Aerospace suppliers that maintain planes and furnish spare parts are enjoying a boom thanks to a revival in air travel and slow deliveries of new aircraft. Strong demand for their services is evident in the Rockford, Illinois, hangars of AAR, one of the leading companies in the sector with a market value of $1.7bn. Technicians there are busy working on the planes of customers such as United Airlines and Southwest Airlines. “We’re basically full in our hangars,” chief executive John Holmes said. “When you have people, and you have airplanes, that’s a good combination,” he later added. Two main forces are bringing planes to AAR’s facilities, and Holmes said they are likely to persist for years. Passenger traffic recovered dramatically last year after collapsing in the first years of the coronavirus pandemic. While global air travel is still down about 20 per cent less from 2019, in the US it has largely returned to pre-pandemic levels. Nearly 76m people flew in the US in October, just 3 per cent lower than the same month in 2019, according to the latest available government data. China’s reopening after strict Covid-19 lockdowns is expected to return many more flyers to the skies. At the same time, top manufacturers Boeing and Airbus have struggled to fulfil all of airlines’ new plane orders. The result is that carriers must stick with older jets for longer and pay more for replacement parts and service. Repair shops reported a 19% increase in sales in Q4 2022 compared with a year earlier, according to research from analyst Ken Herbert at RBC Capital Markets, while revenue for parts sellers grew by 15%. “Airlines are scrambling to keep up, which means they have to spend more on the airplanes [in their fleets],” Herbert said. “That’s been a big tailwind.” United spent $2.2b on parts and repairs in 2022, a 20% rise compared with 2019 and a 64% increase from 2021. The airline said it flew more, scheduled more engine overhauls and heavy maintenance and absorbed price increases. Delta also reported a 13% increase in parts and repair costs over 2019.<br/>
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US airlines expect strong travel demand that drove record Q4 revenues to continue into 2023, but economic uncertainty and burgeoning labor and operations costs could cloud their rosy outlooks. On Thursday, American Airlines, JetBlue Airways and Alaska Air forecast better-than-expected full-year earnings. Airlines are cashing in as consumers snap up tickets following a pandemic-induced slump, making the industry a rare bright spot as markets grasp with runaway inflation, rising interest rates and economic uncertainty. American Airlines Chief Executive Robert Isom said post-holiday bookings surged, underpinned by domestic and short-haul international flights. "We expect a strong demand environment to continue in 2023 and anticipate further improvement in demand for long-haul international travel this year," he told analysts. But while limited capacity due to a scarcity of aircraft has allowed airlines to raise fares to offset rising costs, higher pilot pay and other pressures could sap carriers' profits.<br/>
US lawmakers pressed the acting head of the FAA Thursday on steps the agency was taking to ensure there would be no repeat of a pilot messaging database failure that led to the first nationwide ground stop since 2001. "It was just purely a screwup," said Representative Sam Graves, who heads the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, after emerging from a meeting with Acting FAA Administrator Billy Nolen. On Wednesday, the FAA told lawmakers it had revoked access to a pilot messaging database by contractor personnel involved in a file deletion that disrupted more than 11,000 flights on Jan. 11. Asked if he was confident it would not happen again, Graves said: "I can't say that. It's the FAA. It's a government-run operation." Graves plans to hold a Feb. 7 hearing that will look at aviation safety issues. Nolen declined to comment after the briefing. Representative Rick Larsen, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said Thursday's briefing had been a high-level look at what went wrong and what the agency was doing to ensure it did not happen again. "I don't understand how trained people" can make the deletion error," Larsen said. "The investigation will hopefully explain how someone zigged instead of zagged."<br/>
US House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chair on Thursday said Republicans will not grant a waiver to allow President Joe Biden's pick to head the FAA. Republicans have said Biden's nominee Phil Washington needs a waiver because he does not qualify as a civilian under the law. Washington, the Denver International Airport chief executive, was nominated in July but the Senate Commerce Committee has yet to hold a hearing. "The FAA is running on autopilot. You can only run on autopilot so long before you run out of gas, you wake up and your over Utah," said Representative Sam Graves, a Republican who heads the committee overseeing the FAA. Republicans have harshly criticized the FAA after the Notice to Air Missions pilot messaging database failed, which led to a more than 90-minute nationwide grounding of planes on Jan. 11 that disrupted more than 11,000 flights, the first such halt since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. "You want to talk about crippling the country and showing our enemies just how vulnerable we are," Graves said of the NOTAM outage. "They've got to get their act together, they've really do, they've got to modernize their processes and their system." The NOTAM system provides pilots, flight crews and other users of US airspace with critical safety notices.<br/>
Haitian police officers on Thursday blocked streets and forced their way into the country's main airport to protest the recent killing of officers by armed gangs expanding their grip on the Caribbean nation. Protesters in civilian clothes who identified themselves as police first attacked Prime Minister Ariel Henry's official residence, according to a Reuters witness, and then flooded the airport as Henry was arriving from a trip to Argentina. Henry was temporarily stuck in the airport, but returned to his residence in Port-au-Prince later on Thursday, followed by police protesters. A Reuters witness heard heavy gunfire near his home. Haiti's National Police and the Prime Minister's Office did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Roads around Port-au-Prince and in several cities to the north were blocked by protesters. A group of US government officials were visiting Haiti at the time, and a US State Department spokesperson said all Washington's personnel were accounted for and they had moved some meetings as a precaution.<br/>
