general

Too few pilots. Not enough flights. Jammed planes and higher fuel costs. Those are just a few of the challenges US airlines will face as this year’s summer travel season swings into full gear. A surge in demand will test their resiliency as they seek to return to profitability and move past the pandemic that crippled the industry the past two years. Carriers say they’ve taken steps that leave them well prepared to cope with any hiccups, but early signs aren’t great. Already this year, the rate of flight cancellations is six times what the airlines target. Travel demand has rushed back faster in the US from the pandemic collapse than in any market globally, and the number of passengers flying over the next three months could exceed pre-Covid levels. Planes will be packed because flight capacity is well below 2019 levels, in part due to crew shortages. That combination creates a precarious balance, and disruptions from summer storms, computer glitches or other sources could strand passengers with little hope for a quick fix. “Airlines are doing everything they can to sell every seat on every flight,” said Henry Harteveldt, an industry analyst and founder of Atmosphere Research Group. “All it takes is one bad storm somewhere to throw an airline off track, and there is very little wiggle room left within the airlines and very little wiggle room for the airline industry as a whole.”Carriers are desperate to avoid the types of snarls that hit last year, most initially triggered by weather but worsened when airlines that had ramped up flying too quickly didn’t have enough crews or planes to recover and avoid widespread cancellations. Story has more.<br/>

Much ink has been spilled about the pilot situation in the U.S., with many regional airlines saying they face a shortage, larger carriers saying they are experiencing elevated attrition, and the biggest airlines reporting training backlogs. All of this adds up to dropped destinations, fewer flights than planned, and disrupted travel plans as airlines reactively prune schedules. “Pilots were stuck in the school house,” Alaska Airlines CEO Ben Minicucci said in April after the airline suffered a wave of staffing-related cancellations earlier that month. “So we’re de-risking the operation a little bit to give our pilots schoolhouse just a little bit of breathing room as we train them.” Alaska and JetBlue Airways, which both face similar staffing issues, have made the deepest cuts to summer flying. From April 5 to May 17, Alaska reduced planned Q3 capacity by 12% and JetBlue by 10%, according to Cowen & Co. research. American Airlines and Southwest Airlines, both of which have acknowledged pilot training backlogs, have decreased planned capacity 6% and nearly 5%, respectively. “We’re sizing the airline for the resources that we have,” American Airlines CEO Robert Isom said in April. The situation raises one fiercely debated question in the airline industry: Is there a pilot shortage? The number of new airline transport pilot, or ATP, certifications suggests that there is one. The FAA only issued 4,928 ATPs and restricted ATPs — certificates issued to pilots who graduate from four-year university programs that only need 1,000 hours instead of 1,500, for example — in 2021, according to the Regional Airlines Association (RAA). That is less than half of the estimated 12,000 pilots the industry plans to hire this year, with the balance expected to come from other airlines, including regionals, low-cost carriers, and mid-tier players.<br/>

Staff shortages at Schiphol Airport’s security checkpoints caused hours-long lines on Monday, affecting thousands of airline passengers traveling through the second busiest airport in the EU. Hundreds of flights were facing delays ranging in duration from a few minutes to several hours, and dozens of flights were cancelled. A Schiphol spokesperson said, “Currently it is indeed a busy day at the airport. That’s mainly because there was less security staff available than planned.” He added that the airport was trying to provide water, and to make it possible for people to use a bathroom if they needed to step out of line. With people waiting in line for hours, some passengers have been unable to reach their gates before the final boarding call. “When many of the passengers are still waiting in line, an airline may decide to delay a flight so more people can get on the flight,” the airport spokesperson said. Some 297 departures were delayed since the start of airport operations on Monday, according to an inspection of the website at 3:50 p.m. Another 152 arrivals were also running behind schedule. Airlines cancelled 35 departures and 40 arrivals, with gate changes also announced for many other flights. Schiphol’s own monitoring service referred to Monday as a peak day for departures, and also a busy day for arrivals.<br/>

London's long-delayed and over-budget Crossrail finally opens to passengers on Tuesday, offering faster journeys from Heathrow Airport and Berkshire in the west to Essex in the east through a series of new, long tunnels under Britain's capital. The railway, which has been renamed the "Elizabeth" line in honour of Queen Elizabeth, is expected to carry 200 million people a year and will increase London's rail capacity by 10%, according to Transport for London (TfL). Construction started more than 12 years ago on Europe's biggest infrastructure project at the time. In 2010, the project was budgeted at GBP14.8b and was set to open in December 2018. Delayed by issues with safety testing and signalling systems, even before the onset of the pandemic, Crossrail will open three and a half years late and more than GBP4b over budget for a total cost of GBP18.8b. TfL Commissioner Andy Byford said the opening day was set to be a truly historic moment for the capital and the country. "We look forward to showcasing a simply stunning addition to our network," he said earlier this month. Initially 12 trains per hour will run in each direction through the middle section of the line, which includes 21 kilometres of tunnel, linking Paddington in the west to Canary Wharf and Abbey Wood in the east.<br/>

