A recent series of startling airplane engine failures has cast a harsh light on Pratt & Whitney, the storied Connecticut aerospace manufacturer. The company’s products were involved in two episodes over the weekend in which engines failed in flight, shedding debris over populated areas in Colorado and the Netherlands. In December, the failure of a Pratt & Whitney engine forced a Japan Airlines jetliner to turn around shortly after taking off from Okinawa. The episodes, which involved Boeing aircraft, all ended in safe landings, and it is too soon to say whether they were connected. But they prompted action by aviation authorities and airlines around the world, raising questions about what went wrong. “What’s being missed? Is it an inspection cycle? Are they doing proper types of inspections? Are there commonalities between the three failures? Those are the kinds of things that the investigators are going to be looking at now,” said John Cox, an accident investigator and the head of Safety Operating Systems, an aviation consulting firm. For nearly a century, Pratt & Whitney has occupied an important spot at the center of the US aircraft industry. As well as having huge contracts with civilian airlines, it has for decades supplied engines to the military, including those used in World War II. Last year, United Technologies, of which Pratt & Whitney was a part, merged with Raytheon, to form Raytheon Technologies. By revenue, Pratt & Whitney is the second largest division at the new Raytheon, bringing in $16.8b of sales, accounting for nearly 30% of the total. Story has more.<br/>
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The mid-air disintegration of a jet engine over suburban Denver Saturday is the latest in a string of failures that has raised alarm among regulators about debris evading shielding that’s supposed to keep broken parts from hitting aircraft. The incident aboard the United flight 328, which showered neighborhoods with metal debris, appears to have been the fifth in five years in which a fan blade broke and destroyed the front section of the engine, according to accident reports and safety experts. That portion of the engine isn’t as protected as the core areas around the jet turbines that are built to contain material in a failure. “It’s getting more attention with each fan-blade-out event, resulting in these dramatic pictures showing the core of an engine hanging from a wing,” said Jeffrey Guzzetti, the former head of accident investigations for the US FAA. A similar episode above Pennsylvania in 2018 killed a woman on a Southwest jet after a metal chunk from the engine struck the window where she was seated and sucked her partially out of the jet. The failure raises questions about engine designs that are supposed to prevent debris from escaping out the sides of an engine when a fast-spinning fan blade fails. The FAA told the NTSB last year that it planned to order a design change to prevent such incidents, according to a previously unreported letter last year to the NTSB. “We are working with Boeing to ensure that the corrective action, in the form of a design change, will address the most critical fan blade impact locations,” FAA Administrator Steven Dickson said in a March 9, 2020, letter. Both FAA and the EASA are conducting reviews of their aircraft certification rules to determine whether the standards for engine and aircraft design need to be updated, they have each told the NTSB. The safety board recommended such a review after its earlier investigation of the Southwest fatality. Story has more.<br/>
Europe’s EASA aviation regulator said on Monday that it was aware of the Pratt & Whitney jet engine incidents, and was requesting information on the cause to determine what action may be needed. Boeing said earlier that it recommended suspending the use of 777 jets with the same type of engine that shed debris over Denver at the weekend after US regulators announced extra inspections and Japan suspended their use while considering further action. <br/>
Britain temporarily banned Boeing 777 aircraft with Pratt & Whitney 4000-112 engines from entering its airspace after a jet with that type of engine shed debris over Denver, in the US, at the weekend. “After issues this weekend, Boeing B777s with Pratt & Whitney 4000-112 series engines will be temporarily banned from entering the UK airspace,” UK transport minister Grant Shapps said Monday. Britain’s regulator, the Civil Aviation Authority, noted on twitter that the particular configuration is not used by any UK airlines.<br/>
The EASA said an incident involving a Boeing 747-400 cargo plane that dropped engine parts after a mid-air explosion over the southern Netherlands on Saturday is unrelated to a 777 engine issue that prompted a United Airlines emergency landing in Denver Saturday. EASA said that even though the Pratt & Whitney PW4000 engine type was the same in both airplanes the Boeing 777 “variant is very specific to this particular aircraft. Nothing in the failure and root analysis show any similarity (between the two incidents) at this stage.” <br/>
The US DoT has announced three grants under the FAA FY2021 Airport Improvement Program for infrastructure projects. The grants will offer around $76m to Dallas-Fort Worth International, Chicago O’Hare International and Fort Lauderdale / Hollywood International Airports. US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg said: “Modernising our nation’s infrastructure is a top priority for President Biden’s economic agenda, and the Airport Improvement Programme allows airports nationwide to upgrade and improve the safety of their facilities. These improvements, at some of our nation’s busiest airports, will serve our communities and the travelling public as we start to build our country back better.” The mentioned airports are getting financial aid under the terms of Letters of Intent formerly issued by the FAA, in obligation to a plan of grant funding dispersed over several fiscal years. Story has details.<br/>
