general

A small Nigerian air force passenger plane crashed just outside Abuja airport after reporting engine failure on Sunday, killing all seven people on board, the air force said.<br/>The plane, a Beechcraft King Air 350i, was on its way to the city of Minna, 110 kilometres northwest of the capital, air force spokesman Ibikunle Daramole said in a statement. The aircraft “crashed while returning to the Abuja Airport after reporting engine failure”, said Daramole. “First responders are at the scene. Sadly, all seven personnel on board died in the crash.” The chief of the air force has ordered an investigation into the accident, Daramole said. The Beechcraft King Air 350i is a twin-propeller aircraft made by Textron Aviation, a unit of the US-based Textron Inc conglomerate. The model was first released around 2009. The company said that it had been notified of the accident, which it said is being investigated by Nigeria’s Aircraft Investigation Bureau and the US NTSB.<br/>

Six members of Mexico’s military died in an accident on Sunday morning involving a Mexican air force plane in the southeastern state of Veracruz, the country’s Defense Ministry said. The accident occurred as the Learjet 45 aircraft was taking off around 9:45 a.m. from an airport in the municipality of Emiliano Zapata, the ministry said. It was not clear how many were aboard the plane.<br/>

Two people were injured after pieces of a cargo plane broke off and fell onto a town in the Netherlands, according to authorities there. Pieces of metal fell on the town of Meerssen after a Boeing 747 cargo plane experienced an engine fire shortly after taking off from Maastricht, according to the Veiligheidsregio (the Dutch regional safety inspector) and Maastricht Aachen Airport (MAA). The Boeing 747-400 freighter plane was bound for JFK Airport in New York City, according to Longtail Aviation, the charter airline service that owns the plane. The plane's crew noticed an engine issue shortly after takeoff, Longtail Aviation said. The crew "followed correct procedures to investigate the problem," the airline said. "Resulting from this, the decision was made, with air traffic approval, to divert to Liège Airport, Belgium, where it landed safely," the airline said. "Our flight crew dealt with this situation professionally and in accordance with the correct aviation standards, resulting in a safe and uneventful landing," said Martin Amick, accountable manager for Longtail Aviation. "We are now in the process of working closely with the Dutch, Belgian, Bermuda and UK authorities to understand the cause of this incident." Two people were slightly injured. One of them was taken to a hospital, the safety inspector said. Several cars and houses were also damaged, the safety inspector added.<br/>

The oil rally is taking jet fuel along for the ride, posing another headache for airlines still struggling from depressed travel demand in the Covid pandemic. US jet fuel prices reached a nearly 13-month high of $1.67 a gallon on Wednesday, according to S&P Global Platts data, a climb led by an arctic blast and winter storms that disrupted oil production, refining and transportation. Millions were left in the cold and the dark in Texas, which largely relies on natural gas for heat and power. “We were expecting fuel to be at these levels by the second half of the year,” said Raymond James airline analyst Savanthi Syth. Costlier fuel can make it harder for airlines to stem their cash burn, a goal that has already been delayed due to weaker-than-expected demand. Spirit Airlines CFO Scott Haralson during a Feb. 11 earnings call cited higher fuel costs as being among the discount airline’s first-quarter challenges. The carrier expects fuel costs to be up 32% this quarter from the last three months of 2020. Greg Anderson, CFO of Allegiant Air parent Allegiant Travel, also cited higher fuel costs as a headwind during a Feb. 3 quarterly call. Jet fuel production is one of airlines’ biggest expenses along with labor.<br/>

Major US airlines on Friday said they would adopt a voluntary international contact tracing program, months after the White House under then-President Donald Trump blocked a mandatory effort. American Airlines, Delta, Southwest, United and other major airlines said they had committed to collecting contact tracing data from passengers traveling into the United States and to relaying that data to the CDC if travelers provide information. In August, Trump officials rejected an effort to require airlines to collect contact tracing information from US-bound international passengers after some senior administration officials cited privacy concerns, Reuters reported. Major airlines and administration officials had held talks for months over a long-standing CDC effort to mandate the collection and reporting of tracing information from international passengers.<br/>

