PM Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday Israeli intelligence services had prevented the downing of an “Australian airliner” as part of wide-ranging international intelligence-sharing but gave no details. His comments, during a speech in Jerusalem to US Jewish leaders, followed a statement from the Israeli army that a branch of military intelligence known as “Unit 8200” had foiled an “aerial attack abroad by Islamic State”. Israeli media said the army statement referred to an attempted bombing in July of an Etihad Airways flight due to leave Sydney for Abu Dhabi, which was foiled by Australian security forces before the plane took off. An Australian man had sent his unsuspecting brother to Sydney airport to catch the flight carrying a home-made bomb disguised as a meat-mincer, built at the direction of a senior Islamic State commander, Australian police said. Days after the plot was revealed, Lebanon’s interior minister said Beirut had monitored the brothers for more than a year and had worked with Australian authorities to disrupt the attack. Netanyahu said: “We revealed today that Israel’s intelligence services prevented the shooting down of an Australian airliner and I can tell you that this is one of many many such actions that we did preventing terrorism around the world.”<br/>
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Cockpit Innovation, the venture fund of El Al Israel Airlines, said on Wednesday it had formed a strategic partnership with Boeing that will include an investment in Cockpit. Financial details were not disclosed. Cockpit and Boeing will seek to develop technologies that could play a role in the future of travel, aviation and aerospace, including Boeing’s products, Cockpit said. “Cockpit will provide a bridge to the global ecosystem of start-ups in fields that align with our strategic vision for Boeing, furthering our access into these developing sectors of the aerospace industry,” Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Kevin McAllister said. Cockpit counts information technology firm Lufthansa Systems, part of the Lufthansa Group, as a partner. It has backed eight startups.<br/>
Australian authorities say they have helped make the Indian Ocean safer for air and sea travellers since Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished in the vast expanse four years ago through search and rescue training with island nations. Search and rescue officials from Mauritius, the Maldives and Sri Lanka are visiting the Australian Maritime Safety Authority headquarters in Canberra this week as part of a regional training program that began in 2015. Rick Allen, an Australian search and rescue coordinator who is taking part in the training, said five Sri Lankan fishermen were rescued faster and more efficiently after their boat sank in 2016 thanks to the three countries having an Australian online broadcast system to alert merchant shipping to emergencies. "We're all about strengthening the response options that are available in search and rescue. We're particularly dealing in that remote northwestern part of the Indian Ocean," Allen said. "Already we're seeing benefits. So the program not only involved work-shopping, meeting together, it also involved delivering systems and delivering tool that enable our partners to work more effectively in search and rescue," he added. Australia has developed particular expertise in search and rescue operations that test the limits of the distances that search planes can stay airborne. The nation of just 24m people has search and rescue responsibility for around 10% of the Earth's surface.<br/>
Pratt & Whitney succeeded in tamping down the latest crisis to threaten its $10b next-generation jet-engine program, with a temporary fix that will keep Airbus planes flying until a permanent solution is found. Pratt scrapped a newly introduced seal that caused engine vibrations and took almost a dozen Airbus A320neos out of service, according to people familiar with the plan. A previous version will be installed that worked but didn’t last as long as expected, said the people. The alteration buys time for engineers to perfect the so-called knife edge compressor seal while minimizing downtime for the A320neo, Airbus’s most important aircraft. Pratt is under intense pressure to fix the turbine, which competes with one made by a venture of General Electric and Safran. Pratt developed the geared turbofan from the ground up to cement its status on the most widely flown type of aircraft, but it’s been plagued by delays and glitches since it entered service in 2016. The engine maker said it “released a revised configuration” but didn’t specify the nature of the change. “The solution is based on a design with which the company has significant experience, and this solution has received all necessary regulatory approvals,” Pratt said Wednesday. Engines incorporating the change will be delivered beginning next month. While the latest fix should help persuade investors that the turbine -- and the A320neo -- isn’t about to suffer a major crisis, reverting to the original component, itself flawed, won’t be sufficient in the longer term.<br/>
Sharjah airport is planning a massive expansion of its passenger terminal in the next four years, which will increase the capacity of Sharjah International Airport to 20m passengers by 2027. Ali Salem Al Midfa, Chairman of Sharjah International Airport Authority, said the expansion of Sharjah International Airport will significantly boost and multiply the number of passengers visiting the emirate, improving the existing travel options and boosting economic growth and job creation across various sectors. Talking about the airport expansion project, he said that the strategic importance of the Sharjah International Airport has further grown in recent years because of its growing passenger traffic, strategic location on the main navigation and trading routes and world-class services and facilities it offers to people and companies in Sharjah and throughout the UAE. The expansion of the Sharjah International Airport is estimated to cost Dh1.5b and will include latest world-class facilities. The expansion will be in several phases and features several projects, the most important of it being the expansion of the road network around the airport.<br/>
With a flash of their face, passengers flying overseas will be able to walk through Sydney Airport's international terminal to their waiting plane almost without showing their passport. That is the goal of a trial of biometric testing due to start in May at Australia's largest airport. "Your face will be your passport and boarding pass. There will be no fumbling for passports," Sydney Airport's new CE, Geoff Culbert, said. Culbert, who took the reins from long-time CEO Kerrie Mather last month, said biometric processing had the potential to revolutionise the journey for passengers through the airport. "We are not aware of this being done to this extent anywhere else in the world," he said. By the end of the year, Qantas passengers who want to be part of the trial will be able to pass through the six steps of check in, bag drop, border processing, security screening, airport lounge and boarding gate after showing their passport only once for verification. If successful, the airport expects to quickly extend it to other airlines. The introduction of facial-recognition technology at electronic gates in recent years has reduced the average amount of time people using it spend passing through Customs from about 4 minutes to 23 seconds. Passengers wanting to be part of the trial will need to register with the Australian Border Force once it begins in May. Details about exactly what information, such as photographs that passengers will need to provide, are yet to be revealed. But Sydney University associate professor Uri Gal, who specialises in data privacy, said it raised serious questions about how and where "very sensitive" personal data was stored, and whether adequate safeguards were in place to ensure it was not hacked or used by third parties for profit.<br/>