The United States' largest airlines and several aviation industry unions have asked the Biden administration to pause additional flight increases between the U.S. and China, citing concerns over "existing harmful anti-competitive policies of the Chinese government," according to a joint letter published on Thursday. Chinese carriers were permitted to increase the weekly number of roundtrip flights to the U.S. from 35 to 50 -- the same number granted to U.S. carriers -- starting on March 31, following a U.S. Department of Transportation approval in February. "If the growth of the Chinese aviation market is allowed to continue unchecked and without concern for equality of access in the market, flights will continue to be relinquished to Chinese carriers at the expense of U.S. workers and businesses," said the letter, which was addressed to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg. The letter was signed by industry trade group Airlines for America, the Air Line Pilots Association, Allied Pilots Association and the Association of Flight Attendants. Airlines for America represents major carriers including American Airlines, United and Delta. The letter highlighted what it described as China's anti-competitive actions, including burdensome rules imposed on U.S. carriers following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and protections extended to Chinese airlines due to their relationship with Beijing. The letter also pointed to the ongoing operational advantage Chinese flights have from being able to pass through Russian airspace, which has been closed to U.S. airlines since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. All of this "allows Chinese airlines to operate irrespective of standard market conditions," the letter said.<br/>
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Dilapidated walls, crowded gate areas, slow moving security lanes, dingy concourses, cramped hallways and terrible traffic getting in and out—not to mention rats crawling up chairs onto unsuspecting, sleeping passengers. It wasn’t long ago that the list of grisly complaints about New York City’s three airports went on and on. As recently as 2016, John F. Kennedy International Airport, Newark Liberty International Airport and LaGuardia Airport listed among the 10 worst airports in America, with LaGuardia taking the crown. Fast-forward: LaGuardia’s new Terminal B and Newark’s new Terminal A stand as gleaming beacons of modern airport design and efficiency. Not only did each receive a maximum five-stars from aviation ratings firm Skytrax in March 2024—a designation based on a thorough audit of facilities and customer service—they were the only North American airports to appear on that coveted list. Also in March, LaGuardia earned the 2023 title for “Best airport in North America” within its weight class (that is, airports serving 25 to 40m passengers annually). That honor, part of the Airports Council International’s annual Airport Service Quality Awards, was based on passenger feedback collected in departure and arrival surveys. “The recognition that both LaGuardia and Newark have received is simply astonishing,” says Rick Cotton, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. “No one could have predicted that situation.” A full year after an $8b, six-year transformation overhauled LaGuardia’s drab spaces, people love flying through the very hub that President Joe Biden once described as “embarrassing” and “stupid” while tactlessly comparing it to a “third-world country.” The same is true of Newark, which in November 2022 wrapped a $2.7b, million-square-foot renovation of Terminal A that had broken ground in 2017. <br/>
The TSA reports that its officers intercepted 1,503 firearms in carry-on bags at security checkpoints in US airports during Q1 2024. That number runs very close with TSA interceptions in Q1 2023, in which 1,508 firearms were intercepted, the agency said in a news release. Overall, 2023 set a record for the number of firearms uncovered by officers at security checkpoints. To help those numbers sink in, the 2024 interceptions come out to an average of 16.5 detections per day from January to March. For Q1 2023, the interceptions came out to an average of 16.8 detections per day. Even though the number of firearms discovered was nearly steady, that average Q1 rate was lower in 2024 because some 15m more passengers were screened than the comparable period last year. More people plus roughly same number of firearms equals a lower rate. But there’s a shocking stat that has stayed the same – in both time periods, 93% of those intercepted firearms were loaded with ammo. “While it is certainly promising that the rate of passengers bringing firearms to the checkpoint has decreased, one firearm at the checkpoint is too many,” said TSA Administrator David Pekoske in the news release. “The demand for air travel is as strong as ever and security is always our number one priority. Every time we discover a firearm at the checkpoint, the security screening process is slowed down for all.” People are allowed to ferry their firearms on flights, but they are “prohibited at security checkpoints, in the secure area of an airport and in the passenger cabin of an aircraft, even if a passenger has a concealed carry permit or is in a constitutional carry jurisdiction,” TSA said. Instead, the firearm “must be packed properly as checked baggage and declared to the airline at the ticket counter,” Pekoske said.<br/>
