The reports of harrowing and sometimes tragic incidents aboard airplanes accelerated this year, leading many to wonder if it’s still safe to fly. A door plug blew out on an Alaska Airlines flight leaving a gaping hole in the Boeing 737 Max fuselage. Passengers’ phones and clothing were ripped from their bodies and sent hurtling out into the night as oxygen masks dropped and the plane made its way to the ground, fortunately without any serious injuries. Another Boeing jet plunged so severely that passengers were thrown onto the ceiling of the cabin, leaving dozens so injured they need to be hospitalized upon landing. A passenger plane collided with a military plane at a Tokyo airport, killing five members of the Japanese Coast Guard who were responding to an earthquake. And more minor incidents happened, like when a 200-pound wheel fell off a plane on takeoff, crushing parked vehicles on the ground. Another plane’s engine caught fire. A jet arrived at an airport only to have a missing panel discovered. These incidents all gained attention worthy of a Kardashian on social media. But answering the question of whether it is still safe to fly is not so straightforward. The quick answer is that flying is safe — safer than most forms of travel — and far, far safer than the car ride most people take every day without thinking twice. “When you arrive at the airport, and step aboard the pressurized tube, that’s the safest part of the trip,” said Anthony Brickhouse, a crash investigator and professor of aviation safety at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. “You were more at risk driving to the airport.” But it’s also true that it’s only pure luck that the American aviation industry has kept its near-perfect safety record intact.<br/>
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Travellers who sought vengeance after the pandemic halted plans for nearly two years have already rescheduled and gone on those trips, but now are looking to venture out to their next destination, according to travel experts. After two years of travellers making up for lost time during the pandemic, leisure travel in the United States has finally reached a “new normal” and travellers are looking to head to new places. The days of revenge travel, or travelling because lockdowns and pandemic restrictions cancelled plans back in 2020, are over – at least that’s what travel experts say. In turn, travellers in the US will see airfares that look similar or even less than what they paid in 2019. Workplace flexibility enables leisure travel, thus decreasing revenge travel and the ongoing pent-up demand. He said there’s still a high desire to head out and experience a new place, said Matt Soderberg, US airline practice leader at Deloitte. “It’s not just, ‘Hey, I want to go book a trip to a hotel’,” he said. “They’re also looking for excursions and experiences while on that trip.” In 2021, half of summer travellers were looking to “escape after lockdowns”, according to Deloitte’s latest travel industry outlook. That continued into 2022 and early 2023, but declined by the 2023 holiday season, as 11% of people said they were making up trips.<br/>
Severe thunderstorms in South Florida delayed departures at the Miami International Airport during the busy spring break season, suspended a popular electronic music festival and disrupted matches at a high-profile tennis tournament. The thunderstorms that swept into South Florida Friday night delayed departures at Miami International for hours Saturday, according to the National Airspace System Status. The airport was experiencing record spring break traffic this season, averaging 170,000 passengers each day this month. “Inclement weather may impact operations on March 23,” the airport tweeted. “If you’re traveling, please get in touch with your airline for the latest flight updates.” <br/>
Chicago, already reeling from population declines and the loss of key employers, is struggling to advance an $8.5b airport upgrade that’s key to bolstering its status as a crucial air hub. The city unveiled the expansion plan for O’Hare International Airport in 2018, vowing to transform the aging hub into a global showcase. Six years later, the project is way behind schedule, projected to be billions over budget and still stuck. Mayor Brandon Johnson, a progressive with less than a year in office, is embroiled in contentious talks to tame costs with the airport’s main partners, United Airlines Holdings Inc. and American Airlines Group Inc. The city’s options include using cheaper materials and tweaking the design of the project, said people familiar with the matter. The delays are threatening to deliver another blow to the third-largest US city as airports serving New York, Dallas-Fort Worth and Los Angeles have charged ahead with upgrades. At stake is the biggest part of O’Hare’s