Airlines added flights to get travelers off of Maui after wildfires on the Hawaiian island killed at least 36 people and prompted evacuations. American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, Alaska Airlines said they were adding service to help customers leave. More than 11,000 people have been flown off the island since the fires began, Ed Sniffen, the state’s transportation director, told a news conference late Wednesday local time, NBC News reported. Much of the seaside town of Lahaina had burned down, after the fires were fanned by winds from Hurricane Dora. Hawaiian Airlines said it had added six additional Maui flights on Thursday and that it’s using larger planes between Honolulu and Maui to move passengers as well as water, food and other essentials. The carrier discouraged travelers without reservations from coming to Kahului Airport in Maui because of crowding. “While we are currently operating our full schedule and have seats available on flights out of Maui today, we are concentrating our resources on transporting essential personnel and first responders,” the carrier said. It also warned of possible disruptions on other routes “as we work to support essential travel needs for Maui.” An American Airlines spokeswoman said the carrier plans to operate all of the scheduled flights to and from Kahului Airport on Thursday. A spokeswoman said the carrier has “added an additional flight and upgraded an aircraft today to ensure customers evacuating OGG are able to do so.” The airline swapped out Airbus A321 narrow-body planes, which can seat about 190 passengers, for some of the flights for a Boeing 777-200, one of the largest planes in its fleet, which have 273 seats, according to American’s website. Southwest Airlines also said it was adding service to Hawaii from the U.S. mainland and intra-island flights. United Airlines said it has canceled Thursday’s inbound flights to Kahului Airport, but that it’s flying aircraft in empty to pick up travelers on Maui.<br/>
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Plans to expand London Luton Airport's capacity from 18 to 32m passengers a year will be heard by the Planning Inspectorate. Luton Rising, the Luton Council company that owns the airport, said it could generate GBP1.5b per year and create thousands of new jobs. Pete White, from Stop Luton Airport Expansion, said: "It's the worst thing that could ever happen for east Luton." Luton Rising said capacity needed to grow to keep customers and airlines. The expansion plans include new terminal capacity, an extension to the current airfield and new airside and landside facilities.<br/>
China lifted a ban on group tours to more than 70 locations, giving travel and airline stocks in Asia a boost. China’s culture and tourism ministry said Thursday that group tours will resume to over dozens of locations in Asia-Pacific, Europe, Africa and North America. Top travel destinations in Asia-Pacific included Japan, South Korea and Australia. The United Kingdom, Germany, Finland and Sweden as well as Middle East nations like Qatar, Oman, Lebanon and Israel were on the list. South Korean airline and travel stocks saw the strongest reaction, with tour agency, airline and hotel stocks all surging. Travel agency Lotte Tour Development saw its shares spike more than 25%, while shares of luxury hotel operator Hotel Shilla surged 17%. South Korean airlines also saw gains, with Asiana Airlines climbing 7% and Korea Airlines advancing 3.1%. That’s despite the fact that Typhoon Khanun made landfall in South Korea on Thursday, resulting in more than 330 flights being cancelled and 10,000 people being moved to safety, according to Reuters. It will be the first time in six years that China is allowing group tours to South Korea, having banned such tours in 2017 in response to the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system in South Korea. Japan tourism stocks also saw gains, with Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways climbing 1.92% and 1.25% respectively.<br/>
Two rivals in the race to mass-produce an all-electric aircraft said on Thursday that they had agreed to collaborate and settled a trade-secrets lawsuit that one rival, Wisk Aero, had filed against the other, Archer Aviation. Boeing, which owns Wisk, invested an undisclosed amount in Archer. Archer said it, in turn, would exclusively use Wisk’s self-flying technology in future aircraft. Both Wisk and Archer are developing small electric aircraft that can take off vertically, like helicopters, but fly like airplanes. Each is being designed to carry four passengers short distances, but Archer’s will initially have a pilot while Wisk is working toward autonomous flight. Boeing said that its investment in Archer would “support the potential integration of Wisk’s autonomous technology in future variants of Archer’s aircraft, pursuant to Wisk’s exclusive right to be their autonomy provider.” At the same time, the companies said they would end a bitter legal dispute. In 2021, Wisk sued Archer in federal court, accusing a pair of Archer engineers of stealing proprietary information when they left Wisk. Archer later sued Wisk, accusing it of engaging in a “smear campaign” against Archer. Wisk was formed as a joint venture of Boeing and Kitty Hawk, an aviation start-up backed by the Google co-founder Larry Page. Kitty Hawk announced plans to shut down last year, and Boeing announced in May that it had acquired Wisk outright. None of the companies disclosed the size of Boeing’s investment, but Archer said it was part of the $215m that it had recently raised from Stellantis, the automaker whose brands include Chrysler, Fiat, Jeep and Maserati; United Airlines; and other financial institutions. Including that amount, Archer has raised more than $1.1b to date.<br/>
Archer Aviation Inc. said it raised $215m in funding and patched up a legal dispute with Boeing, paving the way for the electric air-taxi startup to collaborate with its former adversary on future designs. Archer received investments from Boeing, as well as existing backers Stellantis, United Airlines and tech-focused Ark Invest, it said in a statement Thursday. The California startup will work with Boeing and its Wisk Aero LLC flying-taxi venture on autonomous flight technology, it said. Collaborating with Wisk will give Archer a powerful supplier for autonomous technology, even as it works to win approvals for its initial model requiring a human pilot. Archer is targeting 2025 for an entry into service of its Midnight electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft, or eVTOL, a five-seat craft with tilting propellers. Archer said Thursday that the Midnight received a Special Airworthiness Certificate from the US Federal Aviation Administration, allowing the company to begin flight tests in coming weeks. Archer must still demonstrate that the aircraft meets safety requirements. Manufacturing partner Stellantis, the maker of Jeep and Ram vehicles, accelerated $70m in funding pledged under a partnership agreement announced in January. Archer said $55m remains available under the facility. In June, Stellantis raised its stake in Archer through open-market stock purchases. Archer didn’t disclose details of the investments from Boeing, United and Ark. The company said it will save significant development costs by sourcing autonomy technology from Boeing’s Wisk, which is focused on pilotless aircraft. The two sides were scheduled to go to trial on their patent dispute in September. Ark is already one of Archer’s biggest shareholders. United agreed to invest $20m in Archer in 2021 and has since made a $10m down payment on future deliveries.<br/>
Dassault Aviation is confident it will be able to meet its target to deliver 35 Falcon business jets in 2023, but its order backlog is not likely to expand this year as much as it did in 2022, an executive said. Private aviation boomed during the COVID-19 pandemic as wealthy travelers sought to reduce exposure to the coronavirus, helping business jet makers post strong figures.Dassault added 64 Falcon orders to its backlog in 2022, up 25.5% from the year before. Since then, it saw signs of a cooling market, but things are starting to heat up again. "We noticed a little slowdown at the end of last year, still in place this year as the first half was not crazy on our side," Dassault's vice president of civil aircraft, Carlos Brana, told Reuters at Sao Paulo's LABACE airshow late Wednesday afternoon. "But now we see little turbulences - meaning, an improvement - compared to what we saw in the first few months," he said. "I'm not saying that we'll have the same figures as last year. I think that would be very optimistic, but we see the market coming back again. Slowly, but coming back." Dassault is a major player in the super mid-size, large and long-range categories of business jets, with products such as the Falcons 2000 and 8X that it showcased in Sao Paulo.<br/>