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The U.S. Treasury Department said on Friday it planned to conduct a series of auctions to sell the warrants to purchase stock in U.S. airlines that it received after Congress approved $54b in COVID-19 air carrier assistance in 2020 and 2021. Out of the $54b awarded, airlines were required to repay $14 billion. Treasury received warrants to purchase stock at the share price of the time of the government awards. Airlines accepting government assistance were prohibited from imposing furloughs or firing workers and faced limits on executive compensation and bans on stock buybacks and dividends that expired in September 2022. American Airlines received $12.6b in government assistance, followed by Delta Air Lines at $11.9b, United Airlines at $10.9b, and Southwest Airlines at $7.2b. Seven other airlines received smaller awards, including $2.2 billion for Alaska Airlines. According to a Reuters calculation, opens new tab, the warrants are worth about $478m at Friday's closing share prices. Many of the airline warrants are priced below the current trading prices of the carriers' stocks. Treasury held a call with airlines to inform them of the plan, airline officials said. The US government also extended $25 billion in low-cost loans to airlines. Treasury said "the proceeds of these sales will provide additional returns to the American taxpayer from the financial assistance and liquidity that Treasury provided to these airlines during the pandemic."<br/>

President Joe Biden on Friday signed a one-week extension for federal aviation programs ahead of a key deadline after the Senate passed the measure Thursday night, the White House announced. The president, who is currently traveling in San Francisco, signed the FAA funding extension using the autopen – a device used for automatic signatures – in order to ensure there was no lapse in funding, a White House official said. The bill was transmitted to the White House Friday afternoon, the official said. The use of the autopen, which was first used by President Barack Obama to sign legislation, has been a rarity in the Biden administration. The White House has gone to great lengths at times to fly physical bills to Biden while he’s traveling abroad, including a $40 billion Ukraine aid package the president signed while in South Korea in 2022 and a 2022 bill to avert a government shutdown while the president was on vacation in St. Croix. The Senate also approved a bipartisan FAA reauthorization bill that renews authority for the agency for the next five years on Thursday night. The House will next need to pass that legislation. That bill would renew authority for the agency for the next five years and aims to improve aviation safety, enhance protections for passengers and airline workers and invest in airport and air travel infrastructure nationwide. The bill would authorize more than $105 billion in funding for the FAA as well as $738m for the National Transportation Safety Board for fiscal years 2024 through 2028.<br/>

The Port of Oakland has denied claims that adding "San Francisco Bay" to its airport's name will confuse fliers, asking a judge to reject a trademark lawsuit by neighboring San Francisco. In a court filing, opens new tab on Thursday, the port told the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California that airports in Chicago, Dallas, London, Paris and Beijing peacefully share their cities' names and said that its branding and continued use of the OAK airport code would prevent confusion. The port also argued that San Francisco's own airport name, San Francisco International Airport, is misleading because the airport is located in San Mateo County and not San Francisco itself.<br/>Representatives for San Francisco did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the filing on Friday. "The San Francisco's City Attorney's decision to pursue litigation is an attempt to stop consumer education, prevent expanded air travel options for Bay Area residents and visitors, and is a misguided use of San Francisco taxpayer dollars," Port of Oakland attorney Mary Richardson said. The port announced plans in March to change the name of Metropolitan Oakland International Airport to San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport. The port's board of commissioners unanimously approved the name change on Thursday. Oakland's airport is located 12 miles east of San Francisco and just over 30 miles from San Francisco International Airport (SFO). San Francisco sued Oakland for infringing its airport's trademarks last month.<br/>

The US Federal Aviation Administration, sharply criticized after the crashes of two Boeing planes in 2018 and 2019, is again being dragged into a maelstrom surrounding the major American aerospace manufacturer. The dramatic mid-flight blowout on January 5 of a fuselage panel on an Alaska Airlines plane precipitated the departures of a series of top Boeing officials -- including CEO Dave Calhoun, who is set to step down at year's end -- and the reduced production of the 737 MAX. But as Boeing faces multiple inquiries and audits in the United States and abroad, it has repeatedly assured critics that it is working "with full transparency and under the oversight" of FAA regulators. And the FAA, which itself has seen four bosses come and go since August 2019, has been unable to evade a share of the responsibility. "The FAA has to be held accountable as well," said Senator Richard Blumenthal, who heads a subcommittee investigating Boeing's safety practices. After the panel incident in January, the agency dispatched a team to inspect Boeing factories, and gave the firm 90 days to provide an "action plan" to address several problem areas. "I think the FAA is doing the best that they can and that they have greatly improved their surveillance of Boeing" since the 2018 and 2019 crashes off Indonesia and in Ethiopia, which killed 346 people, said Jeff Guzzetti, an aviation consultant and former head of the agency's investigation division. "But they did fail to catch production problems," he said, noting that for decades the FAA relied on manufacturers themselves to "self-report problems." The FAA, short on money and personnel, has long delegated the job of quality assurance to pre-approved employees of the airplane manufacturers. That creates "a conflict of interest," said Hassan Shahidi, president of the nonprofit Flight Safety Foundation. "There needs to be a shift where the FAA has more direct responsibility for oversight," he said. Story has more.<br/>

