Official data from regulatory agencies shows complaints against airlines have reached, or neared record levels in countries like Canada and Germany over the last year since COVID-19 restrictions lifted and travel restarted.<br/>Rising numbers of disputes between travellers and airlines globally are driving fresh legislation and calls for tougher enforcement of existing rules to protect consumers. The sharpening of rules for payouts could add to pressure on air fares from energy, labour and other rising costs. Lufthansa's payouts alone rose to 331m in 2022 from E25m in 2021, the German airline group told Reuters in previously undisclosed figures. Legislation is under review in Canada, while the US government is writing new rules and the European Union is pushing for stronger enforcement of its existing regime. Pressure to act is building as summer travel is expected to break records in some regions this year following long airport lines and piles of backed up baggage last summer. Airlines fear a mish-mash of conflicting rules and want those responsible for services out of their control in the industry to help shoulder the compensation costs. European airline group Airlines for Europe (A4E) said compensation has become increasingly burdensome and existing rules leave too much down to interpretation. It is calling for reform of the legislation.<br/>
general
After two successive summers of travel chaos, US airlines are going all out to prevent large-scale flight disruptions in the face of rising demand. Carriers have trimmed flight schedules, beefed up staffing, and invested in airport infrastructure and technology to be ready for the busiest travel season of the year, starting with the traditional kickoff on the Memorial Day holiday weekend. Summer tends to be the most profitable season for airlines, but it is also the busiest time of the year, raising the stakes. The TSA said Friday it screened 2.658m passengers on Thursday, the highest number in a single day since November 2019. Industry group Airlines for America estimates a record 256.8m passengers will fly in the June-August quarter, up 1% over the 254.6m passengers in the same period in 2019. "It is kind of our Super Bowl," United COO Toby Enqvist told Reuters. No one wants a repeat of last December, when an operational meltdown at Southwest Airlines resulted in almost 17,000 flight cancellations, disrupting travel plans for 2m customers. The desire to travel for many is high, however. Jihane Jeanty, 36, has planned trips to Florida, Mexico City and Asia this summer, thanks to her flexible work arrangement. The Los Angeles-based marketing director is unconcerned about flight delays and cancellations even though they are "never fun." "It does happen, so I really don't let it throw me anymore," she said. Nearly a quarter of flights were either canceled or delayed last summer, according to flight-tracking service FlightAware.<br/>
The Transportation Security Administration screened 2.658m passengers on Thursday, the highest number since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, as US holiday travel got off to a smooth start. "So far so good," Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told CNBC on Friday. Despite the record travel Thursday "the system held up quite well," Buttigieg added noting less than 1% of flights were canceled Thursday. The number of passengers screened Thursday was the highest for a single day since November 2019. The FAA estimated more than 51,000 flights would take place Thursday, the highest number during the seven-day Memorial Day travel period. The FAA estimates that there will be about 4.5% more flights during the period versus 2022 but slightly less than 2019. Airlines are in many cases operating larger planes today as they have trimmed flights -- especially in New York -- to smooth operations.<br/>
Few things are more tiresome than slowly shuffling forward in an airport line with one anxious eye on the ticking clock, especially as US travel surges with the end of the pandemic. That airport anxiety has become a lucrative business line for Clear Secure Inc. Customers pay $189 a year to breeze through to the front, using the company’s eye-scan or fingerprint technology to avoid the security backups that often develop at peak times.<br/> Only lately Clear’s lines have been backing up themselves, and annoyed travelers have taken to social media to complain. In interviews, some cited a lack of staff, fickle computers, and the at-times clumsy process of escorting people to Transportation Security Administration checkpoints. Some openly wonder whether the Clear Plus service is worth the price. “Hard to justify the $$ when the line is really long,” Andrea Yoch, a Minnesota businesswoman, said in a recent tweet about her slog through Minneapolis-St Paul International Airport. Clear’s success may be partly responsible for the complaints. The company has logged explosive growth, forcing it to rapidly hire and train new staff. While it doesn’t disclose paid subscribers, Clear reported a 53% increase in Q1 from a year earlier. The company also faces a review of “security vulnerabilities” in which the TSA is investigating Clear’s process of verifying people’s identities, TSA Administrator David Pekoske said. He didn’t comment on the lines, but it’s possible