Until last summer, Ashley Montano had never flown. Now she was preparing to land a small plane with three passengers after a previous touch-and-go that had been rough. “The plane is a bit heavy, so give it just a little more power to make a smooth landing,” flight instructor Jason Fink told her. There was the tiniest of bounces as the plane’s nose came down, then a smooth touchdown and taxi in to end Montano’s training flight late last year at a United Airlines school in the Arizona desert. On the ground, Montano was happy with her progress. “You guys were my first real passengers!” she gushed to a reporter and video journalist who had been in the rear seats. Montano hopes that in a few years she will be flying airline jets and carrying many more passengers. If she does, she’ll be helping solve a critical problem facing the industry: not enough pilots. Airlines have complained about a shortage for several years, but they made it worse during the pandemic by encouraging pilots to take early retirement when air travel collapsed in 2020. Helane Becker, an analyst for Cowen who has tracked the issue closely, estimates that 10,000 pilots have left the field since then. Meanwhile, airlines have been in a hiring frenzy that is likely to continue for several years as the carriers replace pilots who reach the federal mandatory retirement age of 65. The government estimates that there will be about 18,000 openings per year for airline and commercial pilots this decade, with many of those replacing retirees. However, the Federal Aviation Administration issued on average only half that number of pilot licenses from 2017 through 2021. Private forecasts are dire, too. Consulting firm Oliver Wyman estimates that despite efforts to close the gap, airlines in North America will face a shortage of nearly 30,000 pilots by 2032. The supply of new pilots will grow, but not enough to offset a continuing wave of retirements, the consultant says. There is cause for hope, however. Last year, the FAA issued 9,588 airline-transport licenses — the type needed to fly for an airline. That topped even the recent peak of 9,520 in 2016. The key question is whether that pace can be maintained. Some of last year’s spurt might have been catch-up from low numbers in 2020 and 2021, which were held down by the pandemic.<br/>
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Proposed US requirements to retrofit airplane altimeters to ensure they are not susceptible to 5G wireless interference may cost the industry at least $637m, the world's biggest airline trade body said on Thursday. The IATA said in comments filed with the FAA that the costs would be far higher than the $26m estimated by the agency. The group warned last week many airlines are at risk of not meeting the deadlines. It said on Thursday: "One can expect flight disruptions post the March and July deadlines unless the FAA and the US government take a different approach to this interference issue." The FAA proposed in January requiring passenger and cargo aircraft in the United States have 5G C-Band-tolerant radio altimeters or approved filters by early 2024. The agency said on Thursday it will evaluate all comments. Concerns that 5G service could interfere with airplane altimeters, which give data on a plane's height above the ground and are crucial for bad-weather landing, led to disruptions at some US airports last year involving international carriers. Verizon Communications Inc and AT&T Inc in June voluntarily agreed to delay some C-Band 5G use until July 2023 as air carriers work to retrofit airplanes to ensure they will not face interference. IATA said the costs are higher per plane than FAA estimated and said it should include the costs of 6,000 planes already retrofitted and non-US registered planes that will be impacted. "Operators around the world are being compelled to invest millions of dollars to retrofit their US-bound fleet while being reliant on the goodwill of companies that refused to accept that 5G C-band interference even existed in the first place," IATA said.<br/>
As record rocket launches crowd airspace, the FAA fights to limit travel disruptions Space companies are launching more rockets than ever, ratcheting up competition for air space just as travelers return to flying in droves — and leaving the FAA in the middle to keep things moving. The FAA has long been responsible for overseeing US airspace, mitigating air travel disruptions due to weather, military events or technical glitches. Add in the rapidly expanding space launch market, and the complicated puzzle-work of making room in the skies gets all the more delicate. Some of the agency's strategies for addressing the growing demand include minimizing the time airspace is closed and expanding beyond popular travel spots like Florida to launch sites as far away as Alaska. "Space is cheap now. Operators can get to space and it's not just nation states, it's now private companies — that's a huge change in the paradigm," said Duane Freer, manager of the FAA's Air Traffic Organization Space Operations office. "We've made significant strides in lessening the impact and managing the airspace much more efficiently for launch and reentry missions," Freer told CNBC. "It wasn't that long ago that SpaceX was a new company and these were all notional ideas." The FAA managed US airspace for a record-breaking 92 space missions in 2022, up 33% from the year prior, and it expects to top that this year. That number includes both rocket launches and capsule reentries, and has been steadily climbing. Most of last year's missions launched from Florida, straining airspace in a state that already has a unique air traffic control challenge: the Sunshine State has drawn more and more travelers in recent years and faces frequent thunderstorms several months a year. Airlines operated 722,180 flights to, from and within Florida last year, marking a faster recovery to pre-pandemic flying levels in the state than the national average. Miami International Airport announced 2022 was a record-breaking year for passengers.<br/>
