The Senate Commerce Committee is completing preparations for a hearing about Boeing this month, and members expect to use it to interview the company’s CE, Dennis A. Muilenburg, about the crashes and grounding of the 737 Max, according to 4 people familiar with the matter. Muilenburg is already scheduled to appear before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Oct 30. The Senate hearing is expected to take place Oc. 29 or after the House hearing Oct 30, according to the people. The occasion will be the first time that Boeing executives address Congress about the crashes, as frustration with the company mounts on Capitol Hill and throughout the aviation industry. <br/>
general
The size of your seat and how much legroom you'll get on a future flight could be decided by 720 Oklahomans taking part in a first-of-its-kind test to determine if jam-packed planes slow emergency evacuations. Frequent flyers on US airlines are all too aware that cramped economy cabins are detrimental to comfort. But federal officials who write airline safety rules have never tested whether smaller seats or tightly packed rows have any effect on evacuation time. Beginning next month, FAA researchers will recruit people from churches, universities and online to come up with a test group similar to the overall US population. Sixty at a time, they will be seated in a simulator laid out like a Boeing 737 or an Airbus A320, planes commonly used on domestic flights. Flight attendants will tell them to get out of the simulator. <br/>
Escalating pressure from investors is pushing airlines to address environmental concerns, according to IATA, which acknowledged that the trend toward “flight-shaming” could weigh on the industry’s future growth. Speaking at a conference in London where airlines vied to demonstrate plans to decarbonise, IATA said the climate was now “top of the agenda” for investors. Citing HSBC research, IATA chief economist Brian Pearce said climate issues came up an average of 7 times on each call between European airlines and investors in 2019, compared with an average of less than once per earnings call between 2013 and 2017. Pearce said: “Climate change is not just an issue for protesters or scientists. You can see the spike this year. This is on the top of the agenda for mainstream investors now." <br/>
Eurostar has reported its busiest August ever, with more than a million passengers travelling on the cross-Channel train service in that month. The service appears to have benefited from increasing demand for an alternative to flying - a trend highlighted in Eurostar’s advertising campaign. Eurostar’s CE, Mike Cooper, said the growing demand for sustainable travel was “an exciting time” for the high-speed train service. “We have seen positive momentum over the summer, with strong growth in the number of North American passengers choosing to travel by high-speed rail,” he said. Airlines have contributed: KLM has called on its passengers to fly less. It will reduce the number of daily flights it operates between Amsterdam and Brussels from next March and offer customers a high-speed train seat instead. <br/>