Airlines and regulators are pushing to have just one pilot in the cockpit of passenger jets instead of two. It would lower costs and ease pressure from crew shortages, but placing such responsibility on a single person at the controls is unsettling for some. Over 40 countries including Germany, the UK and New Zealand have asked the United Nations body that sets aviation standards to help make single-pilot flights a safe reality. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency has also been working with planemakers to determine how solo flights would operate and preparing rules to oversee them. EASA said such services could start in 2027. The plan doesn’t sit well with pilots. It’s a hard sell for passengers, too. Tony Lucas, an Airbus SE A330 captain for Qantas Airways Ltd. and president of the Australian & International Pilots Association, is concerned that a lone pilot might be overwhelmed by an emergency before anyone else has time to reach the cockpit to help. “The people going down this route aren’t the people who fly jets every day,” Lucas said. “When things go awry, they go awry fairly quickly.” That’s what happened on board Air France Flight 447 on its way to Paris from Rio de Janeiro on June 1, 2009. With the plane cruising at 35,000 feet (10,670 meters) over the Atlantic Ocean and the captain resting in the cabin, the two co-pilots in the cockpit started receiving faulty speed readings, likely from frozen detector tubes outside the aircraft. By the time the captain got to the cockpit 90 seconds later, the plane was in an aerodynamic stall from which it never recovered. Less than three minutes later, it hit the water, killing all 228 people on board. Lucas, a check and training captain, also worries about the lost opportunities to mentor junior pilots if flight crew are working increasingly on their own. The planned changes bring many challenges. It’s not yet clear what would happen if a lone pilot collapsed or started flying erratically. Automation, technology and remote assistance from the ground would somehow have to replace the expertise, safety and immediacy of a second pilot. Story has more.<br/>
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Snowfall of more than 6 feet in western New York state prompted local officials on Saturday to further restrict road travel and forced airlines to cancel flights in the Buffalo area, just ahead of the busy Thanksgiving holiday week. New York Governor Kathy Hochul called in the National Guard, deploying about 150 members to help with snow removal and resident needs in the hardest-hit parts of Erie County. At a press conference Saturday afternoon, Hochul said she would sign a request for a federal emergency declaration to seek reimbursements for expenses on storm response. Nearly three feet of snow had fallen at Buffalo Niagara International Airport, where many flights were canceled on Saturday. Buffalo, the second-largest city in New York, was placed back under a travel ban on Saturday morning. "This has been a very unpredictable storm with the snow bands moving, back and forth, north to south," Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown told CNN. "The snow has come down very fast, very wet, very heavy."<br/>
Relatives of passengers killed in two Boeing 737 Max crashes pressed US Justice Department lawyers on Friday to unwind a 2021 deal that allowed the US planemaker to escape criminal prosecution. US District Judge Reed O’Connor in Texas ruled last month that people killed in two Boeing 737 Max crashes are legally considered “crime victims” and said he would decide what remedy should be imposed. The crashes in 2018 and 2019 in Indonesia and Ethiopia, which cost Boeing more than $20b, led to a 20-month grounding for the best-selling plane and prompted Congress to pass legislation reforming airplane certification. Families and their lawyers met for about five hours with government lawyers on Friday with some participating virtually from around the world. The families argued the US government “lied and violated their rights through a secret process,” and asked O’Connor to rescind Boeing’s immunity from criminal prosecution, which was part of the 2021 $2.5b Boeing settlement over fraud conspiracy charges related to the plane’s flawed design, and to arraign Boeing on the felony charges. Nadia Milleron, the mother of a 24-year-old killed in the second Boeing Max crash, said she was disappointed in the meeting and said the Justice Department was “supporting a deal with Boeing that was made secretly, illegally, omits input from victims and lets Boeing off the hook.” Both Boeing and the Justice Department oppose reopening the deferred prosecution agreement that included $500m in victim compensation, a $243.6m fine and $1.7b in compensation to airlines. The Justice Department said in a court filing it does not oppose an arraignment for Boeing but opposes undoing the agreement, saying it “would impose serious hardships on the parties and the many victims who have received compensation.” The department said without the agreement it would lose its leverage to make Boeing follow through with public safety reforms.<br/>
When Claudia Estudillo learned she had to be in Cancun on business close to Thanksgiving, she decided to bring her husband and daughter with her over the holiday. What she wasn’t prepared for is a cost of almost $300 more per person than she expected to pay. They’re making the trip anyway, joining the throngs at airports. “It’s very expensive now,” said the 55-year-old Dallas real estate agent, whose trip comes with an inconvenient, late-night connection in Mexico City. “If I didn’t need to go, I wouldn’t.” Planes and airports are expected to be bustling this Thanksgiving, traditionally one of the most traveled holidays of the year. The Transportation Security Administration expects to screen more than 2.5m passengers the Sunday after Thanksgiving as well-wishers flock home. That’s slightly above screenings at airport checkpoints on the same day last year but still below a record 2.9m in 2019. AAA is forecasting more than 4.5m people will travel by air during the Nov. 23 to Nov. 27 period, a 7.9% increase from 2021 and just 1.4% fewer than in 2019. Airlines are vowing to meet the demand with minimal inconveniences, barring an Alberta Clipper barreling through the upper Midwest or a Nor’easter shutting down a swath of the Atlantic coast. They’ve staffed up and say they’ve learned lessons from last year’s meltdowns when overloaded systems caused a surge in cancellations and delays. “We’re ready,” American Airlines Group CEO Robert Isom said at an industry conference Wednesday. “I expect every day to be pretty full -- and manageable.”<br/>
