The US TSA screened 2.45m air passengers on Friday, the highest daily number since February 2020. The number was however below the 2.73m screened on the same day in 2019. The high traffic was despite weather and staffing issues resulting in travel disruptions. On Friday, US airlines canceled 711 flights and delayed more than 6,000, according to FlightAware. US travelers are already facing a difficult summer as airlines expect record demand and as they rebuild staff levels after thousands of workers left the industry during the pandemic. A TSA spokesperson advised passengers to be prepared, saying on Twitter Saturday: "Get to the airport early, it’s busy!" The Friday checkpoint traffic was the highest since Feb. 11, 2020, when TSA screened nearly 2.51m passengers.<br/>
general
Airlines and the FAA are pointing the finger at each other over a rising rate of flight cancellations and delays, just as millions prepare to travel on the July Fourth weekend that officials expect to be among the busiest in three years. On Friday, Airlines for America, which represents the country’s largest airlines, including Delta, American, United and Southwest, requested a meeting with U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to discuss air traffic controller staffing for the summer and other potential obstacles like space launches and military exercises. “The industry is actively and nimbly doing everything possible to create a positive customer experience since it is in an airline’s inherent interest to keep customers happy, so they return for future business,” Airlines for America CEO Nick Calio wrote in the letter. Airlines have grappled with staffing shortages after travel demand bounced back faster than they were prepared for, despite government aid that prohibited them from laying off workers during the Covid-19 pandemic. Plus, the pandemic slowed training of air traffic controllers. Both factors have made it difficult to navigate routine issues like thunderstorms during the spring and summer as Covid infections continued to sideline employees and frustrate travelers. US airlines have reduced their June-August schedules by 15% compared with their original plans, the letter from Airlines for America said.<br/>
A California law requiring rest and meal breaks for workers has become a fierce battleground between airlines and flight attendants that may soon draw in the US Supreme Court. At stake is whether carriers are subject to local labor laws, or can instead follow federal aviation rules that are more focused on passenger safety than working conditions. Airlines say having to abide disparate state regulations could cause chaos at a time when the industry is already struggling to cope with a surge in travel demand amid a worker shortage. Within days, the high court’s justices are set to decide whether to hear an airline appeal in a suit brought by flight attendants, and backed by their unions, who are demanding California’s labor protections. For the flight attendants, the case is part of a far broader fight to receive basic labor protections that they say have been systematically stripped from them. It comes as US labor unions are enjoying somewhat of a revival amid growing power for workers in a tight labor market and victories organizing workers at companies including Starbucks and Amazon.com. “It’s been really frustrating seeing airline workers getting left out of numerous state worker protections,” said Allie Malis, the government affairs director for the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, a union at American Airlines Group Inc. Story has details. <br/>
A wave of airline strikes and flight cancellations is deepening Europe’s transport crisis, disrupting travel plans just as the region’s peak summer season gets under way. Walkouts in coming days at Ryanair, EasyJet, British Airways and Aeroports de Paris will add to the turmoil from staffing shortages that are leading to hours-long delays and thousands of scrapped flights. In the UK, the transport disarray has been compounded by a rail strike. Although travel demand has rebounded dramatically in Europe, what had been touted as the aviation industry’s long-awaited post-pandemic revival is being constrained by labor strife and limits in airport logistics. Chaotic scenes are playing out at airports in Amsterdam, London, Frankfurt and Paris, with lines of people waiting for hours only to be told their flights have been canceled. “It’s frustrating to deal with other agencies that put us in difficult situations,” Air France-KLM CEO Ben Smith said Thursday, after flights in Paris were hit by an earlier strike at ADP. The prospect of more mayhem looms as unions seek to capitalize on airlines’ desperation to cash in on the summer bookings surge to end losses and repair balance sheets after the pandemic plunged the sector into its worst crisis since World War II. Labor groups are pressing demands for pay increases to keep up with inflation, better working conditions, benefits and compliance with local labor laws. Story has more. <br/>