Hong Kong's tentative steps to loosen restrictions on travelers and airlines have yet to translate into a significant restoration of the financial center's global connections even as the traditional summer holiday season nears, according to a flight-schedule analysis by Nikkei Asia. Until the COVID pandemic, Hong Kong was Asia's top air hub for international passenger traffic. In 2019, 71.54m people traveled between Hong Kong and 220 cities in China and overseas, according to airport data. On average, 484 passenger flights landed each day. As of May 23, airlines were set to operate an average of 34 flights from Hong Kong each June day, connecting the city to 47 cities, according to data from aviation analytics company Cirium. This compares with an average of 47 scheduled daily departures on 54 routes in May. Only 55,500 air passengers landed in the city in April. "As aviation hubs across the world begin to bring back capacity and stage a recovery, Hong Kong is obviously falling behind to a certain extent," Cathay Pacific Airways Chairman Patrick Healy told shareholders at the annual meeting of the Hong Kong flag carrier earlier this month. The contrast with regional rival Singapore is stark. According to Cirium data, scheduled flights next month out of Singapore, which has no COVID restrictions on airlines and does not require arrivals to quarantine, are already set to return to 49% of 2019 levels. "Singapore is now pretty much fully open to air travel," said Dennis Lau, senior valuations analyst at Ascend by Cirium, the group's consultancy unit. "In fact, passengers traveling out of Hong Kong to most destinations have no choice but to fly on connecting flights, and flying via Singapore is one of the most popular options." Story has more.<br/>

International traffic at Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd’s (Malaysia Airports) local network of airports has increased by 53% following the border reopening on April 1, 2022. The group, which manages and operates 39 airports in the country, said it had recorded an average of 23,000 international passenger movements daily, with traffic peaking at above 30,000 during the recent long Aidilfitri festive break. "On the whole, the airports recorded a total of 642,128 international passenger movements, out of which Kota Kinabalu International Airport, Penang International Airport, and Langkawi International Airport showed the most significant increase -- by more than 200 per cent respectively compared to the preceding month,” Malaysia Airports said Monday. It added that a total of 2.78m passengers were recorded for Malaysia in April, with domestic passenger movements totalling 2.13m or 77%.<br/>

Airbus’ corporate-jet division is more optimistic about prospects for this year, even as the Russia-Ukraine conflict and Chinese coronavirus lockdowns weigh on sales. The European planemaker had a slow couple of years for orders for its newest business-jet model during the Covid-19 pandemic, with almost all work travel curtailed. The corporate version of the A220 was launched in 2020, yet got no orders in 2021 after six commitments the previous year. Sales are now trending upwards with five corporate-jet orders so far in 2022, including four for the A220 variant, and there are opportunities in the Middle East and the US to complete more business, global head of Airbus Corporate Jets Benoit Defforge said in an interview ahead of the EBACE business aviation conference. “We had to face headwinds during the last 12 to 18 months,” said Lefforge. “We anticipate in the Middle East a real opportunity for the coming years.” There are more than 60 Airbus corporate jets flying in the Middle East with an average age of over 10 years, meaning the company sees an opportunity to renew an ageing fleet. The US is a more difficult market to get a foothold in, Defforge said, but the rebound in the market there means there is also plenty of room for growth. China, on the other hand, is becoming more challenging due to the difficulty of accessing the market as the country brings back sweeping virus restrictions. The company also had to stop sales efforts in Russia to comply with sanctions and has 10-15% of its fleet in the country.<br/>

Bombardier has given a supersonic start to the launch of its long-promised 8,000nm (14,800km)-range Global 8000 – flying a test aircraft beyond the speed of sound as part of its certification campaign. In addition to the huge range, the new jet will have a maximum speed of Mach 0.94 and be capable of carrying 19 passengers. Service entry is scheduled for 2025. But there’s a twist: it’s not the aircraft the Canadian airframer envisaged at the start of the programme. Back when Bombardier first touted the ultra-long-range twinjet, it was planned as a 2.6m (8.5ft) shrink of its 33.8m-long Global 7000 sister which was capable of flying 500nm further, hitting the 7,900nm mark. However, while the 7,000nm progressed, eventually morphing into the 7,700nm-range Global 7500, the 8000 remained stuck on the drawing board. In the meantime the market has changed, in particular with Gulfstream’s launch earlier this year of its 8,000nm-range G800, which is due to arrive in 2023. Bombardier needed a response, but in its view, building a jet that could fly only 200nm more at the expense of cabin volume, or two passenger seats, was not the right approach. Instead, it has taken a radical – albeit lower-cost – step: rather than developing an all-new jet it has instead souped up the performance of the Global 7500 to create an aircraft that can fly 8,000nm and up to 1.3% faster than the current M0.925 maximum.<br/>