A power outage in a terminal of New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport stretched into a second day Friday after forcing some flights to be canceled or diverted, including one that was turned around and sent back to New Zealand after nearly making it to the U.S. The airport’s operator said Terminal 1, which handles some of the airport’s international flights, would remain closed Friday “due to electrical issues,” but that limited operations could resume Saturday. The outage was caused by an electrical panel failure that led to a small fire, authorities said. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs New York’s major airports, said it was working to accommodate affected flights at JFK’s four other active terminals. The agency said 39 of the 64 flights scheduled to arrive or depart from Terminal 1 on Friday were canceled, 13 were operating from other terminals and 12 were being routed through other airports. “The Port Authority continues to work with Terminal 1’s operator to complete repairs, restore power and resume flight operations at the terminal as soon as possible,” agency spokesperson Alana Calmi said.<br/>
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A small jet slid off a runway at a Houston airport on Friday, halting flights for several hours, officials said. The jet landed at Hobby Airport, a Southwest Airlines hub, just before noon and slid off the runaway and onto a grassy area located between two runway safety areas. The white and yellow jet had sustained damage to one of its wings after sliding across the grassy area before coming to a stop, video from KTRK-TV showed. Airport officials tweeted that everyone on board the jet was safe and had deplaned. Officials said the jet “has been declared fire safe. Our team is working with local and federal partners to safely remove the jet from the grass.” Airport officials said that the jet had been removed and flights had resumed around 3:30 p.m. On Friday afternoon, the website FlightAware indicated delays for flights departing the airport were averaging 50 minutes.<br/>
Traveling home to Argentina soon? Then customs officials may be digging into your social media posts right now and drawing up your risk profile. It’s part of the South American nation’s latest attempt to stem the flow of dollars out of the economy, researching into passengers who they suspect are using precious foreign exchange to bring goods into the country to sell, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. The lengths the government will to go to in order to prevent illegal imports, no matter how small, is a sign of how bad the dollar shortage has become. Argentina needs every bit of foreign currency it can find to keep up with debt payments and imports of essential items, such as medicines or machinery. It can’t afford to spend them on consumer goods without undermining the exchange rate — thus the draconian controls. “People don’t realize that they are giving themselves away on social network,” said Eduardo Mallea, head of the foreign trade department at the law firm Bruchou y Funes de Rioja. “If you say in your social network account that you sell clothes, and at the same time you enter and leave Miami, they will catch you.” The policy is targeting the $400m Argentines spend abroad each month, mostly through their credit cards. As well as social media, authorities also check people’s flight details and any tax refunds they requested while abroad. The checks are supposed to allow authorities to focus on suspicious passengers, rather than stopping everyone at the airport. It seems to be working. Four of every ten people stopped by customs officials have committed some infraction, the person said. “This is not for a person who travels and brings some clothes or a mobile phone,” Guillermo Michel, the director general of customs, told the local press. “This applies to people who bring clothes for commercial reasons, or shoes for commercial reasons.”<br/>
The aviation industry is pushing to have new aircraft powered by jet fuel classified as a green investment under EU rules for sustainable finance, in what climate campaigners have described as a “huge act of greenwashing”. Environmental groups say the criteria for the sector being considered by the European Commission risk allowing conventionally powered planes to be considered as “best in class” sustainable investments despite their carbon dioxide emissions. The inclusion of aircraft in the EU’s “taxonomy for sustainable finance”, a framework designed to guide private capital into environmentally friendly activities, is being assessed by the commission. According to calculations by environmental campaign group Transport & Environment, due to be sent to policymakers on Friday, more than 90 per cent of the order book of Airbus, the world’s biggest aircraft manufacturer as measured by deliveries, could be considered green under criteria drafted by the EU’s advisory body on sustainable finance. The aviation industry argues investments in new planes should be considered sustainable even if they burn jet fuel because they produce fewer emissions per passenger than older models. The newest designs are up to 20% more fuel efficient than older aircraft, according to industry executives. Airbus has an order backlog of 7,239 aircraft, of which more than 80% are for its family of A320neo jets, equipped with new engines. Jo Dardenne, aviation director at T&E, said on Thursday that classing “slightly more efficient planes” as environmentally friendly amounted to a “huge act of greenwashing”. “These aircraft do reduce emissions — albeit only slightly — but cannot be rubber stamped as sustainable in the taxonomy,” she said. “The taxonomy should channel investments into true green aviation — that is, clean fuels and zero-emission aircraft.” The debate comes as European policymakers consider how to respond to the US Inflation Reduction Act, a package of incentives to encourage investment into green technologies. Europe’s aerospace trade industry body, the ASD, said on Thursday that including civil aviation in the EU taxonomy was “even more important” when the US was “providing substantial support to its own industry”. The industry is one of the hardest to decarbonise due to the cost and other limitations of alternative fuels. <br/>
