In less than a year, the global aviation industry has gone from near annihilation to exuberant enthusiasm. Fleet groundings and huge losses have given way to massive profits, and airlines are outdoing one another with record orders. The industry’s newfound swagger was on full display Monday, when Indigo agreed to buy 500 Airbus jets, eclipsing a record set only months ago by Air India. Those add to huge purchases by Ryanair and Saudi startup Riyadh Air earlier this year, with announced deals approaching 1,500 aircraft. But while one group of executives flex their corporate muscle, other industry veterans warn that the market is showing signs of overheating. “We have players flooding the market with a huge number of planes, I just hope that they’re doing this right,” said Akbar Al Baker, CEO of Qatar Airways. Al Baker is a prominent customer of both Boeing Co. and Airbus, with a long track record of striking his own splashy deals. So is Steve Udvar-Hazy, the aircraft leasing pioneer and co-founder of Air Lease Corp. “It’s a little bit of a herd mentality that’s not justified by economics or reality,” Udvar-Hazy said in an interview at the Paris Air Show. “But this is normal in the airline industry.” Both say they’re interested in topping up on already thick order books — around 400 planes in the case of Los Angeles-based Air Lease. Al Baker, for his part, said he’s not in a rush. The two men have been upstaged by airlines planning on explosive growth at the travel crossroads of Asia and Europe. The order flurry, which started as the travel industry first recovered from Covid-19 in the US two years ago, has left Boeing’s 737 Max largely sold out deep into 2028, and Airbus will have few delivery spots open before 2030. Getting hold of the ordered aircraft also won’t be easy. Both Airbus and Boeing are struggling to boost output as they continue to struggle with supply-chain issues and a lack of skilled labor. But airlines worry that if they don’t order soon, they’ll have to join the back of a line that’s only growing longer, potentially missing out on a travel boom that shows no signs of abating.<br/>
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Canada is investing C$350m ($265m) to help fund efforts to make the aerospace industry more environmentally sustainable, Innovation Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said on Monday. The focus will be on hybrid and alternative propulsion, aircraft systems, the transition to alternative fuels, and aircraft support infrastructure, he said in a statement. "(This) ... will help drive and accelerate the green industrial transformation of Canada's aerospace industry, generating high-value jobs while strengthening supply chains and supporting the transition to a net-zero economy," he said. Earlier this month, global airlines called for broad co-operation to reach "very tough" emission targets. Aviation, which produces around 2% of the world's emissions, is considered one of the hardest sectors to decarbonise. The C$350m includes a C$49m aerospace innovation investment announced in 2019. Airbus said in 2021 it was working on hybrid-electric propulsion among the options for reducing jetliner emissions. It has pledged to introduce the first hydrogen-powered commercial plane in 2035.<br/>
Airline passengers travelling to or from Italy face further disruption on Tuesday, June 20th, due to a nationwide airport staff walkout which has already caused ITA Airways to cancel 42 flights. Italy was braced for yet more travel disruption on Tuesday following announcements that ground staff at airports around the country will take part in a 24-hour walkout. As three of the country's largest transport workers' unions are involved in the strike, the protest was expected to cause at least some disruption at all of Italy's major airports, especially at check-in desks and in baggage collection areas. Unions called the strike as they pushed for salary increases in line with inflation and a contractual holiday allowance, and a general improvement in working conditions for both ground and air transport staff. Handling staff at airports across Italy, including Rome Fiumicino and Milan Malpensa, were set to strike for the full 24 hours alongside workers for the low-cost airline Vueling. As of Monday morning, Vueling had not released a public statement on the strike. ITA Airways, the successor to Alitalia, said on Monday it had so far cancelled 42 domestic flights.<br/>
