The past two summers saw air travel nightmares across the US as airlines struggled to restore operations brutally curtailed by a global pandemic. With much to prove, industry executives are promising that this time will be different. A quarter of US flights were cancelled or delayed last summer, leaving travellers fuming in airports across the country. The chaos has prompted the White House and some legislators to call for tighter regulation to minimise fees and disruptions. As the big US airlines prepare for peak season, American Airlines COO David Seymour told the Financial Times the carrier had been working since autumn to build “resilience” into its summer schedule to be ready for commercial flying’s unexpected challenges. After determining how many people it could reasonably expect to hire and train, he said, “we built a schedule that we knew we could fly”. Delta Air Lines has trimmed its flight plans by 2% to preserve operational reliability, while United Airlines’ head of operations said the company had “already done that” and was “ahead of the curve”. All three carriers have cut some New York flights because there are too few air traffic controllers to manage the region’s congested airspace. “The stakes are always high in the summer,” Seymour said. “People want to get back to travel, and they don’t want to have another experience [like] they had last summer.” Summer tests operations at US airlines because it combines higher volumes of flights and passengers with the possibility of thunderstorms, wildfires, hurricanes and extreme heat. The season, said United COO Torbjorn “Toby” Enqvist, “is our Super Bowl”. The tough conditions mean airlines need slack in the system to recover when bad weather strikes. That slack, whether it takes the form of extra crew on standby, emptier planes or longer times to complete a flight, drives up costs, either leading to higher fares or hurting profits. Airlines must balance the need to operate smoothly against the need to cut costs, said Citi analyst Stephen Trent. The risk lies in cutting too far.<br/>
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Over 30 smaller US airports are initially in line to receive new air traffic control towers which are based on a standardised and sustainable design that adapts to the tower height required. The US FAA says the towers would replace those which are “functioning beyond their intended design life” at municipal airports. It states that they will range from 60-119ft (18-36m) in height – the same design enables the tower to be built according to the traffic requirements and sightline needed. Thirty-one candidate airports for the towers are listed in an FAA budget estimate for 2023, among them secondary facilities at Detroit, Louisville, Philadelphia, Hartford, Jackson and Fort Worth. The FAA says the tower design, by New York’s Practice for Architecture and Urbanism, meets “key sustainability requirements” – with such features as electric systems, thermal efficiency, ground-source heating, and high material recycling – and reduces construction and operational costs. It says it needed the towers to be “tailored” to local conditions, including temperature, wind and climate. “These new air traffic control towers will mean that smaller airports can handle more flights, more sustainably and more affordably,” says US transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg. Groundbreaking for the new towers could begin next year, says the FAA.<br/>
Airlines say it goes too far. Advocates say not far enough.<br/>The proposed overhaul of Canada's passenger rights charter earned mixed reviews Monday after Transport Minister Omar Alghabra laid out measures to tighten loopholes to traveller compensation and toughen penalties. If passed, the reforms will put the onus on airlines to show a flight disruption is caused by safety concerns or reasons outside their control, with specific examples to be drawn up by the Canadian Transportation Agency as a list of exceptions around compensation. "This means there will be no more loopholes where airlines can claim a disruption is caused by something outside of their control for a security reason when it's not," Alghabra told reporters in Ottawa. And it will no longer be the passenger who will have to prove that he or she is entitled to compensation. It will now be the airline that will need to prove that it does not have to pay for it." Currently, a passenger is entitled to between $125 and $1,000 in compensation for a three-hour-plus delay or a cancellation made within 14 days of the scheduled departure -- unless the disruption stems from events outside the airline's control, such as weather or a safety issue such as mechanical problems. The amount varies depending on the size of the carrier and length of the delay. The National Airlines Council of Canada, an industry group representing four of the country's biggest carriers, denounced the potential scrapping of safety concerns as an exception to compensation requirements. "No airline should be penalized for adhering to the highest standards of safety, whether that is due to weather, mechanical issues or other safety-related constraints," said council president Jeff Morrison in a statement. The route to a better travel experience runs through airport upgrades and greater accountability across the range of aviation players, he said. <br/>