A new Canadian health order requiring a three-day hotel quarantine for air travellers got off to a rocky start on Monday, as some passengers complained of long waits to access the hotel-booking system. Across Canada and abroad, travellers spoke of disconnected calls and hours or even days waiting on the line to make a reservation, forcing some to cancel their flights altogether. PM Justin Trudeau has said the tighter border controls are meant to keep everyone safe, not punish travellers. At a press conference on Friday, Trudeau acknowledged there had been issues with the phone lines but said the problems would be cleared up shortly. A group that advocates for Canadian family reunification filed a challenge to the hotel quarantine health order on Friday in Quebec Superior Court, arguing the measure violates passengers' rights and is too expensive for low-income families. The group is also asking the government to make an exception to the quarantine rules for compassionate reasons and family reunifications. The hotel stays, which must be paid for by the travellers, are just one of a series of measures that came into effect on Monday to limit the spread of COVID-19 and the introduction of variants considered more transmissible than the dominant virus strain circulating in the country. Most incoming air travellers will need to get tested for the virus upon arrival and again toward the end of their mandatory 14-day quarantine.<br/>
Air traffic controllers say Nav Canada is mulling layoffs even if it receives a possible bailout from Ottawa, jeopardizing passenger safety. More cuts would axe critically needed workers and make for a more hazardous airspace in corridors across the country, according to the Canadian Air Traffic Control Association. About 60 jobs are at stake in seven control towers from Whitehorse to Windsor, Ont., as the non-profit body that runs the country's civil air navigation service reviews whether to pare down its payroll -- already thinned by nearly 1,000 positions over the past year. "The risk increases significantly without a control service," said union head Doug Best. "The reason a control service is so much safer is because I will tell that pilot what to do, and the pilot will listen to what we say, knowing that we're keeping airplanes separate so that they can focus on actually flying their airplane." Nav Canada CEO Ray Bohn told the House of Commons transport committee this month that its study of potential service reductions would go on independent of any federal relief package.<br/>
nternational travel will be banned until at least 17 May, the prime minister has announced. Outlining the road map out of lockdown to parliament this afternoon, Boris Johnson said that leisure travel overseas could restart in May at the earliest, alongside the reopening of hotels and B&Bs in England. Leisure travel both domestically and internationally has been banned since the start of January. Travel is currently allowed for a tight set of circumstances, including business and for compassionate reasons, and the government has repeatedly warned people that holidays are illegal. The tentative reopening date follows weeks of speculation from the industry as to when international travel might be allowed again. Many leading travel industry figures have demanded more clarity from the government, including Abta, the Association of British Travel Agents, which this morning published an open letter to the government. Hoteliers and organisations such as Butlins and Center Parcs will be appalled to see that their reopening have been pushed so far back. Until the prime minister’s announcement, they had been selling holidays to begin as soon as 8 March. Johnson announced that the new Global Travel Task Force would report on 12 April as to whether outbound summer holidays could go ahead from May. “We’re grateful to the prime minister and Department for Transport for providing the clarity the whole sector was looking for that international travel can reopen this summer, as soon as it is safe to do so,” said Tim Alderslade, CE of Airlines UK. “This will provide much needed reassurance not only to airlines in desperate need of a summer season but families looking to visit friends and family and take a long-awaited holiday, and we know there is enormous pent-up demand for when we can restart operations.”<br/>
Airlines say they have already seen a surge in bookings, following the Prime Minister's announcement of the road map out of lockdown. Boris Johnson said a global travel taskforce would put forward a report on how to return to international travel on 12 April. The government would then make a decision on removing restrictions on international travel. However this would not happen until 17 May at the earliest. Tui reported that they had had their best day of bookings in over a month, with strong interest in Greece, Spain and Turkey for the summer. Thomas Cook said traffic to its website was up over 100% on Monday from 15:00 GMT onwards, with bookings already "flooding in" for countries like Greece, Cyprus, Mexico and the Dominican Republic. EasyJet also reported a 337% surge in flight bookings and a 630% jump in holiday bookings for locations like Alicante, Malaga, Palmo, Faro and Crete. Bookings are strongest in August, followed by July and then September. "The government's announcement today is good news for those of us desperate to get away on holiday," said Thomas Cook's CE Alan French.<br/>
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Monday attacked an official report saying the cost of his 2018 cancellation of a new Mexico City airport started by the previous administration was much higher than his government had asserted. Mexico’s Federal Audit Office (ASF) said it estimated that canceling the partly-built airport on the city’s eastern flank cost nearly 332b pesos ($16b), or 232b pesos more than the transport ministry stated in April 2019. “I would like them to explain that figure,” Lopez Obrador told a news conference. “It’s wrong, it’s an exaggeration,” he added, and suggested the ASF was helping his adversaries. Following a widely criticized referendum he had called for, Lopez Obrador in late October 2018 announced the termination of the project, his predecessor’s flagship infrastructure scheme, which was initially slated to cost $13b.<br/>