The apology Southwest Airlines emailed to customers following mass cancellations that stranded travellers across the US over Christmas annoyed Talesha Roberson. The way she saw it, the problems with flying extended far beyond one airline’s high-profile holiday meltdown. Roberson, a Washington state resident who grew up in Indiana, flies back there about five times a year to visit family and friends. In September, maintenance problems delayed her Southwest flight for more than two hours. Then on December 17 — four days before a storm kicked off the chaos at Southwest — the airline cancelled her flight, again because of maintenance. Though Southwest refunded her fare and put her on another flight the next day, when she arrived in Washington her luggage was missing. The mounting inconveniences have made her question the integrity of air travel, not just at Southwest, but across the industry. “People are losing trust,” she says. “A lot more people are going to start going on road trips.” Consumer data backs up Roberson’s feeling: the US flying public is not happy. A Gallup poll in August found that 37% of Americans held a negative view of the airline industry, compared with 27% who held a favourable impression — the first time in more than a decade that critics have outnumbered fans. US air travellers, eager to return to the skies after two years of upheaval due to Covid-19, found themselves being forced to wait for delayed flights or scramble to rearrange plans after cancellations. Of the 9mn scheduled flights in the US last year, nearly a quarter of them were delayed or cancelled. Gripes over flight disruptions, missing baggage and refunds have also surged: consumers filed more than 3,000 complaints against US carriers in October with the US Department of Transportation, nearly five times the number from the same month in 2019.<br/>
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Surging premiums and dwindling supplies are just the beginning of a volatile year for the jet fuel market, with rebounding Chinese demand and the EU ban on Russian fuels set to further roil prices. Nowhere is the market more vulnerable than New York, where jet prices are more than 70% higher than diesel. It’s a stark reversal from a month ago, when the aviation fuel was trading at a discount to the heating and trucking fuel. For now, the price spike is supply driven: East Coast inventories are at the lowest seasonal level ever due to refinery outages and declining shipments. But more volatility is on the horizon, with jet fuel set to be the biggest driver of oil-demand growth in 2023, according to the International Energy Agency. Most of that growth will come from Asia, where consumption is on track to rise by 5% in the first week of February, according to BloombergNEF. Chinese trips during the Lunar New Year surged nearly 80% compared to 2022, according to the nation’s Civil Aviation Administration, and consumption in India is up 19% on a seasonal basis. That pick-up in consumption should increase competition for the fuel, even as US demand remains soft with one measure of domestic consumption hitting an historic low in January. And supplies are poised to get even tighter when the EU’s ban on Russian fuels kicks in on Sunday. Because jet fuel comes from the same cut of an oil barrel as diesel, refiners trying to compensate for the loss of Russian supply could be pressed to reduce their output of the aviation fuel. <br/>
Cargo airlines operating out of Mexico's busiest airport will have until July to leave the hub, a decree published in the country's national gazette Thursday evening said. The decree comes from President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who has said he would have cargo flights moved due to lack of space at the Benito Juarez International Airport in Mexico City. Around 3% of flights at the airport in 2022 were for cargo, according to flight data. The closest airport is the Felipe Angeles International Airport on the northern outskirts of the city, one of Lopez Obrador's flagship public works projects opened last March. While the decree does not stipulate airlines must move their operations to Felipe Angeles, Lopez Obrador has said the airport has the space and "security conditions" to make the change. Mexico has also been under the Category 2 aviation rating by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) since it was downgraded in May 2021 on safety concerns, meaning Mexican airlines cannot launch new routes to the United States.<br/>
Heathrow Airport said its CE John Holland-Kaye had decided to step down after nine years as the boss of Britain's biggest aviation hub and a process was underway to find his replacement. Holland-Kaye wants to leave at some point this year, Heathrow said on Thursday, but will remain in the role until his successor starts. Heathrow, which last year regained its top spot as the busiest airport in western Europe after sliding down the rankings during the COVID-19 pandemic, is owned by Spanish group Ferrovial and Qatar Investment Authority plus other investors. Holland-Kaye spent the first part of his tenure trying to win support for Heathrow's plan to build a third runway - a politically charged issue, given the site's location in densely populated west London and environmental concerns. Soon after parliament gave its backing for the expansion, the pandemic struck, bringing most travel to a standstill for months at a time, and pushing Heathrow into survival mode as traffic figures collapsed to their lowest levels for decades.<br/>