that the added ID checks the TSA has imposed are adding to the waits. Clear said its business is thriving because travelers are pleased. It plans to expand lanes at major airports such as Atlanta Hartsfield and Washington Dulles and has increased its airport staff by 35% this year compared with 2022. “Obviously, travel is hard and getting harder, but we know that traveling with Clear Plus is better and faster because we hear it from our members daily,” the company said while declining to comment on the TSA probe. This summer is shaping up to be the busiest travel period since 2019, and lengthy waits at US airports will likely be common. Clear’s expedited screening might be a welcome alternative for vacation-bound Americans if it offers reduced wait times. The service appeals to business travelers, a market that has yet to return to pre-pandemic levels.<br/>
A shift is underway in how Europeans get around. Air travel is still king with discounters, like Ryanair and Wizz Air, carrying record numbers of fliers around the continent. But in some of Europe’s largest domestic markets, trains are emerging as clear winners. Airline seats in France and Germany, two of the continent’s largest aviation markets — both within Europe and globally — are down double digits since 2019. There are 49% fewer airline seats in Germany today than there were in 2019, Cirium Diio schedule data for Q2 shows. And seats in France are down 20% over the same period. Domestic seats are also down in Finland, Norway, Sweden, and the UK. Several domestic markets, particularly those in southern Europe, do continue to grow. Seats in Greece are up 10%, Italy 9%, and Spain 7% in Q2 compared to four years ago, according to Diio. This growth comes despite robust rail networks in Italy and Spain; though the latter’s system focuses primarily on Madrid and Barcelona, and not connecting secondary cities. Greece, on the other hand, has limited ground transport options given its primarily archipelagic geography. The three countries are also among the air travel recovery leaders as fliers have flocked to warmer, outdoors-oriented markets. “We’re never going to go back — we’re not going to go back to the [pre-crisis] levels,” Air France-KLM CFO Steven Zaat said on the French domestic market in July 2021. And while at the time Zaat’s comments were true for Air France, it is increasingly clear that the entire French domestic airline market is unlikely to fully recover amid broad shifts in the way people travel. Anne Rigail, CEO of Air France, said in March that the shift on routes like Paris Orly to Marseille has been “so strong [and] so quick,” that the airline was forced to reactively slash schedules. French rail operator SNCF is seeing record ridership on its high-speed TGV and long-distance trains. Ticket sales on these trains were up 10% from 2019 levels to a record 28m last summer, a SNCF spokesperson said. And this summer, the rail operator expects further increases with forward sales “really positive.”<br/>
Austria, France, Ireland and the Netherlands have called on the European Union to toughen laws to curb the impact of private jet travel on the climate, a document showed. The countries are home to some of the busiest airports in Europe, including Amsterdam's Schiphol and Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. Schiphol said in April it will ban private jets and small business aviation, which the airport said causes 20 times more CO2 emissions than a commercial flight, while France this week banned certain short-haul commercial domestic flights on routes where sufficient train services are available. In a document shared with EU countries ahead of a meeting of their transport ministers next week, the four countries said the "excessive" per capita carbon footprint of private jet travel should spur the EU to act. "We believe that greater attention must be drawn to this issue at EU level, especially by assessing the possibility of setting up stronger regulatory measures on private jet travel to make sure that everyone contributes their fair share to the overall decarbonisation effort," said the document, seen by Reuters. Private jet flights in Europe increased by 64% in 2022, and emitted more than 5.3m tonnes of CO2, according to research by Dutch consultancy CE Delft, commissioned by Greenpeace. That is a fraction of the 147m tonnes of CO2 that all flights departing the EU and Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland emitted in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic temporarily grounded the sector, according to the EU Aviation Safety Agency. But climate activists have long taken issue with the high carbon emissions per person associated with private jets. Around 100 protesters disrupted flights at Geneva Airport on Tuesday to demand a ban.<br/>
