A stunning rise in the cost of jet fuel has sent airfares soaring, and industry experts say they are likely to go higher. For now, though, travel-starved consumers seem more than willing to pay up. Jet fuel prices have settled somewhat since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent them skyrocketing last month, but the market remains extremely volatile. The problem is particularly severe in New York, where the cost of the fuel rose about fourfold to just over $7.50 a gallon before dipping back to $5.30 in recent days. Supply is broadly constrained and prices have spiked across the country. The Energy Department this week said that the inventory level for East Coast jet fuel stood at 6.5m barrels, the lowest since the agency began keeping track in 1990. “Jet fuel has made the most parabolic move I’ve ever seen for any transportation fuel,” said Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis at Oil Price Information Service. “It’s just insane.” The surge in prices has implications not only for airfares but also for the already high costs of global shipping. On Wednesday, for example, Amazon announced plans to impose its first “fuel and inflation surcharge” for sellers whose goods it stores and delivers. Airlines have been able to pass on some of their added fuel expense to consumers, many of whom are more than eager to travel after being denied the opportunity for two years. Story has more.<br/>
general
Over the last two weeks, travelers on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean have endured long lines at airports, flight delays or cancellations, and plenty of frustration. Thousands of Britons have flocked to airports for the start of the Easter vacation season, which coincided with governments across Europe dropping coronavirus restrictions. But in the last two weeks, more than a thousand flights have been canceled across Britain, upending vacation plans for tens of thousands of passengers. Last Saturday alone, British Airways and easyJet canceled more than 100 flights. In the United States, low-cost carriers like Southwest and Spirit were also forced to cancel flights earlier this month following technical glitches and bad weather. Additionally, JetBlue and Alaska Airlines announced reductions to spring and summer flight schedules, with JetBlue reducing its May flight capacity between 8% and 10% and saying it plans to make similar cuts to its summer schedule, while Alaska cut 2% of its flight schedule through June. The cuts came at a time when travel demand has come roaring back, with some airlines and airports reporting the highest passenger numbers since the start of the pandemic. Heathrow received 4.2m passengers in March, a more than sevenfold jump from a year ago. In the US, passenger traffic in recent months has reached nearly 90% of prepandemic levels, according to the TSA. “When Europe lifted its restrictions, that was an invitation to come back,” said Janice Riley, 54, an American basking in the sunshine in the old town of Geneva earlier this week. Riley’s trip to France and Switzerland had been smooth so far — but she said she was willing to get stuck or face disruptions for the sake of going somewhere. “I just had an itch to travel and see friends and family, and taking that risk has been worth it,” she said. It is the moment the travel industry had been waiting for — “the great comeback,” despite rising prices and the uncertainty over the war in Ukraine. But it seems like the new normal for travelers may be chaos driven by the continued spread of variants and subvariants of the coronavirus and travel operators who are still unable to cope with the volume of demand. “We’re in for a very bumpy and turbulent two months ahead,” said Paul Charles, the CEO of The PC Agency, a London-based travel consultancy firm.<br/>
The FAA is requiring inspections of two types of turbofans, saying corrosion caused by prolonged aircraft storage could cause in-flight engine failures. The issues highlight problems that can occur when jets sit idle for months, such as hundreds did during the pandemic, but also due to regulatory groundings. The FAA issued orders this week addressing potential corrosion in Pratt & Whitney PW4000s powering Boeing 777s and in GE Aviation CF34s powering Bombardier CRJs and Embraer E-Jets. In an 11 April airworthiness directive (AD), the FAA warns of CF34 failures – including dual-engine failures – on jets fresh out of storage. “Engines installed on airplanes parked outdoors for 250 or more days are at risk of excessive corrosion build up,” it says. The AD cites several in-flight CF34 troubles involving CRJs, including a CRJ1000 that “experienced an in-flight shutdown” on 11 August 2021. The jet had been “parked outdoors for extended lengths of time within 10 miles (16km) from a saltwater coastline”, the AD says. That exposure corroded an “actuator rod” inside the jet’s CF34 engine, causing components to seize and fracture. Also, on 7 September and 26 October 2021, pilots of two CRJ900s received in-flight “engined degraded” messages, due to corrosion “between the high-pressure compressor case and vane bushings”, according to the FAA. In response to that error, the CRJ’s system “automatically reduces the engine to idle and locks the throttle until the engine is shut down and restarted”. GE says infrequent use over two years caused the corrosion, noting that one engine was stored 72km from saltwater while the other had been parked for more than 250 days, according to the FAA. Noting the issue could potentially cause dual-engine failures, the FAA is requiring inspections.<br/>
