Airlines are desperate to get more planes to meet insatiable and growing travel demand, but the two major plane manufacturers, Boeing and Airbus, are struggling to keep up. After retrenching at the start of the pandemic in 2020, airlines bounced back quickly and started placing large orders for new planes as they sought to upgrade and expand their fleets. But supply chain problems have hampered production, leading carriers to warn investors this month that plane deliveries might be delayed. American Airlines cut a forecast for how many Boeing 737 Max planes it would get next year based on discussions with the manufacturer, while JetBlue Airways said it was preparing to receive fewer planes than expected from Airbus in 2023. United Airlines, which has big orders with both manufacturers, said that its deliveries next year could slide, too. “Nearly every industry is navigating broad supply chain, inflation, labor and macroeconomic challenges — and we’re certainly no different,” Boeing’s chief executive, Dave Calhoun, said in a note to employees on Wednesday in which he discussed the company’s quarterly financial performance. “We’re realistic about the environment we face and are taking comprehensive action.” Calhoun said Boeing employees were spending more time on site with suppliers to understand their challenges. The company has also expanded its digital inventory tools, assembled a team of experts to address supply chain problems and taken other actions. But Boeing, a leading American manufacturer, expects the problems to continue through next year. The company’s financial results for the three months that ended in September were mixed, with big losses from its defense business offset by better-than-expected cash flow and solid demand for its passenger planes.<br/>
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The FAA said on Wednesday it is ending temporary waivers of minimum international flight requirements at some major US airports first adopted in March 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. Airlines can lose their slots at congested airports if they do not use them at least 80% of the time. The FAA said it is not extending waivers at New York’s John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia airports and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport that will expire on Saturday. The FAA said current conditions do not "support a broad waiver of the minimum slot usage rules for all international operations or for carriers that may not operate for other reasons."<br/>
Spanish airport operator Aena said on Wednesday it expects a return to pre-pandemic levels of traffic this month, although profitability is lagging as revenues rise more slowly than passenger numbers and energy prices have driven up costs. The company estimated that passenger traffic in Spain will have returned to the 2019 level in October and it said it expects continued momentum as airlines offer 5.3% more seats this winter than in 2019-2020. Aena expects overall traffic in 2022 will be higher than its prior forecast of 85% of 2019 traffic volume. “The traffic is performing exceptionally well,” Aena’s CFO Jose Leo told a call with analysts. Leo also said the airports the company operates in Brazil exceeded the passenger traffic volumes of 2019 by 8% in September and that nothing indicated any major setbacks would end the trend over the coming months. But even though 60% more passengers went through its airports in the third quarter, Aena’s overall revenues rose a modest 33%, the company said. The company’s commercial revenues, its share of business made from airport shops, fell 13% after Spain imposed a price cap during the COVID-19 pandemic to protect shop owners. As a result Q3 net profit of E335m was 11% lower than expected, RBC’s analyst Stephanie D’Ath said on Wednesday. Shares traded 0.3% higher.<br/>
The operator of London’s Heathrow airport has warned of flight limits this Christmas to avoid further travel chaos despite admitting it will be “a number of years” before demand recovers to pre-pandemic levels. The company is considering retiming flights from morning peak time to quieter afternoon slots during the festive period. The plan was designed to allow airlines to shift demand into less busy periods of the day. “We are working with airlines to agree on a highly targeted mechanism that, if needed, would align supply and demand on a small number of peak days in the lead-up to Christmas,” the operator said. It came as the company said that from this Sunday it would lift the cap of 100,000 passengers a day, which it imposed in the summer to avoid severe backlogs in light of staff shortages. Heathrow and other companies working at the site still needed to recruit and train 25,000 workers to meet demand, it added. The UK’s biggest airport has been one of the most pessimistic voices about the industry’s post-pandemic recovery. It said on Wednesday that it expected to handle between 60m and 62m passengers this year, about 25% fewer than in 2019. The airport handled 44.2m passengers in the year to the end of September, more than four times the 10.2m in the same period last year. “Headwinds of a global economic crisis, war in Ukraine and the impact of Covid-19 mean we are unlikely to return to pre-pandemic demand for a number of years, except at peak times,” the airport said. Heathrow expected 2023 to be stronger than 2022, but CE John Holland-Kaye said: “We’re in a much more challenging environment and, when we’re thinking about our financial planning, we have to be realistic about some of the headwinds that we face.”<br/>
