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A group of US lawmakers want the Federal Aviation Administration to answer key questions about its oversight of Boeing in the wake of a 737 MAX 9 mid-air emergency, including whether it found serious quality issues at the planemaker. In the letter sent on Wednesday, the legislators also asked whether the FAA was contemplating changes to the way it oversaw the manufacturing processes of Boeing and its suppliers. Reuters was the first to reveal the letter. The FAA, acting after a mid-air cabin panel blowout on a new Alaska Airlines MAX 9 says it will audit all elements of production at Boeing and fuselage production at Spirit AeroSystems. In the letter, the legislators asked FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker to answer whether - before or after the accident - the agency found "any evidence of persistent quality control lapses in any of Boeing's production lines". It was signed by House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chair Sam Graves and Rick Larsen, the top Democrat on the committee, along with Representative Garret Graves, the chair of the aviation subcommittee and Democrat Steve Cohen. Whitaker is set to testify Tuesday before the aviation subcommittee. An FAA spokesperson said the agency would respond to the letter. "Is the FAA considering any changes to its broader on-site surveillance of Boeing's and its suppliers' manufacturing processes to help ensure its products conform to their type design?" the letter said.<br/>

Airlines are calling on the federal government to roll out measures that will spark production of sustainable aviation fuel in Canada. Investors and would-be suppliers need incentives to start churning out the greener oil, a pair of industry groups said. They’re hoping Ottawa can match new programs in the United States and ultimately help cut airplane pollution, which accounts for about 2% of global carbon dioxide emissions, according to the International Energy Agency. The country’s long history of resource development, agriculture, renewable energy and aircraft manufacturing should put it at the forefront of the push for greener skies, according to the Canadian Council for Sustainable Aviation Fuels and the National Airlines Council of Canada. However, Canada has yet to commercially produce any sustainable aviation fuel, also known as SAF. Typically derived from used cooking oils, animal fats or organic waste, the product shaves off about 80% of a plane’s emissions. Airlines have two main requests for Ottawa to foster fuel-making factories and long-term production: an investment tax credit at a rate of 50% on manufacturing facilities, and a production tax credit with a 10-year horizon — on par with an incentive south of the border. (Commodity price contracts that aim to put a floor price for SAF would be one alternative to the latter.) American producers are already eligible for a tax credit of up to US$1.75 per gallon under the Inflation Reduction Act. “Compare that to Canada, which is nothing,” said Jeff Morrison, who heads the national airlines council. “If you’re an energy company and you’re looking at SAF as an opportunity and you’re looking, ‘Where do I go?’ — it’s kind of a no-brainer.” Last year, the federal government pledged $350m to support decarbonization of the aerospace sector, establishing a national network that backs research and development projects ranging from alternative fuels to aircraft design.<br/>

European airlines are preparing for record passenger numbers this summer as people rush to book flights despite the economic gloom and high ticket prices. Ryanair, easyJet and Wizz Air, the region’s three big low-cost airlines, all pointed to early signs of strong summer demand, as well as rising fares, in their most recent results. Indications that consumers are prioritising travel have spurred airlines to increase flights over summer: European airlines will have 817.5mn seats available between April and October, according to travel data company OAG, the highest number on record. “Demand remains very strong across the board,” said Wizz Air CE József Váradi. Airlines are on course for a second consecutive bumper summer, after reporting healthy profits thanks to high fares last year. Adjusted operating profits for the six largest European carriers are expect to hit E10.5b in 2024, according to consensus estimates from FactSet, up from E9.2b last year. EasyJet said it had been filling two planes a minute during its busiest booking periods since the start of this year, while Ryanair said this week that bookings were about 5% higher than at the same time last year, and prices were up “by a low single-digit percentage”. EasyJet said prices were “well ahead” of the same time last year, while Wizz Air also pointed to strong fares. Industry optimism extends beyond airlines. Saga said this week that it expected passenger numbers in its travel business to rise 20% this year, while package holiday company On the Beach said the value of bookings in its peak January period was up 27% year on year. January is one of the busiest holiday booking periods, providing insights on trading for the rest of the year. “We see positive booking momentum for summer 2024 with travel remaining a priority for consumers,” said easyJet boss Johan Lundgren. Average air fares across Europe were between 20 and 30% higher over summer 2023 compared with 2019, according to EU data published in October.<br/>

The initial public offering of a 30% stake in Athens International Airport, Greece's largest gateway for tourists, attracted strong demand, the airport said on Friday, marking the first successful launch of a major IPO in Europe this year. The offering, which started on Jan. 25 and ended on Thursday, comes after a lull of two years for initial public offerings in Europe, as soaring debt costs and geopolitical uncertainty dampened sentiment towards new stock listings. Last year was the worst for global IPOs since 2009 with $120b raised, according to Dealogic data. Greece's privatisation agency (HRADF) is selling 90m shares, through a combined offering to Greek and foreign investors and existing shareholders, in the country's biggest IPO since its 2010-2018 debt crisis. Investors' orders topped E8.6b, the airport said, adding that the offer was priced at E8.20 per share, at the upper end of the range of E7.00 to E8.20 , valuing the whole company at E2.46b. Greece is a top tourist destination in the Mediterranean and Athens airport handled more than 28m passengers last year, accounting for 35% of passenger traffic through all the nation's airports. HRADF will raise E785m from the deal, as AviAlliance, which holds a 40% stake in the airport, has agreed to buy a further 10% at 9.758 euros per share, a premium over the IPO price, the airport said.<br/>

