The US Federal Aviation Administration issued a ground stop at New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport after a 4.8 magnitude earthquake shook buildings throughout the region. Air traffic may be impacted in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia and Baltimore, the agency said in a post on social media platform X. “Air traffic operations are resuming as quickly as possible,” the FAA said in the post. The move by the FAA came after an earthquake rattled northern New Jersey on Friday morning, shaking buildings offices in Manhattan and was felt on Long Island and in New York’s Hudson Valley.<br/>
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Airline passengers in parts of the United Kingdom and Ireland faced travel disruption at airports on Saturday due to flight cancellations as a storm swept across both countries and left thousands of Irish homes with power outages.<br/>The disruption caused by Storm Kathleen, named by the Irish Meteorological Service and the 11th named storm of the 2023-24 season, has affected flights at airports across Ireland and the UK, including Manchester Airport and Belfast City Airport. Dublin Airport said travellers due to fly were being advised to check with their airline for travel updates after weather conditions at other airports led to some cancellations and flight diversions. EasyJet said that due to the impact of the storm some flights to and from the "Isle of Man and Belfast International had been unable to operate" on Saturday. "We are doing all possible to minimise the impact of the weather disruption," the airline said in a statement to Reuters. EasyJet said it was providing customers whose flights were cancelled with the option to transfer to an alternative flight or receive a refund, hotel accommodation and meals.<br/>
Two Russian nationals pleaded guilty in US federal court on 4 April to a conspiracy involving the export of commercial aircraft parts from the USA to Russia, a violation of US export laws imposed following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) says the Russians conspired to ship to Russian airlines components including carbon disc brake systems for Boeing 737s. The USA imposed sanctions on exports to Russia immediately after Russia’s invasion in February 2022. The sanctions prohibit exports without licenses and left Russia airlines facing more difficulty in obtaining parts for US-made aircraft. “These defendants smuggled sensitive aircraft technology into Russia following its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and did so in violation of laws designed to protect America’s national security,” says US attorney general Merrick Garland. Defendants Oleg Sergeyevhich Patsulya and Vasilii Sergeyevich Besedin, both Russian nationals living in Miami, began working in May 2022 to obtain orders for aircraft parts from Russian buyers – primarily commercial airlines. The DOJ does not specify those airlines. The defendants worked to fulfil the orders with parts sourced from US suppliers, including a major supplier in Arizona, the DOJ says. Court papers identify one supplier as Goodrich, now part of Collins Aerospace. The defendants told the US suppliers that the parts were to be shipped to countries other than Russia, including Turkey.<br/>
Malaysia Airports Bhd. could be privatized by its major shareholders before a stake sale to private equity firm Global Infrastructure Partners, according to a report in The Edge that cited unidentified sources. Sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional Bhd. and its largest pension fund, Employees Provident Fund, will play a “key role” in the privatization exercise before a 30% stake is sold to GIP, the publication quoted the sources as saying. GIP could play a part in running the company after it buys the stake, according to the report.<br/>
Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun was awarded a giant stock bonus on top of his more-than-a-million-dollar salary last year, despite overseeing a company that has been plagued by chronic losses and safety problems. Calhoun’s total compensation in 2023 was $32.8m, a 45% increase from the $22.6m he received for 2022. And it could have been a lot more: He declined to accept his annual incentive bonus of $2,800,000 – a request the board said he made after part of a Boeing 737 Max plane blew off the side of an Alaska Airlines flight in January, kicking off a series of federal investigations, a temporary grounding, executive ousters and another embarrassing public relations blunder for the company. Boeing enjoyed improved financial results in 2023 from Calhoun’s first two years running the troubled aircraft manufacturer. It continued to lose money as it has every year since 2019, but it trimmed those losses by 60%, reporting a core operating loss of $1.8b. Its stock gained 37% during the year, and it had a record month for new commercial jet orders in December, giving it one of its best sales years ever, as airlines were eager for new jets to meet strong demand for travel. But after the January 5 door plug blowout, causing a gaping hole in the side of the jet, Boeing’s reputation for safety and quality may have reached an all-time low. A preliminary investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board found that the plane had left a Boeing factory two months before the incident missing the four bolts needed to hold the door plug in place. Calhoun told investors in January that “we caused the problem, and we understand that. Whatever conclusions are reached, Boeing is accountable for what happened.” Last month, Calhoun announced he would be retiring later this year and that the company had launched a search for a new CEO. Calhoun turns 67 later this month, and Boeing’s board had actually moved back the retirement age for CEOs by five years to keep him in place.<br/>