China continued its recovery momentum in the number of international air trips and volume of mail and cargo in Q3 of 2022, the country's civil aviation authority said Wednesday. In Q3, the volume of international passenger trips surged 73.3% from Q2 to 537,000, a year-on-year increase of 36.3%, said Wu Shijie, an official with the Civil Aviation Administration of China, at a press conference. Meanwhile, the air mail and cargo transport came in at 639,000 tonnes, accounting for 104.3% of the number recorded in the same period in 2019, Wu said. China has been pushing forward the construction of civil aviation infrastructure this year, with 79.85b yuan (about US$11.15b) invested in the sector in the first three quarters, said Zhang Qing, another official with the administration. <br/>
Asia Pacific carriers continue to see robust recovery in their September passenger traffic, with load factors for the month closing in on pre-pandemic levels. In traffic data for the month, the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA) notes a “strong upward momentum” in passenger recovery, despite a “worsening global economic outlook” that has led to a drop in demand in the cargo market. In September, Asia Pacific airlines carried 11.7m international passengers, an increase of nearly nine-fold year on year. The figure is about 39% that of pre-pandemic 2019, says the AAPA. RPKs for the month grew about six-fold, while capacity nearly trebled year on year. The association says the sharp rise in traffic underscores the “strength of regional travel markets”. Passenger load factor in September stood at 78%, just 0.6 percentage points shy of load factor in pre-pandemic September 2019. States the AAPA: “The significant easing of border restrictions across most of the region’s economies continued to unleash a robust return of business and leisure travellers.” As for cargo, demand tumbled 10% year on year, with capacity increasing about 6%, leading to a 11.6 percentage point decline in freight load factor to 64%. AAPA DG Subhas Menon says: “The outlook for the cargo market remains subdued in the near term. Overall, the region’s airlines continue to face a challenging operating environment, with operating costs under pressure as a result of high fuel prices and weak local currencies.” Menon is, however, more bullish about passenger traffic recovery, noting that the “resilience of the industry is shining through”.<br/>
Australia’s international aviation recovery stalled in August, with passenger numbers stubbornly remaining 45 per cent down on pre-pandemic 2019. However, there was positive news as aircraft remained at near-record levels of being full. So-called ‘seat utilisation’ was at 83% – a similar level as 2019 and only 3% lower than in July. It comes despite domestic aviation returning to near-normal numbers, highlighting how the wider industry is struggling to balance resourcing against two very different recoveries. New BITRE data from the Department of Transport shows that passenger traffic in August was at 1.970m compared to 3.569m in August 2019. This compares to 2.057m in July 2022 vs 3.736m in the equivalent month in 2019. The difference between the two months this year, vs 2019, registered at just 0.1%. The data mirrors a recent release from Melbourne Airport and appears to back up predictions from Brisbane Airport CEO Gert-Jan de Graaff that total travel volumes won’t surpass to 2019 levels until 2025. “Airlines need time to restart — some countries are still closed or have restrictions — and we need to rebuild the confidence of passengers to get on flights again,” he said. “However, I am confident that we will see, from 2025 onwards, volumes that will exceed 2019 levels."<br/>
Boeing CE Dave Calhoun on Wednesday said he is confident the planemaker will get an extension from the U.S. Congress of a key deadline to get the MAX 7 and MAX 10 certified. Calhoun told CNBC he is confident "we will get an extension and that they will be certified as safe airplanes." Boeing faces a late December deadline for the FAA to certify the MAX 7 and MAX 10 under existing rules. After that date, all planes must have modern cockpit alerting systems to be certified by the FAA, which would mean significant delays for the new MAX aircrafts' deployment unless Congress grants a waiver to extend the deadline. Boeing said in a quarterly filing Wednesday it expects the 737 MAX 7 to be certified this year or in 2023 and the MAX 10 to begin FAA certification flight testing in 2022 or 2023 and enter service in 2023 or 2024. Earlier this month, Republican Senator Roger Wicker unsuccessfully sought to attach an extension of the MAX deadline to September 2024 to a defense bill. The requirements were adopted by Congress as part of certification reform passed after two fatal 737 MAX crashes killed 346 people and led to the bestselling plane's 20-month grounding.<br/>