general

US air-safety regulators are poised to order electrical wires relocated inside Boeing 737 MAX jets in the latest complication and potential delay for their return to commercial service, according to people briefed on the deliberations. The preliminary decision, which hasn’t been reported before, covers all of the nearly 800 MAX airliners produced so far. The decision could be affected by further internal discussions and additional data the plane maker may submit to the regulator. But in the past few weeks, these people said, FAA managers and engineers have concluded that the potentially hazardous layout violates wiring-safety standards intended to prevent dangerous short-circuits. Under extreme circumstances, wiring failures could cause flight-control systems to sharply point down an aircraft’s nose in a similar way to the automated maneuvers that brought down two MAX jets and claimed 346 lives. The plane maker has argued that the current wiring design meets FAA and international safety standards. Boeing also has told the FAA that because the risks are so remote—and such a relatively small number of similar short-circuits have occurred during the extensive history of the MAX’s predecessor model—no wiring redesign is necessary. The emerging agency view, however, is based on longstanding regulations put in place following electrical fires and fuel-tank explosions on commercial jets over decades.<br/>

A US House of Representatives committee apportioned blame to both Boeing and the FAA for two crashes of the 737 Max that killed 346 people, in a blistering report summarising its investigation into the jet’s manufacture and certification by American regulators. Peter DeFazio, the Democratic congressman who chairs the House committee on transportation and infrastructure, said the fatalities were “tragic and avoidable”. The committee launched an investigation almost a year ago after two crashes in five months led to the worldwide grounding of the aircraft. The report excoriated both the Chicago aerospace manufacturer and its regulator, the FAA, calling the government body’s review of the Max “grossly insufficient”. “Boeing’s design and development of the 737 Max was marred by technical design failures, lack of transparency with both regulators and customers, and efforts to obfuscate information about the operation of the aircraft,” according to the report.  “The committee’s investigation has also found . . . the FAA failed in its duty to identify key safety problems and to ensure that they were adequately addressed during the certification process. The combination of these problems doomed the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines flights.” Story has more.<br/>

Federal regulators hit Boeing with proposed fines totaling $19.7m for allegedly installing unapproved cockpit equipment in hundreds of 737 Max and Next-Generation aircraft. The company put the devices into a total of 791 planes even though the aircraft weren’t certified for the devices, the FAA said Friday. The fine would be one of the largest the agency has ever levied. The charges focus on devices called head-up guidance systems that allow pilots to look through the windscreen while simultaneously seeing their instruments. The findings “do not involve a safety issue,” Boeing said in a statement. The company didn’t provide sufficient documentation after installing improved parts in the displays, Boeing said.<br/>

The coronavirus outbreak is rapidly becoming a crisis of historic proportions for the global air travel industry. Commercial air traffic is poised to fall 8.9% this year as the outbreak causes a sudden plunge in demand around the world, according to Jefferies. That would be the biggest drop in data that goes back to 1978 -- dwarfing the impact following the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the recession that ended in 2009 -- and only the fourth decline overall. “It’s unprecedented,” said Jefferies analyst Sheila Kahyaoglu. The estimate throws into stark relief the crisis engulfing airlines and the broader aerospace industry. While air traffic has proven resilient through past disruptions, the broad and unpredictable spread of the new coronavirus differs from more geographically contained outbreaks such as SARS in 2003. “When it passes, it should be a pretty rapid recovery, but this is global now and the shoes are falling at different rates,” said aerospace consultant Kevin Michaels. “It seems like this is going to be drawn out.”<br/>

The US travel industry, which has been badly hit by a plunge in sales caused by the coronavirus, could be getting some help from the federal government. The Trump administration is discussing ways to defer taxes on the airline, cruise and hospitality industries as a way to limit economic damage from the outbreak of the virus. Talks are still in a very preliminary stage, according to officials. "We're worried about certain sectors of the economy, airlines coming to mind, ... that might need some help," said Larry Kudlow, the director of the National Economic Council said Friday. He said, "We're looking for targeted measures that will do the most good in a short period of time." The CEOs of the nation's major airlines met with President Donald Trump, VP Mike Pence, and other members of the administration including Kudlow on Wednesday. "The airline people who came in were terrific, they didn't ask for a bailout," Kudlow said. He said he couldn't get into details of what kind of help might be provided, and he stressed that the administration still believes US economy is strong, despite the recent sell-off in stocks. "We might be worried about some sectors of the economy that are really hard hit," Kudlow said. "There are a lot of things we can do for cash flow purposes, possibly defer [taxes]." Commercial aviation taxes and fees reached $26billion in 2019, or about $71m per day. Billions of that total are paid by airline passengers, not the airlines, although lifting the fees and taxes would reduce the price of airline tickets and could spur increased demand. <br/>