The US TSA said Friday it is launching an effort to fill more than 6,000 jobs for airport screening officers, citing anticipated seasonal travel trends and progress in COVID-19 vaccinations for the general public. US passenger airline traffic fell 60.1% in 2020 to the lowest number since 1984 as the COVID-19 pandemic devastated demand for air travel, the US DoT said earlier this week. Major airlines say traffic remains down 60%, with international travel still down more than 70%. Over the last seven days, the TSA has screened an average of 913,000 air passengers a day, down from 2.25m a day in the same period last year. The TSA said that in response to the pandemic response and low passenger volumes, it deferred hiring actions for most of 2020. It also offered voluntary early retirements last year, but a spokesman said that did not have significant impact on the need to recruit.<br/>

All Boeing 737 Max flights around the world are being tracked by US regulators who are keeping watch on the plane after its 20-month grounding. The FAA is using a network of satellites capable of tracking planes in even the most remote regions as if they were under surveillance by local radars, according to the agency. The data is being provided by Virginia-based Aireon, the FAA said Friday. Aireon, which reached an agreement in November to provide the FAA with expanded flight data, is tracking Max flights for unusual events, such as rapid descents, said Vincent Capezzuto, the company’s CTO. The monitoring began Jan. 29, Capezzuto said during a Feb. 12 webinar. “Recently, we engaged with them on a 737 Max monitor,” he said. “You can literally monitor it on a situational awareness display.” If any unusual events occur on the plane, “safety engineers and inspectors will use the early notification to further analyze the incident,” the FAA said.<br/>

The head of Airbus called on Saturday for a "ceasefire" in a transatlantic trade war over aircraft subsidies, saying tit-for-tat tariffs on planes and other goods had aggravated damage from the COVID-19 crisis. Washington progressively imposed import duties of 15% on Airbus jets from 2019 after a prolonged dispute at the World Trade Organization, and the EU responded with matching tariffs on Boeing jets a year later. Wine, whisky and other goods are also affected. "This dispute, which is now an old dispute, has put us in a lose-lose situation," Airbus CE Guillaume Faury said in a radio interview. "We have ended up in a situation where wisdom would normally dictate that we have a ceasefire and resolve this conflict," he told France Inter. Faury said the dispute with Boeing was particularly damaging during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has badly hit air travel and led to travel restrictions or border closures. He expressed particular concern about widening bans within Europe. "We are extremely frustrated by the barriers that restrict personal movement and it is almost impossible today to travel in Europe by plane, even domestically," he said. "The priority no. 1 for countries in general is to reopen frontiers and allow people to travel on the basis of tests and then eventually vaccinations."<br/>

USairlines and renewables companies are lobbying the Biden administration to back a big increase in subsidies for lower-carbon aviation fuel, arguing new incentives are needed to help fight climate change and will also make their recovery from the pandemic much greener, industry trade groups said. The push reflects the hefty price that US taxpayers may be asked to pay as President Joe Biden seeks to follow through on his plan to both decarbonize the US economy by 2050 and to help battered industries recover from the economic meltdown. Air travel contributes around 2% of global greenhouse gas emissions, the Air Transport Action Group said. It is projected to grow rapidly in coming decades if airlines do not quickly switch to “sustainable aviation fuel.” This is made from biologically-sourced wastes like old cooking oil, animal fat and plant oils and is a much more expensive product than traditional jet fuel. The sustainable aviation fuel industry senses a political opening with the Biden administration after four years during which former President Donald Trump downplayed the threats from global warming and backed regulations that maximized fossil fuels development. “The difference is we’ve got an ear now that’s much more sympathetic to figuring out near-term solutions to policy, research and development,” said Bryan Sherbacow, chief commercial officer for low-carbon fuels provider World Energy. Story has more.<br/>

The EU is planning to create a new system to rank flights and aircraft according to their carbon footprint, German weekly Welt am Sonntag reported. The paper, citing documents, said the EASA, the continent’s safety regulator, has put out a tender to develop a classification system to that effect. The project is aimed at “providing reliable, comparable and verifiable information” to clients to help them make sustainable decisions, the paper cited the documents as saying, adding details of the eco seal would be firmed up by the end of 2022. Even before the coronavirus pandemic hit global airlines, business travel had been beginning to come under pressure as corporate clients became more alert to environmental and sustainability targets. As part of the EU’s spending plans, nearly E550b could be spent on climate over 2021-27 - a massive sum, but far below the E2.4t in investment researchers say is needed to meet EU climate goals.<br/>

