Two airliners aborted landings at San Francisco International Airport last week after pilots spotted a Southwest Airlines jet taxiing across runways on which the other planes had been cleared to land. An air traffic controller told the Southwest pilots they should not have been on the runways during the May 19 incident. The FAA said Thursday that the Southwest plane cleared the runways when the other planes passed directly overhead, and the decision to abort the landings was “precautionary.” “The FAA looked into the events and determined the appropriate steps were taken to ensure safe operations,” the agency said. The National Transportation Safety Board said it is not investigating the matter. The incident comes after a half-dozen close calls in recent months that are being investigated by safety officials. Those include one in February in which a FedEx plane flew about 100 feet (30 meters) over the top of a Southwest jet in Austin, Texas, after an air traffic controller cleared both planes to use the same runway. In the incident this month, an inbound United Airlines plane flew as low as a few hundred feet (100 meters) over San Francisco Bay before pilots saw the Southwest jet on the same runway and decided to abandon their landing. Shortly after that, the crew of an incoming Alaska Airlines plane saw the same Southwest jet crossing a second, parallel runway, and the pilots aborted their landing too. Both the United and Alaska planes circled around and landed safely. The air traffic controller told the crew of the Southwest jet, “You shouldn’t be on the runway,” according to a recording captured by LiveATC.com. When one of the pilots tried to explain, the controller cut him off, saying, “I don’t need an argument.” The incident was first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle. The San Francisco airport was the scene of a frightening near-disaster in 2017, when pilots of an Air Canada jet mistook a taxiway for their runway and nearly landed on top of four other planes waiting to take off.<br/>
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FAA acting chief Billy Nolen is expected to take a position with electric air taxi firm Archer Aviation after he leaves the agency, sources told Reuters. Asked for comment on whether Nolen was joining Archer, the FAA said "Billy Nolen is departing the FAA in the coming weeks and is continuing to ensure a smooth transition at the agency." Archer Aviation declined to comment. California-based Archer said earlier this month it had completed final assembly of its first "Midnight" electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. The Midnight can carry four passengers and a pilot and has a range of up to 100 miles. On April 21, Nolen said he planned to depart the agency this summer after the White House nominates a new administrator. In March, Denver International Airport CEO Phil Washington withdrew his nomination to serve as FAA administrator after Republican criticism. Nolen's departure email said "we will see eVTOLs certified in just a few years, instead of decades.... Not since the dawn of the jet age have we seen so many advances and changes in aerospace." It is not clear who will serve as acting FAA administrator once Nolen leaves but sources say the Biden administration is considering Katie Thomson, the agency's current chief of staff. In January, Archer said carmaker Stellantis will help build Archer's electric aircraft that will be manufactured in Covington, Georgia, starting in 2024, with a production target of 2,300 aircraft annually.<br/>
The 24 bright green baby parrots began chirping and bobbing their heads the second anyone neared the large cages that have been their homes since hatching in March. The Central American natives, seized from a smuggler at Miami International Airport, are being raised by the Rare Species Conservatory Foundation — a round-the-clock effort that includes five hand feedings a day in a room filled with large cages. At just 9 weeks old, these parrots have already survived a harrowing journey after being snatched from their nests in a forest. They are almost fully feathered now and the staff has started transitioning them from a special formula to a diet of food pellets and fruit. “You ready to meet the children?” asked Paul Reillo, a Florida International University professor and director of the foundation, as he led visitors Friday into a small building tucked behind a sprawling house in Loxahatchee, a rural community near West Palm Beach. “They are hand-raised babies,” he said, as the chicks squawked and looked inquisitively at the visitors. “They’ve never seen mom and dad; they’ve been raised by us since they hatched.” It was the hatchlings’ faint chirping inside a carry-on bag at the Miami airport that brought them to the attention of a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer. The passenger, Szu Ta Wu, had just arrived on TACA Airlines flight 392 from Managua, Nicaragua, on March 23, and was changing flights in Miami to return home to Taiwan, according to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Miami. Officers stopped Wu at a checkpoint. He was asked about the sound coming from his bag, which Reillo later described as a “sophisticated” temperature controlled cooler. Wu reached in and pulled out a smaller bag and showed the officer an egg, the complaint said. The officer then looked inside and saw more eggs and a tiny featherless bird that had just hatched. He told the officer there were 29 eggs, and that he did not have documentation to transport the birds, according to the complaint. Wu was arrested, and on May 5 pleaded guilty to charges of smuggling birds into the United States. He faces up to 20 years in prison when he’s sentenced Aug. 1.<br/>
As of Wednesday, May 24, the Government of France prohibited all regional flights on routes where there were alternatives of travelling by train that last less than two and a half hours. After the publication of the decree, it had an immediate effect on air links between Nantes, Bordeaux, Lyon and Paris-Orly. In Spain, the Government has already announced that it is considering taking similar measures. Pedro Sánchez’s 2050 Agenda, presented two years ago, also provided for this measure. Included within the French Climate Law approved in August 2021, the measure seeks to fight climate change and reduce carbon emissions from this type of regular air transport service. The French decree, which applies for a period of three years, stated that train journeys must have: “sufficient frequencies and adequate timetables”, while the connection must allow the passenger to spend more than eight hours at the destination during the day. In addition, the rail service must run between stations serving the same cities as the respective airports concerned. Clément Beaune, the French Transport Minister, welcomed this measure as an essential step and a strong symbol in the policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. “This is a world first and is fully in line with the government’s policy of encouraging the use of transport modes that emit less greenhouse gases”, he said. However, the IATA, through its director general, Willie Walsh, described the measure as “completely absurd”. He insisted that it “serves no purpose”, according to the EFE news agency.<br/>
