Airlines and aviation officials are keeping a close watch on the skies above Hawaii after the Kilauea volcano spewed ash 30,000 feet into the air this morning. There are temporary flight restrictions in place, but so far it doesn’t pose much of a risk to planes. United Continental says flights are operating normally and local officials say the major airports are as well. The flowing lava and noxious fumes have prompted evacuations across the Big Island, but the plume of ash that erupted early Thursday is mostly blowing out to sea and away from the other islands. “The lighter particles are being carried off to the east,” said Kevin Kodama, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Honolulu. “Right now the rest of the chain are not seeing a whole lot of impacts.” Officials are keeping an eye on the situation. “We have had temporary flight restrictions in place around the volcano, and have been changing them as circumstances warrant,” said Ian Gregor, a spokesman with the FAA. “We are in the process of raising the ceiling of the restricted area to 30,000 feet from 10,000 feet.”<br/>
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In its third version this week of what was agreed between the US and the United Arab Emirates on their Open Skies aviation deal, the White House now says there is an “understanding” that UAE airlines have “no current plans” to add fifth freedom flights, but makes no mention of a routes freeze. The latest statement appears to clarify remarks by White House assistant to the President and trade council director Peter Navarro to aviation industry stakeholders during a telephone briefing May 14 in which he spoke of a routes freeze. “There will be no additional routes into the United States until further notice,” Navarro said during that brief. “What we expect moving forward is transparency, full accounting, stopping of subsidies and a freeze on routes until further notice. So, there it is. And that’s strictly on the passenger side.” The Washington DC-based lobbying organization, Partnership for Fair & Open Skies, which was hired by American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and US airline unions to fight Gulf carrier expansion in the US, issued a release touting Navarro’s statements. It also posted a transcript of Navarro’s remarks. On May 16, however, the Partnership removed the transcript from its Twitter feed and website. The new White House statement says that in the “newly negotiated understanding,” the UAE has informed the US that Abu Dhabi and Dubai carriers Etihad Airways and Emirates Airline “have no current plans to begin any new commercial fifth freedom flight routes, which are of particular concern to the US carriers.” <br/>
Dubai Aerospace Enterprise is in talks to buy a near-record total of 400 jetliners from Airbus and Boeing, its CEO said, in a $40b blowout that would match the order pipeline of rivals. The move comes months after a leading US airline investor orchestrated a record deal involving more than 400 planes from Airbus as economists project strong growth for air travel, led by the continued expansion of budget carriers. Airbus and Boeing have sold thousands of the latest versions of their workhorse single-aisle jets in recent years, but the order cycle is slowing down. However, the boom has left long waiting times for jets for remaining potential buyers like DAE. The government-controlled Dubai firm is interested in buying single-aisle Airbus A320neo-family and Boeing 737 MAX planes after its acquisition last year of Dublin-based lessor AWAS, CE Firoz Tarapore said Thursday. Any deal would not necessarily be evenly split between the two planemakers, Tarapore said, adding DAE was “nowhere near where we thought we would be” in finalising an order. “We are not happy with the price,” he said.<br/>
Beijing's new international airport will officially begin operations on Oct 1, 2019, authorities said Wednesday. The overall progress of the new airport fits with the original plan, the city government said, but this is the first time a specific date has been given. All airport engineering projects will be completed by the end of June next year, with equipment testing completed over the next three months, Beijing Daily quoted authorities from the Beijing Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development as saying. The airport terminal building was sealed on New Year's Eve and is currently in the decoration phase. Supporting projects from the municipal government are 90% complete, and the road overpass has been fully connected. The construction of designated airline spaces is still on the way, with one-third of the slots for China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines completed. The new facility is located between Beijing's Daxing district and Langfang, Hebei province. When the facility is fully built, Beijing will have increased its new terminal areas up to 700,000 square meters. The airport will have four runways and 268 parking bays, which will be able to accommodate 620,000 flights per year.<br/>