Airlines have returned to profit and are forecasting that booming demand will push earnings even higher over the next year, in a striking turnround for one of the industries worst hit by the pandemic. The world’s largest airlines reported $6.3bn in net profit in 2022, a striking reversal from a combined $40bn in losses over the previous two years, according to a Financial Times analysis of FactSet and Capital IQ data. The figures cover eight of the 10 largest airlines by passenger numbers but exclude Chinese groups, which were still subject to travel restrictions in 2022. Sales in 2022 surpassed pre-pandemic levels, driven in particular by strong growth from Turkish Airlines and Indian carrier Indigo. People have flocked back to air travel as restrictions have ended over the past year, most recently in China, and there are few signs that worries about the economy will hold back demand in the coming months. Lufthansa on Friday became the latest airline to report an annual profit and strong demand for travel despite weaknesses in the global economy. “In just one year, we have achieved an unprecedented financial turnround,” said CE Carsten Spohr. The German flag carrier reported an operating profit of E1.5b for 2022, up from a E1.7b loss the previous year. Both revenues and passenger numbers roughly doubled. The airline said it expected “a significant improvement” in profitability this year as “demand for air travel remains high”. The results came on the same day that Australian airline Qantas said it expected to hire 8,500 people over the next decade to rebuild its workforce, having cut staffing significantly at the height of the pandemic. Air France-KLM and British Airways owner IAG have also reported a return to profit in recent weeks, and predicted that the recovery will continue.<br/>
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Airline passengers who have long felt squished in cramped seats suffered a setback on Friday as a US appeals court refused to order the FAA to adopt minimum requirements for seat size and spacing. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals said an advocacy group, FlyersRights.org, had no right to force the FAA to adopt seating rules because it was not "clear and indisputable" that tight seating, while uncomfortable, was also dangerous. Congress had in 2018 given the FAA one year to establish minimum seating dimensions including pitch, the distance between seatbacks, that were "necessary" for passenger safety. No such rules yet exist, though airlines must be able to evacuate passengers within 90 seconds in emergencies. Airline margins could suffer if carriers were forced to reconfigure planes. Writing for a three-judge panel, Circuit Judge Justin Walker rejected FlyersRights' claims that tight seating materially slowed emergency exits and posed medical risks such as blood clots, saying the FAA had no compelling evidence of either. "To be sure, many airline seats are uncomfortably small. That is why some passengers pay for wider seats and extra legroom," Walker wrote. "But it is not 'clear and indisputable' that airline seats have become dangerously small. "Unless they are dangerously small, seat-size regulations are not 'necessary for the safety of passengers,'" he added. Paul Hudson, president of FlyersRights, said the decision ignored Congress' intent that minimum standards be considered, and passengers could expect seating to shrink to "torture class" if the FAA did nothing.<br/>
A business jet was buffeted by severe turbulence over New England, causing a rare passenger death and forcing the aircraft to divert to Bradley International Airport in Connecticut, officials said Saturday. Five people were aboard the Bombardier executive jet that was shaken by turbulence late Friday afternoon while traveling from Keene, New Hampshire, to Leesburg, Virginia, said Sarah Sulick, a spokesperson for the National Transportation Safety Board. The extent of the damage to the aircraft was unclear, and the NTSB did not provide details including whether the victim was wearing a seatbelt. Connecticut state police confirmed one person was taken to a hospital but didn’t provide further details. The jet is owned by Conexon, a company based in Kansas City, Missouri, according to a Federal Aviation Administration database. The company, which brings high-speed internet to rural communities, declined comment Saturday. NTSB investigators were interviewing the two crew members and surviving passengers as part of a probe into the deadly encounter with turbulence, Sulick said. The jet’s cockpit voice and data recorders were sent to NTSB headquarters for analysis, she said. Turbulence, which is unstable air in the atmosphere, remains a cause for injury for airline passengers despite airline safety improvements over the years. Earlier this week, seven people were hurt badly enough to be taken to hospitals after a Lufthansa Airbus A330 experienced turbulence while flying from Texas to Germany. The plane was diverted to Virginia’s Washington Dulles International Airport. But deaths are extremely rare. “I can’t remember the last fatality due to turbulence,” said Robert Sumwalt, a former NTSB chair and executive director of the Center for Aviation and Aerospace Safety at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.<br/>
Industrial action in France over the government's planned pensions overhaul will cause heavy disruption to public transport again on Tuesday, the transport minister and several public transport authorities said on Sunday. For the sixth time since the start of the year, unions are calling for a nationwide day of strikes and demonstrations, aiming to repeat the large turnout seen on the first major protest on Jan. 19 when more than a million people marched against the pension reform. "There will be very strong impacts," Transport Minister Clement Beaune said in an interview with France 3 TV station, adding that he expected the strike to be "one of the most difficult ones" for travellers since the start of the protests. France's DGAC aviation authority said earlier this week it had asked airlines to reduce flights by 20% at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport and by 30% at Orly airport on March 7-8.<br/>
