Tuesday's runway collision in Japan marks the first time a modern lightweight airliner has burnt down and is being seen as a test case for how well a new generation of carbon-composite airplanes copes with a catastrophic fire. The Japan Airlines (JAL) Airbus A350 crashed into a De Havilland Dash-8 coast guard turboprop plane shortly after landing at Haneda airport in Tokyo, bursting in to flames. All 379 people aboard the A350 were evacuated from the burning aircraft, but five of the six coast guard crew were killed. Photographs of the wreckage showed the A350 fuselage in cinders. While investigators seek the cause of the collision, the aviation industry is keen to confirm the survivability of high-tech composite airliners which have transformed the economics of long-haul flight and airlines in the past decade. The crash "is really the first case study that we have, not only from a fire perspective, but also just from a crash survivability perspective," said Anthony Brickhouse, an air safety expert at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Both Boeing, with the 787 Dreamliner, and Airbus, with the A350, made big bets in the early 2000s that lightweight carbon composites would produce major fuel savings and be less susceptible to fatigue, reducing maintenance. Shortly after being put into service, the Dreamliner contended with battery problems that led to fires, resulting in its brief grounding in early 2013. A later fire on an Ethiopian Airlines 787 in July 2013 was caused by a short circuit in the jet's emergency locator transmitter and led to fuselage repairs. None of these incidents resulted in hull losses, however. The A350 contains 53% composite materials by weight, with composites making up most of its external structure, including its fuselage, major portions of its tail and wings, and part of the nose section. Experts said the fact that all passengers and crew evacuated safely while the structure was intact will renew confidence in the materials which were certified with special conditions. But they cautioned it is too early to draw full conclusions about how the A350's composite hull held up against fire or what technological lessons may be learned.<br/>
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A Coast Guard plane was making its third emergency trip to an earthquake zone within 24 hours when it collided with a passenger jet at a very busy Haneda airport, a Coast Guard official told Reuters. The official declined to be named due to an ongoing investigation into the runway crash between the De Havilland Dash-8 turboprop and a Japan Airlines Airbus A350 passenger jet. Five of the six Coast Guard crew died but all 379 people on the JAL plane escaped. Details of the Coast Guard plane's movements before the collision have not previously been reported. The surviving pilot from the Coast Guard crew is under scrutiny after authorities released control tower transcripts appearing to show he was ordered to enter a holding area near the runway before the crash occurred. He said he had permission to enter the runway where the Japan Airlines (JAL) plane was landing, the Coast Guard said on Wednesday, acknowledging there was no indication of that in the transcripts. It is unclear whether the volume of airport traffic or the emergency response to the earthquake that struck late afternoon on Jan. 1, destroying thousands of homes and killing at least 84 people, were factors in the accident. Aviation experts say airplane accidents usually involve multiple variables and the failure of several safety guardrails. In the 24 hours before the collision, the Coast Guard aircraft had already made two round trips from Haneda to the quake zone, a 3.5 hour survey of the area shortly after the magnitude 7.6 quake struck on Jan 1, and a flight carrying rescue workers that returned early on Jan. 2, the official said. Tokyo Haneda is the world's third busiest airport, according to OAG, a UK-based travel industry data provider. Flight schedules data from Cirium analysed by Reuters showed an average of 1,290 flights departed and arrived at Haneda daily in December. On the day of the accident, a public holiday in Japan, the airport was at full capacity, said Shigenori Hiraoka, director general of the Civil Aviation Bureau. It was no ordinary day for the Coast Guard either. The doomed plane had early that morning returned with a different crew from a mission taking relief workers to an area devastated by the earthquake, the Coast Guard official also told Reuters. Thousands of rescue workers were scrambled to respond to the disaster. Story has more.<br/>
Sustained demand will boost revenues for the German travel industry this year, but the number of travellers is likely to be lower than in 2023 as people respond to inflation, German travel body DRV said on Thursday. Revenues for holiday and private travel booked through tour operators and individually and with at least one overnight stay are expected to grow by 4% compared to the previous year. DRV figures are based on a tourism year that runs from November 2023 to Oct. 31 2024. DRV said inflation, especially for fuel, heating and food, was likely to mean a slight decline in the number of people travelling with tour operators this year, although it did not specify numbers. For the last tourism year 2022-2023, this number was still 15% lower than before the COVID-19 pandemic. DRV expected people to focus their travel on one or two main vacation trips in summer months rather than in winter and said it was not clear how an increase in air traffic tax planned by the German government would affect prices and thus demand.<br/>
Work on the terminal expansion project at Sharjah International Airport kicked off on Wednesday (January 3) with HH Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed bin Sultan Al Qasimi, Crown Prince and Deputy Ruler of Sharjah, laying the foundation stone. The ceremony was also attended by HH Sheikh Sultan bin Ahmed bin Sultan Al Qasimi, Deputy Ruler of Sharjah. The 190,000-sq-m terminal project is the largest phase of a series of expansion projects with a total cost of AED2.4b ($653.45m), expected to be completed in 2027. The new terminal itself will cost $336.26m, raising the airport's capacity to 20m passengers annually. The expansion will separate the arrivals from the departures and offer new systems and facilities. Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed was briefed on the project's features such as the self-check-in machines, electronic boarding gates, waiting lounges, food courts, and a hotel for transit passengers. He also received a detailed information on the communications technology systems to be used, which are set to improve operational efficiency. The dignitaries also witnessed the Sharjah Airport Authority's signing ceremony of the main contractor for the terminal project.<br/>
China’s international air travel market will extend its recovery, with the nation’s aviation regulator expecting the number of weekly flights to hit about 80% of the pre-Covid level by the end of the year. Weekly international passenger flights may increase to 6,000 by the end of 2024, from more than 4,600 currently, the Civil Aviation Administration of China said in a statement following its annual work meeting. There were fewer than 500 flights per week at the beginning of 2023, it said. The regulator will also push for a “significant increase” in direct flights between China and the US, according to the statement. CAAC didn’t provide further details, but the plan is part of an agreement struck between Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping in November. Chinese appetite for overseas trips has been slow to recover since the removal of Covid restrictions, with hurdles including a shortage of flight capacity, geopolitical tensions and a fragile economic outlook that’s hurting consumer sentiment. The resumption of direct flights between China and the US has been particularly sluggish. There were just 63 per week by the end of 2023, according to CAAC, compared with 340 before Covid. CAAC expects 690m passenger trips this year, both domestically and internationally, up 11% from 2023. It’s also set to expand traffic rights with Belt and Road nations and deepen cooperation with regions including Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa.<br/>