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The airline industry’s top lobbyist denounced what he called the US Justice Department’s criminalization of air accidents, saying such moves risk undercutting a culture of whistleblowing and open reporting of defects. The decision to look with “a criminal focus” at Boeing Co.’s conduct around the blowout of a door plug on a 737 Max 9 was taken too soon after the January accident, said Willie Walsh, director general of the IATA. “I think it’s completely wrong,” Walsh said in an interview with Bloomberg in Hong Kong on Tuesday. He said that such moves aren’t in the interest of safety, the traveling public or the industry at large. Air-safety regulators have worked for years with airlines, pilots and planemakers to encourage openness in investigating aircraft accidents. The use of self-reporting tools to spot and address errors has helped to drive down the number of accidents and deaths from air travel. The probe “risks pushing people back into a period when we didn’t have as open a culture in terms of reporting,” the IATA head said. “To me, it’s a retrograde step, something that we have to push back and push back strongly against.” The Justice Department has convened a grand jury as part of its ongoing criminal investigation into the Jan. 5 mid-air accident involving the near-new 737 Max operated by Alaska Airlines, Bloomberg News reported on Monday.<br/>

Brazil is putting the finishing touches on a rescue plan for its troubled airlines, as President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s government confronts a challenge the US and Europe dealt with much sooner after the pandemic. The package, to be announced in coming days, will use public funds as collateral for loans to struggling carriers from the country’s development bank, according to a person familiar with the matter. But the plan is still in flux and it’s expected to be more of a band-aid solution than an industry cure-all. Cutting fares enough to allow the poor to fly regularly has become somewhat of an obsession for Lula, who campaigned on a pledge to restore prosperity in Latin America’s largest economy. The high cost of jet fuel in Brazil is a complicating factor, with the state-run oil company under pressure to overhaul its pricing formula. Inaction by Lula’s predecessor after Covid-19 pushed domestic carriers to the brink. The new administration has been struggling to agree on a way forward, and when Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes SA filed for bankruptcy protection at the end of January the issue vaulted to the top the agenda. Azul SA is now exploring a potential takeover bid for its troubled competitor. The exact amount of aid is still being determined. Some within government are pushing for as much as 8b reais ($1.6b), while the Finance Ministry prefers an amount closer to 5b reais, according to two people familiar, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussions are private. “Airline companies didn’t receive government help during the pandemic and at some point you have to pay the price,” Ygor Araujo, an analyst at Genial Investimentos, said in an interview. By his estimation, a bailout of the size under consideration could relieve cash-flow pressures for six to eight months but wouldn’t be sufficient to lower fares on its own.<br/>

Germany's Verdi union called on aviation security staff at several airports to hold an all-day strike on Thursday after the latest round of wage negotiations failed. Airports in Karlsruhe/Baden Baden, Cologne, Berlin, Hamburg and Stuttgart will be affected, the union said in a statement on Tuesday. In the five rounds of collective bargaining with the federal association of aviation security companies (BDLS) to date, no agreement has been reached to increase wages for the approximately 25,000 employees in the industry nationwide, said Verdi.<br/>

Passenger traffic at Singapore’s Changi Airport, one of Asia’s busiest, topped pre-Covid levels in February as Lunar New Year holidays sparked a surge in travel demand. The facility, frequently voted one of the world’s best for its futuristic feel and efficiency, recorded 5.35m passenger movements in February, a 34% increase year-on-year, and 4.3% higher than the same period in 2019, according to data released Wednesday. The airport is one of the first in Asia to exceed pre-pandemic traffic levels and signals a broader travel rebound is underway across the region. Singapore proved a popular destination for last month’s extended Lunar New Year holiday, while March may prove to be another bumper month due to a series of six Taylor Swift concerts. The singer performed in the city in an exclusive deal, angering Singapore’s Southeast Asian neighbors that missed out on the spending bump of such a visit. Swift’s popularity and the lack of shows elsewhere sparked an influx of foreign visitors to the city-state that prompted economists to upgrade their forecasts for the economy.<br/>