The UK is proposing measures to help speed up the recruitment of workers at airlines and airports in an effort to ease staff shortages that have led to hundreds of cancelled flights and big queues. Aviation minister Robert Courts has written to aviation industry executives, saying the government would, by the end of April, aim to drop a requirement that companies must have completed background checks on new hires’ past employment before they begin training courses. The move comes as the sector struggles to cope with Britons seeking to go abroad after the lifting of coronavirus restrictions because companies slashed workforces when travel ground to a halt at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. UK airlines have cancelled as many as 1,000 flights a week recently because of staff shortages caused by a combination of Covid-19 infections and longer-than-expected times completing background and identity checks on new starters, and obtaining security clearance for them. Travellers using airports including Heathrow, Gatwick and Manchester have experienced lengthy delays. “All of us will be concerned about the situations some passengers have experienced over the past couple of weeks,” said Courts in his letter to industry executives on April 8. “The Department for Transport has been working hard to identify solutions to help ease the current difficulties that you are facing in what is a competitive labour market.” Since the UK retained EU laws on background checks after Brexit, ministers are now proposing legislation known as a statutory instrument to loosen the requirements.<br/>
Chinese refiners are set to cut crude throughput this month by about 6%, a scale last seen in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic two years ago, to ease bulging inventories as recent COVID lockdowns undercut fuel consumption, industry sources and analysts said. Refiners are expected to lower crude oil processing in April by 3.7m tonnes, or 900,000 barrels per day (bpd), equivalent to 6.3% of average national throughput in the latest annual figures, according to estimates by six industry sources and analysts. Slowing demand at the world’s top crude importer would help to cool global oil prices, which remain above $100 after touching 14-year peaks last month, buoyed in part by supply disruption fears following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The slump in demand has also forced state refiners to export more fuel from their swelling inventories, countering government-led efforts to scale back overseas shipments after the Russia-Ukraine conflict stirred worries about supplies. Companies are forecast to export approximately 2m tonnes of gasoline, jet fuel and diesel combined this month, sources said, which could also allow Chinese refiners to reap the benefits of record Asian refining margins. Customs data released on Wednesday showed that China’s crude oil imports fell 14% in March from a year earlier. Imports had been pressured by deteriorating margins at small, independent refiners and by seasonal maintenance, and with the added impact of sliding demand, further declines are expected in April. China’s throughput data for March will be released next Monday. Chinese fuel demand took a sharp downturn in March when worsening coronavirus outbreaks were met by widespread lockdowns, including three weeks of mobility restrictions in Shanghai, China’s largest city, to contain the highly contagious Omicron variant.<br/>
From 2020 airlines suffered a major reduction in their passenger business due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. But recently, with the easing of some quarantine measures, they have been taking steps to normalize their business by resuming or increasing overseas routes. However, the need to maintain certain regulations to safeguard public health ― such as mandatory quarantine for unvaccinated arrivals and the requirement that all arrivals submit negative PCR tests ― could mean it will take some time for airlines to recover demand for overseas travel fully. Despite these challenges, local airlines are starting to resume international routes that were earlier suspended. Compared to the previous month, Korean Air reopened international flights to 16 locations including LA, Vancouver, Toronto, Paris, London, Amsterdam, Southeast Asia, Oceania, China and Japan. Asiana Airlines also increased the frequency of flights to Los Angeles, Sydney, Frankfurt, London and resumed flights to Hawaii after a suspension of 25 months. Low-cost carriers have also increased their numbers of regular flights. Jeju Air plans to operate 14 international routes and conduct a total of 174 flights in May, which is an increase of 98% in the number of international flights compared to this month. For example, the country's leading low-cost carrier airline will resume flights to Da Nang and Nha Trang in Vietnam, Bohol in the Philippines, and Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia. T'way Air will also resume flights to Fukuoka, Osaka, Da Nang, Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh City. Jin Air is also promoting the resumption of flights mainly to Japan and Southeast Asia, while Air Seoul will resume routes to Da Nang and Nha Trang, Vietnam.<br/>
