general

The FAA Monday said it is finalizing new rules requiring charter, commuter, air tour operators, and aircraft manufacturers to implement a key safety tool aimed at reducing accidents. The FAA is adopting a final rule mandating the use of Safety Management Systems (SMS), which are a set of policies and procedures to proactively identify and address potential operational hazards, after first proposing to do so in January 2023. U.S. airlines have been required to have SMS since 2018 and some aerospace companies already voluntarily have SMS programs like Boeing. "Requiring more aviation organizations to implement a proactive approach to managing safety will prevent accidents and save lives,” FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker said. Congress in 2020 directed the FAA to mandate SMS for aircraft manufacturers as part of a wide-ranging certification reform bill following two fatal Boeing 737 MAX crashes, but the FAA's final rule goes beyond the requirements from lawmakers. The issue of safety management has gotten new attention after a mid-air cabin panel blowout on a new Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 plane. The FAA barred Boeing from expanding 737 MAX production and ordered the planemaker to develop a comprehensive plan to address "systemic quality-control issues" within 90 days. SMS systems require four key components - safety policy, safety risk management, safety assurance, and safety promotion. The FAA in 2023 required major airports to adopt SMS programs after more than 10 years of study.<br/>

Former JetBlue Airways CEO Robin Hayes will run Airbus’ North America arm, replacing Jeffrey Knittel, the airplane maker said Monday. Hayes left JetBlue in February after the airline’s planned acquisition of Spirit Airlines fell apart following a federal judge’s decision to block the deal in an antitrust lawsuit brought by the Justice Department. Hayes, a longtime airline executive who has also held senior leadership roles at British Airways, will start in June. He will be managing Airbus’ business in the region, where it has expanded production of narrow-body jets in Mobile, Alabama. It has customers including Delta Air Lines, his former employer JetBlue and the carrier’s acquisition target Spirit. When Hayes announced his departure from JetBlue in January, he said, “Extraordinary challenges and pressure of this job have taken their toll, and on the advice of my doctor and after talking to my wife, it’s time I put more focus on my health and well-being.”<br/>

Flights could be delayed or cancelled at London Heathrow Airport over the early May bank holiday weekend due to a planned strike by refuelling staff, a union said. Unite said 50 workers from AFS are due to take part in 72 hours of industrial action beginning on 4 May. The union said it was taking the action over "drastic cuts" to terms and conditions for new staff members since January. Heathrow Airport says it has contingency measures in place if the industrial action goes ahead. AFS has been asked to comment. The company is a joint venture with partners including BP, Total Energies, Q8 Aviation and Valero Energy. Unite members at AFS refuel aircraft at Heathrow from 35 different airlines including Virgin, Delta, Emirates and Air France.<br/>

Fraport, the operator of Frankfurt airport, one of continental Europe’s busiest, says that air traffic had to be completely halted on two days in 2023 due to drone incursions around the airfield. In response to a parliamentary inquiry in the German state of Hesse, in which Frankfurt airport is located, Fraport says the incidents which restricted or shut down airport operations occurred on 6 July, for 85min, and 28 September, for 55min. The document was published by the Hessian parliament on 10 April. All told, during 2023, air traffic was restricted on a total of 10 days, more than in any other year since Fraport first recorded drone activity in the vicinity of the airport in December 2017. Between December 2017 and November 2023, Fraport noted 26 dates on which drone incursions had an impact on flight operations, including on six days on which traffic had to be halted completely for between 25min to over 1h. Fraport was unable to quantify the cost of the disruptions. ”Drones as a means of crime have been included in police crime statistics in Hesse since 2016,” the parliamentary document reads. ”Since 2016, 67 cases of dangerous interference with air traffic using a drone have been recorded.”<br/>

