general

New Yorker Elizabeth Palumbi's list of European cities to visit this spring keeps getting longer, and she is not alone. Online searches by Americans for flights to Europe trips are surging despite soaring air fares, a worsening economic outlook and risks of gridlock at some of the airports in Europe. The travel boom is promising record profit margins at some U.S. carriers, which are ramping up transatlantic capacity to cash in on Americans' thirst for travel to Europe. It also explains why U.S. carriers remain upbeat about travel spending in spite of rising interest rates, high inflation, mounting job losses and a global banking crisis. Industry executives said lifting of pandemic-related travel restrictions in Europe is encouraging more people to travel as they no longer fear getting stranded overseas if they contract the virus. Travelers are also being emboldened by a strong U.S. dollar and more flexible work arrangements. Online travel agency Hopper's March data shows 37% of searches from US-based customers for international travel this spring are for flights to Europe, a 9% increase from the same period in 2019. Travel website Kayak said searches for travel to Europe this summer are up 77% from last year. There is still untapped travel demand for Europe even after a busy summer last year, said Hayley Berg, lead economist at Hopper. As a result, from late May through fall, the region has become the top travel destination for Americans.<br/>

A group of seven US senators on Tuesday proposed legislation to raise the mandatory commercial pilot retirement age to 67 from 65, in a bid to address airline industry staffing issues. The legislation first proposed last year by Senator Lindsey Graham and other Republicans now includes Democrats Joe Manchin and Mark Kelly, a former Navy pilot and astronaut. The proposal, which would require pilots over age 65 to pass a rigorous medical screening every six months, follows complaints of pilot shortages by many regional airlines. It comes as Congress is considering various aviation reforms ahead of the FAA's Sept. 30 expiration of operating authority. Graham said roughly 5,000 pilots will be forced to retire within the next two years. He noted hundreds of flights are being canceled due to a shortage of available pilots and crews. The Regional Airline Association (RAA) praised the proposal, saying 324 airports have lost, on average, a third of their air service, including 14 small airports that have lost all service, and more than 400 airplanes are parked because of a lack of pilots. RAA President Faye Malarkey Black in an email said raising the retirement age is "the one solution that will immediately mitigate the pilot shortage, particularly the captain shortage, which is an even more acute constraint within a constraint." She added that it also would reduce "wrongheaded age discrimination against healthy pilots." The Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) opposes proposals to increase the retirement age. Even if the proposal is approved, the union said pilots older than 65 would still not be able to fly in most countries outside the United States because of international rules.<br/>

Throughout a troubled 2022, the pandemic exposed many fragilities in a troubled US airline industry, but it also enabled a widely recognized miracle in the $8b resurrection of New York LaGuardia Airport. Once widely viewed as a hellhole, LaGuardia was transformed. Transformation involved rebuilding two terminals, each costing about $4b, as well as about five miles of roadway. Terminal B has 35 gates, occupied by American and four other airlines. Work began in 2016 and was completed on July 8, 2022, the exact day specified in a bond offering six years earlier. Terminal C, occupied and financed by Delta Air Lines, will have 37 gates. Work began in 2017 and is largely finished, with completion by the end of the year. “You’ve had two miracles in Queens,” said Rick Cotton, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. “One was the Mets World Series win (in 1969) and the other was the rebuilding of LaGuardia in record time and while the airport was operating throughout the construction. LaGuardia was the first totally new major airport in the United States since Denver, and Denver was a greenfield.” The 1969 New York Mets are widely referred to as “the Miracle Mets’ for winning the Series after never playing a winning season. Denver International Airport opened in 1995. Last week, Terminal B was recognized by Skytrax, a London-based transport rating firm, which ranked it as the world’s best new airport terminal. Terminal B is the first terminal in North America to receive a five-star airport terminal rating. Primary occupant American Airlines and Northeast Alliance partner JetBlue occupy about half of the gates; passengers connect easily between the two carriers. A second concourse is occupied by Southwest, United and Air Canada.<br/>

Germany's Verdi union and the railway and transport union EVG are planning strikes that are expected to cause widespread disruption on railways and at airports next Monday in a rumbling dispute over wages, sources told Reuters on Tuesday. Verdi and EVG declined comment ahead of a press conference on Thursday. Verdi is negotiating on behalf of around 2.5m employees in the public sector, including in public transport and at airports. The EVG negotiates for around 230,000 employees at Deutsche Bahn and bus companies. It marks the latest in strikes and protests that have hit major European economies as higher food and energy prices knocked incomes and living standards following the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.<br/>

