Aviation companies are making the pitch to Ottawa that stricter rules designed to boost customer compensation and improve service could put passenger safety at risk — an argument consumer advocates reject as “ridiculous.” The push, made in regulatory submissions and meetings on Parliament Hill, comes on the heels of sweeping reforms to the passenger rights charter announced in April and currently being hashed out by Canada’s transport regulator before going into effect next year. The changes appear to scrap a loophole through which airlines have denied customers compensation for flight delays or cancellations when they were required for safety purposes. The sector wants that exemption restored, and says pilots shouldn’t feel pressured to choose between flying defective planes and costing their employer money. “We want our pilots to be entirely free from any financial consideration when they take a safety-related decision,” WestJet CE Alexis von Hoensbroech said in a video chat from Ottawa this week, where he was meeting with federal ministers on the reforms. The Air Line Pilots Association raised similar concerns in a submission to the Canadian Transportation Agency. “Regulation should never be punitive for safety decisions,” the CEO said,adding that the would-be changes will drain carriers of cash after a financially devastating COVID-19 pandemic. In the European Union, however, where rules and precedents comparable to the impending passenger rights charter are in place, flight safety remains uncompromised, advocates say. “Did it make it less safe to fly in Europe? I don’t think so,” said Sylvie De Bellefeuille, a lawyer with the advocacy group Option consommateurs.<br/>
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Hungary plans to sell non-strategic assets to partially finance its acquisition of Budapest airport, Economic Development Minister Marton Nagy told reporters on the sidelines of a business conference on Monday. The financing package could also include budget funds and development bank money, he said, adding that the government expects talks to conclude by the end of the year. He did not say which assets the government might sell. Since Prime Minister Viktor Orban took power in 2010, his government has boosted Hungarian ownership in the energy, banking, telecoms and media sectors. It has been planning to buy the airport for years and in 2021 submitted a non-binding offer, but the process was later halted amid high inflation and volatility in global financial markets. The government submitted a new formal bid for a majority stake in Budapest Airport last month, with talks underway with several airport operators, one of them in Qatar, to join as a minority partner.<br/>
SMBC Aviation Capital on Monday said it had received a cash insurance settlement of $710m for its jets previously leased to Russia’s state-owned airline Aeroflot. The aircraft lessor said the settlement amount reflects the amount claimed by SMBC under Aeroflot’s insurance related to 16 aircraft and their engines. An additional insurance settlement has been concluded for one aircraft and its associated engines managed by SMBC. Before the invasion of Ukraine last year, Russia was a major market for aircraft lessors, which bought jets from Boeing and Airbus and leased them to airlines in the country. These planes were stranded in Russia as Moscow refused to release the jets after lessors canceled lease agreements to abide by sanctions from the West. Earlier last month, the world’s largest aircraft lessor, Aercap, said it had agreed to settle an insurance claim over Russia’s refusal to return 17 jets leased to Aeroflot. SMBC Aviation said it would continue its efforts to seek to mitigate its losses related to aircraft previously leased to Russian airlines.<br/>
Pilots and crew on Indian airlines may soon be barred from wearing perfume or cologne as the country moves to tighten regulations around alcohol consumption by aviators. The Indian Directorate General of Civil Aviation’s new rules are meant to reduce the risk of false positives on breathalyzer tests. The proposed regulation reads: “No crew member shall consume any drug/formulation or use any substance such as mouthwash/tooth gel/perfume or any such product which has alcoholic content. This may result into positive breath analyser test. Any crew member who is undergoing such medication shall consult the company doctor before undertaking flying assignment.” According to Terri Daniel, a criminal defense lawyer in McKinney, Texas, it is possible for perfume to affect the outcome of a breathalyzer.“If you’ve used a product that contains alcohol, the Breathalyzer might detect the alcohol concentration and report a false positive. Products that contain alcohol include toothpaste, aftershave, hand sanitizer, bleach, mouthwash, perfume and cologne. Even spraying bug repellent on yourself can produce a false positive,” Daniel’s website says. <br/>
As the aviation industry looks to achieve carbon-neutral status by 2050, sustainable aviation fuel has emerged as the magic potion to propel airlines and manufacturers into that era. But initial enthusiasm about the fuel has given way to a more realistic, if not downright pessimistic, view on the industry’s ambitious target. SAF is still scarce and therefore expensive. Generating the required quantities of alternative fuel would require huge areas of land and natural resources. And footing the bill for the switch would most likely fall to the flying public as the airline industry points to its razor-thin profit margins. Executives meeting in Lisbon for the World Aviation Festival last week struck a downbeat tone on the 2050 goals. While they weren’t outright abandoned, leaders including Emirates President Tim Clark called for more realism. And the topic will be the central theme again on Tuesday when the International Air Transport Association holds its World Sustainability Symposium in Madrid. “Don’t fool yourselves on all this,” Clark said of the industry’s targets. “Because if you hold out that things can be achieved by such and such a time, it causes huge dysfunctionality.” IAG CEO Luis Gallego and Ryanair DAC’s CEO Eddie Wilson have also warned that the path to an emissions-free industry will be long and expensive. “The reality is that we have ambitious objectives, but we don’t have the way to comply with these,” Gallego said in Lisbon, where his on-stage appearance was briefly interrupted by a duo of protesting climate activists. Gallego also said that eSAF, a synthetic fuel derived from renewable energy including solar, hydro and wind power, may be more scalable than currently available alternative fuels, which rely on non-petroleum feedstocks like cooking oil, waste, sugar and cereal. The problem with eSAF, though, is that it’s energy-intensive to produce. So much so, according to Deutsche Lufthansa AG CEO Carsten Spohr, that it would consume half of Germany’s entire electricity production to produce enough for its fleet. <br/>
Spirit AeroSystems CEO Tom Gentile has stepped down in the wake of a series of industrial difficulties, with the major aerospace supplier naming former Boeing executive and Pentagon official Patrick Shanahan as his interim replacement. Shanahan, who has served on the company's board since November 2021, will become interim CEO effective immediately, Spirit announced Monday. Spirit said its board will conduct a search to identify a new CEO, while Gentile will stay on as a consultant for three months. Spirit shares have fallen 45% since the beginning of the year due to financial difficulties, including a two-week work stoppage at its Kansas-based production plant this summer, the discovery of several costly 737 production errors, and more than $200m in losses on Airbus and Boeing plane production programs. Gentile was named Spirit's CEO in August 2016, months after he joined the company as its COO. He oversaw the company during the 737 MAX crisis and pandemic, steering plans to diversify Spirit revenues with more defense and aftermarket work.<br/>