Boeing<br/> handed over 27 airplanes to its customers last month as it continues to struggle with quality control problems and production delays that have frustrated the CEOs of some of its biggest airline customers. So far this year, Boeing has handed over 54 planes, while Airbus has widened its lead over its main rival, delivering 79 planes in the first two months of 2024. Delayed Boeing planes have been difficult for airline leaders. Southwest Airlines, which flies only Boeing 737s, on Tuesday said that it would trim capacity plans this year because of fewer Boeing Max deliveries and that it will have to reevaluate its 2024 financial estimates. United Airlines earlier this year said it was taking the 737 Max 10, which hasn’t yet been certified, out of its fleet plans. Boeing’s February deliveries included 17 Max jetliners and seven wide-body 787-9 Dreamliners. Deliveries are important to manufacturers because customers pay the bulk of the aircraft’s price when they receive the plane.<br/>

Boeing is adding weekly compliance checks for every 737 work area and additional audits of equipment to reduce quality problems, the company said in a memo to employees on Tuesday. The memo from Boeing Commercial Airplanes President and CEO Stan Deal following the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration's six-week audit of Boeing's 737 MAX manufacturing processes that faulted numerous company processes. The FAA has curbed Boeing production following the mid-air panel blowout on a new Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 jet on January 5. "Our teams are working to simplify and streamline our processes and address the panel’s recommendations," the memo said, noting that employees have to focus on looking out for safety hazards and follow manufacturing processes precisely. "We will not hesitate in stopping a production line or keeping an airplane in position." The memo comes a day after FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker disclosed details of the audit found numerous quality issues and the planemaker must have employees "have the right tools and training, having the right engineering drawings and assembling the aircraft in the proper order ... It's really plant floor hygiene." Deal said FAA inspectors went deep into the 737 Renton factories in January and February to audit production and quality control and found the "vast majority of our audit non-compliances involved not following our approved processes and procedures." The weekly compliance checks for 737 work sites start March 1 and Boeing is dedicating time in each shift for mechanics to complete compliance and foreign object debris sweeps.<br/>

Responding to a US government audit, Boeing said Tuesday that it would work with employees found to have violated company manufacturing procedures to make sure they understand instructions for their jobs. The aircraft maker detailed its latest steps to correct lapses in quality in a memo to employees from Stan Deal, president of Boeing’s commercial plane division. The memo went out after the FAA finished a six-week review of the company’s manufacturing processes for the 737 Max jetliner after a panel blew off one of the planes during an Alaska Airlines flight on Jan. 5. The FAA reviewed 89 aspects of production at Boeing’s plant in Renton, Washington, and found the company failed 33 of them, according to a person familiar with the report. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details that have not been publicly released – although they were reported earlier by The New York Times, which saw a slide presentation on the government’s audit. “The vast majority” of violations found by the FAA involved workers not following Boeing’s approved procedures, Deal said in his memo. Deal said the company will take remedial steps that include “working with each employee noted with a non-compliance during the audit to ensure they fully understand the work instructions and procedures.” Boeing will also add weekly compliance checks for all work teams in the Renton factory, where Max jets are assembled, he said.<br/>

Boeing’s recent troubles have put some pilots on high alert when they enter the cockpit. “It gives me even more pause when I get on the airplane,” Dennis Tajer, spokesperson for the Allied Pilots Association and a pilot for American Airlines, said Tuesday. “And not a pause of concern of flying it – but making sure I’m watching it like a hawk.” Multiple incidents involving Boeing planes have made headlines over the past several days, including one in which at least 50 people were injured on a 787 Dreamliner after passengers say it descended rapidly on a flight from Australia to New Zealand. The cause of that incident is under investigation, but carrier LATAM Airlines referred to it as a “technical event.” On Tuesday, Southwest and Alaska Air said their flying plans were at risk amid Boeing’s ongoing quality-control concerns. “Every airline is basically fighting to ensure that their network plan is not undermined by this failure of Boeing,” said Tajer, a Boeing 737 captain. “And it changes every day.” Despite the time he spent flying Boeing 707s in Desert Storm for the U.S. Air Force, Tajer said he thinks about the dangers of flying more than he ever has before.<br/>