Airline passenger traffic is plunging around the world because of coronavirus. That means tens of thousands of airline workers will probably soon be out of work, at least temporarily. Airlines are already adjusting its staffing by asking employees to take vacation at reduced pay or unpaid leaves of absence. So far, airlines' job cuts have not been permanent. But some companies have frozen hiring, which could hurt airlines' abilities to fill jobs they need filled once the crisis passes. "Every airline will have to look at doing something like this," said airline consultant Michael Boyd. "It's just good, solid planning." Cathay Pacific is the most extreme example so far: It temporarily cut flights by 40%, and it asked all 33,000 of its employees to voluntarily sign up for three-week unpaid leave sometime before the end of June. Cathay had already been struggling before the virus surfaced because of the Hong Kong protests last year. "Preserving cash is the key to protecting our business," Cathay said last month. "We have already been taking multiple measures to achieve this." Lufthansa, which Friday announced a 50% drop in capacity it the coming weeks, said it is talks with its unions about the way to avoid layoffs including reduced hours for staff. It was already having employees take unpaid leave. Emirates, which like Cathay is also completely dependent on international travel, has similarly urged employees to take a leave of absence. Story has more.<br/>

The White House overruled health officials who wanted to recommend that elderly and physically fragile Americans be advised not to fly on commercial airlines because of the new coronavirus, a federal official said. The CDC submitted the plan this week as a way of trying to control the virus, but White House officials ordered the air travel recommendation be removed, said the official who had direct knowledge of the plan. Trump administration officials have since suggested certain people should consider not traveling, but they have stopped short of the stronger guidance sought by the CDC. The press secretary for Vice President Mike Pence, Katie Miller, said that “it was never a recommendation to the Task Force” and called the AP story “complete fiction.” On Friday, the CDC quietly updated its website to tell older adults and people with severe medical conditions such as heart, lung or kidney disease to “stay home as much as possible” and avoid crowds. It urges those people to “take actions to reduce your risk of exposure,” but it doesn’t specifically address flying.<br/>

US airlines are stepping up measures to guard against the spread of coronavirus through person-to-person contamination on airplanes, from eliminating wine and water refills to keeping passengers from touching serving trays and food baskets. Rather than bringing wine or water bottles into the aisles for refills, flight attendants on United will now provide a new cup or glass. Facing a sharp drop in travel demand due to rising coronavirus outbreaks across the world, airlines are offering travellers free rebooking options while trying to calm jitters about cabin cleanliness and air-circulation systems. In a letter to customers Saturday, United CE Oscar Munoz said it is “important that we give you as much information as possible about the procedures we follow to clean our aircraft and maintain a sanitary environment once we’re in the air.” In addition to extra cabin-cleaning measures including washing ceilings and scrubbing overhead bins, United said its flight attendants may wear gloves during all food and beverage service and pickup. Delta and American Airlines have also introduced extra cabin protections, including eliminating self-serve snack and fruit baskets, and all of the carriers are working with airports to regularly disinfect common surfaces like kiosks and ticket counters.<br/>

The coronavirus outbreak is pushing the world’s airlines toward financial crisis — and that is starting to complicate efforts to tame airlines’ greenhouse gas emissions, which had been growing rapidly in recent years. Even though, in the short term, airlines have seen a sharp decline in air travel, and therefore emissions, demand is widely expected to bounce back eventually as the world resumes its embrace of flying. But in the meantime, the airline industry, an increasingly important contributor of planet-warming carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, is citing the financial pain caused by the heath scare as reason to weaken longer-term efforts to fight global warming. At least one major carrier, Air France-KLM, has cited the virus in calling for European countries to delay upcoming policies designed to curb air travel and reduce emissions. “In view of the coronavirus outbreak, we are asking governments to suspend the introduction of new flight taxes,” said Benjamin Smith, the airline’s CE, on Tuesday. “We definitely don’t need new taxes right now. It doesn’t make any sense whatsoever to burden airlines and passengers with higher prices,” said Jennifer Janzen, a spokeswoman for Airlines4Europe, which represents 16 airline companies. “Environmental taxes are just going to make this bad situation even worse.” For months, airlines in Europe have been vocally opposing plans by governments to impose environmental taxes on air travel. Plummeting travel due to the virus could also throw a wrench in a longstanding UN plan to cap emissions from international flights at 2020 levels. That plan would require airlines to offset increased emissions in future years by funding projects that reduce carbon dioxide by, for instance, planting trees or installing renewable energy. Story has more details.<br/>

Heathrow Airport has announced plans to apply tougher noise charges to all flights that arrive and depart within the night quota period of 23:30 to 06:00. The charges will disincentivise flight activity between the identified hours, reducing noise emissions. In order to restrict the number of flights disrupting the communities closest to the airport, airlines that operate unscheduled flights within the time period will be required to pay a bill five times greater than the regular daytime charges. Heathrow said that the move is in response to community feedback on methods to reduce the noise impact of flights. In addition, the charge complements the airport’s wider noise action plan.<br/>