Canadian Airbus A220 assembly workers on Sunday rejected a second company offer, raising concerns over production of the money-losing jet. An estimated 1,300 workers are involved in the contract talks. Airbus is seeking to expand production of its smallest commercial jet, as it rides a broader wave of orders from airlines coping with a rebound in travel demand from the COVID-19 pandemic. The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers union, which wants higher wages and better conditions for the workers at the Airbus facility in Mirabel, Quebec, said 99% of the workers who voted rejected the offer. The union said talks will resume on Monday. Airbus said it was committed to securing a negotiated agreement. “The dialogue at the table has been open and constructive, however there is still a gap between the union’s demands and the current financial capacity of the A220, which has not yet reached breakeven,” an Airbus spokesperson said.<br/>
The Biden administration will release a preliminary climate model for its sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) subsidy program in the coming weeks that is more restrictive than what the corn-based ethanol industry had expected, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. Under the preliminary model, which could be released by May 15, ethanol is not expected to automatically qualify as a feedstock in the SAF subsidy program unless the corn involved is sourced from farmers using one of just three sustainable agriculture techniques, the sources said. Those techniques include efficient tilling, use of cover crops and efficient fertilizer application, the sources said. White House officials, the final arbiter of the model, had considered forcing producers to use all three techniques in a none-or-all approach, but have backed off that plan, the sources said. The ethanol industry had expected a broader range of agriculture techniques to be included in the model to help the fuel qualify. The sources said the model could be expanded to include a broader range of options when the administration considers a rule establishing the Clean Fuel Production Credit, or 45Z, later this year. The White House had been reluctant to immediately expand the options amid intense debate over how to verify that farms are actually doing the practices and whether they deliver the carbon reduction as promised. The issue has thrust the White House into the complicated politics of ethanol and biofuels in an election year. Subsidies for such products are hugely popular in some Midwestern swing states, but converting farm land to help generate fuel, not food, angers environmentalists. To access SAF subsidies, producers must demonstrate their feedstock is 50% lower in emissions than jet fuel. Ethanol is expected to miss the 50% threshold after environmental penalties for converting land for fuel, something that would force the industry to rely on smart agriculture practices to get back above the credit threshold.<br/>
Demand for credits reflecting the engineered removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is expected by some to surge as market-friendly incentives lure buyers from sectors as diverse as technology and finance, chemicals and aviation. Many scientists believe extracting billions of tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere annually, by using nature or technology, is the only way to meet goals set under the U.N. Paris climate agreement to curb climate change, as efforts to cut emissions are not happening fast enough. To meet this challenge small startups are in the nascent stages of deploying new technologies to suck up the planet-warming gas and generate tradable carbon removal credits that companies can buy to offset their emissions. So far, widespread use is years away and costs are much higher compared to more traditional ways to generate credits, such as through projects that preserve forests or fund renewable power projects. Despite sceptics' arguments that carbon removal could encourage firms to keep polluting and is unlikely to reach huge scale quickly, the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act seeks to financially turbo-charge the market through tax incentives, helping to draw in buyers from a range of sectors. The European Commission has also proposed a framework to certify carbon removals generated in Europe. Around 4.6m tons of credits from a range of engineered removal projects were purchased in 2023, data from industry tracker CDR.fyi showed, of which around 118,000 tons were delivered, backstopped by confirmation from external certification companies that the carbon had been removed. Story has more.<br/>