The US Senate voted 77 to 18 on Thursday to confirm David Pekoske to serve another term as head of the TSA, while the FAA nominee is still awaiting a hearing. Pekoske was nominated by former President Donald Trump in 2017 to a five-year term and nominated by President Joe Biden in May to serve a new term. The TSA, created by Congress in November 2001 after the Sept. 11 attacks, is responsible for security operations at 430 US airports and is the lead federal agency for security of highways, railroads, mass transit systems and pipelines. In July, Biden nominated Denver International Airport CE Phil Washington, a former Biden Transportation Department transition official to head the FAA. Washington is beginning to hold meetings with members of the Senate Commerce Committee. The job has been vacant since March 31 when Steve Dickson, who was nominated to the position by Trump in 2019, stepped down about halfway through his five-year term. The FAA's top aviation safety official, Billy Nolen, is running the agency on an interim basis.<br/>
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The CE of Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport has resigned over the flight chaos that is still gripping the Dutch hub, becoming the most senior corporate casualty of this year’s travel disruption. Dick Benschop, a former politician, said he would quit because of the intense criticism he and the airport have received in the Netherlands after months of problems caused by staff shortages. “A lot of attention and criticism has been directed towards the way in which Schiphol is tackling the problems and my responsibility as CEO . . . I do not want the attention on me as an individual to become an obstacle for Schiphol,” he said. “I have done my very best, but we’re not there yet. I hope that things improve soon,” he said. Benschop is one of the first aviation chief executives to resign over the problems this summer, and to take publicly take personal responsibility. The boss of Manchester airport Karen Smart resigned in April following disruption over Easter, while easyJet’s chief operating officer Peter Bellow quit in July. British Airways chief executive Sean Doyle made a string of changes to his senior management as the airline grappled with disruption in May. Benschop will remain in place while Schiphol’s supervisory board searches for a successor. Ots chair Jaap Winter said the airport was facing “ongoing bad news” and that it “must return” to offering passengers and airlines a “quality” service. Schiphol is one of Europe’s busiest airports and has suffered from a wave of disruption that has extended into the autumn. The airport was one of the first to impose a cap on passenger numbers to try to get a grip on operational problems.<br/>
London's Heathrow airport will alter 15% of its flight schedule on Monday to reduce noise over the British capital's skies as a mark of respect during Queen Elizabeth's funeral, it said on Thursday. There will be no aircraft movement for 30 minutes around noon on Monday to ensure skies over London remain quiet during the two-minute silence at the end of the funeral, Heathrow said. "Operations to and from the airport will be subject to appropriate changes in order to avoid noise disruption at certain locations at specific times on Monday," a Heathrow spokesperson said. Flights will also be diverted around Windsor Castle during the private family service, it said. The changes, including cancellations, will affect some scheduled flights, particularly in the late afternoon and early evening. British Airways said it was cancelling 50 round-trip short-haul flights from Heathrow on Monday while its flights from Gatwick and London City airports would operate as planned. Virgin Atlantic said four of its flights would be cancelled.<br/>
Passengers flying out of Changi Airport will have to pay more in airport fees and levies from Nov 1 as the aviation industry continues to recover after the COVID-19 pandemic. Travellers on flights departing from Changi Airport currently pay a fee of S$52.30 - comprising S$35.40 in passenger service and security fee (PSSF), S$6.10 in aviation levy and S$10.80 in airport development levy. From Nov 1 to Mar 31 next year, the amount will go up to a total of S$59.20. That's after the passenger service and security fee increases to S$40.40 and the aviation levy rises to S$8. The passenger service and security fee will subsequently go up again in phases from Apr 1, 2023, and Apr 1, 2024. Announcing the charges on Thursday, the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) and Changi Airport Group (CAG) noted that planned increases were announced in 2018, but they were suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. <br/>
Boeing will begin to remarket some 737 MAX jets earmarked for Chinese customers, as it cannot wait indefinitely while political tensions between the United States and China snarl deliveries, the company's top executives said on Thursday. CE Dave Calhoun and Chief Financial Officer Brian West discussed the need to remarket some of the planes at separate events. "We have deferred decisions on those planes for a long time. We can't defer that decision forever. So we will begin to remarket some of those airplanes," West said at a Morgan Stanley conference. Calhoun, speaking to reporters on the sidelines of an aviation event in Washington, expressed pessimism about resuming deliveries in China. On the need to remarket some jets, he said, "We'll do it in a very slow way because I want to protect our customers in China but you can't wait forever. You've got to move them and there is a big market." Boeing shares were up 1.8% on the news. Boeing said in July that it had about 290 undelivered airplanes and about half were designated for Chinese customers. The Biden administration has criticized China for preventing Boeing purchases. US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said last year that the Chinese government was preventing its domestic airlines from buying "tens of billions of dollars" of Boeing airplanes. Calhoun said resuming deliveries in China was critical to Boeing's future, but said the outlook for selling planes to China in the "near term ... a year or two" was negative.<br/>
Brazil’s Embraer said Thursday that it signed a memorandum of understanding with Apollo Global Management to provide up to $1.5b in funding for the planemaker’s regional aircraft customers. According to a securities filing, funding would be available through Apollo’s aviation business, but Apollo could also “access additional low-cost capital across its broader investment platform.” Under the agreement, the companies also reached a deal for the sale and leaseback of six E195-E2s aircraft to Porter Airlines, which are scheduled for a 2023 delivery.<br/>
Ocean freight companies are adding air cargo to their businesses as shippers look for a “one-stop shop” to move goods around the world. “We are finding out more and more that our customers really need an end-to-end logistics solution,” said Michel Pozas Lucic, Moller Maersk’s global head of air freight. “They’re looking for this one-stop-shop that takes away not only the complexity of the logistics, but also makes it an optimized, efficient and effective solution,” he added. Maersk, the world’s largest container shipping firm, launched an air cargo division in April and now has a fleet of 15 aircraft, while competitor CMA CGM started its air division last year and will have 12 airplanes in operation by 2026. Supply chain disruptions created a need for goods to be flown, Pozas Lucic said. “For most of our customers, air is part of what they need, either because of the speed that they need for their specific products, or because of a disruption … [and] ocean freight would be not ideal because it takes too long, so we realized that it’s important to have air as part of the puzzle,” he said. Demand for air cargo is higher than before the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the International Air Transport Association, up 2.2% for the first half of the year compared with 2019 levels. The pandemic raised the profile of supply chains, according to Marc Zeck, an analyst at wealth management firm Stifel. “The last three years have shown quite a lot of companies that their logistics divisions are not up to the task,” Zeck said. “Nobody cared really about supply chains … before the pandemic started. Now, it’s an issue or a topic for executive boards,” he added.<br/>