Oakland officials have voted in favor of changing the name of the city’s airport to San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport, despite San Francisco threatening a lawsuit over what it says is a trademark violation. The Board of Commissioners for the Port of Oakland voted unanimously Thursday to move forward with the name-change and scheduled a second vote for final approval on May 9. The airport is currently called Oakland International Airport. Oakland airport officials have said travelers unfamiliar with the region fly into San Francisco’s airport even if their destination is closer to the Oakland airport across the Bay. Modifying the name to San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport will change that, they say. The airport’s three-letter code OAK would not change. “We are standing up for Oakland and the East Bay,” Port Commission President Barbara Leslie said in a statement after the vote. “This name will make it clear that OAK is the closest major airport, for 4.1m people, three national laboratories, the top public university in the country, and California’s Wine Country.” For nearly an hour, the commissioners listened to public comments that included some Oakland residents and several airline representatives who supported the name-change, and representatives of San Francisco tourism and hospitality interests who opposed it.<br/>
The US Senate Commerce Committee said on Thursday it would hold a hearing next week with members of an expert panel that released a report in February criticizing Boeing's safety culture and calling for significant improvements. The hearing next Wednesday comes as the US planemaker has been grappling with a full-blown safety crisis that has undermined its reputation following a Jan. 5 mid-air panel blowout on a new 737 MAX 9. It has since undergone a management shakeup, US regulators have put curbs on its production and its aircraft deliveries fell by half in March. The committee will hear from three panel members, including Tracy Dillinger, a NASA expert on safety culture, Javier de Luis, an aeronautics expert at MIT, and Najmedin Meshkati, a University of Southern California professor and expert on aviation safety. Senator Maria Cantwell, the committee chair, said on Wednesday she was impressed with the expert witness panel report and wanted to hear from members first before she called the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for a future hearing. Boeing declined to comment on the hearing.<br/>
The U.S. FAA has proposed an airworthiness directive for certain Boeing 747-400F series airplanes that would require applying cap seals to certain fastener collars inside the fuel tanks, according to a federal government notice. The proposed directive was prompted by a report that cap seals were not applied to certain fasteners in the fuel tanks during production and is meant to address unsafe condition on the planes, the FAA said in a Federal Register notice published on Thursday.<br/>
Boeing's Latin America President Landon Loomis says that the embattled airplane manufacturer is focusing on rebuilding trust after a series of safety incidents have shaken trust in the company and led CEO Dave Calhoun to announce he would step down by year-end. "We are in the moment of a deep fundamental trust building exercise that has to flow through our entire factory, our engagements with the press, with government stakeholders, with our own employees," Loomis told Reuters in an interview at an aviation conference in Santiago. "That's how we're handling this process of leadership transition." Loomis said that the region is expected to grow at a pace of 5.5% of passenger traffic annually and will need an additional 2,000 aircraft in the next 20 years to meet demand. He expects the company to be at the forefront of that demand, but Boeing has faced production issues, including deliveries dropping by half in March due to increased quality checks. Loomis said that global delivery schedules are hard to meet but the company is focusing on reaching production stability with a focus on safety. "That's our starting point, safety through quality," Loomis said, adding that the airline will be able to meet client demands. Despite Brazil's GOL airlines filing for bankruptcy in January, Loomis says the airline is a "critical" partner in the region and one of the largest 737 customers in the world. The executive said that the manufacturer's relationship with LATAM airlines is "growing," and that Boeing worked closely with the airline and Australian government after a flight suffered a sudden mid-air dive and injured 50 people.<br/>
A recent FAA audit of the production of the Boeing 737 Max raised a peculiar question. Was it really appropriate for one of the plane maker’s key suppliers to be using Dawn dish soap and a hotel key card as part of its manufacturing process? The answer, it turns out, may be yes. The F.A.A. conducted the audit after a panel known as a door plug blew off a 737 Max 9 during an Alaska Airlines flight in January. The New York Times reported last month that the agency’s examination had identified dozens of problems at Boeing and the supplier, Spirit AeroSystems, which makes the fuselage of the 737 Max. Boeing and Spirit have both come under intense scrutiny after the episode involving the Alaska plane, which appears to have left Boeing’s factory in Renton, Wash., missing four bolts used to secure the door plug in place. Spirit has had its own share of quality problems in recent years and has been bruised by financial losses, and Boeing said last month that it was in talks to acquire the company, which it spun out in 2005. But in the aftermath of the Alaska episode, Spirit says one thing has been misunderstood: its use of the dish soap and the hotel key card. In fact, the company says it is now properly authorized to use the soap as well as a newly created tool that resembles a key card. Both have been approved by the appropriate engineering authorities at Boeing and documented for use under F.A.A. standards as factory tools known as shop aids, according to Spirit. “People look at the hotel key card or Dawn soap and think this is sloppy,” said Joe Buccino, a Spirit spokesman. “This is actually an innovative approach to solving for an efficient shop aid.” A Boeing spokeswoman confirmed that the company had approved the use of the soap and the key card tool as shop aids. The F.A.A. said it could not comment because the audit was part of its continuing investigation in response to the Alaska episode. As part of the audit, agency employees visited Spirit’s factory in Wichita, Kan. One aspect of the manufacturing process they scrutinized was how Spirit handled door plugs, which take the place of emergency exits that would be needed if a plane was configured with a denser seating arrangement. At one point, the F.A.A. observed Spirit mechanics using a hotel key card to check a door seal, which was “not identified/documented/called-out in the production order,” according to a document describing some of the audit findings. Story has more. <br/>
