Airlines around the world have responded to the coronavirus outbreak by suspending flights to and from China, severely disrupting travel by tourists and business executives in one of the world's busiest aviation markets. Story lists some major airlines that have suspended or reduced their flights to mainland China.<br/>
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Some of the world’s busiest airports, including in US cities such as New Orleans, Palm Springs in California and Key West, could be underwater by the end of the century if unchecked global warming pushes up sea levels, researchers said Wednesday. An analysis by the Washington-based World Resources Institute (WRI) found that with 1m of sea-level rise, an estimated 80 airports globally would be swamped by 2100. “If you step outside and throw a dart blindfolded, almost anything will be impacted by climate change, including airports,” said Noah Maghsadi, one of the authors. A 2019 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that sea levels could rise by about 60-110 cm if greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase strongly. But even if the Paris Agreement goal to limit the planet’s temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times is met, the researchers estimated that 44 airports in low-lying areas could be flooded by likely sea-level rise of about half a meter. “Based on this analysis, even if we do curtail climate change, adaptation still needs to happen,” said Maghsadi. Vulnerable airports also include some of the busiest in Asia and Europe, WRI said, such as Yancheng Nanyang International Airport in China’s Jiangsu Province and Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport.<br/>
Thousands of passengers and crew on two cruise ships in Asian waters were placed in quarantine for China’s coronavirus on Wednesday as airlines, carmakers and other global companies counted the cost of the fast-spreading outbreak. Hundreds of experts will gather in Geneva next week, on Feb. 11-12, in an attempt to find a way to fight back against the outbreak by speeding research into drugs and vaccines, the WHO said. A multinational WHO-led team would go to China “very soon”, it added. It stressed no known effective treatment existed to combat the virus, dismissing various reports of “drug breakthroughs”. The virus had disrupted air travel, with more than two dozen airlines suspending or restricting flights to China and several countries, including the US, banning the entry of anyone who has been in China over the previous two weeks. Cathay Pacific Airways asked its 27,000 employees to take three weeks of unpaid leave, saying conditions were as grave now as during the 2009 financial crisis. American Airlines and United said they would suspend flights to and from Hong Kong after this week, a step that would leave no US carriers flying passengers to the Asian financial hub. About half of the air cargo carried globally is in the belly of passenger jets rather than dedicated freighters. Airbus has prolonged a planned closure of its final assembly plant in Tianjin, China, it said.<br/>
The air transport sector faces mounting freight and logistics disruption with broader repercussions at stake due to the coronavirus outbreak, economists warn. Thousands of dropped flights have already slashed “belly cargo” capacity in airliner holds, with operators like Lufthansa also scaling back freighter services in response to crew health concerns and uncertain demand. The crisis has dimmed hopes of a rebound for air cargo after its worst year in the decade since the financial crisis, the IATA said Wednesday. “We are in unknown territory with respect to the eventual impact of the coronavirus on the global economy,” IATA said. “With all the restrictions being put in place, it will certainly be a drag on economic growth.” With manufacturing paused for the Chinese New Year - and planned stoppages at Airbus and elsewhere now being extended - it may be weeks before economies feel the full brunt of the freight upheaval currently playing out. As things stand, “many supply chains are essentially halted, so there’s nothing to transport,” Bernstein analyst Daniel Roeska said. “If you’re ordering people to stay in their houses it’s difficult to keep factories running.” This week will see 25,000 fewer flights operated to, from and within China than a fortnight ago, aviation data firm OAG said, with services suspended by 30 airlines.<br/>
