The FAA on Thursday cleared more of the US fleet to make low-visibility landings after the launch of new 5G wireless service. The FAA has warned that it would limit landings in certain low-visibility conditions due to concerns that 5G signals could interfere with crucial aircraft equipment. As winter storms and other adverse weather popped up Thursday, the FAA said it may have to divert some flights. Eighteen flights in the US were forced to divert on Thursday, while more than 600 were canceled amid bad weather around the country, according to flight-tracking site FlightAware. At the center of the issue is aircraft radio altimeters, which tell pilots how far the plane is from the ground. The altimeters use frequencies that sit next to those used for the new 5G service, raising concerns about aircraft receiving inaccurate data. The new service began on Wednesday after two delays since December. Verizon and AT&T, at the last minute, agreed to temporarily delay the rollout near airports temporarily after airlines warned federal officials that the signals could cause widespread disruptions and “economic calamity.” “Due to the nationwide expansion of 5G C-band and the potential for radio altimeter interference, [air traffic control] has identified airports and/or geographic regions that may be impacted by meteorological conditions leading to a diverted flight,” the FAA said. Airports in Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore and San Francisco were among those affected, it said. “We simply don’t compromise on safety and when FAA is telling us it is not safe to land, one we don’t have any discretion in that, but two even if we did we wouldn’t do it,” United CEO Scott Kirby said Thursday. The FAA by late Wednesday had approved 62% of the US fleet to land in low visibility, up from 45% over the weekend. The agency is planning to approve more as early as Thursday. Approved altimeters are on Boeing 717s, 737s, 747s, 757s, 767s and 777s as well as Airbus A310s, A320s, A321s, A350s and A380s. That rose to 78% on Thursday and included smaller regional aircraft: Embraer 170 and Embraer 190.<br/>
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Airline executives breathed a sigh of relief to their investors Thursday, saying they believe the threat to their operations from the rollout of 5G technology is now behind them. Although AT&T and Verizon have agreed only to temporarily delay 5G deployment at major airports, the CEOs of American and United both said there will now be a resolution of the dispute without thousands of delayed, diverted or canceled flights. They had been predicting those dire consequences earlier this week. "It's taken a while to get to the right spot, but I feel like we're in the right spot," said Doug Parker, the CEO of American Airlines. "I don't think you're going to see any material disruption going forward because of this." "While I wish it happened earlier, the good news is we now have everyone engaged, the FAA and DOT at the highest levels, the ... aircraft manufacturers, airlines and the telecoms," said Scott Kirby, the United CEO. "While we don't have a final resolution quite yet, I'm confident we'll get there." The Federal Communications Commission auctioned off the C-band spectrum to US wireless carriers last year — an $81b sale that would allow them to provide robust -- and lucrative -- 5G service. But the airlines soon started screaming that use of that technology near airports could interfere with aircraft radar altimeters, an instrument that tells pilots how high their plane is off the ground. Altimeters are crucial for landing airplanes in low-visibility conditions. That could have meant widespread, continual and costly schedule disruptions -- perhaps delaying tens of thousands of flights a year. It could have costs billions of dollars to the industry that has lost tens of billions in the last two years due to the pandemic.<br/>
Airports across the East Coast, including those around New York City, are under an advisory warning that poor weather combined with new 5G airwaves could lead to flight diversions. The US FAA Thursday morning posted the list of airports -- which also include several in the West -- on its air-traffic advisories website. A storm bringing rain and snow extends across much of the East Coast. At the same time it warned of possible disruptions, the FAA acted to minimize impacts by expanding the number of aircraft models that it has approved to fly within 5G zones near airports. About 78% of the US fleet is now approved to make low-visibility landings in those conditions, the agency said in a press release. The weather systems are the first major test of how the air-traffic system will perform after 5G went live Wednesday. So far, disruptions to the aviation system have been minimal as a last-minute accord between wireless telephone companies and the FAA on 5G averted major disruptions. But the longer-term impacts remain unclear. Wireless companies want to expand 5G service around airports in coming months and have also said they will increase the power of signals after six months. The FAA warning Thursday was attributed to the 5G expansion and potential for radar altimeter interference, according to the website. Certain low-visibility landings can’t be performed in the presence of 5G signals on aircraft at risk of interference. The airports listed included New York’s LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy; Newark Liberty and Teterboro in New Jersey; Boston; Hartford, Connecticut; Providence, Rhode Island; Philadelphia; Baltimore/Washington; San Francisco and Oakland, California; and Salt Lake City. <br/>