Changi Airport was crowned the world’s best aerodrome for 15 years straight prior to Covid based on its superior traveler offerings and high-tech customer service. Now it’s readying to welcome back visitors en masse, hoping improvements made during the pandemic will cement its status as Asia’s premier aviation hub. Most of the shops at the two Changi terminals that are operating have reopened and business partners like Singapore Airlines Ltd. and ground handling and catering outfit SATS Ltd. are hiring in anticipation of a travel rebound, seeking to avoid the labor shortage-induced snarls of Australia and Europe. New technology is being applied that’s taking contactless service to the next level. Such efforts could help Changi become the region’s busiest airport for international travel in 2022, a title that’s there for the taking considering the woes of Hong Kong International Airport, where air passenger traffic has slowed to a trickle under China’s Covid-Zero policy. Restoring Changi, which commands a certain spot in the nation’s psyche, is also vital to Singapore’s economy, with the aviation sector accounting for more than 5% of the city’s gross domestic product and providing around 200,000 jobs. “Changi is the most liberal airport we have in Southeast Asia right now,” said Mohshin Aziz, director of the Pangolin Aviation Recovery Fund, which invests in aviation-related businesses. “We are in this situation where the difference in policies will determine whether an airport is in the 21st century or in the dark ages.” Singapore was among the first in Asia to start easing travel restrictions by establishing so-called vaccinated travel lanes that ultimately allowed people from 32 countries to visit without quarantine. From April, the island was opened to anyone who is fully inoculated regardless of where they’re from.<br/>
Myanmar reopened the Yangon International Airport on Sunday, more than two years after the country suspended all commercial flights due to the Covid-19 pandemic. An airport official told Xinhua that a flight of Singapore Airlines that arrived at around 9 a.m. (0230 GMT) on Sunday was the first flight touching down at the airport after reopening. The Southeast Asian country suspended the operation of commercial flights in March 2020 at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in an attempt to contain the virus. The inbound passengers need to present proof of vaccination with a Ministry of Health-approved vaccine and a negative COVID-19 RT-PCR report, as part of the health protocol against Covid-19. Meanwhile, all foreign travelers shall submit the Covid-19 medical insurance purchased from Myanmar Insurance.<br/>
The images of the wrecked Antonov AN-225 are now an indelible memory for aviation enthusiasts worldwide. Built in the 1980s to ferry the Soviet space shuttle, the plane got a second life after the Cold War as the world's largest cargo transporter, achieving records of all kinds, before being destroyed at the end of February at its home base, Hostomel airfield near Kyiv. "The dream will never die," tweeted the Antonov company, in reference to the plane's nickname "Mriya," meaning dream in Ukrainian. Solidarity poured in from every corner of the world. But can the AN-225 ever fly again? Answering that question firstly requires an assessment of the damage sustained by the aircraft. CNN's Vasco Cotovio has seen the wreckage up close, when he visited Hostomel airfield in early April, along with other CNN journalists and the Ukrainian National Police. "Hostomel was the scene of intense fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces since very early in the war," he says. "Moscow's forces tried to seize the airfield to use it as a forward operating position to which they could fly in additional land units. To do that, they mounted an air assault with attack helicopters. They seemed to have had some initial success, but the Ukrainian response was very quick, hitting the airfield fast and strong -- to prevent any sort of landing," he says. The condition of the plane left no doubts regarding the possibility of a repair. "The nose of the plane was completely destroyed, seemingly the victim of a direct artillery hit," Cotovio says. "In addition to that, there was extensive damage to the wings and some of the engines. The tail end section was spared from any large impacts and has a few holes caused by either shrapnel or bullets. Had it not been for the direct hit on the nose, the AN-225 might have been repairable," he says, adding that the area surrounding the plane was littered with spent ammunition, obliterated Russian tanks and trucks and destroyed armored vehicles.<br/>