general

Airlines recorded zero accident deaths in commercial passenger jets last year, according to a Dutch consulting firm and an aviation safety group that tracks crashes, making 2017 the safest year on record for commercial air travel. Dutch aviation consulting firm To70 and the Aviation Safety Network both reported Monday there were no commercial passenger jet fatalities in 2017. "2017 was the safest year for aviation ever," said Adrian Young of To70. To70 estimated that the fatal accident rate for large commercial passenger flights is 0.06 per million flights, or one fatal accident for every 16m flights. The Aviation Safety Network also reported there were no commercial passenger jet deaths in 2017, but 10 fatal airliner accidents resulting in 44 fatalities onboard and 35 persons on the ground, including cargo planes and commercial passenger turbo prop aircraft. That figure includes 12 people killed on Dec. 31 when a Nature Air Cessna 208B Grand Caravan aircraft crashed minutes after takeoff into a mountainous area off the beach town of Punta Islita, Costa Rica. In comparison, there were 16 accidents and 303 deaths in 2016 among airliners. The deadliest incident last year occurred in January when a Turkish cargo jet smashed into a village in Kyrgyzstan as it tried to land at a nearby airport in dense fog, killing 35 on the ground and all four onboard. The Aviation Safety Network said 2017 was "the safest year ever, both by the number of fatal accidents as well as in terms of fatalities."<br/>

Heathrow has slashed the airport charges for passengers on internal routes, as it expands with a new runway while positioning itself as a domestic flight hub. The discount has been increased by 50%, and passengers will pay GBP15 less when flying between UK airports. It will save fliers GBP40m a year, and Heathrow has committed to keeping it for 20 years, at a cost of more than GBP750m. The airport said this saving was part of a raft of measures designed to support the creation of more domestic flights, making the routes more commercially viable for airlines. Heathrow already has flights to eight cities in the UK, and easyJet and Flybe have suggested they will add more to destinations such as Liverpool and Newquay. It is aiming to have 14 domestic connections when the airport expands in 2025. The airport has also created a £10m fund to provide capital for five new domestic routes. John Holland-Kaye, Heathrow’s CE, said: “Every corner of our country should be able to benefit from the growth and trade that stems from links to the nation’s hub airport – that’s why Heathrow is making it cheaper to fly within the UK.” Heathrow is also campaigning for the abolition of air passenger duty on domestic flights, which would save passengers a total of GBP225m a year, and is lobbying the Government to use new powers created when the UK leaves the EU to ring-fence slots for domestic flights.<br/>

Incheon International Airport's second terminal will open on Jan. 18, a step closer to completing the final stage by 2030. Under the slogan "Take-off: the second chapter," Incheon International Airport Corporation will unveil the terminal to the public at a "grand opening" on Jan. 12. The terminal's third-phase is already complete. Costing more than 4.9 trillion won (US$4.59b), work on the terminal began in 2009. Once the fourth phase ― laying the tarmac for runways and connecting roads and building the airport apron ― is completed, the airport will be complete, with the first and second terminals representing two Oriental phoenixes facing each other. On opening day, the first flight arrival will be a Korean flight from New York, followed by an outbound Korean flight for Manila. The terminal boasts features that will ease problems for boarding passengers. Sixty-two self-check-in kiosks where passengers can get boarding tickets and store luggage aim to save up to 20 minutes. Twenty-four round full-body scanners will reduce time for airport personnel manually scanning passengers. Korean Air, Delta Air Lines, Air France and KLM will operate only from this terminal, with warnings for passengers not to go to Terminal No.1.<br/>

With portions of the Caribbean still struggling to recover from massive hits by hurricanes Irma and Maria in September, US-based airlines flew nearly 10% fewer seats to the region in December than they had a year earlier. Still, the factors that airlines consider when deciding how much to pare down service to islands and other locales that are reeling from national disasters go well beyond merely dollars-and-cents considerations, industry sources said. "From the standpoint of airlines, they take the long view," said aviation industry analyst Bob Mann of R.W. Mann & Co. "They have employees in the island. Those employees have families. The airlines have an infrastructure in the island. They have account relations in the island. You just wouldn't walk away from that. It's part of the social contract. It's not just wretched capitalism." According to the airline data analytics company OAG, the most-damaged Caribbean islands are all experiencing substantial drops in airlift this winter. Capacity to Puerto Rico was down 28.2% year over year in December. In the US Virgin Islands, it was down 47.2%. Dutch St. Maarten, where the airport has been forced to move into temporary facilities while the terminal is rebuilt, saw a decrease of 62.4%. Other affected destinations, including St. Barts, Anguilla, St. Kitts and Nevis and the British Virgin Islands saw air service declines of between 11.6% and 32.8%.<br/>

Airlines have been shrinking their seats for a long time, aiming to reduce the planes’ weight and squeeze in more passengers. But lately, some carriers have been going one step further in redesigning their seats: They’re taking away the seatback screens. Formally called in-flight entertainment, the screens, and the preselected media on them, go a long way toward keeping passengers happy and distracted. The longer the flight, the more useful the seatback entertainment becomes. But those entertainment systems are expensive to install. They can cost $10,000 per seat, estimated Dan McKone, managing director and head of the travel and transportation practice at the consulting firm L.E.K. They also add bulk and weight to seats and quickly become technologically obsolete, especially because most Americans are now flying with at least one mobile device, said Henry Harteveldt, travel industry analyst and co-founder of Atmosphere Research Group. “Some airlines are looking at this from the standpoint of cost savings by removing the hardware,” he said. “They reduce the weight of the aircraft, and they reduce the expense associated with maintaining that equipment.” American and United Airlines are phasing out screens on new short-haul aircraft in favor of content offerings that passengers can stream from their personal devices. The decision on whether to update the screens, McKone said, is mainly economic. “I think you’re going to continue to see increasing economic pressure not to replace I.F.E., particularly on the shorter-haul fleets,” he said. McKone predicted that more domestic flights in the future would offer content streaming on a bring-your-own-device model.<br/>