US President Donald Trump took credit on Tuesday for a record year of safety for commercial aviation in 2017, swiftly drawing criticism and derision from commentators who said the achievement reflected trends predating his administration. “Since taking office I have been very strict on Commercial Aviation. Good news - it was just reported that there were Zero deaths in 2017, the best and safest year on record!” Trump tweeted on Tuesday. Two safety groups reported on Monday that worldwide there were no fatal passenger jet crashes in 2017, the safest year on record. Current and former aviation safety officials said Trump was not responsible for last year’s unblemished commercial passenger jet safety record, citing years-long improvements in safety and the fact that no US passenger airliner has had a fatal crash since 2009. Aviation Safety Network President Harro Ranter, whose group tracks aviation incidents, said in an email: ”It’s impossible to link the worldwide level of safety directly to recent US policy changes. “US efforts have been instrumental to get to where we are today, but it takes years for policy changes to reach effect, and only in conjunction with other efforts by the aviation industry,” Ranter said. <br/>
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Two US airlines -- American and Southwest -- joined the tide of companies offering employees $1,000 bonuses to mark the tax overhaul Congress put in place for 2018. American Airlines and Southwest announced the bonuses after the close of business Tuesday. AAON, US Bancorp, Commerce Bancshares and Zions Bancorporation were among the companies touting similar moves. Banks, insurers and airlines have led the way on the handouts -- all industries that have important regulatory issues pending with the Trump administration. The moves appear to be an effort to sway public opinion in favor of the unpopular tax bill. Republican legislators pushed to pass the overhaul in December as President Donald Trump’s crowning achievement of 2017. "We applaud Congress and the president for taking this action to pass legislation, which will result in meaningful corporate income tax reform," Southwest CEO Gary Kelly said in the company’s statement. Both carriers said they will make the payments to workers this quarter. The bonuses will total $130m for American, which doesn’t currently pay cash federal taxes because of past financial losses.<br/>
Republican Representative Bill Shuster, the chairman of the Transportation Committee in the US House of Representatives, will not run for re-election in November, he said Tuesday. Shuster, 56, who has served in Congress since 2001, said that he will spend his last year in office “working with President Trump and my Republican and Democratic colleagues in both Chambers to pass a much needed infrastructure bill to rebuild America.” Trump, who met with Shuster in December to talk about rebuilding US roads and other projects, is expected to unveil an infrastructure proposal later this month. The administration previously proposed $200b in government funding over 10 years as part of a goal of getting $1t in public and private infrastructure spending, but that has been panned by Democrats who want significantly higher government spending fixing roads, bridges and other infrastructure items. Shuster has championed a plan backed by Trump to privatize the US air traffic control system, but it has faced opposition in Congress and was not approved last year. The Pennsylvania congressman proposed legislation that would make it illegal for an airline to bump an already boarded passenger from a flight.<br/>
More than three years after construction was started to rebuild Salt Lake City International Airport and scrape away a collection of obsolete terminals, the contours of one of the nation’s largest air travel infrastructure projects are taking shape. The project is part of the $10b a year that airports invest to modernize infrastructure in the US, according to the Airports Council International-North America, a trade group in Washington. And the extensive renovation could help reduce public embarrassment about the condition of aging airports in the United States that cannot keep up with demand. In 2014, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. compared New York’s LaGuardia Airport to “some third-world country.” The $3.6b airport reconstruction project here is so big that it looks like a city emerging from the high plains along Utah’s Wasatch Mountains. Concrete pillars for the new 908,000-square-foot, $365m main terminal and for a $158.4m, 1.7 million-square-foot parking deck are in place. The steel outlines of the first half of the $671.6m, 827,000-square-foot South Concourse are also set. Nearly 1,000 construction workers and a battalion of vehicles and equipment are deployed on the 300-acre construction site. Story has more details. When the facilities are finished in 2023, they will provide this fast-growing metropolitan area with improved efficiency at one of the country’s busiest airports, a hub for nine airlines with 329 daily flights. Traffic has climbed to more than 23m travellers annually in an airport designed to serve fewer than half that number.<br/>
US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) started 2018 with an unintentional two-hour shutdown of its computer system the evening of Jan. 1, generating significant delays at several US airports for passengers arriving from international originating points. CBP issued a statement at about 10:30 p.m. indicating all affected airports were back on line “after a temporary outage of CBP’s processing systems.” CBP said there was no indication that the disruption—which began at approximately 7:30 p.m. EST and ended at about 9:30 p.m.—was malicious in nature. “During the disruption, CBP had access to national security-related databases and all travelers were scanned according to security standards,” CBP said. In its official statement, CBP said it “took immediate action to address the technology disruption. CBP officers continued to process international travelers using alternative procedures at affected airports. Travelers at some ports of entry experienced longer than usual wait times as CBP officers processed travelers as quickly as possible while maintaining the highest levels of security.”<br/>
Terminal B at Mineta San Jose International Airport was evacuated Tuesday morning because of a suspicious package. The airport's Twitter account noted that the terminal closed at 11:00 a.m. and reopened at 11:55 a.m. The package was first noticed around 10 a.m., an airport representative told Business Insider. The San Jose Police Department, San Jose Fire Department, and a bomb squad were on site to investigate the package and decided it was "non-threatening." The contents of the package have not been revealed. Rather than forcing the passengers in Terminal B to go outside, the airport moved them to Terminal A so they wouldn't have to go through security again. Southwest and Alaska Airlines operate out of Terminal B.<br/>