US commercial airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration are preparing for the upcoming Independence Day holiday travel period, which is expected to break records. The FAA said on 24 June that it anticipates Friday, 27 June will be its busiest travel day so far this year, with 53,677 flights scheduled. The holiday is celebrated in the USA on 4 July. Since that date falls on a Thursday this year, companies often give their employees the following Friday off as well, creating a four-day long weekend for most. The US regulator says it expects a total of more than 444,500 flights between 26 June and 5 July. It has not released figures for the weekend after the actual holiday, which is also expected to push figures into the record books. Meantime, the US TSA, responsible for safety checks at more than 430 airports across the nation, says it is planning to screen ”more than 32m individuals” from 27 June through 8 July. That’s a 5.4% increase over 2023 travel volumes, the agency says. Last Sunday, 23 June was TSA’s busiest day ever so far, when it screened 2.99m people. It expects to break the 3m-mark on 28 June. American Airlines, which considers the period between 27 June and 7 July to be its peak holiday travel period, says it plans to welcome more than 7.2m customers on its aircraft, up 8% from last year.<br/>
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The FAA said it is adopting a new airworthiness directive for 13 Boeing 757-200 airplanes of U.S. registry over reports of cracking in the structure in and around the lavatory service panel. Airworthiness directives are legally enforceable regulations issued by the FAA to correct an unsafe condition in a product. The FAA said stress concentrations in the lavatory service panel access pan, the fuselage skin, and the stringer 22 attachment to the service panel are too high, causing fatigue cracking. That, in turn, could result in an in-flight depressurization and reduced structural integrity of the aircraft if not addressed, the FAA said. It said the directive impacts 757-200 planes modified by particular supplemental type certificates.<br/>
Boeing is resuming widebody jet deliveries to China which were halted in recent weeks due to a Chinese regulatory review, according to a source familiar with the matter. Orders of widebody 777 and 787 planes are expected to be delivered in the coming days, the source said. Deliveries of Boeing's 737 MAX are set to resume as early as next month, the source said. The development is a boost to Boeing, which had flagged the delay to investors after Reuters first reported in May that the company's plane deliveries to China had been temporarily halted. The halt was due to a review by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) of batteries contained in the 25-hour cockpit voice recorder. Boeing directed a request for comment to the regulator. The delays, combined with factory disruptions, led Boeing CFO Brian West in May to expect second-quarter cash burn in line with, or "possibly a little worse" than, the $3.9b in Q1. In a year-end 2023 filing, Boeing said it had about 140 737 MAX 8 aircraft in inventory, including 85 aircraft for customers in China. Boeing delivered 22 aircraft to China between the start of 2024 and the end of April.<br/>
Swiss air navigation service Skyguide is trying to restore capacity in Geneva airspace after flooding hit the city’s air traffic management control centre. Skyguide says the flooding resulted from a “heavy thunderstorm” on 25 June, and affected the cooling systems of its data centre. It states that the risk of overheating air traffic control equipment prompted it to close Geneva airspace at around 22:00, preventing any departures or arrivals in the area. Skyguide re-opened the airspace after 2h 30min, but operating at half its capacity, after putting the cooling system back into operation. This level was raised to 70% at 10:00 on 26 June. “The danger of the air traffic control systems overheating has…been averted,” it states. Skyguide says it is monitoring and assessing the situation, given the capacity reduction. Pan-European air navigation organisation Eurocontrol says Geneva airport is dealing with “moderate” delays while there are “moderate to high” delays across several Geneva airspace sectors. Geneva airport’s operator says air traffic is “gradually resuming”. The airport handled 16.5m passengers last year.<br/>
Airbus Shas been warning airlines that some of their aircraft deliveries due in the next two years risk being delayed, an indication that supply-chain glitches at the world’s largest planemaker might extend well beyond the current year. The European planemaker has been notifying customers in recent weeks that some handovers planned for 2025 and 2026 are at risk of breaching contracted deadlines, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified as the discussions are confidential. Planes could be delayed by months from when they were originally due, the people said. Airbus said this week that it won’t be able to deliver the number of aircraft previously predicted for 2024 as it struggles with shortages on components ranging from engines to structural parts to cabin interiors. The company also delayed by a year its plan to increase monthly build rates to 75 units on the A320 model, meaning fewer of its most popular model for customers seeking to upgrade. “Airbus is facing, at the moment, persistent and specific supply-chain issues,” CEO Guillaume Faury said on a conference call this week after the company cut its guidance. The company’s operating environment “has actually degraded recently against the backdrop of geopolitical tensions and even more on specific supply chain challenges.” Shares in Airbus fell as much as 3.7% in Paris after Bloomberg News reported on the delays. This week’s losses have dragged the Toulouse, France-based planemaker to a 6.5% decline this year. The company is largely sold out of its A320 family aircraft until the end of the decade, and its A330 and A350 widebody models are also harder to come by in the next few years as a boom in travel prompts airlines to buy jets in record numbers. <br/>
A Mitsubishi Heavy Industries executive said Thursday that despite the government's commitment to made-in-Japan aircraft, now is not the time to decide whether to re-enter the commercial airplane market, after the failure of the SpaceJet. The Japanese engineering conglomerate will utilise the human resources and technology developed in the SpaceJet programme for other aerospace and environmental businesses, said Hiroyuki Koguchi, senior vice president in charge of commercial aviation. Mitsubishi Heavy last year terminated the SpaceJet regional commercial airplane project after delivery delays due in part to difficulty obtaining necessary certifications. Japan's industry ministry, however, this year said it would carry on a 4t yen ($24.9b) public-private project to create a next-generation passenger aircraft after 2035. Mitsubishi Heavy would like to discuss concrete steps on the future aviation strategy with the government, but "we're now in a phase to lay the groundwork for that, and not in the timing to decide on whether to resume the aircraft assembly business," Koguchi told an annual shareholder meeting.<br/>