The nation’s chief accident investigator said Wednesday that her agency still doesn’t know who worked on the panel that blew off a jetliner in January and that Boeing’s CEO told her that he couldn’t provide the information because the company has no records about the job. “The absence of those records will complicate the NTSB’s investigation moving forward,” National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy wrote in a letter to a Senate committee that is looking into the Jan. 5 accident on a Boeing 737 Max 9 operated by Alaska Airlines. Boeing issued a brief statement vowing, as it has many times, to support the investigation. Homendy told senators last week that the NTSB asked Boeing for security-camera footage that might help identify who worked on the panel in September, but was told the video was overwritten after 30 days — months before the blowout. Boeing said Wednesday that it’s standard company practice to erase video after 30 days. Homendy’s latest letter to the Senate Commerce Committee was a follow-up to her appearance before the panel last week. Shortly after her testimony ended, Boeing provided names of 25 employees who work on doors at the company’s 737 factory near Seattle.<br/>
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Security camera footage showing work being done on a Boeing Max 9 door plug that later blew out mid-air has been overwritten, the head of the NTSB said. In a letter to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation that is reviewing the incident and Boeing’s role in it, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said her agency still lacks critical information about the chain of events that led up to the January incident that caused an Alaska Airlines flight carrying 177 people to make an emergency landing. “We still do not know who performed the work to open, reinstall, and close the door plug on the accident aircraft,” Homendy wrote. “Boeing has informed us that they are unable to find the records documenting this work.” She continued: “A verbal request was made by our investigators for security camera footage to help obtain this information; however, they were informed the footage was overwritten. The absence of those records will complicate the NTSB’s investigation moving forward.” Homendy said in the letter that she also personally called Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun and asked him for the names of the workers who performed the work in question. But, Homendy said, Calhoun stated he was “unable to provide that information and maintained that Boeing has no records of the work being performed.” A Boeing spokesperson said the company, like many others, does not retain security footage for longer than 30 days. The Alaska Airlines plane in question was in the factory last year in September and delivered in October. “We will continue supporting this investigation in the transparent and proactive fashion we have supported all regulatory inquiries into this accident,” Boeing said. “We have worked hard to honor the rules about the release of investigative information in an environment of intense interest from our employees, customers, and other stakeholders, and we will continue our efforts to do so.” <br/>
The acting head of Europe’s aviation regulator said on Wednesday the agency would halt its indirect approval of Boeing’s jet production if warranted, but he feels reassured that the plane maker is tackling its latest safety crisis. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency’s, or EASA, acting executive director, Luc Tytgat, gave the first public indication that international cooperation underpinning global airplane production was being tested by the ongoing crisis as it rarely has been. Asked if EASA would be prepared to stop recognizing U.S. production safety approvals declaring that Boeing jets are built safely, Tytgat said, “If need be, yes.” Boeing has been under mounting pressure over factory quality control since Jan. 5, when a door plug tore off a 737 MAX 9 jet in mid-air in an incident blamed on missing bolts. The U.S. FAA said last week an audit of Boeing and supplier Spirit AeroSystems found multiple instances of poor controls. Under a transatlantic pact, the FAA and EASA regulate the factories of their respective plane makers — Boeing and Airbus — and recognize each other’s safety approvals.<br/>
After entertaining new entrants for several years, Canada's airline market is once again on the path to consolidation, raising the likelihood of higher fares and fewer flight options. Since May, newer low-cost carriers Swoop and Lynx Air have disappeared from the skies and WestJet has scooped up Sunwing Airlines. The latter two alone made up 37% of seat capacity on direct flights to sun destinations and 72% from Western Canada last year, according to an October report from the Competition Bureau. It said eliminating the rivalry between WestJet and Sunwing would likely suppress competition around the sale of vacation packages. Some experts warn that the shrinking airline tally could mean less service and higher prices, particularly in the West and smaller markets across the country. High airport rents, security fees and fuel taxes raise the baseline cost of flying, making it harder for budget airlines to coax budget-conscious Canadians on board. “The high fees certainly make it more challenging for the discount carriers,” said University of Manitoba transport institute director Barry Prentice. The market's decades-long domination by Air Canada and WestJet can also stifle competition, some industry players argue. Air Canada and WestJet command 79% of domestic traffic as of this month versus 74% a year earlier, statistics from aviation data firm Cirium show. “The natural behaviour of the duopoly is to use their power to squeeze the pricing out of the smaller players,” said Flair Airlines CEO Stephen Jones. “There is no interest by the big carriers in having low-cost carriers succeed, and they'll use the tools that they've got in the toolkit to try and bring carriers like Lynx to an end,” he claimed.<br/>