Embattled airplane maker Boeing disclosed it lavished an additional $546,000 on the cost of personal air travel in recent years for four top executives, including CEO Dave Calhoun, who announced last month that he will leave the company by the end of the year. The increased spending estimate, disclosed in a recent company filing, brought the total cost to the company for the personal air travel for the four to $1.9m since 2021. Besides Calhoun, the other executives include CFO Brian West; Stan Deal, who recently departed as CEO of its commercial airplane unit; and Theodore Colbert, the CEO of its defense, space and security business. The disclosure comes as the plane maker is facing additional scrutiny for a series of safety incidents, including a midair blowout of part of a fuselage in January, which prompted a number of investigations into the company’s practices, an executive shakeup and promises that the company will turn itself around. The air travel is part of what are known as perquisites, or perks granted the executives, which also include ground transportation, lodging and meals during personal travel. And for air travel, the reported costs include only the incremental costs to Boeing, such as fuel, crew travel expenses, on-board meals, landing fees, and parking costs. It does not include the cost of the corporate jets or the salaries of the flight crew, which Boeing said it would be paying whether or not the executives made the personal trips.s<br/>
A handful of new lounges opened by credit card issuers, including Capital One and American Express, have recently landed in airports across the United States, promising posh spots of refuge for select travelers awaiting their flights. At La Guardia Airport, caviar service will be available for pre-order. At Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, travelers can get complimentary massages, and at Denver International Airport, there are nap pods. In addition to amenities, the new lounges provide an ambience reminiscent of a luxury hotel lobby, both in interior design and scale, and fit several hundred people at a time. “Lounges have certainly gotten busier, so we’ve expanded our footprint,” said Audrey Hendley, president of American Express Travel, which in February opened its largest Centurion lounge, at 26,000 square feet at Hartsfield-Jackson, bringing its total number of lounges in the United States to 14. Broadly, there are three types of airport lounges available to travelers: airline operated; shared-use spaces that aren’t limited to one airline or frequent flier status (think Priority Pass); and credit card lounges. Many are operated in partnership with lounge development companies. For more than a decade, American Express was the only credit card issuer with lounges in the United States. That changed last year, when Chase Sapphire and Capital One each opened locations at major airports across the country, with plans to unveil a handful more in the coming years. The proliferation is driven in part by changing demographics and travel patterns of fliers today. This year may set a record for the number of air travelers, with an estimated 4.7b people expected to fly globally. According to a survey published last May by the polling firm Morning Consult, younger travelers are more inclined than older generations to book travel with credit card loyalty programs, and those in the Gen Z age group, in particular, have signaled a declining loyalty to airline frequent flier programs. Story features latest highlights of new credit card lounges from around the country.<br/>
In a glimmer of progress for the daunting task of reducing air travel’s climate impact, a newly built plant in rural Georgia is expected to begin pumping out the world’s first commercial quantities of a new type of cleaner jet fuel this month. The $200m plant from LanzaJet Inc. will be the first to turn ethanol into a fuel compatible with jet engines. The facility is one of many efforts around the globe attempting to crack one of the biggest problems facing greener air travel: finding and developing cleaner feedstocks that can generate enormous quantities of fuel without triggering ripple effects that end up worsening the climate and biodiversity crises. Progress thus far has been very limited. Efforts to produce new types of cleaner fuels require hundreds of millions of dollars. But investors have remained wary with would-be plants routinely suffering lengthy delays and struggling to become operational. “We need to scale-up by 1,000-fold,” says Hemant Mistry, director of net zero transition for the International Air Transport Association, which has pledged that the aviation industry will erase its carbon emissions by 2050, mostly by using huge quantities of cleaner jet fuel. At its new facility dubbed Freedom Pines Fuels, LanzaJet plans to produce 9m gallons of SAF per year. In one sense, that’s just a tiny step forward: It would take 100 of these plants to fulfill just 1% of the ravenous appetite of the world’s commercial air carriers, which consumed 90b gallons of jet fuel last year. But it provides a glimpse of one direction the clean fuel industry wants to go. Most SAF today is derived from animal fats and waste oils, which are relatively scarce. Used cooking oil is already widely collected for road transportation with only modest room for growth, while a robust market has long converted animal fats into ingredients for pet food and detergents. Strong demand from aviation could push these other industries to switch to climate-harming ingredients, like palm oil, warn environmental groups.<br/>