Ever since the “flight shame” movement began encouraging travelers to seek greener alternatives to jet planes, many in Europe have been looking to the continent’s extensive rail network to replace short-haul air travel. There’s definitely been progress. Airlines including Dutch carrier KLM are entering into rail partnerships on certain routes, while countries like Austria and France are seeking to restrict internal routes where trains are available – although the French decree, which was made law in May 2023, has been significantly watered down from its original premise. That’s amid a palpable rail revolution on mainland Europe, with new high-speed routes and operators coming online, a reversal in the decline of overnight sleeper services, new tunnel links cutting travel times and new locomotives improving reliability and efficiency. In Spain, Germany and Austria, cheap ticket deals have also played their part. With so much railway investment, it seems as if the train-ification of Europe’s air transport network is well underway. Surely, it’s only a matter of time before the continent is relying almost exclusively on its iron roadways for getting around and the skies are clearer and greener . In reality, that remains a distant dream. But why? As with many efforts to innovate away from environmentally harmful practices, there’s good news and bad news. Fixes are being made, but none of them are quick. And there’s no sign that Europe’s airports are going to get quieter anytime soon. This year got off to a strong start with new legislation promised in France that would ban short-haul flight on a number of domestic routes to help the country cut levels of planet-heating pollution, but though approved by EU officials and then signed into French law in May 2023, the measures are limited in impact. Story has more.<br/>
The installation of new security scanners will lighten the burden of checking on travellers passing through Dublin Airport but not the floors of old Terminal 1 building. Workers installing state-of-the-art new security scanners at Dublin Airport have had to reinforce some of the old Terminal 1 floors in order to take their weight. Management at the airport has said five new scanners will be in place by the end of May across its two terminals before works pause in order to keep passenger queues moving during peak holiday season. The C3 technology will replace traditional baggage x-ray machines with 3D scans that will provide security staff instant imaging of contents, theoretically speeding up queue times. It will also mean passengers will no longer have to remove liquids or other items such as laptops, although management have stressed that normal rules still apply ahead of the summer peak. “It can tell you exactly what’s in the bag, not that we can’t do that at the moment but it’s a different way of doing it,” a spokesman explained.<br/>
A nationwide border system issue that hit electronic gates Saturday at British airports and caused chaos for holidaymakers and passengers arriving into the country has been fixed, according to the UK Home Office. “Following a technical border system fault which affected e-Gate arrivals into the UK, we can confirm all e-Gates are now operating as normal,” said a spokesperson for the Home Office, which runs the Border Force. “We thank those travellers who were impacted for their patience and staff for their work in resolving the issue,” the spokesperson said. Images shared online Saturday showed long queues building at major airports, with many looking to travel ahead of a public holiday Monday and with schools also on half-term breaks. The failure meant travelers had to have their passports checked manually rather than by machine. Fed-up travelers took to social media to vent their anger, claiming they had to wait in queues for several hours to have their passport seen. “We are aware of a nationwide border system issue affecting arrivals into the UK,” a Home Office spokesperson told CNN in an earlier statement Saturday. “We are working to resolve the issue as soon as possible and are liaising with port operators and airlines to minimise disruption for travellers,” the spokesperson added. A London Heathrow airport spokesperson said: “We are aware of a nationwide issue impacting the eGates, which are operated by Border Force. This issue is impacting a number of ports of entry and is not Heathrow specific. Our teams are working closely with Border Force to help resolve the problem as quickly as possible and we have additional colleagues on hand to manage queues and provide passenger welfare." Lucy Morton from the Immigration Services Union told BBC’s Radio 4 that depending on the airport 60% to 80% of travelers go through e-gates.<br/>
The first Chinese-made passenger jet has taken to the skies on its inaugural commercial flight, in a symbolic moment for China’s technological independence after years of delays for the project. The single-aisle C919 flew from Shanghai to Beijing on Sunday following more than a decade of development and an estimated $72bn in support from Beijing. The aircraft has boosted the aspirations of Chinese leader Xi Jinping as he aims for technological self-sufficiency for his country in the face of intensifying trade tensions with the US. The prospect, albeit long term, of a Chinese passenger jet industry could pose a threat to the Boeing-Airbus duopoly. The C919 was built by state-backed aerospace champion Comac and the first flight was operated by national carrier China Eastern. Domestic media heralded the event as “a day to remember” and noted that Comac had received more than 1,000 orders from 32 customers, as of the end of 2022. “The successful development of the C919 indicates that China has the ability to independently develop large passenger aircraft,” Xinhua, the