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The Republican attorney general of Texas on Wednesday sued to strike down the Biden administration’s mandate requiring travelers to wear masks at airports, on airplanes and on commuter bus and rail systems. The suit comes as many governors, including in states governed by Democrats, have been rolling back mask mandates for indoor public settings as infections from the Omicron variant of the coronavirus have plummeted following a record-setting surge last month. But forms of public transportation are regulated by the federal government. Since it was first introduced a year ago, the federal mandate requiring travelers to wear masks has been extended several times, most recently until at least March 18. Brief breaks for eating and drinking are permitted. There are exemptions for travelers younger than 2 and for people with certain disabilities who cannot wear masks safely. Travelers who refuse to comply can be fined. The suit by the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, was filed in federal court in Fort Worth. It argues that the mask mandate is unconstitutional and that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lacks the authority to impose the requirement. The Supreme Court recently declined to hear another case that sought to block the mandate. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said in December that he did not believe the country was approaching a point where masks would no longer be necessary on planes. “Even though you have a good filtration system, I still believe that masks are a prudent thing to do, and we should be doing it,” he said.<br/>

A total of 80 unruly airplane passengers have been referred to the FBI for potential criminal prosecution, the FAA said Wednesday, as onboard disruptions rose sharply in 2021, many over COVID-19 mask requirements. The US Justice Department has pledged to take a tough line and some airlines and labor unions have called for a "no-fly" list that would ban passengers with a record of disruptions.<br/>The increase in cases is tied to pandemic restrictions that have prompted friction on airplanes. The FAA, which said last year it had referred 37 passengers to the FBI for review, said about 4,600 of the 6,400 unruly passenger reports it has received since the start of 2021 through Feb. 15 involve passengers not wearing a mask as required. The Justice Department said Wednesday it was prosecuting a record number of passengers for interfering with flight crews. In the 2019 budget year 20 defendants were charged, followed by 16 in 2020 and a record 21 in 2021. The department said 9 have been charged in the first four months of the current budget year. Delta CE Ed Bastian this month asked US Attorney General Merrick Garland to place passengers convicted of on-board disruptions on a national "no-fly" list that would bar them from future travel on any commercial airline. Bastian said the action would "help prevent future incidents and serve as a strong symbol of the consequences of not complying with crew member instructions on commercial aircraft." Delta has placed nearly 1,900 people on its "no-fly" list for refusing to comply with masking requirements and submitted more than 900 banned names to the Transportation Security Administration to pursue civil penalties, Bastian said.<br/>

A group of Republican senators is pushing back against an effort supported by some of the airline industry to create a government blacklist of violent and disruptive passengers. "Creating a federal 'no-fly' list for unruly passengers who are skeptical of this mandate would seemingly equate them to terrorists who seek to actively take the lives of Americans and perpetrate attacks on the homeland," the senators wrote in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland dated Monday. Nearly 500 unruly passenger incidents have been reported in the first six weeks of 2022, Federal Aviation Administration data show, for a total of more than 6,400 since the start of 2021. About two-thirds of the reports this year allege violations of the federal mask mandate. The FAA said Wednesday it has referred a total of 80 incidents to the Justice Department to consider criminal prosecution. The spike in incidents has airlines calling for a government-coordinated "no-fly list" for passengers who create in-flight disturbances. Proponents say it would be separate from the existing government-run list that is part of the FBI's Terrorist Screening Database. The Senate group says they "strongly condemn" the violence, but urge the Justice Department to reject the request. "The creation of this list by DOJ would result in a severe restriction on the ability of citizens to fully exercise their constitutional right to engage in interstate transportation," they wrote, and said the matter should be decided by Congress.<br/>

Steve Dickson, who led the US FAA through a tumultuous period following fatal crashes of Boeing’s 737 Max and the Covid-19 pandemic, is stepping down from the agency at the end of March. Dickson informed FAA’s employees in an email Wednesday of his plan to depart less than three years into his five-year term. He called the decision “very difficult,” but said he was motivated by the long periods he’d been forced to spend away from his family in Georgia as a result of the job and the pandemic. “Although my heart is heavy, I am tremendously proud of everything we have accomplished together over the past several years,” Dickson said in the email. “The agency is in a better place than it was two years ago, and we are positioned for great success.” Dickson, 64, was appointed head of the FAA by President Donald Trump and sworn in on August 12, 2019. That was about five months after the second of two crashes of the 737 Max, which killed 346 people. Dickson was thrust front and center as Congress held contentious hearings into the agency and its role in certifying the jet. <br/>