The shooting down of a Ukrainian airliner near Tehran has given new urgency to efforts to develop a shared conflict alert system for airlines, the head of the world’s biggest airline body said on Wednesday. Iranian air defense units said they mistakenly shot down Ukrainian International Airlines flight PS752, killing all 176 people on board, shortly after it took off from Tehran airport on Jan. 8. At the time, they were on heightened alert because of increased tensions with the US. The incident has renewed calls for an effective conflict alert system for airlines. Concerns were also heightened in 2014 when Malaysia Airlines MH17 was shot down over Ukraine, killing all 298 on board. “There will be something to be done again,” IATA CE Alexandre de Juniac said. After the Malaysian Airlines flight was shot down, IATA backed the creation by the UN aviation agency, ICAO, of a conflict zone website that would alert airlines and pilots of possible dangers. But the site was closed after complaints from some countries over information sharing. “It’s not a reason to give up. The shooting of the Ukrainian airliner is an additional reason not to give up but to continue and be successful,” de Juniac said. Air safety experts say there is inadequate government intelligence sharing and some countries involved in conflicts are reluctant to divulge information or sacrifice overflight fees by shutting their skies. De Juniac said a dedicated body that issues guidelines - rather than mandatory decisions - on whether to overfly certain zones could be more palatable to those who had opposed the mechanism. This “could be a significant improvement,” he said.<br/>
Canada pressed Iran Wednesday to send the black boxes from a crashed airliner immediately to France where the data can be analyzed, the Canadian foreign ministry said. Iran’s civil aviation authority said Tuesday it would keep working with other countries investigating its downing of a Ukrainian passenger plane last month. Tehran has not released the black boxes. Foreign Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne spoke to his Iranian counterpart Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and stressed Tehran must arrange for the quick download and analysis of the flight’s data recorders. Champagne said the preferred option was “for Iran to make use of the facilities offered by France with the technical capacity to do this work”, it added.<br/>
A passenger found a loaded pistol and David Cameron’s passport in an airplane toilet after the former British PM’s bodyguard forgot them there, the British media reported on Wednesday. Cameron was on his way back from New York to London with a protection officer from Britain’s Metropolitan Police when the discovery sparked a security incident, according to the reports. The Sun newspaper, citing other passengers who were present, said the BA plane was waiting to take off when a shocked passenger said he had found a gun in the toilet, causing a commotion. “The captain confirmed a gun had been found, which freaked everyone out,” the Sun quoted one of the passengers as saying. Seeking to reassure passengers, the captain told them the protection officer was authorized to bring a gun on board and it had now been returned to him, but several travelers objected and the weapon was removed before take-off. The Metropolitan Police said they were taking the matter extremely seriously and had launched an internal investigation.<br/>
Whether it's biometrics to get through security, an airline app that tells you if your flight is delayed or free Wi-Fi and charging areas for all travelers, there's no doubt technology this past decade has helped enhance the airport experience for fliers around the world. How exactly will it continue to make a difference in the 10 years to come? In fact, the better question may be: how won't it? "Technology is going to play a much bigger role at airports than it ever has in the past and will be the key driver in creating every facet of a seamless travel journey," says Sherry Stein, head of technology for SITA, a technology company providing IT and telecommunication services to the air transport industry. Nina Brooks, director of security, facilitation and airport IT for Airports Council International, the trade association for the world's airports, agrees and adds that technological innovations today are especially critical to how an airport runs because the number of global passengers is expected to more than double by 2040. According to ACI, 2018 saw 8.8b fliers; in 2040, that number is expected to jump to 19.7b fliers. Story includes a summary of what fliers can expect at airports on the technology front between 2020 and 2030.<br/>
A new era of supersonic flight might be just around the corner, but there are three challenges to overcome when it comes to flying faster than the speed of sound. Those are the three Es of aviation: engineering, environment and economics. Concorde, the aeronautical marvel that made its last flight 16 years ago this week, only conquered the first of those three travel challenges. The world's slinkiest airliner could transport passengers across the Atlantic in less than half the time taken by other commercial aircraft, but it still had ecological shortcomings and high operating costs. Now at a time when carbon emissions and our planet's well-being are in the spotlight, can a return to commercial supersonic flight really be sustainable, profitable for airlines and manufacturers, and affordable for passengers? There are two US companies that certainly think so, and they're going full throttle with plans to bring supersonic airplanes to market by the mid-2020s. The journey times suggested are as short as New York to London in three hours, 15 minutes. One is targeting airlines, the other the executive jet market, and they've both got different solutions to one of the major environmental sticking points of supersonic flight: how to manage the sonic boom. Story has more details.<br/>