Japan is to make it mandatory that 10% of aviation fuel for international flights using Japanese airports be sustainable, Nikkei has learned. A regulation that will hold oil wholesalers accountable for meeting the threshold is to take effect in 2030. Compared to automobiles, it is more difficult to electrically power aircraft. Thus the use of what is called sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), which is made from plants and waste oil, is expected to help reduce CO2 emissions. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) will soon present the proposal to a council whose members come from the public and private sectors. The council intends to tailor the regulation by amending an ordinance related to the Energy Supply Structure Upgrading Law.The amendment is expected to be made by next March. The regulation will mandate that 10% of aviation fuel for international flights sold by oil wholesalers be SAF. METI also will consider penalties for wholesalers that do not meet the threshold. In addition, Japanese airlines that fly internationally are to be required to state that 10% of the fuel they use for such flights will be SAF. The statements will be part of decarbonization business plans to be submitted to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. The government plans that 10% of the aviation fuel used in Japan, or about 1.7m kiloliters per year, will be SAF. The burning of SAF is expected to reduce emissions by 70% to 90% compared to conventional jet fuel as the plants the new fuel comes from absorb CO2. Up to now, most of the Japanese government's decarbonization policies have tried to encourage businesses by bestowing benefits like subsidies. This is the case in the government's electric vehicle policy. But the new airline rule is more similar to the European approach to regulating sales of gasoline-powered vehicles. The government will consider applying similar approaches to other industries.<br/>
China’s homegrown narrow-body jet C919 will be put into operation in the near future, the plane’s debut customer China Eastern Airlines said on Thursday. China Eastern signed an agreement with planemaker COMAC in 2021 for the purchase of five C919 passenger planes and the first was delivered at the end of 2022.<br/>
Shenzhen’s aviation status appears to be taking off, and its international airport’s rising appeal could eventually challenge neighbouring Hong Kong’s dominance in the Asia-Pacific region by diverting some passenger traffic from the global travel hub. While analysts say more efforts are needed to achieve such a lofty goal that would carry with it considerable economic advantages, Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport turned heads this month by being named the world’s most beautiful airport, by the World Air Stewardess Association. The group still found Hong Kong to be the “best airport” overall, but the results came just a couple of months after another poll by air transport research firm Skytrax showed how far Shenzhen has come in a short time, and how rapidly the tech hub is gaining prominence. Findings from the survey by the UK-based consultancy, released in March, showed that air travellers around the world thought more highly of Bao’an International Airport – placing it 31st on the World’s Top-100 Airports list for 2023, compared with 57th in 2022. Hong Kong placed two spots lower, at 33rd – a sharp fall from 20th a year prior. Home to the tech giants such as Huawei Technologies and new-energy automaker BYD, Shenzhen has been consolidating its footing as a go-to economic hub in the Greater Bay Area. And this has been in no small part because of the city’s growing momentum in both shipping and civil aviation – two sectors in which Hong Kong has long held a regional advantage. Human traffic is often considered an important indicator of economic activities, as more people bring in more capital and technology while boosting local consumption. During the recent May Day holiday week, in which many people travelled between Hong Kong and mainland cities, Bao’an airport saw its daily passenger volume reach 182,500, according to the Transport Bureau of Shenzhen Municipality. That was compared with an average daily flow of 127,200 during the first three months of the year.<br/>
Global freight volumes show signs of having bottomed out in Q1, signalling the industrial cycle may be near its trough, which could provide some support to oil prices later in 2023. Global freight volumes fell 1.1% during the first three months of 2023 compared with a year earlier, according to the Netherlands Bureau of Economic Policy Analysis (“World trade monitor”, CPB, May 25). But volumes were up by 0.2% in March compared with the prior year, after declining 2.5% in February and 1.2% in January, providing tentative signs the cyclical trough may have been reached. Singapore’s maritime container throughput climbed to a record 3.26m twenty-foot equivalent units in April and was 7% higher than a year ago. At London’s Heathrow airport, cargo was still down 7% in the three months from February to April compared with a year earlier, but that was a much smaller decline than the 14% in October to December. At Narita in Japan, air freight was down 22% in the three months from January to March, but that was a smaller decline than the 26% between November and January. In the United States, there were fewer signs the manufacturing and freight cycle was nearing its trough, which given the size and centrality of the country in the world economy makes the outlook less clear. US railroads hauled 3.1m shipping containers in the first three months of 2023 compared with 3.4m in the same period in 2022. US trucking firms reported activity levels were down by less than 1% in the first three months of 2023 but there was a noticeably weak end to the quarter with a decline of 5% in March. At the nine largest US container ports, the number of shipping containers handled was down 16% in April and 17% for the first four months of 2023 compared with the prior year. Reflecting steadier demand, the cost of containerised ocean shipping has been stable since the middle of March after declining almost continuously for a year, according to the Freightos Baltic Exchange global container index.<br/>