general

Shortly after Boeing’s CE, Dave Calhoun, took his seat, families who lost relatives in the 2018 and 2019 crashes of the company’s 737 Max 8 planes called out to him, demanding that he turn around and acknowledge them and the photos of their loved ones. Among those behind Mr. Calhoun were the parents and brother of Samya Rose Stumo, the 24-year-old who was killed in the 2019 Ethiopian Airlines accident and the grandniece of Ralph Nader, the consumer advocate and former presidential candidate. Nearby sat the family of John Barnett, the former Boeing engineer and whistle-blower who died by suicide earlier this year in the midst of a Justice Department criminal investigation into the company. Others held photos of their loved ones lost in the crashes. “I would like to apologize, on behalf of all of our Boeing associates spread throughout the world, past and present, for your losses,” Calhoun said while facing the families. “And I apologize for the grief that we have caused.” The hearing on Tuesday was Calhoun’s first appearance before Congress since a January incident in which the door plug of a 737 Max 9 plane ripped off during an Alaska Airlines flight at an elevation of about 16,000 feet near Portland, Ore. Calhoun, who plans to step down at the end of the year, took over as CE in 2019 after two fatal crashes of a smaller version of the jet, the 737 Max 8. Those crashes, in which 346 people died, led to a 20-month global ban on the plane. Members of a Senate investigative panel questioned Calhoun about reports of the company retaliating against whistle-blowers who raised safety and quality concerns, how parts made of questionable titanium made it into Boeing planes without detection and allegations of falsified inspection records involving the company’s 787 Dreamliner. Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat of Connecticut and chairman of the subcommittee holding the hearing, said Calhoun had assured lawmakers that he was the leader Boeing needed to turn the corner after the Max crashes in 2018 and 2019. Blumenthal said the company had appeared to be heading in the right direction until the January incident, which he said exposed shortcuts the company had been taking.<br/>

A quality inspector has alleged that Boeing lost track of hundreds of faulty parts - and some may be on Max 737 planes that have become a focus of safety concerns. The claims were presented in a June 11 complaint by Boeing inspector Sam Mohawk with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. His statements have since been made public by a memo to members by a Senate subcommittee. That committee is set to hear testimony later Tuesday about the Boeing’s manufacturing process, which has faced federal investigations after a series of high-profile mishaps. The complaint claimed that Boeing had lost hundreds of faulty aircraft parts in the 737 program and deleted records for many of the parts from a cataloging system. The damaged or inadequate parts, referred to as non-conforming parts, are supposed to be tracked and disposed of to make sure they are not used in aircraft production. However, Mohawk reportedly claimed that the company “intentionally hid” the improperly stored parts from the Federal Aviation Administration during one onsite inspection. Boeing has said it is reviewing the claims after receiving the document Monday. “We continuously encourage employees to report all concerns as our priority is to ensure the safety of our airplanes and the flying public,” Boeing said.<br/>

Nearly two years after the $4b transformation of LaGuardia Airport’s Terminal B, the outlook for the aviation hub’s debt is looking up, according to Fitch Ratings. Analysts led by Anita Lin raised their outlook for LaGuardia Gateway Partners to positive from stable citing strong traffic and a better-than-expected financial performance. The Terminal B project was essential to the airport and supportive of “resilient traffic demand,” according to a release Tuesday. LaGuardia, one of three major airports serving New York City, handled over 32m passengers in 2023, according to the release. Enplanements in 2023 were well above prepandemic levels, and indicate “healthy growth rates.” Going forward, Fitch analysts expect steady growth with a mix of business and leisure travel. “Passenger activity has mostly normalized since the pandemic, with business travel still lagging behind prepandemic levels,” the analysts wrote. <br/>

The European Commission has drafted plans to exempt long-haul flights from rules on monitoring their non-CO2 emissions, after international carriers lobbied for an opt-out, documents seen by Reuters showed. The EU is developing plans to require airlines to track and report their contribution to climate change from January 2025 - not only from carbon dioxide, but also soot, nitrogen oxides and water vapour. Airlines' non-CO2 emissions have at least as important an impact on global warming as their CO2 output, according to the EU's aviation safety authority. A draft Commission proposal for the new rules, seen by Reuters, would exclude international flights - defined by the EU as those departing or landing in Europe from non-European destinations - from the emissions disclosure rules for two years, limiting them until 2027 to only flights within Europe. "Such reporting shall only be required in respect of routes involving two aerodromes located in the European Economic Area," it said, adding that flights from the EEA to Switzerland or Britain would also be covered. It did not give a rationale for the exclusion. The exemption mirrors current EU rules that require airlines to disclose and pay fees for their CO2 emissions produced on flights only inside Europe, although those rules are due to be reassessed in 2026.<br/>

