Boeing says its CEO told workers of Spirit AeroSystems — its subcontractor that builds the 737 Max 9 fuselage — that “we’re going to learn from” this month’s blowout on Alaska Airlines flight 1282. Boeing says CEO Dave Calhoun addressed 200 Spirit AeroSystems employees as part of a town hall meeting held in Wichita, Kansas, on Wednesday. Alongside Calhoun was Spirit AeroSystems President and CEO Pat Shanahan, Boeing says. “We’re going to get better,” a Boeing news release says Calhoun told employees. “Not because the two of us are talking, but because the engineers at Boeing, the mechanics at Boeing, the inspectors at Boeing, the engineers at Spirit, the mechanics at Spirit, the inspectors at Spirit. They’re going to speak the same language on this in every way, shape or form.” Earlier Wednesday, the Federal Aviation Administration specifically named Spirit AeroSystems for the first time as part of its investigation into Boeing’s quality control, triggered by this month’s Alaska Airlines incident. Investigators are determining why a door plug, which is supposed to cover up a space left by a removed emergency exit door in the side of the plane, blew off Alaska Airlines flight 1282 on January 5 and left a gaping hole in the side of the plane. The Boeing 737 Max 9 remains grounded in the United States until the FAA releases a final directive on how airlines should conduct ungrounding inspections on 171 airplanes. <br/>
general
National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chair Jennifer Homendy said on Thursday that Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun called after a cabin panel on a Boeing 737 MAX 9 jet blew out in midair, and told her "they want to rectify" errors made in the past. Homendy made her remarks to reporters after she gave a briefing to House of Representative lawmakers investigating the Alaska Airlines incident this month. "He (Calhoun) called me and said they've made errors in the past, and they want to rectify that," she said. "Great, but my focus is less on the executive team and more on what happened here with this aircraft." Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems, which makes and installs the door plug on the MAX 9, have so far been "very cooperative," Homendy said. Homendy said the NTSB will move next week onto destructive testing of the door plug, or testing to the exact point of failure. So far the investigation has not been able to establish whether the door plug was outfitted with the four bolts that prevent it from vertical movement, but Homendy said it is too early to say whether the root cause was missing or wrongly installed bolts. "We're also looking at the seal. We're looking at, was there any sort of structural flexing of the aircraft?" she said. "It may not be bolts."<br/>
Boeing cannot “afford another slip-up” with its 737 Max family of aircraft and must set aside financial targets to focus solely on quality and safety, the head of one of the world’s largest aircraft owners has warned. “Given what has happened with the two fatal crashes and this incident, the financial targets have to take a back seat for Boeing and its supply chain,” said Aengus Kelly, CE of the world’s biggest aircraft leasing company AerCap. Talking to the Financial Times in an interview on Wednesday, Kelly said he backed Boeing and its management but added: “Boeing must now focus 100% on quality and safety metrics. Financial metrics are completely secondary to the future of the company at this point.” His comments come as Boeing seeks to contain the fallout from the damaging fuselage breach on a 737 Max 9 aircraft operated by Alaska Airlines 12 days ago. The US FAA has grounded 171 of the Max 9 aircraft while investigations continue into what went wrong, but the incident has already raised questions over Boeing’s quality controls. It has also refocused scrutiny of the 737 Max, Boeing’s most popular plane, whose smaller model, the Max 8, was involved in two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019. Kelly stressed that he thought Boeing was a “tremendous” company with “tremendous” people and that it was premature to speculate on what went wrong. He also threw his weight behind the Max aircraft, adding that AerCap was continuing to buy it. <br/>
Ukraine is working "intensively" with partners to restore air travel suspended for nearly two years, with the main focus on Boryspil International Airport outside the capital Kyiv, a presidential official said on Thursday.<br/>Ukraine's airspace was abruptly closed by Russia's invasion in February 2022 due to the security risk for civil aviation and anyone visiting has to make their way by road or rail from a neighbouring country. Kyiv sees a restoration of air travel as a goal towards victory for the economy. "I don't want to create over-expectations ... but I can tell you we are working very intensively to recover the air connection in Ukraine," Rostyslav Shurma, deputy head of Ukraine's presidential office, said during a panel discussion in Davos. Shurma declined to give a timeline for the possible restoration of air travel but said Ukraine had an "internal roadmap and schedule". He said Kyiv was consulting Israeli colleagues on technical specifications to enable the restoration process, without elaborating. Israel has long experience in deploying air defence systems to protect its infrastructure. "We need to get approvals from the IATA (International Air Transport Association) and FAA which is not an easy case. And it depends more on the bold decisions of international partners that we believe we'll get," Shurma said.<br/>
