A sprawling winter storm barreled toward the Atlantic Coast on Thursday and was expected to pound most of it with a potent mix of rain, snow, gusty winds and storm surge that forecasters warn could flood neighborhoods, knock out power and destroy homes. “Take this storm seriously!” the National Weather Service’s Boston branch warned on Twitter Thursday. “This is a LIFE & DEATH situation for those living along the coast.” The effects of the nor’easter, which could linger through Saturday or beyond, are expected to stretch as far south as Georgia and South Carolina, all the way north to Maine. Weather officials say 10 inches of snow — or perhaps more — could blanket parts of New York; some areas of New England could get three to four inches of rain; and some coastal towns are expected to be hit with winds of 50 miles per hour or more. The expected conditions are so worrisome that some airlines, like Delta and Southwest, have put out warnings about the weather’s impact on flights and are allowing travellers to change their Friday and Saturday reservations. At La Guardia Airport, employees have secured the cranes and other construction equipment that was being used as part of a redevelopment program. They say they will redeploy it as needed.<br/>
general
As the worst snowfall in years blocks roads and shuts down much of Britain’s rail network, there is at least one bright spot for travellers -- London’s once notoriously weather-sensitive Heathrow airport has managed to keep its runways open and flights operating. Europe’s busiest hub, which closed for four days in 2010 after just 90 minutes of snow, has so far ridden out the worst of the weather system dubbed “The Beast from the East” with only a handful of flight cancellations to other airports closed Thursday by the blizzard. Key to Heathrow’s improved resilience is GBP37m ($50m) of investment in snow-clearing and de-icing equipment purchased after clients including BA criticised management over shutdowns when other airports were coping. Heathrow said it’s optimistic that the harshest of this week’s weather may have passed, in southeast England at least. “There’s more wintry weather forecast for today but our operation is much more able to cope than in 2010, when people were stuck in the airport for days,” a Heathrow spokesman said. Heathrow worked with airlines to consolidate a few hundred flights on short-haul routes in order to build slack into the schedule should the weather quickly deteriorate. The hub normally has about 1,300 services a day. London Gatwick airport cancelled about 57 of 352 scheduled departures, again mainly due to closures elsewhere. The airport has also invested heavily in anti-icing gear. Stansted, north of London and the biggest base for Ryanair, was “fully open,” though is bracing for heavier falls on Friday, when managers have been called in to assist operations staff. It closed briefly Wednesday so that snow could be cleared, but delays were minimal.<br/>
The airport in the Swiss city of Geneva closed for several hours Thursday due to bitterly cold weather that has hit many parts of Europe this week with snow and icy winds, causing travel chaos. The airport reopened at 1000 GMT for departures and will accept arrivals from 1200 GMT, the airport said in a statement on its mobile app, which showed more than 40 flights from Geneva had been cancelled, as well as dozens arrivals. A Siberian weather system forecasters have called the“beast from the east” brought snow, strong winds and the coldest temperatures for years to many regions across Europe. Geneva’s temperatures are set to rise later on Thursday, but the freeze is expected to continue elsewhere. Geneva airport recommended passengers check with their airlines on whether upcoming flights would be scheduled for departure.<br/>
Debates over ensuring an adequate supply of future airline pilots world-wide increasingly focus on a new variable: proficiency of the flight instructors who will train them. On Thursday, the Flight Safety Foundation, an independent safety advocacy group with global influence, called for significantly stepped-up international efforts to vet training academies and establish guidelines for the competence of their instructors. A white paper from the organisation contends the global aviation industry has "reached a crossroads in determining how pilots need to be selected, hired, trained and professionally mentored.” For the first time in recent years, the nonprofit foundation is urging adoption of what it calls data-driven initiatives relying on advances in simulator training and new international standards for pilot performance. The document dismisses the value of experience requirements that are based largely or entirely on number of flight hours in log books. To maintain record-low accident rates, the document concludes “the industry needs to be courageous and bold to make these changes and not simply rely on ways of the past.” The recommendations come at a time of controversy and uncertainty for many pilot training programs. From North America to Europe to fast-growing aviation markets in Asia and elsewhere, airlines and regulators are considering new procedures to screen and train the more-than-600,000 additional aviators Boeing projects will be needed to fill airliner cockpits over the next two decades.<br/>
The dream of flying cars has been around longer than Boeing has been making airplanes. Now a vision from the pages of Jules Verne is near enough to occupy the present-day plans of Boeing’s leadership. “I think it will happen faster than any of us understand,” CEO Dennis Muilenburg said. “Real prototype vehicles are being built right now. So the technology is very doable.” The new era of flying urban vehicles is close enough for the man overseeing jetliners and spacecraft to begin plotting what he calls the “rules of the road” for three-dimensional highways. Autonomous air taxis and parcel-hauling drones have the potential to be the next disruption to sweep the aerospace industry, with Boeing and arch-rival Airbus SE among the manufacturers racing to stake a claim. Muilenburg sees it as a a rare opening to shape a new transportation ecosystem. Fleets of self-piloted craft could be hovering above city streets and dodging skyscrapers within a decade, he said. Propelling these advances are a flood of investment, rapid gains in autonomy, and growing consumer frustration with bumper-to-bumper traffic. Other observers share his aggressive timeline. Electric passenger drones, seating two to five travellers and looking like distant cousins of today's helicopters, could come on the market within the next two years, according to a new study by Deloitte. By the early 2020s, the study said, flying cars could drive to the airport by roadways and then accelerate down runways into the sky.<br/>