Hong Kong’s much vaunted HK$141.5b ($18.1b) airport expansion has been delayed until at least the end of 2025, according to people with knowledge of the matter, in a blow to the Asian financial hub’s post-Covid economic revival. Originally due to the completed by the end of 2024, part of the second terminal development will now not be ready for another year at least, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information isn’t public. The second passenger concourse won’t be ready until 2026, one of the people added. The delay hasn’t been announced by Airport Authority Hong Kong, which operates the city’s international airport, however it has been communicated privately to some key stakeholders. Considering the upgrades involve one of the airport’s existing middle runways, all three take-off and landing strips aren’t now planned to be fully operational until the summer of 2025, the people said. The middle runway that’s under refurbishment is currently on track for completion, certification and testing by Q4 of this year, one of the people said. Representatives for Airport Authority Hong Kong said the expansion was progressing “steadily on all fronts with the target to complete” the three runway project by 2024 in an email response. They reiterated an earlier plan to phase-in the passenger facilities to be in line with the post-pandemic recovery. Hong Kong’s Transport and Logistics Bureau said the Airport Authority Hong Kong is “continuing the remaining works at full steam according to schedule.” The delay is another blow to Hong Kong, which is still recovering from the long shadow of its strict Covid restrictions. Weak consumer spending dogged by a lower-than-expected volume of tourists from mainland China and high borrowing costs that have dragged on investment have also hindered growth.<br/>

All flights to and from the international airport in Vietnam's capital Hanoi have been delayed or diverted to other cities on Friday due to heavy fog and worsening air pollution, said an airport official. Air Visual, an independent online air quality index monitor, said Hanoi's levels of hazardous small particles known as PM2.5 in the air were at an extreme high of 257 micrograms per cubic metre early on Friday. "All incoming flights are being diverted to other cities, including Haiphong or Danang. None can take off either at the moment," an official at Noi Bai International Airport said, declining to be named. Nearly 100 flights to and from the airport have been affected, state media reported, citing the airport authorities. Vietnam's budget airline Vietjet on Friday said several of its flights scheduled to land in Hanoi had been diverted to land in Haiphong City. <br/>

Boeing said on Sunday it will have to do more work on about 50 undelivered 737 Max airplanes, potentially delaying near-term deliveries, after its supplier Spirit AeroSystems discovered two mis-drilled holes on some fuselages. Boeing confirmed the findings in response to a Reuters query after industry sources said a spacing problem had been discovered in holes drilled on a window frame, but the jetmaker said safety was unaffected and existing 737s could keep flying. “This past Thursday, a supplier notified us of a non-conformance in some 737 fuselages. I want to thank an employee at the supplier who flagged to his manager that two holes may not have been drilled exactly to our requirements,” Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Stan Deal said in a letter to staff. “While this potential condition is not an immediate flight safety issue and all 737s can continue operating safely, we currently believe we will have to perform rework on about 50 undelivered airplanes,” Deal said. The checks focus on potentially incorrect positioning of two holes on a window frame assembly supplied by Spirit, a condition known as “short edge margin,” the sources said. As of Friday, the “non-conformance” or quality defect had been found in 22 fuselages - nearly half of the 47 inspected up that point in production systems spread between Boeing and Spirit - and may exist in some 737s in service, they added. The figures Deal supplied to employees on Sunday suggest that the inspections proceeded rapidly and that the problem affects a minority of the hundreds of fuselages in the pipeline. “As part of our 360-degree quality management program, a member of our team identified an issue that does not conform to engineering standards,” a Spirit AeroSystems spokesperson said. The findings came to light in a routine notification known as a Notice of Escapement, in which suppliers notify Boeing of any known or suspected quality slip, the sources said.<br/>

