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As the aviation system is facing questions after at least six "close call" incidents between airplanes since December, National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy acknowledged risks while voicing confidence in the system. "We are still the safest aviation system in the world," Homendy said Sunday. "There are clearly risks that we need to evaluate, and this is why the NTSB is investigating several incidents so it doesn't become something more catastrophic." One of these incidents involved a United Airlines 777 aircraft apparently taking a nosedive after departing from Hawaii. The plane carrying hundreds of passengers from Maui to San Francisco went down to 775 feet above the Pacific Ocean before pilots could regain control. A formal investigation was not opened until two months later, as United reportedly did not report the incident to NTSB because they believed there was no need to as there were no passenger injuries or damage to the aircraft. "The criteria for accidents and incidents is something that we will look at and constantly review," Homendy said. "We didn't have a full investigation of it because it occurred on the same day as another very turbulent event in Hawaii. But it is something that we are investigating."<br/>

Boeing can resume deliveries of its 787 Dreamliners as early as next week, the Federal Aviation Administration said Friday, after a data-analysis issue halted deliveries of the wide-body jetliners. “Boeing addressed the FAA’s concerns,” the agency said in a statement. “The FAA may resume issuing airworthiness certificates next week.” Boeing earlier Friday said it completed the work needed to resume deliveries of planes to airlines and other customers. “We have completed the necessary analysis that confirms the airplane continues to meet all relevant requirements and does not require production or fleet action,” a Boeing spokesperson said. “The FAA will determine when 787 ticketing and deliveries resume, and we are working with our customers on delivery timing.” Boeing shares rose on the news that the issue was resolved and finished the trading session nearly 1% higher. On Feb. 23, Boeing paused deliveries of the planes, after a data-analysis error was detected related to the aircraft’s forward pressure bulkhead. It was the latest in a string of delivery pauses for the jets: A series of manufacturing flaws on the twin-aisle planes forced Boeing to suspend deliveries for much of the two years leading up to last August. Dreamliner customers include large carriers such as American Airlines. The jets would be handed over just as carriers are gearing up for a busy spring and summer travel season, when they make a large portion of their revenue.<br/>

The discussion about issuing Tasers to flight attendants needs to start back up, according to a US union boss. Speaking a recent case where a United Airlines passenger assaulted a flight attendant and threatened to “kill every man on this plane”, the head of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA) union, Sara Nelson, told CNN they were considering how to best help airline crew. “There has been a lot of discussion about whether flight attendants should have Tasers. I think we need to look at that discussion again,” Nelson said. “And flight attendants need to be given the training we were supposed to have right after 9/11, which is crew member self-defence training.” Almost 50,000 flight attendants across 19 different airlines are represented by AFA-CWA. Nelson also supported the idea of a national banned passenger list. Individual airlines have lists of passengers who are prohibited from flying, however, this is not shared between airlines. This means a dangerous passenger could take their unruly behaviour to another carrier if they are banned. Nelson said staffing cuts across airlines have also made flight attendants’ jobs harder.<br/>

Parts of the aviation sector could be included in an updated version of the EU's green taxonomy, according to a draft document seen by Reuters. The EU taxonomy is a complex system to classify which parts of the economy may be marketed as sustainable investments. It includes economic activities, as well as detailed environmental criteria that each economic activity must meet to earn a green label. Aviation leasing, manufacturing, passenger and freight flights are included in the draft updating the classification, which is not yet public and was first obtained by French publication Contexte. The document outlines the sector's activities that could be considered as "contributing substantially to climate change mitigation." Their inclusion could help the sector receive more climate-friendly financing. It also stipulates, for example, that by 2030 aircraft in use have to use a "minimum share of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF), corresponding to 10% in 2030 and increased by two percentage points annually thereafter," the document said.<br/>

Germany's Verdi trade union has called for strikes on March 13 at the country's northern airports, including Berlin, which it said would likely cause longer queues for passengers and flight cancellations. The strikes will affect Berlin's international airport, as well as the smaller airports of Hamburg, Hanover and Bremen, the relevant regional branches of the services sector trade union said on Saturday in separate statements. Verdi said it was calling for security staff to strike at Berlin airport due to disputes over pay for working nights, weekends and bank holidays that had been going on for years. The strike at the airport servicing airlines including Lufthansa, easyJet and Air France-KLM would start in the early hours and finish late at night. It will be the latest in a series of strikes and protests that have hit major European economies, including France, Britain and Spain, as higher food and energy prices knock incomes and living standards after the COVID-19 pandemic and war in Ukraine. "Verdi calls for appropriate pay for flight security personnel who are working at unfavorable times," it said in a statement. "Supplements have not been improved since 2006, and we have been on and off negotiating a raise ever since 2013". The Hamburg branch of Verdi said it was also striking over the regular pay rise offered to public sector employees of 2% for the next 27 months and one-off payments of 1,500 and 1,000 euros, which it said was not enough given annual inflation running at around 9%.<br/>

