The US Senate Commerce Committee will hold an April 10 hearing on the nomination of Jennifer Homendy to serve a new term as chair of the National Transportation Safety Board. Homendy, who was renominated by President Joe Biden last month, was the on-scene board member for last week's Baltimore bridge collapse and the Jan. 5 Alaska Airlines, Boeing 737 MAX 9 mid-air emergency prompted by a door panel blowout. Homendy, who has served on the board since 2018 and has been chair since August 2021, previously was a senior legislative staffer working on transportation issues. Last month, Homendy criticized what she termed Boeing's lack of cooperation in the door plug probe including failing to disclose the names of 25 workers on the door crew at the 737 factory in Renton, Washington. After Homendy's comments, Boeing provided the 25 names. Boeing denied failing to cooperate. She has also urged action after a series of near-miss aviation safety incidents, and urged the FAA to mandate retrofitting all planes with cockpit voice-recorders capturing 25 hours of data from the current two-hour loop. Homendy has also pushed for new train safety measures after the February 2023 derailment of a Norfolk Southern operated train in East Palestine, Ohio, saying the board will "make safety recommendations to prevent similar derailments from ever happening again ... It is our job to hold everyone accountable." Homendy previously has criticized the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for failing to ensure driver assistance systems like Tesla Autopilot or nascent self-driving vehicles are safe. In February 2023, a FedEx cargo plane and a Southwest Airlines, Boeing 737 that came within about 35m of each other in Austin in poor visibility conditions could have been a "terrible tragedy," Homendy said.<br/>
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Major European airlines have started to resume flights to and from Israel. Wizz Air, easyJet and British Airways are now all flying to Tel Aviv, and Virgin Atlantic is planning a resumption this year. Wizz Air said on Wednesday it had restarted flights to Israel from six airports in March, and planned to resume operations on further routes during the next three months. This will include the resumption of flights from Gatwick to Tel Aviv, as well as 16 other paused routes. Most big airlines suspended services to Israel and some surrounding areas after the start of the war in Gaza in October. They are only now returning. BA resumed flights to Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport on Monday, but with a reduced service of one daily plane four days a week. EasyJet restarted its services to Israel on 25 March,returning to its prewar schedule from London Luton, Amsterdam, Berlin, Basel, Geneva and Milan. In January, easyJet revealed that the Middle East crisis had cost it more than GBP40m in lost trading as flights were suspended and demand weakened. Ryanair has also been significantly affected by the war, and revealed on Wednesday that it had been forced to cancel 950 flights since October. The airline resumed flights to Ben Gurion at the start of February but suspended them again at the end of the month after a dispute over which terminal it could use. Ryanair complained that the airport had closed its low-cost terminal 1, which meant the airline was being forced to use terminal 3, where the fees are higher. Virgin Atlantic has said it plans to resume flights to Israel in September after initially earmarking March for a restart. The airline said: “After careful consideration, we have taken the difficult decision to extend our pause on flying to and from Tel Aviv up to and including 4 September 2024. “We sincerely apologise to our customers for any inconvenience caused and our teams will be in contact with anyone affected to discuss their options, which include rebooking to a later date or a full refund.”<br/>
Ministers have for a second time pushed back a deadline for airports to install security scanners allowing passengers to leave liquids inside hand luggage, after the UK’s biggest hubs warned they were struggling to fit the technology. The Department for Transport had given all large British airports until June this year to install the advanced scanners, but on Thursday it extended the deadline by up to 12 months. The new machines work like CT scanners in hospitals to generate three-dimensional images of bags, and promise to cut queues at security by allowing travellers to ditch miniature toiletries and leave liquids and laptops inside cabin bags. Under current rules, passengers have to remove laptops, tablets and liquids from their cabin bags, and can carry only liquids of 100ml or less. Some airports, including London City, have already installed the scanners, and the government estimates that about 50% of passengers will use the new machines when they pass through security this summer. Last year, 272mn people flew out of UK airports, according to the Civil Aviation Authority, the regulator. The extension to the deadline differs by airport: the longest offered by the government is 12 months, meaning all passengers flying out of the UK should be able to use the new security processes by June 2025 at the latest. Airports that had not installed the new kit by that date would face “serious” fines from then, the DfT said. “The UK is leading the world with its rollout of this technology, but it’s important we give those airports yet to meet the deadline a second chance to get the job done,” said transport secretary Mark Harper. But Naomi Leach, deputy editor of Which? Travel, a consumer group, said the extensions risked causing confusion.<br/>
