Airlines need a clear view of how Britain's exit from the European Union will affect aviation by October next year at the latest, the head of a leading airline industry body said on Wednesday. "Brexit is not good news for aviation," said Alexandre de Juniac, head of the IATA, in Taipei. De Juniac said IATA flagged immediately that aviation was a key sector and that talks had to be done quickly, but expressed concern that negotiations had not begun. "We sell the tickets one year in advance, we put the programme in place six months in advance, so at the latest we should have a clear vision of what is going to happen in October 2018," he said. Flying rights are currently governed by EU-wide deals and because it is not part of the WTO, the aviation sector has no natural fallback arrangement to protect flights if there is no deal between Britain and the EU. De Juniac also said he had warned Britain it would not be an easy process, because some countries may want to restrict access of its carriers. "I told them if I were you, I wouldn't be very comfortable because if I were the guy from France or Germany seeing that the UK based companies had problems," he said. "Frankly it is good for Air France KLM and Lufthansa seeing if easyJet has problems with access." <br/>
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The Asia-Pacific region must urgently step up investment in infrastructure to meet rapidly increasing demand for air travel, the global airline industry's trade body said Wednesday. "We are headed for a major infrastructure crisis," said Alexandre de Juniac, head of the IATA. He said the 34m jobs and $700b of economic activity supported by aviation across the Asia-Pacific region are expected to more than double in the next 20 years. "But the realisation of these economic benefits is at risk if the region does not address the big long-term challenges of sustainability, infrastructure and regulatory harmonisation," said de Juniac, speaking at an industry conference held in Taiwan, according to an IATA statement. The number of passengers is expected to nearly double in the next two decades according to IATA's latest forecasts, with half of that growth expected to be in the Asia-Pacific region, meaning it faces a "difficult challenge" in ensuring the development of adequate infrastructure. While a number of airports have plans in place, de Juniac said others such as Bangkok, Manila and Jakarta are among those that need major upgrades. He also said Chinese air traffic management is struggling to cope with growth, while high costs at India's privatised airports are burdening the industry.<br/>
Five global long-haul airlines will begin new security interviews of all passengers on US-bound flights starting Thursday at the request of American officials, the companies said Wednesday. Long-haul carriers Air France, Cathay Pacific, EgyptAir, Emirates, and Lufthansa all said they’d start the screenings. However, the airlines offered different descriptions of how the interviews would take place, ranging from another form a traveler would have to fill out to actually being questioned by an airline employee. It wasn’t immediately clear if other global airlines would be affected, though the Trump administration previously rolled out a laptop ban and travel bans that have thrown the international travel industry into disarray. The US Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment. However, it comes at the end of a 120-day deadline for airlines to meet new US regulations following the ban on laptops in airplane cabins of some Mideast airlines being lifted. Air France said it will begin new security interviews on Thursday at Paris Orly Airport and a week later, on Nov. 2, at Charles de Gaulle Airport. Story has more specific details of airlines' responses.<br/>
Auckland International Airport has talked up the "fair balance" it struck in setting out a $1.8b infrastructure spending programme which chief executive Adrian Littlewood says is probably the most significant since its original development in the 1960s. The $1.8b investment in aeronautical infrastructure over the next five years came after a long period where airlines and the wider community were consulted on the airport's future needs and what its operations and pricing priorities should be, Littlewood told shareholders at today's annual meeting in Manukau. Over that period the airport will cut the average annual international passenger charge by 1.7% and hike the equivalent domestic fee by 0.8% to help fund three more contact gates for international aircraft, a new domestic jet terminal, expanded border processing area and public arrivals space, and upgrades to international check-in. "It is a responsibility to our customers we treat with care, but we are also balancing many other expectations - including those of you, our shareholders, looking for a fair return on a major investment programme," Littlewood said in speech notes published on the stock exchange. "We believe we have struck a fair balance in our investment and pricing decisions for the next five years." The programme has already been criticised by the airlines' umbrella group - the Board of Airlines Representatives - as only benefiting airport shareholders, something Littlewood has previously played down. <br/>
Airbus has expressed its interest in cooperating with its Indonesian counterpart, state-owned aircraft company PT Dirgantara Indonesia, to establish an aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul facility in Indonesia, a senior minister has said. “We talked about the cooperation in the aircraft industry. They [the Airbus representatives] want to have an aircraft maintenance facility in Indonesia,” said Maritime Affairs Coordinating Minister Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan as reported by tribunnews.com after meeting with Airbus representatives at his office in Jakarta on Tuesday. “They are seriously considering cooperating with PT DI.” Luhut said the establishment of such a facility was needed because it is believed that many more planes that were produced by Airbus, whose base was in Toulouse, France, would be operated in the country. Luhut said although the company particularly had their eye on maintenance service for military planes, they also considered expanding the business to serve commercial planes.<br/>