Global airports expect smoother travel this summer as staffing improves, but surging passenger demand during peak periods in Europe and North America could still bring long lines, baggage piles and delayed flights, an industry group said. Airports, airlines and government agencies have been staffing up to avoid crippling labour shortages that curbed capacity and led to travel headaches last summer. Global passenger demand is expected to recover to pre-pandemic levels on most routes in 2023, adding pressure to a stretched industry. "The summer months are indeed expected to be challenging at times for Europe, North America and some parts of Southeast Asia as passenger loads are expected to increase and reach levels in some places close to or even above 2019 levels," said Thomas Romig, vice president, safety, security and operations at airport trade group ACI World. Most airport executives gathered at an Airports Council International meeting this week on France's Reunion Island forecast any summer disruption was likely to be during peak traffic periods rather than run for the entire season, Romig said. Amsterdam's Schiphol airport and others might not have enough staff until the end of June, Air France-KLM CFO Steven Zaat told reporters.<br/>
Germany’s two largest airports came to a virtual standstill today as ground staff stage another strike over pay, exacerbating an already chaotic week for air travel after a system outage brought down Deutsche Lufthansa AG’s operations two days ago. Security and other ground crew in Frankfurt and Munich began their one-day walkouts early Friday, leading to 1,300 flight cancellations for national carrier Deutsche Lufthansa AG, the biggest carrier at the two hubs. The renewed travel snags come just days after the airline’s global fleet was temporarily grounded when construction workers in Frankfurt severed a communications cable. While passengers were warned ahead of time of the pending strike today, the protests come at a time when air travel was enjoying a robust comeback from the coronavirus pandemic, leading to surging traffic. Verdi workers paraded through virtually empty airport halls in Frankfurt on Friday, clad in high-vis vests and waving flags. The protests are driven by the soaring cost of living after Russia’s war in Ukraine caused energy prices and inflation to jump. They risk complicating travel plans for delegates attending the Munich Security Conference — a major annual gathering of defense and foreign policymakers. Simone Perroni, an economics professor at University of Trento, arrived Thursday evening in Frankfurt on a delayed Lufthansa flight from Verona, Italy. After missing his connecting flight to Amsterdam, he had to stay the night and was told he couldn’t fly Friday due to the strike. “You lose hours of work and have your family waiting at home. It’s been very frustrating,” Perroni said, adding that he had to hold his planned in-person meeting in Amsterdam from a cafe in the Frankfurt airport instead. Pardeep Parashar, an administration professional, arrived in Frankfurt Thursday night on an Air India flight from Delhi. He was supposed to fly for work to Warsaw with Lufthansa on Friday and from there to Szczecin. He still hasn’t been told when he’ll fly tomorrow or where he’ll sleep tonight. Both Perroni and Parashar said they found out about the cancellations upon arrival in Frankfurt last night and then had to line up with more than 500 people at a service desk by three people. They waited more than four hours to be put in a hotel.<br/>
The number of people passing through Hong Kong’s airport jumped last month as travel restrictions eased and China reopened borders for the first time since the pandemic began. Hong Kong International Airport reported 2.1m passengers in January, nearly 2,900% growth from the same period last year. Traffic to and from Southeast Asia and Japan recorded the most significant increases, according to a press release from airport authorities. China’s move to reopen borders with Hong Kong, coupled with pent-up demand to travel for the Lunar New Year break, helped fuel the surge. The city is eager to restore its status as a global financial hub and gateway to China — its largest source of tourism and biggest trading partner — since its economy took a sharp blow amid the prolonged closure. Hong Kong is rapidly removing pandemic restrictions since China ended its Covid Zero policy, and has effectively returned to normal with the exception of a mask mandate. Earlier this month, daily quotas and testing requirements were dropped and all boundary checkpoints opened. In a bid to attract tourists, officials this month launched a tourism campaign that includes distributing more than 500,000 free air tickets this year. The Airport Authority purchased the tickets in 2020 as part of a HK$2b ($255m) rescue package for the airline industry. Mainland visitors to Hong Kong could rebound this year to 78% of 2019 levels with the removal of restrictions including the daily traveler quota and mandatory Covid tests, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.<br/>
