Flooding closed part of a concourse at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport for much of the day Tuesday after a contractor opened a fire sprinkler system believing it was out of operation, officials said. The south portion of the A Concourse had water running over the floor Tuesday morning, The Seattle Times reported. The flooding started just before 7 a.m. and closed A gates south of gate A10, according to airport spokesperson Chris Guizlo. He said the gates are used by a number of airlines, including United, Delta and some international carriers. Airport personnel were cleaning up the water and working with airlines to move flights to alternate gates, Guizlo said. The flooding didn’t affect operations outside the flooded area and all but one gate had reopened by Tuesday afternoon, he said. The “significant leak” happened after a contractor opened part of the fire sprinkler system, believing it was out of operation, according to Guizlo. Access to the area will remain limited to flights leaving out of those gates, as airport staff continue to address the impact, he said.<br/>
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A large number of Airbus passenger jets will need to have their engines removed and inspected in the coming months after engine maker Pratt & Whitney discovered a problem that could cause parts to wear out more quickly, potentially adding to stress on airlines during the remainder of a hectic summer travel season. Shares of Pratt & Whitney parent RTX Corp. fell 11% Tuesday afternoon after the company disclosed the issue. RTX said that a “rare condition” in powder metal used to manufacture certain parts made between late 2015 and mid-2021 will require speeded-up fleet inspections. The engine involved is most often used to power the Airbus A320neo, a midsize jet popular for short and medium-distance flights. The company said it expects that about 200 of Pratt PW1100 engines will need to be pulled off and inspected by mid-September, and another 1,000 engines will need inspections in the next nine to 12 months. Many Airbus A320 family jets use engines from CFM, but nearly 800 A320 and A321s have the affected Pratt engines, according to aviation-data firm Cirium. Indian low-cost airline IndiGo has nearly 140, Air China has 43, Germany’s Lufthansa has 37, and Mexico’s Volaris has 35. Among U.S. carriers, Spirit Airlines received 34 of the planes, Hawaiian Airlines has 18 and JetBlue Airways 16, according to Cirium. On a call with analysts, RTX COO Christopher Calio said that the problem does not affect current production, and Pratt will continue to produce new engines and spare parts, but the life of parts made between late 2015 and mid-2021 could be reduced. Pratt had planned to schedule “enhanced inspections” during normal maintenance stops, but based on recent discoveries, it decided that the inspections — focused on high-pressure turbine disks — needed to be speeded up, Calio said. He said the company is developing plans to conduct the inspections as quickly as possible.<br/>
Boeing expects the global aviation industry will need even more pilots than previously expected, predicting in a new report that demand will exist for 649,000 new pilots during the next 20 years. That is according to Boeing’s 2023 Pilot and Technician Outlook, which predicts that roaring demand for air travel is driving greater need for future pilots, cabin crew members and aircraft technicians. The company’s expectation that the sector will need 649,000 new pilots through 2042 compares to its prediction, in last year’s report, that the sector would need 602,000 new pilots over 20 years. Boeing notes, however, that its latest report, released on 25 July, includes demand for personnel in Russia. It omitted that sector from last year’s report due to “uncertainty in the region”. Boeing says Russia represents about 3% of the global demand for pilots, technicians and cabin crew. “With domestic air travel fully recovered and international traffic near pre-pandemic levels, demand for aviation personnel continues to increase,” says Boeing vice-president of commercial training solutions Chris Broom. China, Eurasia and North America will each account for about 20% of the new pilots needed through 2042, Boeing expects. Regions with the next highest expected pilot demand include the Middle East and Southeast Asia. The report says the aviation sector will also need 690,000 new aircraft technicians globally over 20 years (a 13% bump from its estimate last year), and 938,000 cabin crew members (4% more). The latest projections come several months after Boeing released its 20-year global fleet forecast. It predicts airlines will need 42,595 new jets through 2042 – 1,425 more aircraft than Boeing projected one year earlier.<br/>
United Parcel Service reached a tentative agreement to renew a five-year labor contract with the Teamsters ahead of the July 31 deadline, giving relief to stressed shippers and removing a share-price overhang for investors concerned about a costly strike. The agreement, which has to be ratified by the about 340,000 teamsters that it covers, contains $30b of new money from UPS over the life of the contract, according to a statement Tuesday from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. “The union went into this fight committed to winning for our members,” Teamsters President Sean O’Brien said in the statement. “We demanded the best contract in the history of UPS, and we got it.” The resolution to the talks is also a win for UPS CEO Carol Tomé, who had insisted that a deal would get done to head off a strike that could have been called as soon as Aug. 1. She had said that the changes in the contract would be a win for workers, the company and customers. The courier had lost some volume to competitors as its customers prepared for the worst and that trickle would have turned into a gusher as the strike date approached. “This agreement continues to reward UPS’s full- and part-time employees with industry-leading pay and benefits while retaining the flexibility we need to stay competitive, serve our customers and keep our business strong,” Tomé said in a separate statement that didn’t detail the terms of the agreement. UPS shares jumped on the news, rising as much as 2.5% in New York before paring the gain. UPS will have to boost efficiency to absorb the higher cost of its labor force at a time when package demand is declining and customers are looking to claw back the surcharges and price increases that couriers applied liberally during the pandemic. The market weakness compelled FedEx Corp. to undertake an effort to slash $4b of costs by fiscal 2025 and reap another $2b of savings by fiscal 2027 from the restructuring of its networks.<br/>
General Electric raised its full-year guidance and reported second-quarter results that blew past Wall Street’s expectations as the manufacturer capitalizes on rebounding renewable-energy orders and an air travel boom that continues to drive demand for jet engines. Adjusted earnings in 2023 will be $2.10 to $2.30 a share, the maker of aerospace and power-generation equipment said Tuesday. That’s up from no more than $2 and above the $2.05 average of analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. GE now expects free cash flow of as much as $4.6b compared to no more than $4.2b under its prior outlook. “With the demand that the airlines continue to see, the push in turn on our services business couldn’t be stronger,” CEO Larry Culp said. “It’s hard to argue with just the broad-based strength that we’re seeing at aero.” The stock has soared nearly 70% this year amid renewed investor interest in the once-sprawling conglomerate as Culp prepares the company to become a pure-play aerospace manufacturer by early next year. GE has said it plans to more than double earnings this year amid booming demand for jet engines and maintenance services at GE Aerospace, which generates the majority of company profits. Since becoming CEO in 2018, Culp has sold huge businesses, slashed debt and overhauled factory operations to reshape the iconic corporation from a troubled giant to a smaller, more streamlined company. GE Aerospace, which primarily manufacturers and services military and commercial jet engines, will become a standalone business next year following the early 2024 spinoff of GE Vernova, the power-generation and renewable-energy units.<br/>
Nearly 100 firefighters were using a helicopter to contain a wildfire in the French municipalities of Cagnes-sur-Mer and Villeneuve-Loubet, close to Nice international airport, officials said on Tuesday. By late afternoon firefighters were about to contain the blaze near Cagnes-sur-Mer, a spokesperson for the local fire department told Reuters, adding that operations were expected to continue during the evening. There were no victims or damage to housing, the spokesperson said. A spokesperson of France's civil aviation authority DGAC said there had been "no impact on air traffic for the time being". The fire affected an uninhabited area close to a highway, a local town hall official said. Highway and rail traffic was interrupted, Nice police said on social media network X, formerly known as Twitter. Extreme weather throughout July has caused havoc across the planet, with record temperatures in China, the United States and southern Europe sparking forest fires, evacuations, water shortages and a rise in heat-related hospital admissions.<br/>