India dampened foreign airline hopes for more access to its airports on Tuesday, with its aviation minister urging domestic carriers to fly long-haul and help establish new hubs as it seeks to recapture control of Indian travel from foreign rivals. It is also asking aerospace companies to step-up local production and will soon finalise rules to safeguard rights of lessors on repossession of jets, in a bid to level up with major global aviation markets, Jyotiraditya Scindia told Reuters. "India is now at that inflection point," Scindia said during an interview at his office in New Delhi. "We are going to see an explosion of air traffic in India in the years to come," he said, adding he wanted domestic carriers to look at international expansion with greater focus. The South Asian nation is one of the fastest-growing aviation markets in the world where demand for air travel is outstripping the supply of planes, but the bulk of international traffic is captured by global carriers with efficient hubs. Now, India wants to harness these economic gains for itself by boosting growth of its airlines and airports. Air India last month placed a record order for 470 jets and is making an aggressive push in the international market. Domestic rival IndiGo is also in talks for a new order of more than 500 planes, Reuters reported earlier this month, even as it waits to take delivery of the same number from an older order. Scindia said India was not looking at increasing air traffic quotas with Gulf states and instead wanted Indian carriers to offer non-stop long haul flights on larger planes. He said Air India's widebody plane order and IndiGo's twin-aisles to some destinations were signs that "transition" had begun. India is also mobilising to handle the transportation needs of its population of 1.3b by building new airports in the country's remotest parts and expanding capacity at major ones.<br/>

US aircraft maker Boeing has said India may require 31,000 pilots and some 26,000 mechanics over the next 20 years amid the growing order book of the aircraft original equipment manufacturers. Boeing India President Salil Gupte also said the South Asian region is expected to remain the fastest-growing market globally over the next several years. Courage of the government to go forward and privatize Air India and Tata Group to take up the airlines will transform the Indian aerospace industry, he said. “India is going to need over 31,000 pilots and 26,000 mechanics over the next 20 years to take care of the aircraft coming in. This is as important a part of the Indian growth story as the aircraft (orders),” Gupte told reporters. He said considering India’s air traffic growth, a lot of focus has to be on making infrastructure robust, both hard infrastructure which includes airports as well as critical infrastructure, which includes pilots, among others.<br/>

It is a critical time for the aviation sector in the Asia-Pacific region to address safety issues together as air travel here heads for a full recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, said Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) chief Han Kok Juan on Tuesday. The sharp increase in air travel over the past year has strained processes at airports, airlines and air navigation service providers, and observations from other parts of the world are that stress points and incidents that impact safety have increased further as passenger traffic returns to about 80% to 100% of pre-Covid-19 levels, Han said. While the rebound in air passenger traffic in Asia-Pacific is still lagging behind the rest of the world, a full recovery is expected in the next one to two years, he added. Hence, it is important for the region to come together to anticipate the challenges ahead, learn from the experience of others, and prevent similar safety incidents from happening, Han told reporters, as he set the stage for an inaugural Asia-Pacific aviation safety summit that will be held in Singapore from Wednesday. While Han did not cite specific examples, there have been recent reports in the United States about a string of high-profile aviation incidents, including runway incursions and a near-collision between planes. In January, hundreds of flights had to be halted in the Philippines due to a power outage that knocked out communication and radar equipment. In the US, a computer system outage on Jan 11 disrupted more than 11,000 flights.<br/>

A regional centre will be established in Singapore to study issues related to aviation safety in the Asia-Pacific, including how best to recruit and train pilots to meet a rising demand for competent air crew. For a start, the new Asia-Pacific Centre for Aviation Safety will pull together data to identify region-specific risks, develop targeted solutions, and look into the capabilities that are needed to maintain effective safety leadership. This comes at a pivotal moment in the region’s aviation recovery, with the skies set to be busier than ever before, said Transport Minister S. Iswaran, who announced the centre’s launch on Wednesday at the inaugural Asia-Pacific Summit for Aviation Safety, held at Sands Expo and Convention Centre. “Aviation safety must be our top and undisputed priority,” Mr Iswaran said, noting that this will not only help to secure the current recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic but also bolster prospects for long-term growth. “Our efforts to recover from the pandemic will come to nought if public confidence in the safety of aviation is undermined. While aviation has become safer over the years, brought about by innovations in technology and improvements in processes, we cannot take this for granted.”<br/>

