It took 80 days. But for the airline industry, enough was enough. A revolt by US airline bosses helped topple Boeing's (BA.N), opens new tab top leadership including CEO Dave Calhoun this week, capping weeks of pressure after the freakish Jan. 5 blowout, opens new tab of a door plug on an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 passenger jet, people familiar with the discussions said. With the company's major U.S. customers agitating for a boardroom meeting without Calhoun, Boeing's board pre-empted their demands with a major upheaval. Now, after the shakeup that took out the CEO, chairman and head of Boeing's commercial airplanes business, airlines face prolonged uncertainty over jet supplies and are calling for deeper changes - starting with picking a manufacturing heavyweight as CEO. "It wouldn't surprise me that people said, 'What exactly is the Boeing strategy to change this, not put a Band-Aid on it,'” former Air Canada CEO Calin Rovinescu told Reuters. "There’s a point at which you cannot pretend that everything is fine. And I think this has been the call to action that you probably heard from the airline community.” Boeing said it had nothing to add to comments from Calhoun, who told employees on Monday that he had been considering stepping down as CEO for some time. He added that the company would "fix what isn't working, and we are going to get our company back on the track towards recovery and stability."<br/>
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Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun could walk away with a $24m compensation package after quitting following a string of incidents that have sparked major safety concerns. Calhoun announced on Tuesday he would be resigning from his role as CEO at the end of the year following what he described as a “watershed moment” for Boeing after a panel on the side of an Alaska Airlines plane blew out mid-flight. The shocking incident has resulted in investigations from the FAA, the Department of Justice, and the NTSB. “We must continue to respond to this accident with humility and complete transparency. We also must inculcate a total commitment to safety and quality at every level of our company,” Calhoun wrote in a memo posted on Boeing’s website. The incident led to the grounding of all Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft, with a preliminary investigation finding that several critical bolts had been missing from the panel before take-off, calling into question Boeing’s manufacturing practices. But Boeing’s problems did not start or end with the Alaska Airlines incident. The company has been embroiled in previous safety concerns over the 737 Max 8 after two of the planes crashed in 2018 and 2019 resulting in the deaths of all passengers and crew. But despite the company’s previous scandals, Calhoun will likely leave his job with a sizeable payout, according to reports. The Boeing CEO is reportedly guaranteed around $24m when he steps down, thanks to shares he owns and additional stock options. Calhoun holds nearly 70,000 Boeing shares outright, more than 25,000 phantom shares, and another 175,000 options, Ben Silverman, vice president of research at financial software company VerityData, told Fortune. Based on the current stock price, Calhoun could rake in $19.2m in payouts over the next ten years.<br/>
Brazil's government will not leave the country's airlines "helpless" and a project to support the sector is expected to be ready by April 5, Ports and Airports Minister Silvio Costa Filho told Reuters on Wednesday. The minister added that a credit line focused on local airlines could be also launched next month. <br/>
French leisure carrier Corsair is participating in a consortium, led by aerospace firm Thales, which aims to develop a new methodology for evaluating pilot behaviour. The project, known as ‘Perceval’, is a response to changes in training programmes, notably the introduction of evidence-based training. Evidence-based training concentrates on assessing core pilot competency – rather than performance during individual events – in order to prepare cockpit crews to recognise and manage unexpected difficult situations during flight. “One major benefit of the new approach is its focus on non-technical skills and their role in building trust,” says Thales. French civil aviation regulator DGAC is sponsoring the programme which intends to support the evolution of pilot training. “By bringing together all the stakeholders in the training community, the consortium will leverage this collective intelligence to reshape the future of airline pilot training and improve flight safety,” says Thales. The consortium will also include France’s national civil aviation school ENAC, simulation specialists Simaero and AviaSim, plus the research career school ENS Paris-Saclay.<br/>
India's aviation watchdog has deferred a June 1 deadline for airlines to adopt new rules on rest and duty times for pilots, a notice, opens new tab on its website showed, but without stating a reason or a new target date. Tuesday's news followed a warning from a key airline lobby group, reported, opens new tab last month by the Economic Times newspaper, that the scramble to meet the new rules could force cancellation of up to one-fifth of flights. Announced in January, the rules increased flight crews' weekly rest periods to 48 hours from 36 and cut pilots' night flight duty times to a maximum of 10 hours from 13. In this week's revised website notice, however, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) allowed airlines to retain the older norms for the time being. The rule changes followed a review of data on pilot fatigue drawn from spot checks and airline surveillance after a pilot for budget carrier IndiGo collapsed and died in August before his flight. The Federation of Indian Airlines warned of the cancellation risk as the watchdog's deadline left too little time to hire and train the 25% more pilots required to satisfy the new rules, the Economic Times said.<br/>Last week, Tata Group-owned Air India was fined 8 million rupees ($96,000) by the regulator for breaching limits on flight duty times and fatigue management. The revised notice drew criticism from some pilots and aviation safety experts who took to social media platform X to post their outrage.<br/>