Campaigners are making a noise ahead of a meeting with France’s transport minister about flight caps on Friday. Activists are kicking off two days of action at Europe’s biggest airports today, demanding a limit to the number of climate-wrecking flights. A coalition of 25 organisations - including local residents associations and climate groups - are targeting airports across France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and the UK. They are calling for flights to be capped below 2019 levels, in line with the historic decision taken at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport. “We, the victims of airport nuisance and present and future victims of global warming, call on our governments and on Europe to follow the necessary path opened up by the Netherlands by finally taking concrete measures,” they said in a statement. These measures involve “limiting and reducing the number of flights while ensuring that noise, air pollution and CO2 emissions are also brought down - and generalising curfews at airports, aerodromes and heliports.”<br/>
Germany's Verdi union on Wednesday expanded its call for aviation security staff to go on strike as part of a wage dispute, with at least 10 airports now set to be affected. At the Hanover, Dortmund, Weeze, Leipzig and Dresden airports, employees in passenger control will be laying down their work for varying lengths of time on Friday. At Munich airport, staff are to stop work from 4 am (0300 GMT) on Thursday until 6 am on Friday. The union already called strikes at five other airports for Thursday as part of its push for higher wages for the approximately 25,000 employees in the industry nationwide. According to Verdi, no agreement has been reached to date in the five rounds of collective bargaining with the federal association of aviation security companies. Wage negotiations are set to continue on March 20.<br/>
A Russian cargo plane sanctioned by the United States touched down in North Korea's capital Pyongyang this week, the DongA Ilbo newspaper reported on Wednesday. The Il-76 freighter, which departed from Moscow on March 6, arrived at Pyongyang Sunan International Airport on Monday before heading towards China around two hours later, the South Korean daily reported, citing flight tracking web sites. Such visits to the North Korean capital by a large private Russian cargo plane are rare, the newspaper said. Russian cargo airline JSC Aviacon Zitotrans, which owns the Il-76, was targeted with sanctions by Washington last year as part of efforts to impede Russia's war in Ukraine. "JSC Aviacon Zitotrans (Aviacon Zitotrans) is a Russian cargo airline that has handled cargo shipments for sanctioned Russian Federation defense entities," the U.S. Treasury said in a press release at that time. Seoul-based NK News also reported that the cargo plane left Shanghai's Pudong International Airport at around 5:30 p.m. (0830 GMT) on Monday and flew north across the Yellow Sea before making a sudden turn towards Pyongyang around 1.5 hours into the flight, citing the aviation tracker Flightradar24.<br/>
The static display and demonstration flight of the China-manufactured commercial aircraft ARJ21 and C919 were held on Wednesday at the Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport in Malaysia's Selangor state. This was the last leg of ARJ21 and C919's five-country Southeast Asian demonstration flight tour after Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Indonesia. Visitors to the show included Malaysian Transport Minister Anthony Loke Siew Fook, Deputy Minister of Investment, Trade and Industry Liew Chin Tong, representatives from local investment promotion institutions and aviation sectors. During the demonstration flights and static displays, producer of the two aircraft Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, Ltd. (COMAC) conducted a series of product promotion activities for potential customers. The purpose of this tour was to validate the aircraft's adaptability to the airports and routes in the above-mentioned five countries, assess the adaptability of the airport ground service equipment, evaluate the adaptability of special flight procedures, and demonstrate the economic viability of these routes, said COMAC, adding that demonstration flights would lay the foundation for future market development in Southeast Asia.<br/>
New Zealand airports are calling for domestic airfares and airline performance to be monitored to provide greater transparency for consumers, amid record-high domestic fares. Data released by Stats NZ on Wednesday showed domestic airfares went up 7.4% in February compared to January 2024. Year-on-year domestic fares increased from February 2023 is 7.7%. NZ Airports Association (NZAA) CE Billie Moore said Air New Zealand had upped its domestic airfares yet again and increased the cost of add-ons such as bag check by $10. “It’s flagged that other costs, like checking in your pet, could also be in for a future price hike,” Moore said. “This is incredibly difficult for domestic and regional travellers. They’re already frustrated about how much they’re having to pay to fly, as well as high cancellation rates for Air New Zealand in some regions.”<br/>