The US DoT said Thursday that airlines carried 3.4% more passengers on US domestic and international flights in 2017 for an all-time high of 965m passengers. The government said international travel rose 4.8% in 2017 to 223.4m passengers, also a record, and foreign airlines carried 6.1% more passengers last year on US-bound and departing flights. Carriers transported 741.6m passengers on US domestic flights in 2017, up 3%. Southwest led all carriers again with 157.7m passengers on US flights, up 3.9%, followed by Delta, which rose to second with 145.6m passengers, up 1.8%, followed by American Airlines Group with 144.9m. United, despite a controversy involving a passenger dragged out of his seat at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport in April 2017, reported a 7.1% increase to 107.2m passengers. The four largest US carriers accounted for 58% of total passengers in 2017.<br/>
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Norway said Thursday it wants to buy electric passenger planes in the coming years to help slow climate change, building on its success with big tax breaks that have made it the world leader in electric car sales. State firm Avinor, which runs 45 airports in Norway, said the commitment to battery-powered aircraft could encourage development of electric and hybrid technologies by companies such as Airbus or Boeing. “In my mind, there’s no doubt that by 2040 Norway will be operating totally electric” on short-haul flights, said Dag Falk-Pedersen, head of Avinor. Among airlines, “Airbus told us they need a customer and they need a market - and we can offer them both,” he said. “Of course they need a bigger market and more customers. But someone has to start.” Norway, a mountainous country of 5 million people with towns beside remote fjords, would be ideal for electric planes which can accelerate faster than conventional planes and so need shorter runways, he said. But electric planes so far have big problems of weight, with bulky batteries, and limited ranges. The first electric planes flew across the English Channel in July 2015, including an Airbus E-Fan. “It could be that we are presenting a tender within a year or two to the market to commercialize electric aircraft,” Falk-Pedersen said, adding that such a tender might be for 5 to 15 planes of between 12 and 50 seats.<br/>
Workers at New York-area airports will see their wages nearly double after the agency that operates the airports approved a series of hikes through 2023, bringing to a close years of protests. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey voted unanimously to raise the hourly minimum wage for workers at its airports from $10.45 to $19. The increases will directly impact roughly 20,000 of the 70,000 workers at LaGuardia, John F. Kennedy and Newark Liberty International airports who make minimum wage and perform tasks such as cleaning planes, moving baggage, operating concession stands and providing security, officials said. Port Authority Executive Director Rick Cotton called it "a great day for airport workers striving for economic justice." Dozens of airport workers have attended monthly Port Authority board meetings for several years, occasionally engaging in boisterous demonstrations over wages.<br/>
Muscat International Airport has opened its new terminal, a development intended to significantly improve conditions for passengers travelling to and from the Omani capital. The new terminal is expected to ease congestion at Muscat as hub carrier Oman Air has said for some time that its growth is being affected by the cramped conditions of the old building. Oman Air’s rapid growth in recent years has seen passenger traffic at the airport rising steadily, from 7.5m in 2012 to 12m in 2016, the last full year for which figures are available. Capacity of the old terminal was around 8m passengers per annum. The new terminal will be able to handle 12m annually and three subsequent expansion phases, which will be constructed as demand requires, will see capacity rising to 24, 36, then 48m passengers.<br/>