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Some users of a system that sends messages to pilots reported delays on Wednesday, but federal officials said the problem was not affecting flights. It is the same pilot-alerting system that broke down spectacularly earlier this month, leading the Federal Aviation Administration to briefly stop all departing flights around the country. An FAA spokeswoman said Wednesday the system that sends NOTAMs — notices to air missions – was online and operational. “Some users have reported slower response times due to high demand, but there have been no reports of impact to flight operations,” she added. United Airlines, Delta Air Lines and Southwest Airlines said Wednesday’s NOTAM issues were not affecting their flights. American did not immediately respond to an inquiry. The FAA posted an advisory saying that a NOTAM manager application was offline but other methods of entering alerts were working. The notice said that a hotline had been set up between the FAA’s air traffic control command center “and industry” – presumably meaning airlines. The application was restored later Wednesday, the FAA said. The NOTAM system is critical to aviation because pilots are required to check the alerts before they take off. The FAA said last week that contractors who were trying to “correct synchronization” between the NOTAM system’s main database and a backup accidentally deleted files, triggering a meltdown that led to more than 1,300 flight cancellations and 11,000 delays on Jan. 12. The FAA said it has found no evidence of a cyberattack but was continuing to investigate the outage.<br/>

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) told lawmakers on Wednesday that it had revoked access to a pilot messaging database to contractor personnel involved in a file deletion that led to the first nationwide groundstop since 2001. Last week, the FAA said it had found contract personnel "unintentionally deleted files" disrupting the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) messaging system that led to a Jan. 11 groundstop disrupting more than 11,000 flights. It was the first nationwide groundstop since the Sept.11, 2001 al Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington. The FAA in an email to lawmakers seen by Reuters identified the contractor involved as Bethesda-based Spatial Front. "All personnel from Spatial Front directly involved in the deletion have lost access to FAA buildings and systems while we complete our investigation," the FAA email to lawmakers said. The company did not respond to an email from Reuters late Wednesday. The NOTAM system provides pilots, flight crews and other users of U.S. airspace with critical safety notices. The FAA said the deletion occurred while personnel were working "to correct synchronization between the live primary database and a backup database."<br/>

The House passed legislation on Wednesday that would create a task force to study a Federal Aviation Administration alert system that went down this month, causing departing flights to be grounded nationwide. The bill drew overwhelming bipartisan support, passing by a vote of 424 to 4. It faces an unclear future in the Senate, where it failed to receive a vote after previously passing the House in 2019 and again in 2021. But the system outage this month is bringing more attention to what experts say is outdated technology at the FAA. Departures across the country were halted for about 90 minutes on Jan. 11 after the FAA’s Notice to Air Missions system went down, and thousands of flights were ultimately delayed that day. The so-called NOTAM system is used to provide information to pilots about hazards like runway closures and airspace restrictions. Representative Pete Stauber, Republican of Minnesota and the bill’s sponsor, said it was unacceptable that the current system had been allowed to stay in place for so long, citing complaints from pilots about how the notices sent through it are hard to interpret. He expressed hope that after the recent outage, the bill would finally make it through the Senate. “We must do this,” Stauber said. “This is a priority. We cannot have another critical failure like we did a couple weeks ago.”<br/>

A massive snowstorm cut across southern Ontario and parts of the U.S. Wednesday, leading to hundreds of cancelled flights at Canada’s largest airport and dozens of crashes across the region. In Toronto, Pearson International Airport reported that 25% of its departures and 26% of its arrivals were cancelled Wednesday as the storm hit Ontario and parts of the US. The airport said that amounted to more than 400 departures and arrivals each by Wednesday evening. Some of the cancellations had been for flights that morning, while many others had been set for later in the day. Airport spokesperson Tori Gass said many cancellations were related to weather elsewhere as the storm hitting Ontario affected US cities as well. She noted that airlines are responsible for cancelling flights.<br/>

Berlin’s airport said it has canceled all passenger flights Wednesday because of a strike organized by the Verdi union, severing the German capital from international air travel. The dispute means that 300 takeoffs and landings won’t be possible, affecting about 35,000 passengers, according to a statement by the BER airport operator. Among the airport’s biggest airlines are discount specialist EasyJet and Deutsche Lufthansa. A spokesperson for Lufthansa said the airline was offering passengers rebooked flights on Thursday or train alternatives. Labor union Verdi called the warning strike, citing dissatisfaction with proposals made in three rounds of collective bargaining negotiations by the airport’s management. It’s demanding an increase of €500 ($543) a month for ground services employees over a 12-month period as well as higher bonuses for air security personnel who work weekends and public holidays. “The workers are massively overloaded,” Enrico Ruemker, leader of the Verdi union’s transport section in Berlin, said by phone, adding that there are no further walkouts planned to coincide with the looming winter holiday in the capital next week. “This is the airlines’ fault for pursuing strategies of offering the cheapest tickets possible.” The latest disruption at Berlin follows a tumultuous summer of strikes and delays at Germany’s biggest airports after labor unions pushed for better pay deals to offset the cost of living squeeze. German inflation rates have soared after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine drove gas and other energy prices higher. <br/>

