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The FAA said Tuesday it is investigating a union's claims that Boeing retaliated against two employees who in 2022 insisted the planemaker re-evaluate prior engineering work on 777 and 787 jets. The Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA) said the two unidentified engineers were representatives of the FAA, which delegates some of its oversight authority and certification process to Boeing workers. The union filed an unfair labor practice complaint with the National Labor Relations Board last week, saying the two engineers had received identical negative evaluations after the incident. Boeing said it has "zero tolerance for retaliation and encourage our employees to speak up when they see an issue. After an extensive review of documentation and interviewing more than a dozen witnesses, our investigators found no evidence of retaliation or interference. We have determined the allegations are unsubstantiated." One of the two workers has quit Boeing, the union said. The FAA noted on Tuesday that in 2022 it boosted oversight of planemakers by protecting aviation industry employees who perform agency functions from interference by their employers. A December 2021 Senate report found "FAA’s certification process suffers from undue pressure on line engineers and production staff." "Boeing can tell Congress and the media all it wants about how retaliation is strictly prohibited," said SPEEA Director of Strategic Development Rich Plunkett. "But our union is fighting retaliation cases on a regular basis, and, in this specific case, Boeing is trying to hide information that would shed light on what happened." The union filed the complaint seeking access to a report Boeing submitted to the FAA about the incident. The union said the engineers were at odds with Boeing managers in 2022, when "they insisted on using a different set of assumptions in the analysis of the on-board computer networks on Boeing 777s and 787s, in order to comply with the new FAA guidance."<br/>

After years of pandemic-related travel struggles, officials with the Ottawa International Airport say they're feeling optimistic that their finances and passenger traffic are finally starting to look up. In its 2023 financial report, the Ottawa International Airport Authority announced it saw an increase in domestic and international passengers, inching closer to pre-pandemic volumes from 2019. "I'm so pleased to see our passenger volume building back and our finances turned around," said the authority's president and CEO Mark Laroche in a statement Monday. The total number of passengers arriving at or departing from the airport reached 4,095,915 in 2023, compared to just under 3m passengers in 2022. It's still a long way from the 5.1m passengers passing through the airport in 2018 and 2019. Most of its passenger traffic is within Canada, around 3.2m. However, there's been a 241% increase in international passengers excluding the United States, accounting for around 315,000 passengers in 2023. The rest were about 575,000 people flying to and from the U.S.<br/>

This summer, European airlines may find that fewer planes mean more profit. Airbus and Boeing’s supply chain issues, on top of regulatory scrutiny at the embattled US manufacturer, mean that customers like E23b Ryanair won’t get as many aircraft as they might like. That could mean higher air fares, and chunkier net-income margins for carriers that can keep in-demand routes in service. The only problem is that it may prove a short-term boost as part of a shakier glide path. Planes are scarce. Airbus is likely to hand over fewer commercial aircraft in 2024 than it did in 2019, due to ongoing supply chain issues. Meanwhile, under-fire rival Boeing saw its March deliveries halve from the year before as regulators stepped up factory checks. Ryanair said last week that it expected to receive 40 new Boeing jets by mid-July, compared with previous plans for 57 by the end of April. Certain Airbus planes are also being grounded to undergo engine inspections. Demand, however, is holding up well. Holidaymakers have largely shrugged off recession fears and the outbreak of war. In an upbeat earnings release last Thursday, easyJet said that summer bookings were up on last year, in terms of both volume and pricing. Strong demand and weak supply mean airlines can charge more. That will come as a relief to carriers, who have long suffered a continent-wide surplus of planes and routes, which crimped margins and helped to tank valuations. Even over the past year, a basket of five leading airline groups have, on average, seen their forward price-earnings ratios slip from 12 to around 6, using analyst estimates compiled by LSEG.<br/>