The Irish government on Friday vowed to tackle the problem of drones after a series of incursions forced the closure of Dublin Airport, the country's busiest, on six occasions since the start of the year. Unlike other major European airports, Dublin Airport does not currently have the power to force down drones flying close to its runway and says it needs state action to tackle the problem. "We will bring an end to this," Finance Minister Michael McGrath told state broadcaster RTE on Friday, after three planes were diverted and thousands of passengers were delayed by a 32-minute suspension of operations at the airport on Thursday evening. A government memo is being prepared to provide a legislative underpinning for airports to use anti-drone technology, McGrath said. Ryanair CE Michael O'Leary, whose airline has been the most effected by the series of short closures, said Dublin airport was now the most disrupted large airport in Europe from drone activity. "We cannot have another week of closures," he told Newstalk radio, calling on Transport Minister Eamon Ryan to resign if he fails to act immediately to fix the problem.<br/>
The European Union's executive body is set to provide permits, regulatory support and easier access to public and private funding for certain strategic green technologies, according to a draft document seen by Reuters. The draft regulation is designed to ensure "the net-zero technology manufacturing capacity in the Union is sufficient to meet at least 40% of the Union's annual deployment needs," the document says. The EU is concerned that European companies will move to the United States, which has a $369 billion scheme to subsidise green production. In January, European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen said the steps would be part of the EU's Green Deal industrial plan to make Europe the home of clean technology and industrial innovation on the road to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. The legislation will be designed to support technologies, including solar photovoltaic and solar thermal, onshore and offshore wind, battery, heat pumps and geothermal energy, renewable hydrogen, biomethane, nuclear, fission and grid tech, according to an annex attached to the document. The technologies "have, according to the International Energy Agency, reached a technology readiness level of at least 8," with some exceptions, the draft said. Certain technologies, such as sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), were not included in the draft as potential candidates for the support scheme. The US Inflation Reduction Act does include support for SAF.<br/>
India is looking to partner with global aircraft manufacturers, including Embraer and Russia’s Sukhoi, to make small planes locally as it seeks to improve connectivity in tiny towns and far-flung areas, according to people familiar with the matter. The government will keep 51% equity with an Indian company while asking the foreign partner to do technology transfer, the people said, asking not to be identified as the deliberations are at an early stage. The jets, which typically seat less than 100 people, are likely to be produced in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat, they said. The world’s fastest-growing aviation market is trying to ramp up its small-plane fleet as airports with limited capacity and short runways are not equipped to handle the narrow-body planes of Airbus SE and Boeing Co. that dominate the Indian skies. This will help the government bolster tourism and facilitate faster access to remote areas in the South Asian giant of 1.4b, which recently has been seen to surpass China in population. India mandates airlines operate at least 10% of their capacity on remote routes, including Kashmir and the Northeast bordering China, which means smaller planes could be more efficient for airlines as they can fill a larger share of total seats. Airbus estimates India will need 2,210 aircraft by 2040 and 80% of them will be smaller jets. The country has piqued global turboprop makers’ interest, with De Havilland Aircraft planning to seize 80% of its market for smaller planes of less than 20 passengers. <br/>
Construction of Terminal 5 (T5) at Changi Airport, Singapore, is expected to begin in 2025, the government of Singapore has announced. Transport Minister S Iswaran provided the update during his speech at the Ministry of Transport Committee of Supply Debate 2023 on Building a Resilient, Sustainable and Inclusive Transport System. Land preparation and drainage works have been completed at Changi East, while the third runway is also expected to be completed towards the later part of 2030. In addition, the Singapore Government plans to invest a further $2bn in the Changi Airport Development Fund. T5 was initially announced in 2013 and is scheduled to be operational around the mid-2030s. In August last year, Changi Airport resumed the T5 project after revising its designs to make them more environmentally friendly.<br/>
Boeing rewarded CEO David Calhoun with compensation valued at $22.5m for 2022 but won’t pay him a $7m bonus because the company will fail to get its new 777X jetliner in service by the end of this year. The company said in a regulatory filing Friday that the 777X will be behind schedule “for reasons largely beyond Mr. Calhoun’s control.” But it did say some of his decisions regarding the plane contributed to the miss. Boeing announced last spring that the large, twin-aisle plane would not be delivered to airlines until 2025, five years after the original target. The company said directors decided last August that Calhoun’s $7m bonus would not vest. The company based in Arlington, Virginia, lost $5 billion in 2022, including write-downs, as it dealt with setbacks to defense projects and ongoing problems with its 787 Dreamliner passenger jet. Most of Calhoun’s 2022 compensation was in the form of estimated value of stock and option awards. He received the same $1.4m salary as in 2021. Calhoun became CEO in January 2020 after Dennis Muilenburg was ousted in fallout from two crashes of Boeing 737 Max jets that killed 346 people. The Boeing board heaped praise on Calhoun, saying he had taken steps to position the company for the future without regard for goals set before the pandemic and “the changed regulatory environment” – stricter standards for certifying new planes since the Max crashes.<br/>