United States prosecutors in Manhattan have charged four officials of the government of Belarus with conspiracy to commit aircraft piracy in the 2021 forced landing of a European airliner in Minsk, where a prominent opposition journalist aboard the plane was seized. The charge was contained in an indictment filed on Thursday in Federal District Court. In response to a purported bomb threat, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, Belarus’s authoritarian president, sent a fighter jet on May 23 to intercept the Ryanair Boeing 737-800 carrying some 170 passengers from Athens to Vilnius, Lithuania — among them the journalist, Roman Protasevich. The forcing down of the plane and his seizure led to international outrage. The bomb threat was a fake, orchestrated by senior Belarus officials who were seeking to detain Protasevich in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, the indictment says. The move was seen as a marker of how far Lukashenko was willing to go to crush dissent and extend his increasingly repressive rule. Lukashenko’s security forces violently suppressed the demonstrations and imprisoned thousands of people, drawing international condemnation. After the Ryanair diversion led to Western sanctions, he attracted thousands of migrants, mostly Afghan, to Belarus and urged them to cross illegally into Poland, trying to create a political crisis for NATO and the European Union. The indictment does not charge Mr. Lukashenko. It names Leonid Mikalaevich Churo, the director general of Belarus’s state air navigation authority; his deputy, Oleg Kazyuchits; and two officers of the country’s security services whose full names were not known to prosecutors. The defendants are based in Belarus and remain at large, the authorities said. As a result, it is unlikely that they will appear in a United States courtroom to answer the charges in the foreseeable future.<br/>
US Attorney General Merrick Garland plans to meet with relatives and lawyers of victims of fatal Boeing 737 MAX crashes after some challenged a deferred prosecution agreement struck with the planemaker, the Justice Department said. In December, some victims' relatives said the Department had violated their rights when it struck the January 2021 agreement with Boeing over the two crashes in a five-month period that killed 346 people. They filed a motion arguing the United States government "lied and violated their rights through a secret process", and asked a US judge to rescind Boeing's immunity from criminal prosecution, which was part of the $2.5b agreement, and order the planemaker publicly arraigned on the felony charges. The Justice Department said in a court filing late Wednesday the meeting with Garland would take place "within the next week", and that it wanted to delay responding to the families' motion until then. A Garland spokesman and Boeing both declined comment. The January 2021 settlement allowed Boeing to avoid prosecution, and includes a fine of $243.6m, compensation to airlines of $1.77b and a $500m crash-victim fund over fraud conspiracy charges related to the plane's flawed design.<br/>
Airlines should pay for all of their CO2 emissions in Europe from 2026, a year earlier than initially planned by the EU, according to an early draft of the European Parliament's position on the policy. The EU is overhauling its climate policies to achieve a goal of cutting net emissions by 55% by 2030 from 1990 levels. The European Commission says all sectors must contribute to the target, including aviation. The EC proposed last summer that airlines stop getting free CO2 permits under the EU carbon market by 2027 - hiking the price carriers must pay when they pollute. An early draft of the European Parliament's amendments to that proposal would pull forward that date to 2026. From 2024, airlines would lose 33.3% of their free CO2 permits, the draft said, rather than the 25% proposed by the Commission. From 2025, they would lose 66.6%, rather than 50%. Airlines currently get most of their carbon permits - more than 80% - for free. "The goal is to further include the aviation sector in achieving the Union's climate goals," said Suncana Glavak, parliament's lead lawmaker on the policy. "We must support innovation in the sector and the use of sustainable aviation fuels." Glavak, a Croatian lawmaker, said airlines lack solutions to quickly cut their emissions, and proposed that an EU innovation fund should help develop technologies to cut the sector's emissions, including sustainable fuels and cleaner engines. Emissions from flights within Europe are covered by the EU carbon market, but flights to and from the EU are not. Those international trips are covered by a CO2 offsetting scheme set up by United Nations aviation agency ICAO, which becomes mandatory for countries in 2027. Parliament's draft report said the EU should try to strengthen that scheme, which has been criticised by some countries and campaigners as unlikely to curb emissions. <br/>
Turkey and Qatar have reached agreement on ensuring security at Kabul’s main airport should they be awarded the mission amid ongoing talks with the Taliban government, Turkish diplomatic sources said on Thursday. Kabul’s international airport is landlocked Afghanistan’s main air link to the world. Following the August takeover of Afghanistan by the hardline Islamist Taliban, Turkey has said it would be open to operating it with Qatar but only if its security demands are met. Reuters has reported that the United Arab Emirates also held talks with the Taliban to keep the airport operational. The sources told reporters on Thursday that Ankara and Doha had agreed on a security framework for the airport mission, but added talks continued on other aspects such as financing. “It is expected for the Taliban to ensure security outside, and for whoever runs the airport to ensure it inside,” one of the sources said. “The process is continuing constructively,” the person said on condition of anonymity. They added that a delegation of Turkish and Qatari officials were holding talks on the issue in Kabul this week. Qatar’s state news agency said the Taliban government will be in Doha next week to complete discussions with Qatar and Turkey over the operation and management of the airport. It added that delegations from Qatar and Turkey have held two days of “intense negotiations” in Kabul this week over control of the airport.<br/>