Russia’s transport minister has requested that a fund be established for airport modernisation in the country, during a broad governmental meeting with president Vladimir Putin. Vitaly Saveliev told Putin on 17 January that 241 airports will be operating in Russia by 2030, of which 228 are already active. But he says 111 are subject to reconstruction and “major overhaul” by this date. Saveliev put the overall cost of the projects at Rb383b ($4.3b). “We will obtain part of this money that we need through the mechanism of public-private partnership,” he says, pointing out that such a strategy is used by Moscow Sheremetyevo, Blagoveshchensk and Novy Urengoy airports. “Nevertheless we would like to propose…to create a fund specifically for the overhaul and reconstruction of airports.” Saveliev told Putin that, if he supported the idea, the ministry would draw up proposals for a mechanism to fund airport infrastructure. Putin responded that such a fund is a “possible project” but it would need further work to establish sources.<br/>
Airbus, opens new tab expects to double the total value of parts it sources from India to $1.5b in coming years, the planemaker's India chief said on Thursday, as it looks to ride the boom in the world's fastest growing aviation market. Indian carriers IndiGo, Air India and Akasa are set to receive deliveries of hundreds of new planes over the next decade in a boost for local component manufacturers that supply parts to planemakers and engine companies. Airbus has more than 40 suppliers in India, including Tata Advanced Systems and Mahindra Aerospace, which provide components and services for its commercial and defence aircraft as well as helicopter platforms. The European planemaker expects to double the company's sourcing from the country from $750m at present, Remi Maillard, president of Airbus India and South Asia, said at the "Wings India" event in Hyderabad. "Global aviation is pivoting to India and we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg," said Maillard, adding that the Indian aviation supply chain is transforming. India is the world's fastest-growing aviation market where the total fleet size of its airlines is set to grow to over 2,000 by 2030 from about 700 today. The government, too, is investing close to $12b in building new airports and refurbishing existing ones. Domestic manufacturers have kept pace and grown their capacities by "leaps and bounds", Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said at the event, adding that aerospace manufacturing is taking strong roots. "There is not a single aircraft that is produced by Airbus or Boeing internationally today that does not carry a part that is made in India," Scindia added.<br/>
In the year ahead, the use of biometrics — an individual’s unique physical identifiers, such as fingerprints and faces — will be expanded at airports in the United States and abroad, a shift to enhance security, replace physical identification such as passports and driver’s licenses, and reduce the amount of time required by travelers to pass through airports. Biometric technology will be seen everywhere from bag drops at the check-in counters to domestic security screening. In the United States, the TSA is expanding its program allowing passengers to opt in for a security screening relying on a facial recognition match with their physical identification — a photo taken in real time is compared against a scan of a license or passport and assists the TSA officer in verifying a traveler’s identity. This program is currently available at 30 airports nationwide, including Salt Lake City International Airport and Denver International Airport; the TSA said it will expand to more than 400 airports in the coming years. TSA PreCheck travelers who are flying on Delta Air Lines may not even need to show their identification at all during bag drop and security, if they opt in to Delta’s digital ID program. The program, which compares a photo taken at the airport to one in a database of trusted travelers (compiled by the US Customs and Border Protection agency), takes about 40 seconds, said Greg Forbes, Delta’s managing director of airport experience. The pilot program is now available at five airports, including La Guardia Airport and Los Angeles International Airport. Internationally, Singapore’s Changi Airport plans to adopt facial recognition technology for departing passengers, no longer requiring them to show their passports.<br/>