In July 2022, the staff at Vnukovo airport in Moscow found an unusual item in the luggage of a passenger: a piece of equipment that engineers call an “air data inertial reference unit”. Modern passenger aircraft are packed with sophisticated technology and few devices are more delicate than these advanced pieces of avionics, which use gyroscopes and accelerometers to monitor the twists and turns. According to paperwork that was later filed by customs officers, the item weighed 11kg and was listed as costing $40,000. It was destined for S7, Russia’s second-largest airline. Nor was this a one-off occurrence. By the end of 2022, a further 10 ADIRUs sent in passenger luggage destined for S7 were reported in customs forms at Moscow airports. The luggage trade is a striking example of the unorthodox supply routes that Russian airlines have been forced to rely on since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Hit by sweeping sanctions and export controls, they have had to reinvent the ways they source parts in order to keep their planes in the air. Sanctions represent a massive threat to air travel in Russia. Aircraft require continuous support and regular software upgrades, as well as a regimen of checks — and the Russian companies are now largely cut off from their suppliers. Airbus, for example, told the FT that “there is no legal way that genuine aircraft parts, documentation and services can get to Russian carriers”.<br/>

German aviation firm Lilium and Swiss-based nickel refinery company KL1 will set up new sites in France representing a combined investment of E700m, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Sunday. Lilium will invest E400m in a new factory that will create up to 850 new jobs. KL1's new site in Blanquefort, near Bordeaux, will amount to an investment of 300 million euros, creating 200 new jobs, Le Maire said. The precise site of the new Lilium plant, which will be a factory to help produce electric jet aircraft, is yet to be finalised although it will be in the Nouvelle Aquitaine region. The deals come as President Emmanuel Macron prepared to kick off the country's annual "Choose France" business summit, aimed at attracting foreign investments into the country. "Choose France brings in capital, Choose France brings in new technologies, Choose France helps us plug holes in gaps on certain value chains," said Le Maire.<br/>

If you took an American Airlines flight in the 1960s, you’d be wined and dined from the Coach-class “Royal Coachman” menu. Your meal began with the beef consommé and proceeded to sautéed breast of chicken in wine. Care for a fruit tartlet for dessert? Today, if you’re flying coach, you’ll need to book a long-distance international flight or – maybe if you’re lucky – a coast-to-coast domestic one to receive a free meal. On shorter flights, you might get a choice of complementary Biscoff cookies or pretzels. Airplane food has fallen a long way from the glory days of in-flight dining when meals were served on white tablecloths and stewardesses scrambled eggs in the air. Disappearing meals have joined a long list of pain points, inconveniences and cutbacks that fliers endure today. But industry cost-cutting isn’t the only reason your tartlet is gone. The end of in-flight dining for many passengers surprisingly rose out of big changes in government regulation, airplane design, in-flight movies, industry tax breaks, plus heightened health and safety concerns. Airline safety protocols and regulations since September 11 have changed what types of cooking knives crews can work with in the air. Airplane galleys are smaller to allow for more passenger seats on a plane. And airlines don’t serve some foods, like peanuts, to protect people with allergies. Meals are often smaller, blander or non-existent. “Meal service was once a point of pride,” said Henry Harteveldt, who covers the travel industry for Atmosphere Research Group. Now, “the quality is so poor you have to wonder: Do airline executives actually have taste buds?” Airlines have long looked for ways to cut food production costs and reduce meal preparation times for flight attendants on board. In one famous example during the 1980s, Robert Crandall, then the head of American Airlines, bragged about how removing just one olive from every salad saved the airline $40,000 a year. Cost and speed became more important to airlines than how the food tastes ever since. Carriers like Singapore Airlines or Delta may have partnerships with Michelin-starred celebrity chefs, but most companies farm out their food to catering services who may prepare it hours ahead.<br/>