French air traffic controllers are to stage a one-day strike on Thursday that risks seeing most flights cancelled at the two main Paris airports, France's leading aviation association warned on Tuesday. Unions called the strike after a breakdown of negotiations on salary increases and other measures in a planned overhaul of France's air traffic control system. The action has raised new concerns over the risk of strikes during the Olympic Games that Paris is due to host from late July, when hundreds of thousands of extra visitors are expected. The main air traffic union has also warned it could order several days of strike action over a busy May holiday weekend if its demands are not met. The strike is going to be "very strongly followed", said Pascal de Izaguirre, the head of FNAM, an umbrella group of French aviation industry unions. He said 75% of flights could be cancelled at Paris Orly airport and 65% at Charles de Gaulle, the capital's main airport. Those figures were confirmed late on Tuesday by a source with knowledge of the cancellations, with airlines also being forced to cancel 65% of flights in the southern city of Marseille. France's DGAC aviation authority is also telling airlines to cut 60% of flights at both the Toulouse and Nice airports, and 50% at other regional airports. "It will have a huge impact," de Izaguirre said. On top of the cancellations, "major delays" are to be expected, said an official from the air traffic controllers' union, asking not to be named. The air traffic control reforms aim to improve productivity but unions think the changes should be accompanied by higher salaries.<br/>

The boss of the UK's air traffic services provider has defended engineers who work from home, in evidence presented to MPs about major flight disruption last summer. The CEO of National Air Traffic Services (Nats) Martin Rolfe insisted the ability to problem solve remotely when called upon was "a bonus". Rolfe argued last year's outage would have been worse without its software. There was air traffic chaos last August Bank Holiday Monday when flights ground to a halt in and out of the UK and an on-call senior engineer took more than 90 minutes to reach the office. The major technical failure disrupted flight plans for almost 750,000 passengers last summer. Low-cost airline Ryanair levied particularly strong criticism at Nats in the aftermath of the August incident. Its boss Michael O'Leary accused engineers of "sitting at home in their pyjamas". However, speaking to the Transport Committee on Tuesday about what Nats had done to make its systems resilient, Mr Rolfe defended his organisation's staffing arrangements. He said it operated a "very similar model to almost all of the rest of critical national infrastructure". He added that there were always engineers on site to solve problems, but more expert "design engineers" were needed for particularly complex issues. Rolfe said they were generally in the office during the week but could be on-call outside of normal working hours.<br/>

Moroccan officials want to turn the country into an aviation hub, luring investors aiming to spread out their supply chains to more nations with available and affordable workers. The North African kingdom is among a longer list of countries vying for contracts with big manufacturers looking to speed up production and deliver more planes to meet demand. Companies like Boeing and Airbus — as well as the manufacturers that build their components — are outsourcing design, production and maintenance to countries from Mexico to Thailand. In Morocco, efforts to grow the country’s $2b-a-year aerospace industry are part of a years-long push to transform the largely agrarian economy through subsidizing manufacturers of planes, trains and automobiles. Officials hope it dovetails with efforts to grow Moroccan airlines, including the state-owned Royal Air Maroc. “The needs are huge and we are in a very good position,” said Hamid Abbou, the airline’s CEO. “Most of the big suppliers in Europe are struggling to get people to work in this industry. We don’t have that issue.” Despite hopes among its cheerleaders, the air travel industry faces headwinds. When demand rebounded after much air traffic stopped during the pandemic, manufacturers faced challenges building enough planes to meet demand from airlines. For Boeing, delays caused by supply chain issues were compounded by high-profile emergencies and deadly crashes that further curtailed deliveries. From eastern Europe to southeast Asia, new levels of demand have forced manufacturers to seek out new locations to build and repair parts.<br/>

Eight people and seven companies were prosecuted for unlawful use of drones in 2023, out of a total of 309 cases that year. The Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) said the 15 court cases resulted in fines of between $4,000 and $45,000 for the perpetrators. The other 294 drone operators were issued composition fines, stern warnings or advisories. CAAS said it took enforcement action against 396 cases of unlawful unmanned aircraft operations in 2022 and 266 cases in 2021, with the majority of these cases involving drones. In February 2023, a 25-year-old man was fined $23,000 for flying an unregistered drone neither for recreational nor educational purposes, without the necessary permits, and also in a reckless manner. A construction firm was fined $45,000 in May 2023 over eight charges of operating a drone in the course of business without the necessary permits. Another 51 charges were taken into consideration. In 2020, 20 drone operators were arrested in the span of three months for illegally flying their drones within 5km of Changi Airport, prompting the authorities to beef up security.<br/>