Hong Kong leader John Lee on Thursday unveiled a promotion campaign that will include 500,000 free flights to woo back visitors, businesses and investors to the financial hub after more than three years of tough Covid-19 curbs. The “Hello, Hong Kong” campaign was launched with dancers and flashing neon lights in the city’s main convention centre, next to its famous harbour, with a backdrop bearing the slogan in various languages, including Russian and Spanish. Lee, Hong Kong’s CE, said the campaign would show that the city is open for tourism, and is aimed at boosting business and investment in the Chinese special administrative region. “Hong Kong is now connected to mainland China and the whole international world, and there will be no isolation, no quarantine and no restrictions on experiencing... enjoying the hustle and bustle of Asia’s world city,” Lee said. He added that Hong Kong would host sports and cultural events and highlight attractions such as The Palace Museum and M+ museum, as well as a revamped Peak Tram with special vouchers. Celebrities, officials and business executives were featured in promotional videos streamed during the ceremony, with plans for them to be used to promote the city. “We have to let outsiders know that Hong Kong has a unique status, especially when the ‘one country, two systems’ principle will be implemented in Hong Kong for a long time,” Lee said. The free flight tickets will be distributed to overseas visitors for six months, starting from March 1, with airlines Cathay Pacific, Hong Kong Express and Hong Kong Airlines receiving them.<br/>
Auckland Airport says its post-flood clean-up job is set to begin in earnest, with an “army of tradies” sweeping through the international terminal. The airport will remain open, but travellers have been told they may notice disruption as plumbers, builders, sparkies and engineers undertake the repair work from last Friday’s deluge. “Like thousands of other property owners around Auckland, we are getting on with what will be a significant repair job,” said Auckland Airport CE Carrie Hurihanganui. “The focus of crews is removing flood-damaged carpet and lower sections of wall linings across the ground floor of the international terminal and in limited areas of the domestic terminal.” Some of the work would be back of house, but repairs would also need to be carried out in areas used by the public and travellers in the international terminal, such as the check-in and arrivals hall.<br/>
The chair of the disability royal commission has written to Australian airline and airport chiefs about improving their treatment of travellers with disabilities, after the inquiry heard stories of people dropped on the floor and discrimination against assistance dogs. The royal commission has so far heard that people with disabilities are routinely subject to violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation when flying domestically, with participants telling the inquiry they felt airlines were “dehumanising” them and that complaints were rarely followed up. Advocates have told Guardian Australia that complaining through the Australian Human Rights Commission is often the only way to seek recourse. In a letter sent to the various chief executives this week, Ronald Sackville KC outlined concerns that people with disabilities have reported to the royal commission, with travellers frequently facing “inaccessible facilities and services” and “unhelpful practices and systems adopted by airlines”. Sackville listed shortcomings raised by people with disabilities that airlines and airports could address to make flying “a more inclusive experience”. “People with disability often experience avoidable challenges when travelling by air,” Sackville wrote. “More can be done by airlines and domestic airports to address those challenges.” Sackville wrote about how people with disabilities had told the commission that their wheelchairs had been damaged during travel and that airlines had not taken responsibility to rectify the issue.<br/>
A group of companies led by Nippon Paper Industries plans to produce bioethanol from wood for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) in Japan, which has lagged in developing alternatives to petroleum for powering planes. Investment in the project is expect to total up to tens of billions of yen (10b yen equals $78m), with production to begin in 2027. Sustainable aviation fuels, which can be made from waste cooking oil, plant matter and other materials, is said to emit 70% to 90% less carbon dioxide than standard jet fuel. The European Union is leading the way on regulations meant to drive widespread adoption of SAF by mid-century. Nippon Paper, trading house Sumitomo Corp. and others intend to form a joint venture in 2024 to manufacture and sell bioethanol. Green Earth Institute, a Japanese company that has its own fermentation technology using microorganisms, also will invest in the venture. The bioethanol will be produced at Nippon Paper's mills and sold to oil refiners that manufacture SAF. The partners target output of tens of thousands of kiloliters in 2027, enough to make about 10,000 kl of fuel. The primary raw material will be wood cut from Nippon Paper's forests. The company owns roughly 90,000 hectares of forests in Japan, second only to rival papermaker Oji Holdings. Nippon Paper plans to increase the sustainability of its supply by planting seedlings that grow 50% faster and absorb 50% more carbon dioxide than conventional trees in logging areas. From left to right, wood chips are converted into sugars, fermented and turned into ethanol. (Photo obtained by Nikkei)<br/>