Qatar’s foreign minister has refused to say if the Australian women subjected to invasive searches at Hamad International Airport should be compensated for their ordeal. Seven of the women are launching a lawsuit against Qatari authorities and say, through their lawyer, that they have been told their claims have no legal merit. On October 2, 2020, the women were transiting through Doha and had boarded their flight when they were hauled off two Qatar Airways flights at Hamad International Airport without explanation. Some were taken to an ambulance and instructed to remove their pants and underwear and were then subjected to an extremely invasive gynaecological inspection. The women did not consent and say they were panicked, scared and extremely anxious, some feared for their lives and compared it to being raped. All women say they have suffered depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and fear of flying ever since. Qatari authorities had found a newborn baby abandoned in a bin at an airport toilet. It is illegal to have a child out of marriage in the Gulf state. The women were being examined to see if they had given birth. Asked by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age if they should be compensated, Qatar’s Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani said the matter had been settled. “As the government we are taking the full responsibility of this action and we are penalising the people who were responsible for such a slip, which was a big mistake, and we apologised to the Australian government and to the victims of that incident,” he said.<br/>

Singapore will ease Covid travel testing rules and launch new vaccinated travel lanes with the Philippines and Israel as it woos more tourists and seeks to reclaim its status of one of Asia’s major travel hubs. Shares of the city-state’s aviation-related stocks rose. The city-state also will start previously announced VTLs from Feb. 25 with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates -- major transit hubs in their own right -- and Saudi Arabia, the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore said in a statement Wednesday. The lanes with the Philippines and Israel will start March 4. At the same time, rules for travelers from Hong Kong were tightened slightly: Singapore downgraded the financial hub’s status because of its own outbreak, but will open a travel lane so vaccinated travelers from Hong Kong can still enter without quarantining. Singapore has been seeking to revive its status as an aviation hub after starting travel lanes with more than 20 countries including the US, UK and France last year, and refrained from closing them completely even when the omicron variant sent case numbers soaring. Regional rivals including Tokyo, Hong Kong and Shanghai remain largely closed to international visitors as those places seek to keep imported infections low.<br/>

Australians eager to travel overseas and reunite with loved ones after two years of pandemic border restrictions are facing expensive international air fares, with a new analysis showing prices have surged by an average of more than 50% across all destinations compared with pre-pandemic travel. Many airlines cut all services and closed down local offices at the peak of strict quarantine arrival caps in 2021 as they slowly rebuild and resume services to the country, the cost of international travel to and from Australia is expected to remain high. International airlines are operating about a fifth of the number of passenger services into Australia compared with pre-pandemic levels – not factoring in Western Australia, where traffic is 1% – according to the Board of Airline Representatives of Australia. Prices for economy seats are on average 54% above pre-pandemic levels, according to data from travel website Kayak provided to Guardian Australia. The data was based on searches for flights between 1 February and 13 February that were departing within 180 days of the search date. New Delhi was the most searched-for international destination in early February by Australians looking to book holidays, with airline tickets to the Indian capital among the most overpriced when compared with pre-pandemic costs, the data shows.<br/>

Despite 24 to 30 months of lost growth because of the impact of the pandemic, the Asia-Pacific air travel market will return to its pre-Covid level and strong growth, according to Darren Hulst, vice president commercial marketing of Boeing, speaking at the Singapore Airshow. In its latest 20-year Commercial Market Outlook, which covers the period up to 2040, it sees a compound annual growth rate for intra southeast Asia passenger traffic of 6.7% for this period compared to a global growth rate of 4.0%. Boeing’s view is that the “fundamental growth drivers remain strong in southeast Asia”, says Hulst, referring to healthy domestic and regional markets, an expanding middle class and an increasing propensity to travel. “There will be an additional 63 million people entering the middle class in the next 15 years,” he says. For Boeing, this return to growth translates into a demand for 4,415 new aircraft in the next 20 years for the southeast Asia market. This breaks down to 3,600 narrowbodies, 770 widebodies, 20 regional jets and 25 freighters. Boeing has seen tremendous growth in the global air cargo market driving its best-ever year in 2021 for sales of new and converted freighter aircraft, says Hulst. It sold 204 of these types, consisting of 80 production and 120 Boeing Converted Freighters.<br/>