state news agency said. Despite the project being under way since 2008 and a maiden flight first planned for 2014, excitement has been building in recent months as the jet received regulatory approval in China and moved closer to commercial operation. In October, President Xi hosted the C919 development team at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, praising the group “as the backbone” of the country and “heroes”. “Having Chinese airliners fly in the sky embodies the will of our country, the dream of our nation and the expectations of our people,” Xi said at the time, adding that the advances in domestic manufacturing would “help realise the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation”. Analysts have said they expect Comac will start to chip away at the market share of Boeing and Airbus in China’s massive aviation market as well as in some developing countries. However, the C919 does not have regulatory approval in the US or Europe. Analysts have also pointed out that the aircraft is reliant on western suppliers for critical components. That raises the possibility that the aviation industry could become enmeshed in tightening controls on technology exports from the US to China that have already hit the country’s chipmakers.<br/>
Thailand received 1m Chinese tourists between January and May 18, a government official said on Sunday, after China’s border reopening. The government expects the number of Chinese visitors to meet its target of 5m this year, with spending of 446b baht ($13.18b), government spokesperson Anucha Burapachaisri said. Last year, about 274,000 Chinese tourists visited the Southeast Asian country, compared with 11m in pre-pandemic 2019, or about 28% of the total. Overall foreign tourist arrivals were 9.47m from January to mid-May, the government earlier said, compared with the 11.15m visitors in the whole of 2022. Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy grew faster than expected in Q1, driven by the continued pickup in the crucial tourism sector, a key source of jobs that was decimated by the COVID-19 pandemic.<br/>
Rebels in Indonesia's Papua region threatened to shoot a New Zealand pilot they took hostage in February if countries do not comply with their demand to start independence talks within two months, a new video released by the group on Friday showed. Guerrilla fighters in Papua's central highlands, who want to free Papua from Indonesia, kidnapped Phillip Mehrtens after he landed a commercial plane in the mountainous area of Nduga. In the new video, a visibly emaciated Mehrtens holds the banned Morning Star flag, a symbol of West Papuan independence, and is surrounded by Papuan fighters brandishing what one analyst said were assault rifles manufactured in Indonesia. Mehrtens is seen talking to the camera, saying the separatists want countries other than Indonesia to engage in dialogue on Papuan independence. "If it does not happen within two months then they say they will shoot me," Mehrtens says in the video, which was shared by Papuan rebel spokesperson Sebby Sambom, and verified by Deka Anwar, an analyst at the Jakarta-based Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC).<br/>
Vertical Aerospace, the Bristol-based flying taxi start-up, has pushed back its entry into service by a year to 2026, in the latest sign that the revolution in “urban air mobility” is taking longer than expected to take flight. Vertical, which is listed on Nasdaq, told investors earlier this month that it was now targeting certification of its vehicle by Britain’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) “by the end of 2026”. It is the second time that the company has delayed certification since April 2022, when it changed from 2024 to 2025. “Attempting to predict a date with certainty when it is several years away is challenging and achieving it depends on agreeing compliance methods for new technology with the authorities,” the company’s founder and CE, Stephen Fitzpatrick, said in a letter to shareholders. Fitzpatrick cited factors outside of the company’s control such as the upcoming compliance testing of its technology with the CAA among the reasons for the decision. “We believe the industry as a whole will experience some timeline corrections and we are already seeing signs of peers acknowledging this,” he said in the letter. Certification dates for other electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) start-ups have similarly slipped; Germany’s Lilium last year extended its date from 2024 to 2025. The company told investors in a letter this week that it was looking to raise $250mn to help fund the development of its air taxi vehicle. Fitzpatrick, who is best known in the UK for founding energy supplier Ovo Energy, told the Financial Times: “All air authorities are motivated but it’s clear there is a lot of work for them to do, including building up the capabilities of skills internally to certify these vehicles.” For anyone active in the aerospace industry, there was a “big hurdle to get over”, he added. “Not to prove that the technology works but to prove that it never fails.” The “regulatory landscape is still being defined”, said Rami Abdel Aziz, manager at aviation consultancy IBA. “It will take time to establish comprehensive guidance for eVTOLS”.<br/>