For a company that has been in crisis mode for as long as Boeing Co., the planemaker has some startlingly upbeat support from Wall Street. A near-disaster in January during an Alaska Air Group Inc. flight set off a chain reaction of regulatory probes and whistleblower allegations while several other mishaps with other aircraft made by the company have sent the shares plummeting some 35% this year. Through it all though, analysts covering the stock have remained overwhelmingly positive, with more than 60% recommending buying the stock. The reasoning is simple: despite all its challenges, Boeing’s future looks secure, given its impressive order book, a strong outlook for air-travel demand and a fairly stable competitive landscape. That rosy view will face a critical test Wednesday when the company reports first-quarter results. “High barriers to entry and a global duopoly are a big part” of what underpins analysts’ confidence in Boeing, said Michael O’Rourke, chief market strategist at JonesTrading, referring to Boeing’s tight grip on the aircraft market with competitor Airbus SE. “The other key point of attraction for investors is its businesses have very long lead times and thus its backlog is a key factor.” Out of the 33 analysts covering Boeing, 21 give it a buy rating, with 10 saying hold and only two recommending investors sell the stock, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The average price target on the company stands at $228, reflecting a 34% premium over Monday’s closing price of $170.48. <br/>

Spirit AeroSystems said Boeing would give it advance payments of $425m and help it address issues like higher levels of inventory and lower cashflows after the U.S. aviation regulator capped the planemaker's 737 MAX production. The agreement announced by Spirit on Tuesday comes amid talks between the two for Boeing to buy the fuselage supplier, a former subsidiary, and as the planemaker tries to get control of a sprawling crisis sparked by a mid-air panel blowout in January. Under the deal, Spirit will maintain a production rate that supports Boeing's contractual production demand. Spirit, one of the industry's major manufacturers of large aircraft structures, has struggled with cash flow problems over the past few quarters and quality issues surrounding the fuselages it makes for Boeing's 737 narrowbody jets. Spirit will also provide to Boeing specified financial information on a weekly basis. The deal would also help navigate lower expected deliveries to Boeing due to the FAA limiting previously planned increases in production rates and higher factory costs to maintain rate readiness and production quality.<br/>

Boeing has opened a research & technology centre in Nagoya focusing on the decarbonisation of aviation. The centre will focus on areas such as model-based engineering, composites, sustainable aviation fuel, and the feasibility of hydrogen fuel cells in aircraft, says the company in an 18 April statement. The facility will also look at production methods, including worker safety and ergonomics. “Together with our Japanese partners we will continue to support production and sustainment across our portfolio of commercial and defense aircraft; invest in digital engineering and advanced manufacturing capabilities to create a more resilient and competitive industry; and together drive sustainability and innovation, forge new partnerships, and find new ways to collaborate,” says Boeing Japan president Will Shaffer. The company first announced the centre in August 2022. Nagoya is a key node in Japan’s aerospace sector, with Japanese Tier One manufacturers producing key aerostructures for Boeing types such as the 777 and 787. The new Nagoya research & technology centre is the company’s 12th globally. <br/>

Canada has granted Airbus a waiver to allow it to use Russian titanium in its manufacturing after becoming the first Western government to ban supplies of the strategic metal in its latest package of measures triggered by the war in Ukraine. The move gives Airbus flexibility in its Canadian plants and is expected to allay concerns that its core operations could be hit by effectively banning the import to Canada of its European-built jets that rely most heavily on lightweight titanium.<br/>"Airbus is aware of the Canadian government imposing sanctions on VSMPO and has obtained the necessary authorisation to secure Airbus operations in compliance with the applicable sanctions," Airbus Canada said in response to a Reuters query. It did not elaborate on the approvals or say how long they would remain in effect.<br/>