More than nine in 10 stores at Changi Airport’s four terminals are now open for business as the airport gears up for more passengers to pass through and shop at its premises. According to figures released by Changi Airport Group (CAG) on Sunday, the airport recorded a total of $1.1b in concession sales in 2022, which is about 37% of the total recorded in 2019. In December 2022 – Changi Airport’s busiest month since the Covid-19 pandemic struck in 2020 – retail sales at the four terminals hit about 58 per cent of 2019 levels. This was on the back of passenger traffic at the airport recovering to about 72 per cent of 2019 levels that month, CAG said. Over the past three years, sales at the airport’s terminals were hit hard by the pandemic as the number of travellers dwindled. Operations at Terminal 4 were suspended for more than two years due to the low traffic, while Terminal 2 was closed for upgrading works that were brought forward amid the lull. With the relaxation of Singapore’s Covid-19 border measures in 2022, business has picked up at stores in the airport’s transit and public areas, as well as on its iShopChangi online platform.<br/>
Electric aircraft maker Eve Holding is "on track" to meet its goal of starting commercial operations in 2026, an executive said on Friday, and getting its aircraft certificated is the most immediate target. Eve's vice president of services & fleet operations, Luiz Mauad, told Reuters in an interview he expects authorities in 2023 to make progress on establishing rules for the sector, which would pave the way for certification "in a few years". Eve, controlled by Brazilian planemaker Embraer, last year launched a process for Brazil's civil aviation regulator to certify its electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, which has already amassed a backlog of over 2,700 orders prior to the start of production. "Of course entering service is an important milestone, but before that comes the certification. And certifying an airplane, even a traditional one, is always a huge challenge," Mauad said ahead of the MRO Latin America event in Buenos Aires. Eve is confident about the "robust project," which is backed by Embraer's expertise, said Mauad, reiterating the goal of starting operations in 2026. He said Eve already had the cash needed for the project, initially slated to cost $540m, following a listing in the United States and additional funding from Brazil's state development bank BNDES. Eve debuted on the New York Stock Exchange in May 2022 after combining its business with Zanite Acquisition Corp, raising around $400m to manufacture its flying taxis. BNDES later announced it would grant Eve an additional 490m reais ($94.47m).<br/>
A flying car achieved the first manned outdoor flight in Japan on Friday morning in a trial by a local consortium of aviation and automobile businesses, a big step for a technology seen as serving remote islands and mountainous regions that lack transportation. The two-seater took off from an artificial island in the western Japanese city of Oita and traveled about 400 meters at an altitude of about 30m without a pilot controlling the plane. The vehicle, measuring 1.7m high and 5.6m wide, remained steady during a flight that lasted 3 minutes and 31 seconds. "I felt a slight vibration when the vehicle was hovering. But overall, I enjoyed the pleasant sensation of floating gently," said Hiroshi Kirino, who heads the consortium and was on the flight. "The test was a perfect success." The flight was the first outdoor manned test approved by Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. The consortium, called Okayama Kurashiki Mizushima Aero & Space Industry Cluster Study Group, or MASC, has been conducting unmanned tests since 2021. Expectations are high that the electric or hybrid vehicles, which do not require runways as they can take off and land vertically, will alleviate urban traffic congestion. Efforts are underway at home and abroad to set up legal frameworks allowing the use of such vehicles. In Japan, startups like SkyDrive and teTra Aviation have made successful unmanned and indoor manned flights. Overseas, Germany's Volocopter and the UK's Vertical Aerospace aim for commercialization in 2023 or 2024. <br/>
Boeing said Thursday it is absorbing its decades-old aircraft-financing arm into its commercial airplanes unit as part of a push to simplify its corporate structure. After the retirement of Boeing Capital Corp President Tim Myers this spring, Boeing said it would "realign" the financing arm within the commercial airplane unit while maintaining "strong coordination" with Boeing's treasury arm. Boeing Capital, a subsidiary of Boeing, provides asset-based financing and leasing to airlines lacking access to funding. The realignment will "focus resources on our core work of supporting our customers and their financing needs," Boeing CFO Brian West said in an internal memo viewed by Reuters. The closing of Boeing Capital continues a trend for Boeing to consolidate its operational structure and ends a significant chapter in the fast-expanding air finance industry. Boeing in November announced a reorganization of its defense unit that halved the number of sub-divisions. It has also moved to cut 2,000 white-collar jobs in finance and human resources. The move comes days after the final delivery of the Boeing 747. BCC was credited with prolonging the reign of the Queen of the Skies for several years after stepping in to finance the sale of freighters to Russia's Volga-Dnepr with leasing deals when other financiers were reluctant to back the aging jet.<br/>