came out but some neighborhoods remain swamped. Whether companies can function depends largely on the luck of location. “It’s a tale of two cities,” said Andrew Segal, CEO of Boxer Property Management Co., which owns or manages 55 office buildings in Houston. “If you’re flooded and lost power, it’s horrible. If not, you’re back to work in a day or two.”<br/>
general
Travellers and fuel suppliers across the US braced for higher prices and shortages ahead of the Labor Day holiday weekend as the country's biggest fuel pipelines and refineries curb operations after Hurricane Harvey. Just six days after Harvey slammed into the heart of the U.S. energy industry in Texas, the effects are being felt not just in Houston, but also in Chicago and New York, and prices at the pump nationwide have hit a high for the year.<br/>Supply shortages have developed even though there are nearly a quarter of a billion barrels of gasoline stockpiled in the United States. But much of it is held in places where it cannot be accessed due to massive floods, or too far away from the places it is needed. Some of it is unfinished, meaning it needs to be blended before it can go to gas stations. Harvey has highlighted another weakness in the system: pipeline terminals typically only have a five-day supply in storage to load into the lines. Jet fuel supplies are also threatened. <br/>
Cockpit crew representatives are urging pilots to stay disciplined and alert during ground manoeuvring at Toronto Pearson airport after a series of runway incursions at the hub. Most incursions have taken place during operations involving the closely-spaced parallel runways 06R/24L and 06L/24R, says the International Federation of Air Line Pilots' Associations. It says 10 specific "hotspots", where the risk of incursion is particularly high, are shown on diagrams for the airport, which features a complicated set of controlled and uncontrolled taxiways. IFALPA says its partner association, ALPA, is strongly advising crews to review the airport information and "remain vigilant at all times", and to request clarification of instructions prior to crossing runways – particularly when the parallels are in operation. Transportation Safety Board of Canada has opened a probe into the incursion situation at Toronto over the five years to June 2017 in order to identify underlying safety issues.<br/>
Boeing Training and Professional Services has commissioned a 737 Max 8 full-flight simulator at its Singapore campus, which will be joined by a 787-9 simulator in November. The additional two simulators join five others at the facility – two 787-8 sims, two 737NG sims and one 777-300 sim – making it Boeing's largest simulator centre in Asia-Pacific. Speaking to reporters during a media briefing, Patrick Curtin, Boeing Singapore's head of campus operations, said the 2007-built facility was expecting a similar degree of demand from the region's carriers for widebody and narrowbody pilot training. "The 787 has been selling really well, and there is not much difference between demand for widebody and single-aisle training," he says. When queried, Boeing declined to provide figures on the expected annual number of pilots that it can train from the Singapore facility. The campus serves 90 airline customers across its flight, maintenance and cabin-crew courses. They include Biman Bangladesh, Korean Air, and Scoot, while SilkAir, which will take its first of 37 Max 8s in November, is a major customer for the new simulator, Curtin adds. He says Boeing could expand its Singapore campus to to add more simulators in future if demand requires it, but for now the company is focusing on "optimising" the resources it already has.<br/>
The 12 remaining Thai-registered carriers that were unable to get their licences re-certified by Thursday's deadline could face significant financial losses, analysts said. They are expected to feel the pinch as the Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand (CAAT) started banning their international air services from today. The effects are likely to vary depending on a range of factors including how long the CAAT takes to get the air operator certificates (AOCs) re-issued and how strong each airline's financial status is to weather the grounding time, analysts said. Other factors include their reliance on international flight business and whether they can get their business on track when the licences are settled, they added. K-Mile Thailand, the air cargo operator that is 45%-owned by Dublin-based ASL Aviation Group and which operates out of Suvarnabhumi airport, will have to completely suspend its international air-freight-lifting business, its sole operation. Thai-registered airlines that rely mostly on international flights, mostly on a charter basis, are due to suffer the most if their licensing paperwork falls short. Story has more details about who is affected.<br/>