A second day of icy weather led Heathrow Airport to cancel more than 100 flights on Sunday and disrupted the homecoming celebrations of Ireland's all-conquering rugby team. Around 115 flights were grounded at Heathrow, the second busiest airport in the world by international passenger traffic, with transatlantic, domestic and European flights worst hit. "We've worked with our airlines to consolidate Sunday's flight schedule, moving passengers onto fewer flights," said a Heathrow spokesperson. The so-called "mini Beast from the East" swept into Britain Saturday, with a similar number of flights cancelled at Heathrow, which also scrubbed scores of flights at the end of last month due to snowstorms. Other British airports were less badly affected, although passengers were advised to check with airlines.<br/>
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Flights to Australia’s northern city of Darwin were cancelled Saturday due to Tropical Cyclone Marcus and will not resume until midnight at the earliest, with commercial shipping also disrupted. Cyclone Marcus hit Darwin, capital of Australia’s Northern Territory, with wind speeds of 130km per hour over the harbor and heavy rains on Saturday morning.Airlines affected include Jetstar, JetAsia, Qantas, Emirates, Philippine Airlines, Airnorth, Virgin Australia and American Airlines. International routes including Singapore and Bali were also hit.<br/>
India’s airports are struggling to cope with a massive surge in passengers and tens of billions of rupees must be spent to boost their capacity, analysts have warned. The country is witnessing a huge boom in air travel as its growing middle class increasingly takes to the skies but experts say infrastructure is failing to keep up. “There’s an urgent need for capacity building in major Indian airports as they are bursting at the seams and close to saturation,” said Binit Somaia, South Asia Director at the Centre for Aviation (CAPA). India has seen a six-fold increase in passenger numbers over the past decade as people take advantage of better connectivity and cheaper fares thanks to a host of low-cost airlines. Indian airports handled 265m domestic passengers in 2016 and will cross 300m this year, according to CAPA. The country’s entire airport network is only capable of handling 317m passengers, it says. According to data compiled by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), an Indian regulatory body, there were just 44m Indians travelling by plane in 2008. CAPA predicts India will have 478m fliers by 2036. Aviation experts say the government faces a race against time to build the infrastructure to handle the soaring congestion. “Some top airports have reached saturation. In the next five to seven years, the top 30 to 40 airports in India will be performing beyond their capacity,” said Somaia of the Sydney-based CAPA.<br/>
Russian hackers penetrated the US civilian aviation system in early 2017 as part of a broad assault on the nation’s sensitive infrastructure, a consortium designed to protect the industry has said. “It hit a part of our very broad membership,” said Jeff Troy, executive director of the Aviation Information Sharing and Analysis Centre, on Friday. The intrusion wasn’t something that would directly harm air planes or airlines, he added, “but I did see that this impacted some companies that are in the aviation sector”. Troy would not elaborate on the nature of the breach and declined to identify specific companies or the affected sector, but said the industry has taken steps to prevent a repeat of the intrusion. His comments confirmed the impact on aviation from a Russian attack that was described more broadly on Thursday by US government officials. The Department of Homeland Security and Federal Bureau of Investigation identified aviation as one of the targets, but did not provide specifics.<br/>
Amsterdam Schiphol Airport is expected to close one of its runways for three weeks as it undertakes major maintenance and refurbishment. The airport authorities will close runway 18R-36L from March 25 to April 15, during which time the traffic normally using 18R-36L will be distributed over Schiphol’s four other runways. Runway 18R-36L is the most heavily used of Schiphol’s runways. It is used daily for takeoffs and landings, including the heaviest aircraft such as the Airbus A380 and Boeing 747. This time of year has been chosen for the work to take advantage of what is usually a spell of good weather, with little frost. It will also allow the runway to be back in commission before the start of the busy summer season. The work will include repairs to asphalt, renewing lighting, updating and touching-up markings, performing structural renovations of two runway stations, as well as applying 500 meters of new asphalt across the entire runway width. The asphalt on the taxiway leading to 18R-36L will also be repaired, and a field located adjacent to the runway station will be equipped with a drainage system and re-profiled for proper drainage. Work will continue on a 24-hour basis to allow it to be completed as swiftly as possible.<br/>
Boeing’s newest and smallest 737 Max jetliner took flight for the first time, into blue skies -- and a cloudy, crowded market. The takeoff, at 10:17 a.m. Friday by Boeing’s factory outside Seattle, was characteristically drama-free for the third of four planned models in the Max family. The plane touched down at Boeing Field at 12:59 p.m. Boeing’s latest upgrades of its 737, which dates to the mid-1960s, have largely met milestones on a schedule plotted years ago even as the manufacturer pushes single-aisle output to record highs. But prospects for the new aircraft -- the Max 7 -- are hazy. Sales have flagged as low-cost carriers migrated to larger, more economical models. Even Southwest Airlines Co., the launch customer for the Max 7 and largest operator of the 737-700, the jet’s predecessor, is part of the trend. The Dallas-based carrier has ordered 30 Max 7s, and 210 of its larger sibling, the Max 8. Boeing responded to the Max 7’s two biggest customers, Southwest and Canada’s WestJet Airlines, by stretching the narrow-body plane’s airframe to seat 138 people, a dozen more than originally planned. The new model also flies farther than other Max models or its competitors. With a range of 3,850 nautical miles, the new jet should be able to fly directly from Dallas to Honolulu. Competition is fierce. <br/>
Boeing has scrambled to reorganize testing of its new 777X to avoid being delayed by engine snags, while robots and mechanics are starting work on the fuselage, the executive who heads efforts to build the world’s largest twin-engined jet said. Engine supplier General Electric began flight trials of its new GE9X jet engine on Tuesday after a three-month delay caused mainly by a problem in its compressor. But to put the engine development back on track it must build a new component. During that time, Boeing will place two temporary engines on the first flight-test aircraft that is gradually beginning to take shape, starting with its lightweight carbon wings and now the fuselage, which Boeing says is on schedule. The engines, identical in every other respect to the ones that will go into service, will be swapped for fresh ones with the new part before the first 777X carries out its maiden flight next year. The temporary engines will not be fired up, but having them in place will allow other tests to go ahead. “Honestly, when this happened I thought ‘this is going to be bad’ and we just kept grinding and grinding at it, and we came up with some pretty creative things to test where we could, build where we could,” 777X VP and GM Eric Lindblad said. “To put engines on and then take them off - that is all to protect the schedule.” <br/>