The head of Emirates Airline has warned Boeing was in the “last chance saloon” as he prepared to send his own engineers to oversee the plane maker’s production lines after witnessing a long decline in its manufacturing performance. Sir Tim Clark said he had seen a “progressive decline” in Boeing’s standards, which he put down to long-running management and governance mis-steps, including prioritising financial performance over engineering excellence. Clark, who has held senior roles at Emirates since the 1980s and has been president since 2003, is one of the most high-profile figures in aviation. His comments add to the mounting problems for the US plane maker following the mid-flight blowout of a section of the fuselage on a Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft last month. Emirates is one of Boeing’s biggest customers, and in November placed an order for 95 wide-body Boeing 777 and 787 jets, used for long-haul flights, valued at $52b at list prices. “They have got to instil this safety culture which is second to none. They’ve got to get their manufacturing processes under review so there are no corners cut etc. I’m sure [CE] Dave Calhoun and [commercial head] Stan Deal are on that . . . this is the last chance saloon,” he said. Clark said that the airline would for the first time send its own engineers to observe the production process of the 777 at Boeing and its supplier Spirit AeroSystems. “The fact that we’re having to do that is testament to what has happened. This would not have been sanctioned in the old days. You know, we trusted these people implicitly to get it done,” he said. Clark has regularly criticised manufacturers for delays in deliveries or poor reliability, but his comments represent his most pointed criticism yet of Boeing. Boeing declined to comment on Clark’s remarks but pointed to Calhoun’s message to employees earlier in the week in which he said “now is not the time” to share financial or operational objectives. <br/>

Boeing is reeling from a week of turmoil that has snagged production and development timelines and tested confidence in CEO Dave Calhoun almost a month after the mid-air blowout of a dummy door on a 737 MAX 9, industry insiders said. From Seattle where 737s are built, to Washington where they are regulated and Dublin, centre of the air finance world, the company has faced a perfect storm of competing pressures. In just eight days, Boeing has seen an unprecedented ceiling on 737 production growth imposed by regulators, bowed to lawmaker pressure to drop a request for a temporary exemption from design rules for its next model and faced a possible revolt by a top customer. The tumult is not over. US investigators are soon expected to release a preliminary report on the Jan. 5 Alaska Airlines blowout after visiting the 737 factory last Friday. The head of the FAA will appear at a US House hearing on Tuesday and Calhoun may face lawmakers in a hearing as early as March. The FAA will be asked whether it found "persistent" quality issues, according to a preparatory letter reported by Reuters. Industry experts said the period is shaping up as a critical test of management's ability to overcome Boeing's latest crisis amid efforts to be more open than lawyer-crafted responses to MAX crashes that killed 346 people in 2018 and 2019. "What they need to do now is restore credibility with the FAA and customers, and obviously somebody will have to pay the price," said Adam Pilarski, senior vice-president at Avitas and former chief economist at Douglas Aircraft, now part of Boeing. "I can't see how the CEO can survive and how he should survive," the well-known industry veteran said.<br/>

With the latest Boeing crisis, airlines are staring down more delays, a familiar problem in a market in which both the US giant and rival Airbus face supply chain constraints. Over the past year Boeing has struggled with difficulties on its star plane, the 737 MAX, culminating with a major in-flight safety incident on Alaska Airlines in early January. Boeing had been eyeing a ramp-up of MAX production through 2025, but that plan has now been frozen by the FAA. The FAA's move likely will further slow Boeing's delivery timetable, which was already behind schedule. While the manufacturer's European rival Airbus has avoided comparable safety troubles, it also faces a major headache due to a problem with engines built by Pratt & Whitney, a unit of RTX. Hundreds of Airbus 320neo jets must be inspected between 2023 and 2026 to check for microscopic "contamination" of metals used to make the engines. The inspections and any necessary engine fixes require 250 to 300 days per aircraft, another hurdle for airlines eager to take advantage of strong travel demand. Some of Boeing's customers have seemed to open the door to potentially moving orders elsewhere. Alaska Airlines, which until now has been exclusively supplied by Boeing, had been considering orders of the Boeing 737 MAX 10 prior to the January 5 incident. But Alaska CEO Ben Minicucci suggested a possible shift given its pending acquisition of Hawaiian Airlines, which is supplied by Airbus. "Everything is open at this point," Minicucci said in a recent broadcast interview. "We are going to do what is best for Alaska."<br/>

The world's two largest aircraft lessors said governments will need to invest huge sums of taxpayers' money if they want the fleets of the future to fly mainly on greener fuel, and the head of AerCap doubted whether it would be worth their while. Aviation is not an easy industry to decarbonise compared with other forms of transport and the industry has long argued that incentives will be needed to massively ramp up the production of fuels made from organic material or waste. Lessors, bankers and airline executives meeting in Dublin this week said environmental, social, and governance (ESG) concerns had fallen down the agenda for investors, partly due to pressing challenges such as the acute shortage of new more fuel-efficient aircraft, seen as the other main carbon saviour for the sector. "If governments want airlines to burn sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), they're going to need to devote extraordinary sums of taxpayers' money to make it happen," Aengus Kelly, CEO of the world's number one lessor AerCap, told the Airline Economics conference. SAFs, which have lower CO2 emissions than fossil fuel kerosene, are for now far more expensive to produce than conventional aviation fuels. The aviation industry estimates it will take between $1.45t and $3.2t in capital development to bring SAF's share of the fuel market to the 65% needed to reach a goal of "net zero" emissions by 2050. It currently accounts for 0.2%. Kelly said that given aviation accounts for an estimated 2-3% of global carbon emissions, the scale of investment could amount to "a poor use of a scarce resource".<br/>