Britain's competition and aviation regulators have warned airports not to share confidential information and breach competition law, following a tip off that they were doing so. The Competition and Markets Authority and the Civil Aviation Authority on Thursday publicly shared a letter sent to airport operators after receiving intelligence about information sharing. It did not name the operators. The regulators said that despite the extraordinary pressures faced by airports during the pandemic, there was no excuse for violations, and that operators must check all staff were properly trained to ensure they did not breach rules. Any concerns over price-fixing or market-sharing arrangements should be reported to the CMA, the letter urged, warning that the consequences for breaches include fines of up to 10% of a company's worldwide turnover and criminal prosecutions. "Please take the time to review your practices and ensure that you and your employees are complying with competition law," the letter said.<br/>
Malaysia's passenger traffic across all local network of airports operated by Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) gained momentum in 2022, registering a substantial increase to 52.7mi passenger movements compared with 10.72m passenger movements in 2021. "Domestic passenger movements recovery momentum continued in 2022 after the lifting of interstate travel ban on Oct 11 last year, recording 36.2m passengers for the year, reaching 69.6% of 2019 levels. "International passenger movements recorded a total of 16.5m passengers after 17 airlines resumed services to 32 cities, with the highest traffic to destinations in Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, South Korea, Vietnam, and India,” said MAHB in a statement. The airport operator said the annual growth in passenger movements was also supported by the introduction of new routes by 27 airlines to 38 cities. Among the cities with the highest growth in 2022 over 2021 were Denpasar-Bali, Lahore, Ujung Padang, Male, Brisbane, Bangkok, Perth, Phuket, Batam, and Bangalore. Overall, 59 airlines operated flights to 84 international and 35 domestic destinations last year, as compared to 48 airlines to 51 international and 32 domestic destinations in the preceding year, it said.<br/>
Boeing pleaded not guilty on Thursday to a 737 Max fraud conspiracy charge felony charge after families objected to a 2021 Justice Department agreement to resolve the investigation into the plane’s flawed design. Boeing’s chief safety officer, Mike Delaney, entered the not-guilty plea on behalf of the planemaker. A not-guilty plea is standard in deferred prosecution agreements. US District Judge Reed O’Connor last week ordered Boeing to appear to be arraigned after he ruled that people killed in the two Boeing 737 Max crashes are legally considered “crime victims.” The crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia killed 346 people. They 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. Boeing CE Dave Calhoun said Wednesday the planemaker did not object to the arraignment and expressed sympathy for the families. The Justice Department in 2021 agreed to seek dismissal of the charge after the three-year agreement if Boeing complies with all terms. Boeing admitted in court documents that two of its technical pilots deceived US regulators about a key flight control system linked to both fatal crashes. Relatives of people killed were speaking Thursday at the arraignment. The relatives said in the filing that Boeing had “committed the deadliest corporate crime in US history.”<br/>
Airbus is embarking on a recruitment drive to hire another 13,000 personnel this year, matching its effort last year. The aerospace company says more than half of the new hires – around 7,000 – are intended to fill newly-created positions, and a third of the total will be made up of recent graduates. Airbus has been ramping-up its workforce more than two years after imposing dramatic cuts as the pandemic forced a slowdown in its production activity. “New hires will be instrumental in supporting our industrial ramp-up and Airbus’ ambitious decarbonisation roadmap and preparing the future of aviation,” it states. Airbus will focus on sourcing manufacturing and technical staff, while also looking to bring in personnel to support its energy strategy as well as its digital work. It plans to take on more than 9,000 people in Europe, with the rest spread across its global operation. Airbus chief human resources officer Thierry Baril says the company’s “resilience and attractiveness” have been “tested” by the recent crises. He says the company successfully recruited 13,000 people in 2022 and it plans to achieve the target again this year. “We call on talented individuals from all over the world to join us in our journey to make sustainable aerospace a reality,” he adds.<br/>
Business jet maker Gulfstream aims to hike its aircraft deliveries by a fifth in 2023 after missing its delivery target last year amid regulatory and supply chain issues. The company also expects by mid-2023 to achieve certification of its large-cabin G700 business jet – though progress depends on the Federal Aviation Administration, Phebe Novakovic, chief executive of Gulfstream parent General Dynamics, said on 25 January. General Dynamics expects Savannah-based Gulfstream will close 2023 having delivered 145 business jets, up from 120 shipments in 2022. “We look forward to a significant increase in deliveries in 2023 at Gulfstream, and improved operating margin,” says Novakovic. “Gulfstream deliveries will be around 145, up a little over 20%.” Her comments came the day General Dynamics disclosed its 2022 financial results. Its aerospace business – composed of Gulfstream and Swiss business aviation services company Jet Aviation – turned a $1.1b profit last year, up 10% from 2022. General Dynamics had in mid 2022 anticipated Gulfstream would close last year having delivered 123 aircraft. But the manufacturer came in short, at 120 – only one more delivery than in 2021. In 2022 executives said Gulfstream had been coping with supply chain troubles. Operating restrictions imposed (and since lifted) on G500s and G600s by the FAA also led some customers to defer deliveries. “Three aircraft we planned to deliver in the fourth quarter slipped into the first quarter this year,” says Novakovic. That change left Gulfstream with 38 deliveries in the fourth quarter, shy of its planned 41.<br/>