Flights in and out of Britain are among thousands that have been affected by suspected Russian jamming of GPS systems. More than 2,300 Ryanair flights have reported incidents of GPS interference since last August, according to a report, as well as almost 1,400 at Wizz Air, 82 at British Airways and four from easyJet. About 46,000 aircraft in total have logged problems with GPS over the Baltic Sea in the same time period, the Sun reported, based on analysis of flight logs with the website GPSJAM.org. Most of the GPS problems reported on the website have come in eastern Europe, bordering Russia. The satellite-based GPS forms part of an aircraft’s navigation system, and interference can pose a safety risk. The UK government confirmed in March that an RAF plane carrying the defence secretary, Grant Shapps, had its GPS signal jammed while flying near the Russian Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad, while heading back to the UK from Poland. Although Downing Street said the move did not threaten the safety of the aircraft, a defence source described it as “wildly irresponsible”. The International Air Transport Association and the EU Aviation Safety Agency (Easa) held a summit in January to discuss GPS jamming and “spoofing”, or sending bogus signals, with Easa reporting a sharp rise in the number of attacks. While Easa said countering the threat was a priority, the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority played down the risk and said jamming was often associated with military activity but did not mean commercial planes were being directly targeted.<br/>

International passenger traffic at South Korea's Incheon International Airport from January to March was up 50% year-on-year, marking the first return to pre-pandemic passenger levels in a quarter. International travelers coming through Incheon totaled 17.14m, just short of the 17.77m people recorded between January and March 2019. Routes to and from Japan grew the fastest, up 56% year-on-year to 4.36m passengers and accounting for a quarter of the total. Airlines are boosting flights and seats as demand recovers. Asiana Airlines is switching to aircraft with more seats and increasing flights on routes connecting Incheon with Japanese airports in Osaka, Tokyo, Fukuoka and Okinawa, around Japan's Golden Week holidays from the end of April through early May. Korean Air will operate charter flights between Incheon and the Japanese beach resort area of Nanki Shirahama, Wakayama prefecture, in May.<br/>

Boeing told employees on Monday that it expects a slower increase in production and deliveries of new 787 Dreamliner planes because of supplier shortages of "a few key parts." Boeing has already slowed down deliveries and output of its 737 Max planes in the aftermath of a near catastrophe in January when a door plug blew out from one of the jetliners mid-flight. The company had separately been trying to boost output of 787 Dreamliners after quality problems suspended deliveries for nearly two years, ending in mid-2022. "We continue to take steps to improve the overall health of our production system, putting into action your ideas for improving safety, first-pass quality, training, performing more work in sequence and ensuring our teams have the necessary resources to excel," said Scott Stocker, 787 vice president and general manager, in a memo to staff at Boeing's South Carolina 787 plant. Stocker said Boeing is still facing supplier shortages. "To that end, we have shared with our customers that we expect a slower increase in our rate of production and deliveries," he wrote in the memo, reported earlier by Reuters, adding that the company still plans to increase the rate steadily because of high demand. Boeing was producing about five 787 Dreamliners per month as of late last year and said in January it aimed to get up to 10 a month as early as next year. Boeing is set to report quarterly results and will likely detail its production plans before the market opens on Wednesday.<br/>

A Shanghai flying taxi company says that China’s “low altitude” industry is edging ahead of western rivals, thanks to more supportive regulators, technological breakthroughs and cut-throat competition in the Chinese logistics sector. The total market created by electric vertical take-off and landing, or eVTOL, aircraft is forecast to be worth $1.5tn a year by 2040 in a base-case assessment by Morgan Stanley analysts, with potential customers across airlines, logistics, emergency services, agriculture, tourism and security operations. China’s AutoFlight Group won airworthiness certification from the Civil Aviation Administration of China in late March for the design and parts for its unmanned CarryAll aircraft — a global first for an eVTOL weighing more than 1 tonne being cleared by regulators. Kellen Xie, AutoFlight vice-president, said that while the company is also seeking similar approvals in Europe, the CAAC has been “quite supportive” of the new industry. “They work longer hours . . . they are determined to actually speed up the process of bringing this new technology into reality,” he said. EVTOL aircraft take off vertically, like helicopters, but then transition into fixed-wing mode for travelling at higher speeds, offering faster and more efficient transport than ground-based options. Analysts point to a labyrinth of regulatory and safety hurdles, but supporters say the technology could fundamentally reshape how humans travel and freight is moved, in a level of disruption akin to the introduction of mass-market cars and commercial airlines. Most eVTOL aircraft are still in the testing stages and vary widely in terms of how fast and high they can fly and how much weight they can carry. Morgan Stanley analysts have previously noted a key challenge for aircraft operators looms in navigating tightly controlled air space restrictions, especially in and around urban areas.<br/>