The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) has flagged a shortage of aircraft among local carriers, becoming the second regulator in as many days to highlight the issue. In a statement on 2 April, the CAAV lists three reasons for the aircraft shortage. First, it singles out the ongoing reliability issues on the Pratt & Whitney PW1100G geared turbofan engine, noting that up to 42 affected aircraft have to be taken out of service this year for inspections. The country’s two largest carriers, Vietnam Airlines and Vietjet, are major operators of PW1100G-powered Airbus A320neo family aircraft. The regulator notes that the engine technical issues may only be fully resolved around 2026-2027. The CAAV also cited the dire financial condition of other Vietnamese operators like Bamboo Airways and Pacific Airlines. Financially distressed Bamboo has shed most of its fleet as it shrunk its operations, leaving only five aircraft in operation. CAAV director general Dinh Viet Thang added that lease rates now are rising, amid an increase in demand. Thang notes that even if Vietnamese carriers “actively negotiate” for leased aircraft, it is “very difficult” to secure additional aircraft. Still, he notes that Vietnam Airlines and Vietjet are “working to increase their fleet size”. The CAAV is also proposing several steps to mitigate the aircraft shortage, including decreasing aircraft turnaround time, and increasing the utilisation rate. The CAAV’s comments come days after Malaysian regulators flagged a shortage of aircraft as a “pressing issue”, as passenger traffic moves closer to a full post-pandemic recovery this year. <br/>
Boeing 737 MAX jetliner production has fallen sharply in recent weeks as US regulators step up factory checks and workers slow the assembly line outside Seattle to complete outstanding work, industry sources told Reuters. The FAA has imposed a cap of 38 jets a month following a blowout on a 737 MAX in January, blamed on an assembly error. But the monthly output rate is fluctuating well below this level and in late March fell as low as single digits, they said. Boeing referred to comments by CFO Brian West who said last month it was taking comprehensive steps to strengthen quality and build confidence - including reducing the amount of so-called travelled or pending work - as the FAA increases audits. West told a Bank of America event that the FAA was "deeply involved and undertaking a tougher audit than anything we've ever been through before." Boeing also says it has made efforts to reduce the amount of so-called "travelled work" - or planes moving down the line with jobs still needing to be fixed from earlier work stations. The effect is to slow overall production and, in turn, deliveries. Boeing has faced increased scrutiny following the loss of a door plug on an Alaska Airlines jetliner in January. Shares in the planemaker ended down 1.7%. Planemakers get paid for their jets upon delivery, but the underlying production rate dictates the pulse of an industrial system feeding thousands of aerospace suppliers worldwide. Boeing's production slowdown is also expected to ripple through the airline industry, with carriers shaving flights from their schedule or extending existing jet leases to meet demand. Traditionally, production and deliveries went hand in hand, but the grounding of the MAX in 2019 and 2020 and disruption from the pandemic created a stockpile of surplus jets that mean it is harder now to glean the production rate from deliveries.<br/>
Boeing’s new chairman has scrapped formal meetings planned with leaders of the planemaker’s largest US airline customers as he begins to address a crisis of confidence that culminated in a sweeping management shakeup, according to people familiar with the matter. Chairman Steve Mollenkopf instead is reaching out directly to the CEOs of American Airlines, Southwest, United Airlines, and Alaska Airlines, one of the people said. The effort shows how Mollenkopf, a former Qualcomm Inc. CEO and Boeing director since 2020, is attempting to smooth over strained relations with the customers who set in motion one of the biggest executive overhauls in Boeing’s century-long history. The departures of the planemaker’s CEO, chairman and commercial chief announced last week have left the beleaguered manufacturer’s leadership in flux as it faces another crisis centered on its cash-cow 737 Max jetliner. Boeing, American and United declined to comment. Representatives for Southwest and Alaska did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company has slowed aircraft deliveries to a crawl amid scrutiny from regulators and a criminal investigation after a manufacturing lapse led to a near-catastrophic accident in January. Leaders of the four carriers sought to air their rising frustrations with the handling of the crisis directly with Boeing directors — without now-departing CEO Dave Calhoun or other senior executives present, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing confidential matters. That seeming loss of confidence in Calhoun, who has been closely aligned with departing Chairman Larry Kellner, along with public pressure from the heads of the Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board contributed to the executive shakeup. Calhoun plans to leave the planemaker by the end of the year. He is also stepping off the board of Caterpillar Inc.<br/>