Terminal A at Newark Liberty International Airport has long been one of the most reviled public spaces in New Jersey. Travelers have carped about its long lines, its shortage of seating and its cramped corridors, narrowed to make room for portable toilets. On Tuesday, state officials gathered to announce that the end of all of those inconveniences was in sight. A huge new Terminal A, filled with art, natural light and plenty of seats, is scheduled to open on Dec. 8. “We are here to bury the old Terminal A, not to praise it,” said Gov. Philip D. Murphy, a Democrat. He said the old Terminal A had “stood as an oftentimes trying, occasionally painful and always exhausting place.” But replacing the 49-year-old terminal was not easy nor inexpensive. The new terminal, which will be home to several airlines, including American and JetBlue, took several months longer than expected to complete and cost more than $2.7b. That sum made it the most expensive infrastructure ever built in the state by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, said Kevin O’Toole, the Port Authority’s chairman. O’Toole, a former state lawmaker, said it was important to him that travelers would know they were in New Jersey when they stepped off a plane. So the terminal is filled with local references: a big “NJ” sculpture, perfect as an Instagram backdrop, and toilet stalls decorated with images from the Jersey Shore or the Pinelands. “We worked hard to create a truly New Jersey sense of place,” said Rick Cotton, executive director of the Port Authority. Some of the stores and restaurants are locally owned or native to the state. Newark’s mayor, Ras Baraka, said he was pleased that some local businesses had spaces in the terminal’s main hall. “The people in the city have to benefit from its growth and development, and this is an example of that today,” Baraka said.<br/>
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Global air travel faces “obvious and evident headwinds” despite a recovery in passenger numbers, with fares likely to increase in 2023, Willie Walsh, DG of the IATA, told the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Transport and Communications on Wednesday. Walsh said the Irish market was “recovering strongly” from the pandemic, with passenger traffic growing in line with, if not slightly faster than, the rest of Europe. The second half of 2022 has seen strong growth on routes to and from Europe and North America, with Ireland-Britain traffic “gathering momentum”. Passenger numbers in the Irish market are likely to reach pre-pandemic levels “probably in 2023, given the pace of recovery, but certainly by 2024″, he added. The global market is expected to complete its rebound from the Covid-19 crisis in 2024, despite headwinds including economic slowdown and “very high” fuel prices. International airline traffic was at 70% of 2019 levels in September, while domestic markets globally were at 81% of where they were in the same month in 2019, with this figure heavily impacted by restrictions in China. Prices for jet fuel have remained “stubbornly high” even as oil prices have fallen, however. In the first 10 months of 2022, Brent crude averaged $104 a barrel but jet fuel averaged $141 a barrel, Walsh said. The price difference between the two has widened to 36 per cent on average this year, double the traditional spread.<br/>
CDB Aviation became the latest aircraft lessor to start legal action in pursuit of claims against a large number of insurers over jets it owns that are stuck in Russia, an Irish High Court filing showed. The Irish-based lessor, owned by the China Development Bank (CDB), China's largest policy bank, still has nine aircraft in Russia after Moscow blocked some 400 jets from leaving following Western sanctions over its February invasion of Ukraine. The 18 insurers named in the proceedings, which the filing shows was issued on Nov. 15, include Lloyd's of London, Chubb, Swiss Re and Great Lakes Insurance, a subsidiary of Munich. The filing did not include details on the size of the claim by CDB, which had a total portfolio of 384 aircraft at the end of June. The proceedings are the third to be initiated in the Irish courts following filings by major lessors Avolon and BOC Aviation. Dublin-based AerCap Holdings, the world's biggest aircraft lessor, in June filed a $3.5b lawsuit at London's High Court over its insurance claim for more than 100 seized planes, the largest claim by any lessor related to the conflict. CDB Aviation recognised an 747m yuan ($105.4m) asset write-down in August but unlike most other lessors, it did not write down the full value of its Russian jets as it saw a "high probability" of repossessing them in the foreseeable future.<br/>
The UK issued its first-ever spaceport license to a launch hub in southwest England, paving the way for a ground-breaking mission by billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit Holdings later this month. The UK Civil Aviation Authority granted the license to Spaceport Cornwall following official sign-off from Transport Secretary Mark Harper, approving the base’s safety and security together with the infrastructure and equipment needed for horizontal space launches, according to a statement Wednesday. The CAA said it’s also in the “very advanced stages” of giving the go-ahead for the Virgin Orbit mission, as well as licensing the companies planning to deploy satellites on what will be the first orbital launch from the UK and western Europe. Virgin’s re-purposed Boeing 747 will take off from Cornwall carrying a rocket under its wing which will then blast away at high altitude. The CAA, which took over UK space regulation after the country’s split from the European Union, is also progressing applications from other would-be spaceports, including the proposed SaxaVord launch site in Scotland. Britain is seeking to establish a network of hubs able to undertake a variety of missions, including more traditional vertical launches, amid rapid growth in the planned deployment of communications satellites. The UK space industry is already worth around GBP16.5b, supporting 47,000 jobs. <br/>