Several airports across India, including Patna, Coimbatore and Jaipur, received bomb threat emails on Tuesday causing flight delays. The security has been heightened in view of the threat mails. Officials have revealed that bomb threats were sent to 41 airports across India, all of which were found to be hoax. In the morning, a Dubai-bound flight scheduled to take off from Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) was delayed after the airport authority received a bomb threat email. Then, a Dubai-bound Emirates flight was delayed by around two hours after a bomb threat email was received at the Chennai airport. Passengers had not boarded the plane scheduled to leave at 9.50am. Meanwhile, an unidentified person sent a bomb threat email to the Coimbatore international airport. A bomb detection and disposal squad (BDDS) team, along with a sniffer dog squad from the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), conducted a search of the airport premises and declared the bomb threat a hoax. The email sender stated that “bombs are planted at the airport, and they may explode anytime.” "We are in an alert mode, and we have taken all precautions. It was not a specific threat email. However, we have intensified the security at the airport," said Coimbatore International Airport director S Senthil Valavan. He added that the flight movements were not affected due to the hoax threat emails.<br/>

Concerns among pilots about a possible mid-air collision are spilling over in Australia as a shortage of air traffic controllers leaves airport towers unmanned, forcing passenger jets to fend for themselves. There are currently no overnight air traffic control services at Darwin, a northern gateway for carriers including Qantas Airways Ltd. and Virgin Australia. Schedules show that at around midnight almost every day, more than a dozen flights have to arrive or depart with almost no guidance from the ground. On Australia’s northeast coast, the airport at Townsville — a popular jumping off point for the Great Barrier Reef — doesn’t staff its control tower at weekends. Almost 50 commercial services have to coordinate their own landings or takeoffs on Sunday alone. The labor crisis on the ground is adding risk in the air during the post-Covid travel boom, with flight crews taking on the task of distancing their planes from other air traffic — a responsibility that ordinarily lies with air traffic controllers. Pilots say landing without direction from a tower removes an important layer of security at a critical period of the flight. Concerned crews are blowing the whistle after a surge in passenger traffic. Airlines have scheduled 866 flights into Darwin this month, the most this year, up from a Covid-era low of 171 in May 2020, according to Cirium data. Runway construction work at the airport that restricts plane movements is making landing and taking off without help even more complicated, pilots say.<br/>

Some day, the passenger jets that soar 35,000 feet (10.6 kilometers) over Dan McLean’s North Dakota farm could be fueled by corn grown on his land and millions of other acres across the Midwest. It’s a vision the US airline industry embraces and agricultural groups see as a key to ensuring strong future sales of ethanol, a fuel that consumes more than one-third of the nation’s corn crop and offers a cleaner-burning alternative for the nation’s airlines. But making that dream a reality hasn’t been easy, in part because even as farmers would benefit from a huge new market for corn, the plan relies on federal tax credits triggered by capturing carbon dioxide at refineries and then moving the gas hundreds of miles through pipelines that would snake across the Midwest, including beneath farmers’ fields. Some of those farmers, along with environmentalist and property rights groups, have gone before regulatory authorities in several Midwest states to oppose the lines, and frequently they have succeeded in at least slowing the process. A key decision is expected soon in Iowa. “This whole thing is private industry -- rich private industry -- getting tax money, strictly tax money to bury this stuff,” said McLean, who opposes a line that would cross his farmland east of Bismarck. “That tax money is coming out of everybody’s pocket, and they’re going to walk away from it, and we’re going to be left with a big poisonous pipe running across the country.” Supporters have faced such criticism for years as they seek approval of pipelines and tax credits. The credits would mean profits for refineries and help make the cost of the new fuel competitive with traditional jet fuel. But opponents see the pipelines as an expensive and potentially dangerous effort that tramples on property rights and fails to reduce greenhouse gases. Gaining approval of pipelines has proved arduous.<br/>

Brazilian planemaker Embraer sees itself as a "great solution" for carriers to add capacity more quickly amid constraints to 'big' narrowbody deliveries in the industry, CE Francisco Gomes Neto said on Tuesday. The company has seen increased demand for its commercial jets and is actively working on several sales campaigns it hopes to conclude in coming months, Gomes Neto told reporters at an event at the firm's headquarters. Embraer has production slots available from 2026, meaning it can deliver on new jet sales before larger rivals Boeing and Airbus, the latter having sold out its production of single-aisle jets until the end of the decade. The Brazilian firm is gearing up for the Farnborough Airshow next month, when planemakers often announce major orders. Gomes Neto said Embraer hopes this year's event will be "the best show ever" for the company. "We have a positive sales momentum in different business units," the executive said. "Starting with the commercial jets, we have seen increased demand for our E-Jets, either the E175-E1 or the E2 family."<br/>Embraer this month bagged an order for 20 E2 jets from Mexicana de Aviacion, opening a new market for its second-generation jets, following a major order from American Airlines in March for 90 smaller, first generation E175. Embraer's traditional regional market, where it competes with its E2 family for 90 to 120 passengers, fits just below the Boeing and Airbus's best-selling 150-seat-plus market. Gomes Neto reiterated that even though Embraer understands it has the capability to make larger aircraft, at this point there are no concrete plans to move in a different direction from its regional niche. "We are always making studies about opportunities, not only in commercial but in other business unites as well, but at this point of time we don't have concrete plans," the executive said. "We are really focused on selling the products we have."<br/>