Israel said on Monday that hoped-for direct flights to Saudi Arabia for the Muslim Hajj pilgrimage would not happen this year, and played down any prospects of an imminent US-mediated normalisation of relations with Riyadh. Regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia gave its quiet assent to Gulf neighbours United Arab Emirates and Bahrain forging ties with Israel in 2020. But it has held off on following suit, saying Palestinian statehood goals should be addressed first. Still, Israeli and US officials had predicted that the kingdom, home to Islam's two holiest sites, might as a goodwill gesture let members of Israel's 18% Muslim minority fly in directly for this year's Hajj. Riyadh never formally offered that, however. With the pilgrimage now imminent - June 25 to July 2 - and Israel's Transport Ministry reporting no airlines applying to run special flights to Saudi destinations, a top aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged they would not happen. "Perhaps for the next Hajj we will be in a position to help in this matter, and (direct) flights will depart from here," National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi told Kan radio. "But it's too early to say." The Biden administration has described Israeli-Saudi normalisation as a U.S. national security interest. It is also a major foreign-policy goal of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who regained power in December at the head of a hard-right government pledging to close ranks with Arab powers that share Israel's worries about Iran. But Hanegbi, in a weekend newspaper interview, said normalisation was "a ways off" because, he argued, it would hinge on addressing strains between Riyadh and Washington.<br/>
India is working to resolve discrepancies between global aircraft leasing rules and its national bankruptcy laws, the country's aviation secretary told Reuters on Monday on the sidelines of the Paris Airshow. A resolution could help lessors to Go First airline reclaim their planes and fly them out of the country after the carrier filed for bankruptcy protection in May, a move that resulted in a freeze on all its assets including the jets. The freeze came even though some lessors had already terminated leases and placed requests with the aviation regulator to repossess dozens of planes prior to granting of bankruptcy protection. The repossession requests, however, were put on hold as local laws supersede global aircraft leasing rules under the Cape Town Convention - a treaty designed to protect repossession rights. India has ratified the treaty but there was no local legislation enforcing it, rendering it ineffective. The government is working to resolve the discrepancy between the Cape Town Convention and India's bankruptcy rules which may involve an amendment to the national laws, aviation secretary Rajiv Bansal said, adding that he expected to have clarity in the next few weeks. Lessors have warned that India's decision to block leasing firms from reclaiming Go First planes will jolt the market and raise costs for all airlines, while also making the world's fastest-growing aviation market a 'risky jurisdiction'.<br/>
China and Japan both officially kicked off their passenger jet projects in 2008. So why, 15 years and millions of dollars later, is only one of them in the air? The launch in May of scheduled commercial passenger services by the C919 passenger jet was a milestone for its developer, Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC), in its bid to challenge the long-standing global duopoly of American and European manufacturers Boeing and Airbus. Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industry, meanwhile, abandoned its project to develop a homegrown passenger jet early this year after numerous delays and spiraling costs. With generous state support and a large domestic market to sell into, the C919 had at least two vital advantages that its Japanese counterpart lacked. COMAC is a product of China's national drive for technological self-reliance. It was officially approved as a "significantly special" project by the central government in February 2007 and has received unflagging support from the country's top leadership since its establishment the following year. Last September, on the eve of China's National Day celebration, President Xi Jinping invited members of the C919 project to Beijing, where he lavished praise on the endeavor, saying the new plane "carries the will of the state, the dream of the nation and the hope of the people," according to state news agency Xinhua. Further underscoring its importance, COMAC was designated one of China's "central enterprises," a group of fewer than a hundred state-owned conglomerates directly under the control of the central government. The State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, or SASAC, owns about half COMAC's shares, with the rest held by eight other state-owned enterprises. There is no private let alone foreign capital involved. All shareholders but one, moreover, are either a central enterprise or a close affiliate of one. The lone exception is Shanghai Guosheng Group, a key investment arm of the city government of Shanghai, where COMAC is headquartered. Central enterprises, according to SASAC, "shoulder special responsibilities in the process of socioeconomic development of the nation." The heads of these companies have a status equivalent to that of government cabinet members within the Communist Party hierarchy.<br/>
