An autumn North Sea storm disrupted traffic at Amsterdam’s Schiphol, Europe’s third-largest airport, forcing the cancellation of dozens of flights on Friday. Winds of up to 95 km prompted Air France KLM, EastJet, Aeroflot, Delta, China Southern Airlines and others to scrap services to European cities.<br/>
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The US airline industry scored a win on Saturday as bipartisan congressional legislation dropped plans to mandate “reasonable and proportional” baggage and change fees, but included other new passenger protections. After weeks of negotiations, a 1,200-page bill to reauthorize FAA was unveiled early Saturday that would require the FAA to set minimum dimensions for passenger seats — including legroom and width — and prohibits airlines from involuntarily removing passengers from flights after they’ve cleared the boarding gate. Airlines had heavily lobbied against new rules limiting fees. US airlines revenue from baggage and reservation change fees increased from $5.7b in 2010 to $7.5b in 2017. Other fees are not reported to regulators. The compromise bill did not include language adopted by a Senate Committee in 2017 that would have required the reasonable fee rules. It was struck in a compromise unveiled by Senate Commerce Committee Republican chairman John Thune and House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chairman Bill Shuster, a Republican, along with the top Democrats on the two committees Senator Bill Nelson and Representative Peter DeFazio.<br/>
Ministers in New Delhi are pushing for a package of relief measures to help India’s ailing airlines, which are struggling to cope with a sharp rise in oil prices and a collapse in the rupee. The country’s domestic aviation market has been growing more quickly than any in the world for the past few years, but airline profits have dropped off in the past six months because of higher fuel prices. With Jet Airways, the country’s second-largest airline, already in significant financial difficulty, the government is pushing for measures to help control costs and make it easier to secure funding. Officials have said that there are three measures under consideration: reducing the tax on aviation fuel, reducing the tax on aircraft servicing and allowing companies to borrow more. But they added that ministers were not yet considering bailouts of individual companies such as Jet, preferring instead to see what happens during the lucrative festival season in the last three months of the year. “There are things we can do to improve the situation for carriers, but it is too early yet to be talking about bailouts for individual companies,” said one. India’s domestic aviation market has until recently been booming, with passenger numbers growing at around 25 per cent a year. But in the past year, the rising price of oil and the falling rupee have pushed up fuel costs. <br/>
The 45-day runway closure in 2019 at Dubai International Airport’s (DXB) of southern runway will significantly disrupt operations for Emirates Airline and flydubai, Emirates president Tim Clark said. DXB handles more than 1,100 aircraft movements per day and the 45-day runway closure is estimated to cause a 43% reduction in capacity. All carriers will be affected by this closure, but Clark said Emirates and flydubai “will take the biggest hit simply because it is our base, our hub.” Emirates could be forced to ground about 40 out of 270 aircraft for the period. Clark said the carriers are “working on [a plan where] we could perhaps use Dubai World Central Airport (DWC), which is ready to [accommodate] some of those flights. This is just a temporary measure to relieve the pressure on Dubai airport,” he said.<br/>