Even before the latest flight cancellations, international capacity to and from China was running at just 2% of pre-COVID levels as the country sticks to a strict zero-COVID policy of stamping out all cases while other parts of world open up. The zero-COVID mentality is likely to stay for most of 2022, Bank of America Securities analysts said in a note on Tuesday, in bad news for the 845,000 foreign passport holders in China, a number already reduced since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. China’s aviation regulator in January alone cancelled 143 return flights as the highly transmissible Omicron variant spreads across the globe, according to a report from Chinese aviation data provider flight master last Friday. That was the most in a month since it introduced a policy of suspending flights when positive cases were found in June 2020. The flight suspensions, which also include some services to Europe and other parts of Asia, are one of the biggest challenges faced by companies doing business in China, said a spokesperson for the Europe Chamber of Commerce in China. “The recent cancellations send a clear message that China will not deviate from its current strategy,” the spokesperson said, referring to the zero-COVID policy. China now requires passengers to have started costly COVID tests seven days before boarding in the departure city of their direct flight into China. That creates a headache for travellers like Law who are not based in US cities with direct flights. Tough travel policies in transit hubs for US-China travellers like Taiwan, Korea and Japan also effectively rule out less costly indirect flights. Jing Quan, minister of the Chinese embassy in the United States, said Beijing is working closely with the State Department to strike a balance on the number of commercial flights to China. Charter flights for Olympics athletes have not been affected, he said.<br/>
Noting the role of commercial flights in the rapid spread of COVID-19, researchers from China and Hong Kong simulated the airplane environment and the fluid dynamics relevant to the airborne spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and correctly predicted the number of infected and uninfected passengers on a hypothetical flight with 84% accuracy. In a study published on Wednesday in the peer-reviewed journal Indoor Air, the research team found that SARS-CoV-2, spread on flights via coughing or talking, is distributed throughout the cabin of the plane with the air circulation. The researchers then counted the number of virus particles inhaled per passenger to determine how many passengers were infected. Based on their simulation, about 84% of passengers on a hypothetical flight from London, United Kingdom, to Hanoi, Vietnam, were infected with SARS-CoV-2. Furthermore, the researchers found that speaking less often and wearing masks decreased passengers' risk of infection since the pathogen is spread via aerosol.<br/>
Boeing's steady climb out of successive crises - among the worst in US corporate history - gained momentum last week when it won the 2021 jet order race against rival Airbus on an adjusted basis with a 737 MAX sales blitz. But closely watched orders and deliveries have underscored the industrial and regulatory currents still facing its bigger 787 Dreamliner and 777X flagships - issues that have left Boeing fighting concurrent battles on both sides of the Atlantic. Regulators in Europe are challenging the safety net built in to 777X flight controls and deliveries of the 787 are expected to remain frozen until around April as U.S. regulators review production flaws, senior industry and government sources said. The pressure surrounding two of the world's largest passenger jets highlights the immediate challenge to Boeing in the aftermath of fatal MAX crashes and the pandemic, though the rest of the industry is also bracing for a regulatory crackdown. "There is such nervousness among the regulators who make these decisions, who sign off on these things, that they are missing something," one senior air safety expert said. "The reason for that is the aftermath of the MAX crisis. What you now have is engineers looking at things differently than they ever had before," he said. Initially designed and overseen by the same generation of engineers and U.S. regulators who oversaw the MAX, the upgrade to the large 777 has captured the attention of an increasingly assertive EASA. EASA and Boeing are locked in a deeper than usual debate over engineering that will determine whether extra safeguards are needed for the jet's flight control system, the people said.<br/>
The first flights carrying fresh water and other aid to Tonga finally arrived Thursday after the Pacific nation’s main airport runway was cleared of ash left by a huge volcanic eruption. New Zealand and Australia each sent military transport planes that were carrying water containers, kits for temporary shelters, generators, hygiene supplies and communications equipment. The Australian plane also had a special sweeper to help keep the runway clear. The first flights carrying fresh water and other aid to Tonga finally arrived Thursday after the Pacific nation’s main airport runway was cleared of ash left by a huge volcanic eruption. New Zealand and Australia each sent military transport planes that were carrying water containers, kits for temporary shelters, generators, hygiene supplies and communications equipment. The Australian plane also had a special sweeper to help keep the runway clear.<br/>
A British-Belgian teenager became the youngest woman to fly solo around the world on Thursday and the first person to do so in a microlight plane after a five-month, five-continent odyssey in her Shark ultralight. Nineteen-year-old Zara Rutherford landed back at Kortrijk-Wevelgem Airport in Belgium after flying 51,000 km over 52 nations since her Aug. 18 departure in the world's fastest microlight aircraft. "It's just really crazy, I haven't quite processed it," Rutherford, smiling broadly and cloaked in British and Belgian flags, told reporters. After the penultimate leg to a German village on Wednesday, she said it was an exploit she would never repeat. After North and South America, Rutherford was stuck for a month in Alaska because of weather and visa delays. A winter storm forced another long stop in far eastern Russia, before she travelled to South Asia, the Middle East and back to Europe. Rutherford took the record from Afghan-born American Shaesta Wais, who in 2017 became the youngest woman to fly solo around the world at 30. The youngest male record holder, American Mason Andrews, was 18 when he did it in 2018. She also became the first Belgian to circumnavigate the world solo in a single-engine aircraft, getting through the long days by shuffling through a 40-hour playlist of songs.<br/>