A number of flights have been diverted following an evacuation at an airport control tower. Six flights due to arrive at Bristol Airport were redirected "as a precaution" on Tuesday following a fire alarm - which was later found to be a false alarm. A spokesperson for the airport apologised for any disruption caused. They confirmed airport operations had reopened and flights were "returning to normal". TUI flights from Santorini and Skiathos and easyJet flights from Inverness, Lanzarote and Marrakesh were diverted due to the false alarm. A Ryanair flight from Gran Canaria was the sixth to be redirected during the incident. A Bristol Airport spokesperson said staff were working with airlines to return passengers from diverted flights. They added: “Our airport control tower was evacuated earlier this afternoon. After investigation, this was found to be a false alarm but we did temporarily suspend airport operations as a precaution. We’re sorry for the disruption caused to passengers.”<br/>
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Last Thursday the governor of Zamfara, one of Nigeria’s poorest states, held a ceremony to mark the start of construction on an international airport in the state capital Gusau. “The economic benefits and multiplier effects … are quite enormous,” Dauda Lawal said. “The airport will have a tremendous impact on the ease of doing business and other social interactions [here].” Barely a month before, Alex Otti, the governor of Abia state in the south-east, had thanked federal officials for approving an airstrip project and said he would be lobbying for an upgrade to a full airport in the near future. “A journey of a thousand miles starts with one step,” Otti said. Airports have been springing up around the country in recent years; for the most part absent are any concerns about the environmental impact of air travel. Nigeria already has 33 airports – all but two entirely owned by the federal or state governments – as well as 13 airstrips, four military airfields and 128 sites with helipads. Despite the proliferation in projects, the number of journeys taken by air fell last year to 15.89m, down from 16.17m in 2022. Passenger traffic is incredibly concentrated: just three airports accounted for 92% of all passenger journeys nationwide in 2022, according to the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority. For some observers the rush to build airports is less about economics and more about political prestige.<br/>
Takeoff and landing at South Korea's Incheon international airport was disrupted on Wednesday for about three hours before dawn because of balloons launched by North Korea filled with refuse, an airport spokesperson said. One balloon landed on the tarmac near passenger Terminal 2 and the three runways at Incheon were temporarily shut down, the spokesperson said. North Korea has flown balloons carrying trash into South Korea since late May, with hundreds landing in South Korea. Several balloons were spotted in and around the airport boundaries, the spokesperson said, adding that this was not the first time operations at the airport - which is about 40km from the North Korean border - had been disrupted by balloons nearby. The disruption to domestic and international flights occurred between 1:46 a.m. and 4:44 a.m., and the runways have re-opened since then, Incheon International Airport Corporation said. Flight volume at that time of day is usually low. FlightRadar24 showed shows eight arriving cargo and passenger flights were diverted to South Korea's Cheongju or Jeju airports during that time, and one China Cargo freighter from Shanghai was diverted to Yantai, China. Several more landings were delayed, and departures were delayed by several hours. North Korea has said the balloons are retaliation for a propaganda campaign by North Korean defectors and activists in the South who regularly send over balloons carrying food, medicine, money and leaflets criticising the North's leaders.<br/>
In a bid to acquire a key supplier, Boeing has shifted how it plans to pay for the deal, according to two people familiar with the negotiations, a move that could help the plane maker preserve money as it addresses safety and quality problems. Boeing would use stock instead of cash to buy Spirit AeroSystems, said the two people, who were not authorized to speak publicly about the deal. One added that Boeing would pay more than $4b for Spirit, which produces aviation parts, including the body of the Boeing 737 Max, the company’s most popular plane. One of the people familiar with the talks said that the decision to shift to stock from cash was not expected to significantly delay a deal, which could be announced as soon as next week. Based on its stock price on Tuesday, Spirit has a market value of more than $3.6b. Paying in stock could help Boeing’s financial situation as it invests in improving production quality after a panel blew away from a 737 Max plane during an Alaska Airlines flight in January. The Federal Aviation Administration limited the company’s ability to increase production of the 737 Max after the January incident. In May, Boeing said its operations would use more cash than it brought in this year. The negotiations to acquire Spirit have been complicated by the fact that Spirit also supplies parts to Boeing’s biggest competitor, Airbus. That company is expected to take over the operations of Spirit that produce parts for Airbus. Federal investigators have said that the plane involved in the January incident appeared to have left a Boeing factory without the bolts needed to secure the panel in place. In the months that followed, Boeing has taken a number of steps to improve quality. Last week, its CE, Dave Calhoun, faced tough questioning from lawmakers about the episode and two fatal crashes involving the Max in late 2018 and early 2019.<br/>
Airbus SE is coming up short on the millions of parts that make up the company’s commercial aircraft, and the situation is getting worse rather than better for the world’s largest planemaker. The manufacturer warned late on Monday that it’s experiencing a shortage on engines, aerostructures and cabin interiors, which in turn is sabotaging the company’s delivery plans. As a result, Airbus pared back a whole slew of longer-term goals — from operating profit, cash generation and jet handovers to the monthly production rates of its all-important A320 model. The challenges facing Airbus and rival Boeing Co. are caused not by slack demand for its products, but rather a supply chain that’s been severely stretched for years. Airbus has long warned of the issue after the pandemic first upended the global aviation industry and then left it unprepared once air travel came roaring back. What’s new is the breadth of the problem, with CEO Guillaume Faury saying that engine shortages are now coming up as the latest pinch point. “That is a new situation that we were not expecting,” Faury said on a call after Airbus issued its surprise revisions for the year. The company now expects to hand over 770 aircraft rather than 800 units in 2024, it said Monday after European markets closed.<br/>
Canadian workers' union Unifor said on Tuesday its members at Bombardier will continue their ongoing strike action after rejecting, what it called, a "final proposal" from the business-jet maker. Two of the union's local units, 112 and 673, announced the strike action at the company after failing to reach an agreement by June 22. The 1,350 workers from these units are engaged in building Bombardier's long-range Global series aircraft at the Toronto-based Pearson international airport facility. The union said on Tuesday it considered the company's offer as "insufficient", adding that "both the parties remain apart on key union priorities". Bombardier and Unifor are to continue negotiations, the union said, without disclosing details.<br/>