If you’re in the market for a pair of lightly used widebody aircraft, you better head to Scotland fast and put in an offer — before two Boeing 787-8s formerly flying for Norwegian Air Shuttle get stripped for parts. Both planes are under 10 years old, as they were delivered in June and August 2013. Except for a testbed scrapped by Boeing in 2018, these are the first Dreamliners to be retired, and their disassembly, which began in early March, is taking place at Prestwick Airport near Glasgow, Scotland. “They’re being done side by side and it could take probably three to four months,” says Ken Fitzgibbon, CEO of EirTrade, the Dublin-based aviation trading company that is managing the operation. “The dismantling process resembles a production line, but it’s reverse engineered, and in the end we aim to recycle about 95% of the aircraft.” EirTrade has previous experience in scrapping young widebody aircraft, having worked on retired A380s from Singapore Airlines and Air France that were also about a decade old. “The 787 is a very new aircraft and it’s probably hard for people outside of aviation to get their head around this,” says Lee Carey, VP of asset management at Eirtrade, who points to upkeep costs as one of the reasons the planes are being cut up. “They were coming up to their 12-year check, the heaviest maintenance event that’s going to happen on these aircraft.” As many other 787s that are still flying are also coming up to this landmark maintenance event, demand for parts will spike, making the operation economically viable.<br/>

Aircraft lease rates have regained altitude, led by smaller jets, as the rebound in global passenger numbers outpaces production slowed by labor shortages. The average lease price for the narrow-body Airbus A321-200neo in early January stood 0.6% above the level of January 2020, while the smaller A320-200neo had recovered to just 2.3% below where it was at the start of the pandemic, British aviation analytics company Cirium reports. Compared with January 2022, the rate for that A321 model increased 13% while the A320 rose 5.2%. Rates for the Boeing 737 MAX 8 rose 7.5% over January 2020, showing a strong recovery after the aircraft was grounded worldwide for much of 2020 following two deadly crashes. The IATA trade group expects global passenger numbers in 2023 to return to roughly pre-pandemic levels following the relaxation of COVID-19 border measures in many countries. Airlines are working to increase flights in response. The operating scale of North American airlines in January 2023 as measured by available seat kilometers -- the number of seats times flight distance -- rose 1.1% from the same month in 2019, surpassing pre-pandemic levels, the IATA reports. The figure for Latin American and European airlines was down about 7%. Carriers are once again expanding capacity. German airline Condor plans to lease two A320neo and 17 A321neo planes between 2024 and 2027 from U.S.-based Air Lease. Japan's Skymark will lease six 737 MAX 8s from fiscal 2025. But supply chain disruptions are causing delays. Boeing and Airbus are seeing aircraft deliveries postponed as labor shortages and other factors slow the production of engines and parts. Reuters and other media report delays averaging three to six months for production of jetliners. Supply hasn't been able to keep up with the recovery in demand, pushing up lease rates for used aircraft, said Rob Morris, global head of consultancy at Ascend, Cirium's aircraft appraisal unit.<br/>

General Electric sent 12 machinists from its Rutland, Vermont, facility across the country last fall to help a sub-supplier in Arizona that was so short of workers it could not add a second work shift. GE's action on the day after Thanksgiving was not an isolated case, CE Larry Culp said. The company has deployed its machinists and hundreds of engineers to suppliers and sub-suppliers in the United States to address the bottlenecks that are hampering production of its jet engines.The measures are working. For example, its engineers last year also helped a supplier reduce inspection time for a critical rotating part used in a jet engine to 30 minutes from 6 hours, company executives said. Yet Culp said it is a "daily battle" to keep up with booming demand at the company's aerospace unit due to persistent shortages of labor, parts and raw material. The unit, which supplies and services engines for Airbus and Boeing aircraft, had unfilled customer orders worth $135b at the end of 2022, up 8% from a year ago. The problem is more acute with the supply base for LEAP engines, which GE produces in a joint venture with France's Safran. The backlog for LEAP engines, which power the narrowbody aircraft of Airbus and Boeing, has increased to 10,000 units. Adding to complexity, just 10% of the 2,500 parts used in engines for Airbus' 320neo and Boeing's 737 MAX planes are common. "There's no one commodity. There's no one component which is the issue," Culp told reporters on the sidelines of GE's annual investor meeting on Thursday. "There's no one prime problem, but it's widespread."<br/>