The global aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) sector faces fresh challenges from rising labour costs and a weak recovery in the widebody market as shop visits begin to rebound after a severe pandemic-related slump. The MRO sector, worth an estimated $68.4b in 2021, according to consultancy Oliver Wyman, has been battered by retirements of older planes, which typically require more maintenance, and reduced flying hours for the rest of airlines’ fleets. That has led to less wear and tear on parts and given airlines with grounded planes the ability to conserve cash and postpone shop visits. Industry delegates at the Singapore Airshow said that the outlook was improving but that labour costs were rising. They said the recovery was lumpy and focused on specific areas where air travel was rebounding, such as narrowbody aircraft and dedicated freighters, with older passenger widebodies lagging well behind. “There is a general labour shortage and the only way to get labour back to work is higher rates,” said Kailash Krishnaswamy, senior vice president of aftermarket services at Spirit AeroSystems. “Inflation is definitely a challenge.” For his company, business has been solid in the Americas, where it services narrowbodies but less so in Belfast, where it had done a lot of work on Airbus A330 widebodies, many of which have been retired. “We are trying to pursue a lot more narrowbodies in Belfast that we used to not do in 2019,” Krishnaswamy said.<br/>

Shell has become the first supplier of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) in Singapore, and plans to start blending the fuel at its plant in the aviation hub, the company said on Thursday during an event at the Singapore Airshow. The first batch of SAF was blended in Europe, Shell said in a statement. "We have delivered some (SAF) to our customers SIA Engineering Company and the Republic of Singapore Air Force," said Doris Tan, head of aviation Asia Pacific & Middle East. Shell has also completed an upgrade of its Singapore facility, which will enable it to blend SAF in the city-state itself, while it also aims to test the supply chain it is establishing for SAF in Asia. Aviation, which accounts for 3% of the world's carbon emissions, is considered one of the toughest sectors to tackle due to a lack of alternative technologies to jet fueled-engines. "Alongside investing in our capabilities to produce SAF, we are also focused on developing the regional infrastructure needed to get the fuel to our customers at their key locations," said Jan Toschka, global president, Shell Aviation. The SAF supplied is made from waste products and sustainable feedstocks and will be blended at an approved ratio of up to 50% with conventional jet fuel, Shell said. In its neat form, SAF can reduce lifecycle emissions by up to 80% compared with conventional fuel, it added.<br/>

Finland’s Neste plans to produce its first batch of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) in Singapore by the end of first quarter next year after the COVID-19 pandemic delayed its expansion project, a senior executive said on Wednesday. “It’s been delayed due to the pandemic as we were already hoping to be on stream in 2022,” Neste’s Executive Vice President for Renewable Aviation, Thorsten Lange, told Reuters. “But the revised plan is now fully on track.” Neste produces renewable fuels, mainly from waste and residues such as used cooking oil, animal fat from food industry waste, fish fat from fish processing waste and residues from vegetable oil processing. Neste plans to start SAF production at the end of first quarter 2023 and then onwards ramp up output to an annual capacity of 1m tonnes, Lange said in an interview on the sidelines of the Singapore Airshow. The Singapore Airshow has opened to a limited crowd of trade visitors on Tuesday with the organizers expecting the biennial event to attract more than 13,000 trade attendees, much less than nearly 30,000 in 2020 and around 54,000 in 2018. Aviation, which accounts for 3% of the world’s carbon emissions, is considered one of the toughest sectors to tackle due to a lack of alternative technologies to jet fueled-engines.<br/>

The next generation of business-class seats will come with doors and dividing walls, helping coronavirus-wary passengers cocoon themselves from other travelers as they return to the skies. The new chair, which manufacturer Recaro Aircraft Seating GmbH will unveil in June, will also give passengers more shoulder and legroom, CEO Mark Hiller said at the Singapore Airshow. With the door closed and the wall extended, the seat effectively becomes an enclosed booth inside the cabin. Hiller said the pandemic has accelerated a preference among airlines and passengers for seats that provide greater isolation. Even Recaro’s newest premium economy seat tries to achieve that goal with a headrest that wraps more around the head, he said. “The challenge is really to design something that gives you privacy but doesn’t create a claustrophobic feeling,” Hiller said. Recaro, whose customers include Emirates, Air France-KLM and Cebu Pacific, has already received orders for the new business-class seat, which cost more than E100,000 each, Hiller said. Fitting the door, which is made from lightweight carbon-fiber honeycomb, presented a challenge because it added weight, and must open even after a hard landing, Hiller said. It has been approved by US and European regulators, he said. Airlines resuming services after the pandemic have seen surging demand for seats in premium cabins, where travelers are less densely packed. That’s pushed airlines to put a greater focus on these sections, which are typically more profitable.<br/>