Germany will allow the entry of foreign workers to fill staff shortages at the German airports as a temporary solution, Bild am Sonntag reported on Sunday, citing the interior, transport and labour ministers. Airport operators across Europe, including Germany, have been struggling with staff shortages to handle the flow of passengers as demand for travel bounces back with the end of most COVID-19 restrictions. Photos of travellers waiting in long lines at security check points at Duesseldorf airport earlier this week showed the scale of the shortage which has caused chaos during the holiday season. The Interior, Labour and Transport ministries will start a joint campaign for brining temporary foreign employees to work at German airports, Bild said, adding that there was a shortage around 2,000 to 3,000 employees at the airports. The campaign aims to bring a four-digit number of skilled workers from Turkey to Germany, who could be deployed for a few months from July. Labour Minister Hubertus Heil said employers must pay collective wages and provide decent accommodation for a limited time. "We want to rule out any form of social dumping and exploitation," Heil was quoted as saying by Bild.<br/>
Flights from Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport will be limited to 440,000 a year, 11% less than in 2019, to cut noise pollution, the Dutch government said on Friday, drawing praise from green groups but dismay from airlines bosses. The decision follows a move by Schiphol itself, in which the Dutch state is the majority shareholder, to impose a cap on the number passengers it can carry this summer - although that was due to staffing shortages. The government also pointed to the airport's impact on "nature and climate" for the cuts, following criticism from environmental campaigners and the left-wing opposition for its greenhouse gas and nitrogen oxide emissions. The move is intended to restore "the balance between a well-operating international airport, the business climate, and the interests of a better and healthier living environment", Transportation Minister Mark Harbers said in a statement announcing the decision. "This is a difficult message for the aviation sector that is still recovering from the far-reaching consequences of the coronavirus pandemic," he said. KLM, the Dutch arm of Air France-KLM, said the move, due to come into effect from the start of next year, would be "highly detrimental" and it would harm the country's reputation as a reliable place to do business. "It does not tally with the desire to retain a strong hub function" for Schiphol, and it would "fail to improve our quality of life and climate", KLM said.<br/>
An HIV positive man who was hit by rules that prevented him from training as an airline pilot says "the sky's the limit" as restrictions are lifted. James Bushe applied to be a commercial pilot in 2017, and challenged a Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) decision not to grant him the required medical certificate due to his illness. The CAA later overturned the decision, and Bushe began training in 2018. It has now changed rules for all would-be trainees with the condition. On Monday, the UK CAA announced a "landmark package of measures" for all pilots living with HIV to support them flying and continuing with their careers, and cited the support of the Terrence Higgins Trust, the National AIDS Trust and the British HIV Association. Bushe, from Stoke-on-Trent, and a pilot with Logan Air in Scotland, remained anonymous during his challenger but revealed his identity in 2020. He said it felt "phenomenal" to be part of such industry change. "It's been almost 40 years to the day since we first had somebody in the UK die from an AIDS-related illness and to go from that point to now where HIV is no barrier, to literally do anything you want to in the world, is amazing," he said. The CAA said at the time of the challenge that the problem stemmed from European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) regulations which stated that UK pilots with certain medical conditions - including HIV - were only allowed to fly with a co-pilot. However, after a review of the rules, the CAA in 2018 said it was satisfied the stipulation should not prevent an HIV positive person from obtaining a class 1 medical certificate to begin training for "multi-pilot operations", subject to them passing the class 1 medical assessment.<br/>
The US Commerce Department on Friday denied export privileges for three Russian airlines that it says violated export controls issued after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The export denials for Nordwind Airlines, Pobeda Airlines and S7 Airlines are issued for six months and may be renewed, the department said.<br/>
In a vast shed near Seattle, Boeing is ramping up production of its bestselling plane, the 737 Max. Rows of trolleys marked with team names such as “Mario Bros” and “Wildcat” wait for technicians to complete a daily dance of tools and parts. Getting the choreography right pays: production stoppages at the Renton factory can filter through to US GDP figures. Never has the value of smooth operation been more apparent to the jetmaker than in the past three years. The factory lines were stopped for more than a year following two fatal crashes of the 737 Max. In 2018 and 2019, a total of 346 people died when hardware malfunctions and badly designed software caused the planes to override pilots and plunge from the sky. Boeing, one of America’s manufacturing champions, is now hoping to show that it is ready to move on from the Max disaster, even as it continues to struggle with the fallout from Covid-19 – which rocked the entire industry – and tries to work out the uncertain future for aviation technology. On the first visit by journalists this month to Boeing’s factories in Seattle since before the Max crashes, executives sought to portray a company that is ready for recovery and growth once more. Greg Hyslop, Boeing’s design boss, said there were “reasons for optimism” about the planemaker’s technological abilities.<br/>