Industrial action grounded dozens of flights at two major German airports on Monday as security workers and ground services employees in the capital, Berlin, and in Hamburg held a one-day strike over pay. Berlin-Brandenburg airport cancelled all departures and said some landings would also be affected after the Verdi union called security workers out on strike until midnight (2200 GMT). Roughly 240 flights had been scheduled to take off. As in other countries, Europe's largest economy has seen repeated disruption from strike action as workers press for more pay and better working conditions to tackle a surge in the cost of living. While public sector workers agreed a wage deal with employers in a separate dispute over the weekend, bringing some respite, Verdi announced a further wave of rail strikes in five federal states to take place on Wednesday. Employees from the private Aviation Handling Services Hamburg (AHS), who handle check-in, boarding and lost and found for a number of airlines including Lufthansa at Hamburg airport, also called a 24-hour strike at short notice. Neither arrivals nor flights serviced by other companies were expected to be affected, Hamburg airport said. AHS was due to handle 84 of Monday's 160 departures. Last week, Duesseldorf, Hamburg, Cologne-Bonn and Stuttgart airports were hit by strikes. Ralph Beisel, CE of the airport association ADV, said unions were taking their right to carry out warning strikes prior to arbitration to absurd lengths.<br/>
India is on the cusp of an aviation boom as many call the country the “most promising aviation market” globally post-Covid. With Indian aviation projected to see strong and sustained expansion, aviation consultancy and research firm CAPA India expects the country might need to have the capacity to handle more than 1.3b passengers, requiring a commercial fleet of nearly 4,000 aircraft, within two decades. Outlining a roadmap for a new civil aviation policy, CAPA India said the policy should deliver airline viability and growth by design. In 2016, India drafted the National Civil Aviation Policy to establish a conducive environment that makes air travel affordable to a larger population. The policy had set targets to achieve 300m domestic ticket sales by 2022 and 500m by 2027, along with an increase in international ticket sales to 200m by 2027. In financial year 2023, India’s aviation system handled just fewer than 200 million airline passengers, while 12.9m passengers took to the skies in India in March, according to aviation watchdog Directorate General of Civil Aviation. The country’s commercial aviation industry supports around 700 aircraft. In the first quarter of 2023, around 37.5m people took domestic flights, making it the best first quarter ever for Indian aviation. India’s aviation sector has been among the fastest growing in the world, with Airports Council International’s long-term forecast indicating that by 2041 India is expected to grow by 339% over 2022, reaching 1.1b passengers flown. According to the IATA, India is expected to be the third-largest aviation market in the world by 2025, after China and the US. Story has more.<br/>
Boeing is expected to reveal whether the latest 737 MAX manufacturing problem will derail the US plane maker’s annual goals for passenger jet deliveries and free cash flow when it unveils its first quarter financial results on Wednesday. Investors are clamoring for details on the extent of the problem, which Boeing said involves a “significant” portion of the 737 fleet where two brackets were improperly installed. Analysts said the manufacturing problem isn't a showstopper for the MAX, as it’s not a safety issue and in-service jets have continued to fly. But Wall Street has received little information from Boeing on its plan to fix the problem and the overall financial impact. “I'd like to have some numbers and some scale of the materiality of this, whether it affects deliveries, cash flow and all the rest,” Vertical Research Partners analyst Robert Stallard said. “It's unfortunately just one of many issues that Boeing seems to stumble into on a regular basis.” The biggest question is whether Boeing will update its 2023 financial guidance, which calls for it to deliver at least 400 737 MAXs and generate $3b to $5b in free cash flow this year. Both goals may still be achievable, said J.P. Morgan analyst Seth Seifman. “Boeing gave a fairly wide range for the amount of cash flow they expect for the year, and there are a lot of levers to impact cash throughout the company,” said Seifman, who said it would be “surprising” if the company were unable to meet its goal. While it’s “more likely” that Boeing would lower 737 MAX delivery projections, the company has already delivered 111 MAXs in its first quarter -- typically the slowest financial quarter of the year -- and could meet its annual goal so long as rework can be accomplished quickly, Seifman said.<br/>