Japan’s trade ministry wants to get the country’s aviation ambitions back up in the air. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry is bringing together domestic and foreign manufacturers, as well as airlines, with the goal of introducing a new aircraft by 2035. The move comes a year after Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. scrapped the development of a regional jet after 15 years of effort. The government has long sought a domestically produced passenger aircraft. As part of the latest attempt, the ministry will back the ¥5t ($33b) effort over the next decade to build a next-generation aircraft fueled by hydrogen or alternative sources of energy, officials said in a briefing Wednesday. The announcement comes as Boeing seeks to restore confidence in its airplanes. “Japan needs to dive into profitable and value providing territories other than providing some parts for the airline industry,” Masuo Kuremura, director of the ministry’s aerospace and defense industry division, said during a briefing. Mitsubishi Heavy, Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd. and other manufacturers are major suppliers to Boeing and other aircraft manufacturers, including Airbus. Mitsubishi’s SpaceJet, backed by ¥50b in government investment, was to be the country’s first homemade jet in half a century. Instead the scuttled program racked up more than ¥1t in sunk costs. Mitsubishi Heavy said last year that it lacked the understanding and technological know-how for SpaceJet to materialize, and also struggled to gain regulatory approval in the US. There was also pressure to electrify and decarbonize, forcing the manufacturer to reassess its strategy. Global air passenger demand is projected to double in 20 years and aggressive investment in Japan’s aircraft industry will lead to annual growth worth ¥6t, as much as 5 times from the current level, according to the trade ministry. <br/>
International air traffic in the Asia-Pacific continued to rebound in February, with airlines benefiting from a surge in leisure travel during the Lunar New Year holiday period. Asia-Pacific airlines carried 27 million international passengers in February, up 56.7% from a year earlier, according to the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines. International RPKs jumped 54.4% and ASKs jumped 53.1%, while load factors rose 0.7 percentage points to 81.6%. “During the first two months of the year, Asian carriers saw continued robust growth in international passenger markets, with 54 million passengers carried, an increase of 53% compared with the corresponding period in the previous year,” says AAPA director general Subhas Menon. “The strong demand came on the back of ongoing network expansion by carriers, with load factors at levels seen before the pandemic.” Asia-Pacific airlines also enjoyed a strong cargo market in February on the back of business and e-commerce activity. February’s FTK’s rose 10.2% on year, while FATKs rose 20.8%. Freight load factors, however, fell 5.5 percentage points to 57.3%. “The upturn in global economic activity and rise in business confidence levels augurs well for air cargo markets in the coming months,” says Menon.<br/>
A new transport hub at Auckland airport is aimed at eliminating the chaotic introduction many visitors get to New Zealand. The $300m hub will double the capacity for pick up and drop off with 320 metres of undercover curbside parking. "We've got enormous amounts of capacity for commercial transport, taxis and rideshare. It's just going to be a completely different outcome for the visitors who come to the airport," Auckland Airport chief financial officer Mark Thomson said. ATEED's bus drivers were on Wednesday familiarising themselves with the 320-metre undercover drop-off and pick-up zone, with an admin centre upstairs and three stories of car parks. "More cars, less congestion, but it's undercover," Auckland Airport CEO Carrie Hurihanganui said. "You don't have to rush because you are getting drenched with rain and again it's right there on the doorstep of the terminal." On the roof are 1.2 Megawatts of solar panels to power EV charging stations and rainwater tanks to provide non-drinking water and irrigation for plants. The airport is still planning for the Mass Rapid Transport terminus to the north of the building even though there are no current plans for a link to the city centre. "We've protected that corridor because our view is that, as Auckland continues to grow, there is going to be a point where we have to have that as an option," Hurihanganui said. It's just stage one. The next step is to start integrating the domestic terminal with the international one, dumping the famous open air green line route between terminals and taking out iffy Auckland weather from the arrival experience for a few moments at least.<br/>