Vietnam's Ministry of Finance has set up a working group to combat airborne smuggling after four flight attendants were arrested last week over drug trafficking from France to Vietnam, local media reported on Tuesday. Minister of Finance Ho Duc Phoc has signed a decision on forming a group consisting of eight members from relevant ministries and agencies including public security, customs authorities, and market management, led by the head of the national steering committee for combating against smuggling, commercial frauds and counterfeit goods. The working group is assigned to oversee air smuggling, collecting information on illegal transportation of goods through international airports and coordinating forces of action to handle special cases. Airborne smuggling has been in the spotlight after a group of flight attendants from flag carrier Vietnam Airlines were arrested on Thursday at the country's busiest Tan Son Nhat International Airport, with over 11.4 kg of drugs being concealed in their luggage on a flight from France to Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh City police said Vietnam Airlines had suspended the aircrew for further investigation.<br/>

Athletes are getting in shape for the Paris Olympic Games in 2024, and so is the world’s first electric air taxi network. “We are going to make it happen,” Solène Le Bris of Paris airports operator Groupe ADP told an industry audience at Amsterdam Drone Week. “We are trying to launch the first e-VTOL [vertical takeoff and landing] pre-commercial service in the world: that’s our ambition.” In a packed talk on Tuesday, the first outlines were revealed of what has been dubbed the “Tesla of the skies”. Senior civil engineer Le Bris explained that there will be five vertiports where passengers can board the vehicles, the first of which at Cergy-Pontoise opened in November and is functioning as a test centre. Using the existing helicopter route network, the vehicles – known as VoloCity air taxis – will fly with one passenger and one pilot along two routes, taking short rides from Charles de Gaulle airport to Le Bourget then to a new landing pad at Austerlitz Paris, and another route from Paris to Sans-Cyr. Thierry Allain, head of innovation at the Direction General de l’Aviation Civile (DGAC) regulator, said a safety-first approach using existing networks was key. “For the regulation issues, the challenges we have are not that big,” he said. “Of course, the burden of regulation applies to the European Union Aviation Safety Agency – they have to certify the VoloCity and the operator with regulation that is being built right now.” Romain Erny, head of aerospace and mobility at Choose Paris Region, said the public response would determine the air taxis’ future. “The second step is the Olympics and Paralympics,” he said. “The main lesson is to see how the people react to these new type of services. For most of the citizens in Paris, [they] are still science fiction! They need to touch it, to be inside the vehicle, and we need their feedback. The Olympics are the start.”<br/>

Jekta Switzerland SA, an electric-seaplane manufacturer, said on Tuesday it received its first order, a letter of intent for 10 planes from Dubai-based broker Gayo Aviation and Tourism, amid a global effort to lower emissions. Jekta’s electric-motor PHA-ZE 100 will generate zero emissions, according to the company. Gayo intends to use the planes for sustainable luxury travel and transport to remote areas, Gayo Chairman Gisle Dueland told Reuters. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but large combustion-engine seaplanes can sell for over $1m. The 19-seat seaplane is expected to enter service in 2029, Jekta CEO George Alafinov said. The Alafinov family, which owns Jekta, previously founded amphibious aircraft manufacturer Aerovolga, the maker of the LA-8 and D-Borey. Multiple startups are working on electric or hybrid aircraft to meet aviation’s long-term climate goals. United Airlines and Air Canada have both said they would buy electric planes from Swedish start-up Heart Aerospace. United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Monday urged developed countries to commit to reaching net zero emissions by 2040 instead of 2050. Carbon dioxide emissions from tourism are expected to grow 25% by 2030 from 2016 levels if there are no changes, according to the U.N. World Tourism Organization. There are roughly 364 seaplane operators around the world and more than 1,000 aircraft flying, Alafinov said. DeHavilland Canada and Textron Inc’s Cessna began making seaplanes decades earlier. “You cannot really talk about sustainable tourism if you’re flying an aircraft that was designed 60 or 70 years ago,” said Alafinov.<br/>

Global freight movements continued to dwindle in the first two months of 2023 as manufacturers and distributors struggled to reduce excess inventories and cope with rising interest rates and increased caution among buyers. Container flows fell further in January and February compared with the same months a year earlier, showing the inventory-liquidation cycle was not over yet. Singapore’s seaborne container shipments were down 6% in February compared with a year earlier, one of the steepest falls since the first wave of the pandemic. Japan’s air cargo through Narita airport, used for higher-value and more time-sensitive merchandise, was down 33% in January after a 24% year-on-year drop in December. London’s Heathrow handled 6% less air cargo in January than a year earlier after moving 11% less in December.<br/>