French infrastructure group Vinci, the operator of London’s Gatwick Airport among others, does not expect full air traffic recovery this year as demand in Asia is still lagging, it said on Thursday, as it beat annual net profit forecasts. Europe’s biggest construction and concessions company, which operates airports and motorways across the globe, has seen travel rebound this year as pandemic-related travel curbs eased, but restrictions have remained in China until recently. “With a delayed return to normal in Asia ... it is possible that in 2023 we will still be slightly below the traffic seen in 2019,” Chairman and CEO Xavier Huillard told journalists on a call. Vinci’s airport traffic more than doubled compared to 2021, reaching 72.5% of pre-pandemic levels. The body representing European airports, ACI Europe, pushed back the expected full recovery in airline passenger volumes in Europe to 2025 from 2024. Vinci’s full-year net profit of E4.26b) rose 64% from a year earlier, boosted by air and motorway traffic recovery which lifted concessions revenue by 30%. Construction, the group’s biggest earner, generated E29.3b of revenue, an 8% like-for-like gain. Analysts had forecast E4.13b net profit in a Refinitiv poll.<br/>
Singapore will drop a requirement for travellers who are not fully vaccinated to show COVID test results or purchase coronavirus travel insurance from Feb 13, the government’s virus taskforce said on Thursday. Masks will also not be required to be worn on public transport, the health ministry said in a statement, as authorities lowered the disease outbreak response level to “green” from “yellow”, indicating COVID-19 is not threatening. However, masks will still be mandatory in healthcare settings, where there is interaction with patients and in indoor patient-facing areas. “Within Singapore our COVID situation has remained stable over the recent months, despite increased travel over the year-end holidays and China’s shift from zero COVID,” Lawrence Wong, deputy prime minister and co-chair of the virus taskforce, told a media briefing. “Our population has developed a high level of hybrid immunity,” he said. Around 80% of the city-state’s 5.6m population have achieved minimum COVID-19 vaccination protection, and around half are up to date with their additional booster shots, health ministry data showed. “We’ve had to deal with many unexpected curveballs and surprises along the way. But we managed to reach this point together because we all did our part,” Wong said.<br/>
China’s reopening is driving demand and lifting leasing rates paid by airlines for passenger jets, but doubts remain over the capacity of planemakers to keep up, the head of one of the world’s largest aircraft leasing firms said on Thursday. Dublin-based Avolon said alongside higher underlying annual earnings it is sticking by a recent forecast for a recovery in global traffic to 2019 levels by June and is already seeing rising demand for wide-body jets. “We remain confident about that forecast. We’ve seen already the dramatic ramp-up in activity in our fleet and other lessors’ fleets within China,” CE Andy Cronin told Reuters. “The international network will understandably take a little bit more time to ramp back up. But from talking to our airline customers in China, they’re already seeing really strong demand.” The International Civil Aviation Organization on Wednesday predicted a complete post-pandemic air travel recovery in 2023, while the IATA, which represents airlines, is predicting full recovery in 2024. Avolon reported a five-fold increase in adjusted net profit to $253m for 2022, despite a sharp drop in unadjusted profit on a previously reported impairment charge for jets effectively detained in Russia following sanctions over Ukraine. Cronin, who stepped up to become CEO last year after founder Domhnal Slattery retired, warned there would be no quick fix to the aircraft delivery delays that threaten to dampen the industry’s recovery as planemakers wrestle with weak supply chains. Cronin kicked off a volley of protests about last-minute delays from lessors at their annual summit in Dublin last month. “It makes it exponentially more difficult to manage a business when you just don’t know what you’re going to be at or when you’re going to get it,” Cronin said Thursday.<br/>
Bombardier on Thursday forecast higher business jet deliveries for 2023 despite supply-chain problems expected to subside but not disappear this year, CE Eric Martel said. Canada's Bombardier expects to deliver more than 138 jets in 2023, compared with 123 last year, after strong demand for private flying lifted its quarterly results above expectations. "Today there are less suppliers that have issues but those that remain have sometimes deeper issues which we need to work with," Martel told reporters. He made a fresh case for Bombardier to be included in any plans by Canada to buy reconnaissance jets. Late last year, he voiced concerns that such a contract could potentially go directly to Boeing. "I guess they’re going to have to answer and explain why we wouldn’t be part of the process when we’ve been with our platform successful in a lot of other countries,” he said of Canada. Officials at the federal procurement ministry had no immediate comment. Earlier, Martel said demand remains resilient despite economic headwinds. "We all understand there's a nervousness in the economy right now, but we see our start to be a normal start," he told analysts. Business jet makers' backlogs swelled over the last two years on sustained demand since the height of COVID-19. Yet private jet traffic, while above 2019 levels, is set to level off this year, even as low inventory of pre-owned planes for sale creeps up, aviation analysts say.<br/>