The Somali airspace has regained its Class A classification after more than 30 years, the International Air Transport Association said. IATA confirmed the reclassification of the Mogadishu Flight Information Region airspace on Wednesday. Class A airspace is the sky above the base altitude of about 24,500 feet (7,467 meters) above mean sea level, according to IATA. In it, all flights must be cleared by air traffic control, which is responsible for maintaining the correct separation between aircraft, which required the Mogadishu FIR to install new equipment. IATA said the move will significantly improve safety in the region and enhance efficiency. The reclassification of Somali airspace to Class A took effect at 00:01 a.m. local time Thursday (16:01 EST), Somali officials said.<br/>

Indian airlines saw a significant increase in domestic traffic in 2022 as pandemic restrictions eased, with Tata Sons-owned Vistara and Air India clawing back market share. Data from India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) shows its airlines carrying more than 123m domestic passengers in 2022, a 47% year on year increase.<br/>Low-cost operator IndiGo remained the country’s largest carrier by market share, at around 56%. Its share in 2022 is slightly higher than in 2021, where it was the largest carrier at 54.8% market share. Full-service compatriot Vistara, meanwhile, rose to become the country’s second largest carrier, holding 9.2% market share. In 2021, Vistara was fifth largest carrier, at around 7.3%. The carrier, which will be merged with fellow Tata-owned carrier Air India, has steadily grown its domestic market share in the second half of the year, overtaking its low-cost compatriots in passenger numbers. Similarly, Air India also increased its share during the same period, ending the year with 8.7% domestic market share and becoming India’s fourth largest operator. Meanwhile, low-cost operator GoFirst, formerly known as GoAir, was India’s third largest carrier, with about 8.8% share of the domestic market. SpiceJet was the only domestic carrier to see market share shrink compared to 2021. It held close to 8.7% market share in 2022, down from 2021’s 8.8%, and making it India’s fifth largest carrier. Low-cost start-up Akasa Air, which began operations in August 2022, ended the year with about 0.6% market share.<br/>

Boeing said Wednesday it lost $663 million in the fourth quarter as higher production costs and supply-chain problems offset rising revenue. It was another disappointing quarter for the aerospace giant, which has yet to recover from deadly crashes involving two of its 737 Max jets and a pandemic that depressed airline demand for new planes until recently. Boeing lost $5b for the full year, pushing its losses since the start of 2019 to nearly $22b. Despite the red ink, CEO David Calhoun struck a bullish tone on a call with analysts, saying the company is sticking with plans to increase jet production despite ongoing shortages from suppliers of engines and other key parts. Boeing said it is stabilizing production of new 737s at 31 per month and plans to speed that up to about 50 per month by 2025 or 2026, and will also boost production of the 787, a larger plane that has been beset by manufacturing flaws.<br/>

Relatives of people killed in two fatal 737 MAX crashes asked a US judge on Wednesday to name an independent corporate monitor to oversee Boeing's compliance efforts with a 2021 deferred prosecution agreement. US District Judge Reed O'Connor last week ordered Boeing to appear in court on Thursday in Fort Worth, Texas, to be arraigned on a felony charge after families of those killed in the 2018 and 2019 crashes objected to a $2.5b Justice Department agreement to resolve a 737 MAX fraud conspiracy charge related to the plane's flawed design. The crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia, which cost Boeing more than $20b, led to a 20-month grounding for the best-selling plane and prompted lawmakers to pass sweeping legislation reforming airplane certification. The families want O'Connor to name an independent monitor to oversee Boeing's compliance; impose a standard condition that Boeing commit no new crimes; and disclose publicly as much as possible of the substance of Boeing’s corporate compliance efforts adopted since 2021. "Only an independent monitor -- the proverbial second set of eyes -- can begin to restore confidence in Boeing and ensure safety of the community," the families said. Boeing did not immediately comment but CE Dave Calhoun told CNBC Wednesday the planemaker did not object to the arraignment and expressed sympathy for the families. He said their veiws were "a good reminder.. of how important safety is for all of us."<br/>

Boeing is studying whether an innovative plane it’s developing with NASA could find a home in its lineup next decade, the company’s top executive said, offering a tantalizing glimpse into its product strategy. Later this decade, the US planemaker plans to fly a full-scale prototype of the single-aisle jet, whose size could make it an eventual successor to the 737 Max. Boeing and NASA have been working on a concept for nearly 15 years that reduces drag — and fuel burn — with extra-long, thin wings that are stabilized by diagonal struts attached to the bottom of the plane’s fuselage. The design, combined with improvements in engine technology, could trim fuel consumption and emissions by around 30% over Boeing’s 737 Max and Airbus’ A320neo family — the current workhorses for airlines across the globe. Such gains would meet the “standard needed to launch a commercial airplane,” Dave Calhoun, Boeing’s CEO, said Wednesday during an earnings conference call. “The program that we’ve embarked on here is how do you commercialize it?” Calhoun said of its futuristic design. “So, there’s real intent there to be able to do it.” Boeing is currently testing digital tools it would use to design and manufacture the jets on several defense programs, he added. Calhoun shocked Wall Street last year by declaring the aviation titan wouldn’t undertake an all-new jetliner this decade to try and winnow Airbus’s lead in the narrowbody market. Last week, NASA awarded Boeing $425 million to help create a new generation of greener jetliners ready to enter the commercial market in the 2030s. The planemaker and its partners will provide another $725 million.<br/>