Europe's busiest airport in Istanbul was "gradually" resuming normal operations after a blizzard shut it down for a day, the head of Turkish Airlines said on Wednesday. Istanbul Airport closed on Monday for the first time since it took over from the old Ataturk Airport as the global hub of Turkish Airlines in 2019. Fuming passengers complained on Twitter about a lack of regular updates from Turkish travel officials and poor customer service, with some joining a chant demanding "we need a hotel". The airport handled just a handful of flights on Tuesday, mostly allowing airborn transatlantic flights to land. But officials said 131 domestic and international flights were due to take off and land by 1:00 pm (1000 GMT) Wednesday, helping clear a massive backlog. "Flights have gradually begun returning to normal," Turkish Airlines CEO Bilal Eksi said on Twitter.Airport officials told AFP that only one of the airport's three runways had been cleared of snow and that de-icing work continued. A blizzard that reached Istanbul last weekend paralised traffic and shut down basic services in the city of 16m, some parts of which were covered by 85 centimetres (2.8 feet) of snow. Officials urged citizens not to use private cars unless essential. Universities were closed until Monday and buses were banned from entering or leaving the city until Wednesday morning. But most of the attention focused on Istanbul Airport, which President Recep Tayyip Erdogan once hailed as the "pride of our country and example to the world".<br/>
star
At least 100,000 “ghost flights” could be flown across Europe this winter because of EU airport slot usage rules, according to analysis by Greenpeace. The deserted, unnecessary or unprofitable flights are intended to allow airlines to keep their takeoff and landing runway rights in major airports, but they could also generate up to 2.1 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions – or as much as 1.4m average petrol or diesel cars emit in a year – Greenpeace says. “The EU Commission requiring airlines to fly empty planes to meet an arbitrary quota is not only polluting, but extremely hypocritical given their climate rhetoric,” said Herwig Schuster, a spokesperson for Greenpeace’s European Mobility for All campaign. “Transport emissions are skyrocketing,” he said. “It would be irresponsible of the EU to not take the low-hanging fruit of ending ghost flights and banning short-haul flights where there’s a reasonable train connection.” When the Covid pandemic began, the European Commission cut the benchmark for flight operations that airlines must meet to keep their slots open from 80% to 25%. But last December, Brussels upped the benchmark to 50%, rising again to 64% in March. Lufthansa CEO, Carsten Spohr, said that his airline may have to fly 18,000 “extra, unnecessary flights” to fulfil the adjusted rules, and called for the sort of “climate-friendly exemptions” used in other parts of the world. A Lufthansa spokesperson said that between January and March 2021, just 45% of its flights were full. The other 5%, or 18,000 flights, “we define as unnecessary”, the spokesperson added. “If we wouldn’t risk the loss of slots in certain airports in Europe, we probably would have cancelled them and put them together with other existing flights.”Greenpeace applied Lufthansa’s proportion of ghost flights to other European airlines based on the German carrier’s 17% market share, using a conservative estimate of 20 tons of greenhouse gas emissions a flight. <br/>
Air New Zealand has appointed Alexandria Marren as its new chief operating officer from late March. Marren, who currently heads Atlanta-based aviation services provider ABM Aviation, has more than 36 years in operations, customer, cabin crew and airport leadership roles, says Air New Zealand. She oversaw car rental company Hertz’s North American operations, and was senior vice president for network operations at United Airlines, according to her LinkedIn profile. Marren will replace outgoing operations chief Carrie Hurihanganui, who is leaving to helm airport operator Auckland International Airport in February. Prior to Marren’s arrival, Air New Zealand says the responsibilities of the chief operating officer will be undertaken by members of its executive team. Separately, the airline has also promoted Mike Williams to the role of chief transformation and alliances officer, where he will oversee strategy and alliance partner relationships.<br/>