The Manila International Airport Consortium said it will spend as much as 267b pesos ($4.8b) to upgrade the country’s congested main international gateway amid a post-pandemic tourism boom. The consortium—backed by the country’s biggest conglomerates including billionaire Andrew Tan’s Alliance Global Group, and Filinvest Development and JG Summit—partnered with U.S.-based Global Infrastructure Partners, which has interests in airports across London and Sydney, to modernize the Ninoy Aquino International Airport and more than double its capacity to 70m passengers a year by 2048 from 31m currently. The project will be implemented in phases, with the first phase expected to bring NAIA annual passenger capacity to 54m by 2025 and then to 62.5m by 2028. The consortium budgeted 100b pesos when it proposed the project in April. “The Manila International Airport Consortium recognizes the immense task of transforming NAIA to meet the exponentially growing demands of Mega Manila air travel, not only in the here and now but also in the future,” Kevin Tan, chairman and president of Alliance Global-InfraCorp Development. “It is because of this that the members of the consortium have pooled together its significant resources, technical expertise and operational experience to put forward a NAIA Masterplan.” The consortium also includes Ayala Corp’s AC Infrastructure, Aboitiz InfraCapital (operator of Mactan-Cebu International Airport) and billionaire Lucio Tan’s Asia’s Emerging Dragon Corp. A proposal to upgrade NAIA in 2018 was rejected by then-President Rodrigo Duterte during the pandemic.<br/>
It's difficult not to be a bit overwhelmed by the Airbus campus in Toulouse. It is a huge site and the workplace for 28,000 staff, plus hundreds of visitors eager to see the planes being built. The enormous Beluga cargo plane is parked at a loading dock, ready to transport vehicles and satellites around the world. Close to where we conduct our interviews is the hangar where the supersonic passenger jet Concorde was developed. This site is also home to much Airbus research and development, including the recently finished Project Dragonfly - an experiment to extend the ability of the autopilot. Over the past 50 years automation in aviation has transformed the role of the pilot. These days pilots have a lot more assistance from tech in the cockpit. Project Dragonfly, conducted on an Airbus A350-1000, extended the plane's autonomy even further. The project focused on three areas: improved automatic landing, taxi assistance and automated emergency diversion. Perhaps the last of those is the most dramatic. Malcolm Ridley, Chief Test Pilot of Airbus's commercial aircraft, reassured us that the risk of being involved in an air accident is "vanishingly small". However, aircraft and crew need to be ready for any scenario, so Project Dragonfly tested an automatic emergency descent system. The idea is this technology will take over if the pilots need to focus on heavy decision-making or if they were to become incapacitated. Under its own control, the plane can descend and land, while recognising other aircraft, weather and terrain. The system also allows the plane to speak to air traffic control over the radio with a synthetic voice created through the use of artificial intelligence. It is a lot for the plane's systems to take on.<br/>
A year ahead of the Paris Olympics, flying taxi maker Volocopter wants to prove to executives at the Paris Airshow it is on track to ferry customers around the sporting showcase and take off globally. The world's largest air show tends to focus on military and commercial planes. But electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft makers are also there in force, with Lilium announcing a deal on Monday for China's HeliShenzhen Eastern General Aviation to buy 100 of its jets. The sector's challenges are many, as firms need to secure regulatory approval and convince consumers they are safe, at a time when investors are also reining in funding. Germany's Volocopter is working to overcome these hurdles and launch the first commercial flying taxi service to take customers around Paris during the 2024 Olympics and will use the air show to demonstrate its progress. "The Olympics are our North Star," Volocopter CEO Dirk Hoke told Reuters. Success could boost the broader urban air mobility sector by persuading risk-averse investors that air taxis are worth putting money into, analysts and executives said. "I think with any of the timelines for early operations it will be helpful for the industry if they are met as it will create buzz," said Robin Riedel, who co-leads the McKinsey Center for Future Mobility at the management consulting firm. No flying taxi maker, whether Germany's Lilium or American player Joby, has received certification so far. Volocopter hopes to be the first, but still needs to run its aircraft through intensive weather tests and provide thousands of pages of documentation to Europe's regulator, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). "It's not a walk in the park to be the first to certify," Hoke said. Intensive weather tests will take place in Germany next month, with a pilot and passenger.<br/>