revamp: two satellite concourses and a glittering new Global Terminal designed by star architect Jeanne Gang that will bring domestic and international flights under one roof, facilitating passenger connections. “If Chicago doesn’t proceed with the investment, then the concern is they just won’t have the facilities and they’ll just stagnate,” said Seth Lehman, a senior director at Fitch Ratings. “That’s not good for trying to build your economic base.” While the current terminal, which is also used by Delta, has already been upgraded, the Global Terminal and satellite concourses are $2b over budget as costs for everything from labor to construction materials have increased in the wake of the pandemic, said the people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because the talks are private. United and American, which both use O’Hare as a hub and together account for the lion’s share of the traffic, are on the hook for a large chunk of the escalating expenses. <br/>
Lebanon will file an urgent complaint with the UN Security Council over what it called Israel's violation of its sovereignty by disrupting its navigation systems, the foreign ministry said on Friday. In a statement, the foreign ministry said Israel was affecting the safety of civil aviation in the airspace of Beirut's Rafic Hariri International Airport. "Lebanon also holds Israel internationally responsible for the consequences of any accident or disaster caused by Israel's deliberate policy of jamming air and ground navigation systems, and deliberately disrupting signal receiving and transmitting devices," the statement read. Lebanon did not provide specific details regarding the nature of Israel's actions disrupting its navigation systems. "Lebanon enables and allows Hezbollah to attack Israeli civilians from its territory," an Israeli foreign ministry spokesperson said. "Lebanon is the last country to discuss sovereignty while it is harboring a terrorist organization that has displaced tens of thousands of citizens." The Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah and Israel have been locked in hostilities since war broke out in Gaza five months ago, trading fire across the border.<br/>
Russian state aircraft lessor GTLK has disclosed that it lost nearly Rb2.5b ($27m) from the court-ordered liquidation of its two Irish-based divisions last year. But liquidation of the companies, it says, has not had a “significant impact” on the broader financial stability of the parent. The two Dublin-based companies – GTLK Europe and its subsidiary GTLK Europe Capital – were respectively established in 2012 and 2018. GTLK Europe had a complex structure but, according to the Irish High Court, owned 70 aircraft with customers including Emirates, Aeroflot and EasyJet. It also had a number of sea vessels. International sanctions imposed over the Ukrainian conflict led to the “impossibility” of paying coupons on bonds issued by the two companies. Although GTLK applied for a licence to enable it to make such payments, this has not been obtained from the US government’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. A group of bondholders demanded payment, in mid-April last year, of more than $175m and, after this did not emerge, presented wind-up petitions. The Irish court commenced liquidation proceedings for the two companies at the end of May 2023, and GTLK says it “lost control” over the businesses as they were transferred to liquidators.<br/>
Costs are the main obstacle to increasing the use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), Exxon Mobil Senior Vice President Jack Williams said on Friday. SAF accounts for just 0.2% of the jet fuel market but policymakers including US President Joe Biden see its adoption as a way to meet goals on lowering carbon emissions. But SAF, a biofuel made from plant or animal materials including used cooking oil or agricultural waste, is up to five times more expensive than regular fuel. "There's one big negative and that's the cost," Williams said at a conference near Chicago. "As we think about how we want to grow SAF ... we have got to focus on how do we minimize the costs?" Williams said demand for jet fuel could increase from 7m barrels a day now to 12m barrels a day in 2050. Seven million barrels a day is the same as the International Energy Agency's estimate for all jet fuel demand. By comparison, current production of SAF is only 15.8m gallons per year, as per US government data. Williams described the Biden administration's Inflation Reduction Act as the catalyzing action for biofuel production as well as carbon capture and storage and low carbon hydrogen. Biden launched a challenge in 2021 to supply at least 3b gallons of SAF annually by 2030. Major airlines, including Delta and Southwest Airlines, have said they want to replace 10% of jet fuel with SAF by 2030.<br/>