Berlin's newly-opened BER airport will close one of its terminals on Monday due to a sharp fall in passenger numbers caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The closure is another blow to the airport, the construction of which took nine years longer than planned and which went three times over budget. BER has become infamous for planning incompetence, mismanagement and corruption allegations after a string of scandals and mishaps.<br/>When it finally opened in October, passenger demand was expected to outstrip the newly built capacity — prompting the rebranding of the nearby aging Schönefeld Airport as Terminal 5 of the new airport. Schönefeld was built in then-East Germany in 1976. The airport was meant to be demolished to create a new government terminal. But after construction delays, it was repurposed and put back into use until the completion of a planned Terminal 3 in 2030. However, with the coronavirus pandemic cutting passenger numbers, authorities have decided to shutter the terminal until further notice. "We're initially closing for a year, then we'll decide again," said airport spokesperson Hannes Stefan Hönemann. "If things go well, we'll open the terminal again." Passenger numbers in 2020 were just one-quarter of the previous year, according to airport operators.<br/>

The government is poised to further extend the period when airlines can suspend flights without losing their air traffic rights for the routes, as the pandemic continues to affect the aviation industry. According to sources close to the matter, the new extension is currently being “positively considered,” as the current extension comes to an end next month. “Given the prolonged pandemic, the measure is being positively considered to help support airlines,” one Transport Ministry official said. “Similar to the decision to delay the withdrawal of traffic rights last year, the move is part of the efforts to help the industry that has still not recovered,” the official added. In March last year, the government announced a comprehensive plan to support the virus-hit aviation sector. Measures included delaying the withdrawal of air traffic rights and allocated slots from airlines, as well as lowering landing fees to give the industry some breathing space in a year marred by the pandemic. According to data from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, the number of airline passengers saw a 68.1% year-on-year drop to the lowest level in 20 years. The number of international air travelers dropped by 84.2% to 14.24m. Airlines normally have to cancel flights on routes they have not flown for over six to 12 months. <br/>

Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) in the Philippines has completed a runway upgrade to expand aircraft movement capacity by 25%, with the aim to increase this further with additional renovations this year and next. NAIA’s upgraded Runway 13/31, which serves mostly domestic flights and short-haul aircraft such as the Airbus A320, was unveiled on 16 February, according to a same-day update on the DOTr website. The completed repair and cement overlay of Runway 13/31, as well as the construction of an additional holding area (H5) at Runway 13, will boost the maximum allowable commercial flight movement capacity from 40 to 50 flight movements per hour, or 240 flights per day. The DOTr expects the overlay of Runway 13/31 to last between 15 to 20 years, adding that it is less prone to potholes, soft spots and rutting. A concrete surface also requires less maintenance and repair, which would mean fewer traffic delays and flight disruptions, it says. Previously, the runways, taxiways, aircraft holding areas and aprons “constantly” suffered from potholes and surface depressions, which “caused longer aircraft ground time prior to landing and/or take off” and limited the number of aircraft movements per hour, causing flight delays and congestion, the DOTr adds.<br/>

A menagerie of household pets, from dogs and cats to ferrets and budgies, has been left stranded around the world because of cancelled flights and skyrocketing air freight costs during the pandemic. People’s pets normally travel in a part of the aircraft hold that is specially heated, pressurised and darkened to keep them calm. But because airlines operated only half the flights they normally would last year, according to airline data company Cirium, and planes that are still flying prioritise essential cargo such as medical supplies and manufacturing equipment, prices have shot up and pets have gone to the back of the queue. One airline quoted $6,500 to fly a dog from Los Angeles to London, three times the usual cost, according to one pet transportation company. Another unfortunate canine pal was kicked off a flight in Brunei after it had already been loaded, to be replaced by a Saudi prince’s cats, said Bob Ghandour, the owner of PetAirUK, another pet travel company. The labrador had to wait six weeks for the next available flight. Story has more.<br/>