The amount of time between aircraft as they land at Toronto Pearson International Airport might seem prosaic to the untrained eye, but there’s a lot more going on than pilots negotiating the gentle return to earth of hundreds of tons of metal. Every millisecond that passes is tied to a new technology touted as a partial solution to two intractable problems (albeit of wildly divergent importance). We’re of course talking about airport delays and global warming. A technology called Intelligent Approach (IA) is constantly working to tighten the space between incoming aircraft as they approach Pearson. It’s one of a number of new systems aimed at chipping away at the carbon footprint of an inherently dirty industry: commercial aviation. Aircraft which rely on jet fuel aren’t going away anytime soon. While biofuels are slowly growing in use, scaling them to make a major dent in airplane emissions is arguably a long way off. And the battery technology necessary to even consider electric airliners is much more elusive. So commercial aviation says it’s looking to lop off emissions where it can—from the routes aircraft take to the time they spend circling airports, sitting on the tarmac, or idling at the gate. All of that time wastes fuel and spews carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. But while it may seem like any cut in emissions is a good thing, that may not be the case. Critics worry such technologies are a kind of airline greenwashing, inviting consumers to feel less guilty about air travel when they still should. Worse, there are fears these efforts might distract from the real solution. “For the longest time, aviation as a sector has managed emissions by spreading discourses that, at some point in the future, the issues will be resolved,” says Stefan Gössling, a professor of tourism research at Linnaeus University in Växjö, Sweden. “[But] we have not come any closer to a break in emissions.” Airlines “all know that if they engage with the real issue, which is new fuels, they simply couldn’t afford it.” Story has much more.<br/>
Balloons festooned the departure gate for the first commercial flight between Israel and Qatar on Sunday, permitted by Doha for World Cup fans despite a lack of formal bilateral relations. While the excitement was mainly at being able to attend the soccer tournament, for which Israel did not qualify, with such surprising ease several passengers voiced hope that the non-stop flights would clear the way to fuller detente with Qatar. They were issued contact cards for a discreet Israeli consular delegation sent ahead to provide emergency support, a reminder of their current semi-recognised status in Qatar, which is close to Iran and has hosted leaders of Palestinian Hamas. "There were a few concerns, I cannot deny that," said Sagi Ashkevitz, flying with three friends to his second World Cup. "But in the end, the idea of watching (Lionel) Messi for the last time, together with the idea that we are actually making history, overcame all of the concerns," Ashkevitz added. At least 10,000 Israelis are expected at the month-long matches, most of them coming through third countries. Those boarding the TUS Airways plane at Ben Gurion Airport were originally told they would have a brief stopover in Cyprus. But they got a non-stop connection of two hours and twenty minutes instead, thanks to a deal announced by FIFA last week which it described as allowing Palestinians as well as Israelis to fly direct. read more read more While Sunday's passengers included both Israeli Jews and Arabs, there was no one from the Palestinian territories.<br/>
Korea Airports Corp., which operates 14 airports nationwide, seeks to sign a partnership with the government of Laos to develop and expand the international airport in Luang Prabang, a UNESCO World Heritage site, and enter the Southeast Asian market for airport management. KAC announced the results of a third feasibility study on the expansion of Luang Prabang airport, Thursday (local time), with Laotian government officials and airport authorities. The company has conducted the feasibility study jointly with Dohwa Engineering since last December to stay ahead in an international bid for the public-private partnership with the Laotian authorities. The Laotian government and airport authorities seek a private partner in a 200b won ($150m) project to expand and manage Luang Prabang airport for 50 years. Since its establishment in 1998, Luang Prabang International Airport has been operated by the Lao Airport Authority, a sub-governmental organization under the Laotian Ministry of Public Works and Transport. It is an international entry point to the Southeast Asian city and offered regular flights to Chiang Mai, Bangkok, Hanoi, Jinghong, Chengdu, Siemreap, Singapore and Incheon before the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite multiple attempts by the socialist country to renovate the state-run facility, the airport remains derelict and faces challenges to expansion due to the region's mountainous geography and decline in visitor numbers following a two-year border closure prompted by the pandemic.<br/>
As most people are excited to get back into the air, travelers with disabilities are finding things rather more difficult. Delays, snafus, even lost and damaged luggage? Welcome to the world of travelers with disabilities, who've been dealing with all this for years. "It's definitely got worse since the pandemic," says Roberto Castiglioni, director of Reduced Mobility Rights, which advocates for disabled travelers. "Staff shortages are not only having an impact on not enough [assistance-dedicated] agent," he says. "Where airports have seen shortages in security staff, there are very long lines to go through." Anyone who can't stand for, at times, hours -- whether elderly, pregnant or sick -- has to request assistance, adding extra stress on a short-staffed system. The pandemic saw the aviation industry haemorrhage staff worldwide -- a major cause of the chaos seen at airports worldwide in 2022. But it isn't just a lack of manpower we're facing. "There's been a massive loss of corporate culture and knowledge," says Castiglioni -- and for travelers who need extra help, that cuts deeper. Disabilities affect roughly one in five of the population and there are many passengers who use what's termed "special assistance" when moving around airports. That could be someone partially sighted needing guidance to the gate, someone with sensory issues needing help at pinchpoints such as security or during boarding, or a passenger with a bad knee who can walk to the gate, but can't do steps. Around 27m passengers with disabilities flew through US airports in 2019, according to the Department of Transportation (DOT). And with a system already under stress, the results can be devastating.<br/>