The strain of a 34-day partial govt shutdown is weighing on the nation's air-travel system, both the federal workers who make it go and the airlines that depend on them. Air traffic controllers and airport security agents continue to work without pay — they will miss a second biweekly paycheck Friday — but high absentee rates raise the threat of long airport lines, or worse. Unions that represent air traffic controllers, flight attendants and pilots are growing concerned about safety with the shutdown well. The TSA said 7.5% of its airport security officers scheduled to work Wednesday did not show up. That is down from Sunday's 10% absent rate but more than double the 3% rate of the comparable Wednesday in 2018. TSA has resorted to sending backup officers to beef up staffing at some airports and at times closing a couple of checkpoints at major airports. <br/>
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Airbus has called the UK govt’s handling of Brexit a “disgrace” and warned the aerospace firm could pull out of the UK if the country crashes out of the EU without a deal. CE Tom Enders said Thursday that if there was a no-deal Brexit, Airbus would have to make “potentially very harmful decisions for the UK”. The aerospace group is one of the biggest manufacturers in the UK, where it employs more than 14,000 people. A further 110,000 supply-chain jobs depend on its operations, which have an annual turnover of GBP6bb. Enders said: “Of course it’s not possible to pick up and move our large UK factories to other parts of the world immediately. However, aerospace is a long-term business and we could be forced to redirect future investments in the event of a no-deal Brexit". <br/>
Air traffic should not be allowed to increase at London’s Heathrow and City airports and plans for the addition of a third runway at the UK’s biggest hub should be scrapped, according to a new report on aircraft noise by politicians elected to represent London’s residents. In a report published Jan 23, the London Assembly Environment Committee said that concerns from local residents about aircraft noise had led it to conclude that “air traffic using Heathrow and City airports should not increase, and the proposed third runway at Heathrow should not go ahead.” The committee also expressed concern about Heathrow’s proposal to add up to 25,000 extra flights a year through more efficient use of its two existing runways, noting that this would result in changes to flight paths that would route aircraft over areas that had previously not been overflown. <br/>
Technology being trialled by air traffic controllers at Heathrow could mean the third runway is built without a new control tower, the airport said. A GBP2.5m “digital tower laboratory”, which uses a suite of ultra high definition cameras and artificial intelligence to monitor aircraft, has been built in the base of Heathrow’s existing tower. Developers hope it will help human controllers to land more planes during times of poor visibility, the most common factor behind disruption at Heathrow. Heathrow said the laboratory, which displays a 180-degree live view of the airport from 20 zoomable cameras on a panorama of 9 screens, could also demonstrate that there would be no need for a second tower. An additional tower was part of the expansion plan, but the airport has been trying to reduce the budget. <br/>