Qantas Airways, not known for usually offering big discounts, has cut prices more than six times in 2024. Virgin Australia is averaging at least one fare sale a month. Even Ryanair Holdings, which practically invented affordable European air travel, says flights are getting cheaper. Passengers around the world are winning some respite from the fare madness that followed the pandemic – and further price declines are coming. It is a partial re-balancing of power from the post-pandemic demand surge that gave airlines almost free rein over fares. As travel restrictions lifted and the world rushed to reconnect, prices ballooned for the reduced number of seats that were available. Premium fares reached more than US$20,000 (S$26,800). Now, falling fares reflect the growing number of international flights on offer, particularly in Asia and Europe, and a travelling public that is increasingly cost conscious. “It’s not just a blip, it’s a global trend,” said James Kavanagh, CE of leisure at Brisbane-based travel agency Flight Centre Travel Group. “Airlines certainly don’t have all the power at the moment.” International fares globally fell 6% in the first six months of 2024 from the year-ago period, Flight Centre said on July 24. Flights out of Australia were 13% cheaper, while fares to Indonesia – home to Bali, one of Australia’s favourite getaways – slumped 18 per cent, Flight Centre said. Prices will continue to fall as the cost-of-living crisis makes consumers more price-sensitive, Mr Kavanagh said. With under-pressure airlines seeking to fill planes months before departure, there are deals for early bookers, he said, citing 10-day tours to China, including flights and accommodation, on offer for A$999 (S$876).<br/>
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European flights are being severely disrupted by climate activists glueing themselves to runways as part of their campaign to ban fossil fuels, despite threats of tougher prison sentences for protesters breaking into airports. Frankfurt airport cancelled about 140 flights on Thursday after members of the Letzte (Last) Generation climate protest group cut through perimeter fencing and stuck themselves to the ground while holding “Oil Kills” banners. The disruption to Germany’s busiest airport, which lasted about two hours before police arrested the activists and flights resumed, is part of a pan-European protest movement to disrupt airports across the region. About 30 flights were cancelled at Cologne-Bonn airport on Wednesday after activists brought its runways to a standstill for three hours. German interior minister Nancy Faeser called the protests at Frankfurt airport “dangerous, dumb and criminal”. “Anyone who blocks runways not only risks their own life, but also endangers others and harms all travellers,” Faeser wrote on X. “These acts must be punished more severely. We have proposed severe prison sentences.” Fraport, which operates Frankfurt airport, said flight delays were expected for the rest of the day and recommended passengers check airline websites before travelling to the airport. Protesters have also targeted airports in the UK, Norway, Austria, Switzerland, Spain and Finland in recent days. Police arrested several activists from the Just Stop Oil protest group close to the perimeter fence of London’s Heathrow airport on Wednesday on suspicion of conspiring to interfere with a site of critical national infrastructure under the Public Order Act.<br/>
German politicians demanded better protection for the country's airports on Thursday after climate activists were able to breach fences and disrupt air traffic for the second day in a row. German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, whose ministry wants to punish unauthorised airfield access with up to two years in jail, criticised the blockades as "dangerous, dumb and criminal" as well as airport operators for not better securing their sites. "Airport operators must do more to protect their facilities, and we are in close contact with the firms on this," she said. Traffic at Frankfurt airport, Germany's busiest, was halted temporarily on Thursday after activists blocked runways by gluing themselves to the tarmac, a day after similar action affected Cologne-Bonn airport, the country's sixth-largest. The Frankfurt protesters were able to cut through a wire mesh fence to access the airport grounds, the activists said. The activists have vowed that the blockades are just the beginning of a campaign to exit oil, gas and coal by 2030 and have listed several countries across Europe and North America where disruptions are planned in the coming weeks. Similar actions at other European airports, including London, Vienna, Oslo and Zurich, had been foiled by authorities. "The damage to the economy and society is immense. That is why the judiciary and authorities must take much more consistent action," said German flagship airline Lufthansa in a statement.<br/>
The British aviation regulator will incorporate nascent technologies such as air taxis and drones as it develops plans to modernize the nation’s airspace by 2040. The UK Civil Aviation Authority set out the key activities and milestones that it says the industry will need to deliver on as it builds a regulatory framework that addresses new technologies, according to a statement Thursday. “This includes projects looking at how new airspace users, such as drones and vertical take-off and landing aircraft, can fly safely in the same airspace as other aircraft,” the regulator said in a statement on its website. A swathe of electrically-powered flying taxi and drone startups have emerged in recent years that are racing to certify their aircraft and begin commercial operations. However, older airspace control practices may hamper that push. The CAA says it will modernize the UK’s airspace by 2040 — and has already begun work on some areas, according to the statement. The regulator will collaborate with the Airspace Change Organising Group, the Ministry of Defence and air traffic provider NATS Enroute Ltd. in executing the plan, according to the statement. <br/>
A UK police officer has been filmed kicking and stomping on the head of a man who was lying face down on the ground during an arrest at Manchester Airport earlier this week. The male officer is seen holding a Taser over the man before kicking him in the head while other officers shout at onlookers to stay back in a video shared widely on social media platforms. Greater Manchester Police said in a statement that firearms officers had been attacked during an arrest following a fight in the airport terminal on Tuesday. It said it had referred itself to the Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC) over the events and that one officer had been removed from operational duties. Assistant Chief Constable Wasim Chaudhry said: "We know that a film of an incident at Manchester Airport that is circulating widely shows an event that is truly shocking, and that people are rightly extremely concerned about. "The use of such force in an arrest is an unusual occurrence and one that we understand creates alarm. One male officer has been removed from operational duties and we are making a voluntary referral of our policing response to the Independent Office of Police Conduct." The IOPC said it would assess the referral and decide what "further action" is taken.<br/>
Kenya’s government received a proposal from Adani Airport Holdings Ltd. to invest in the nation’s main airfield, the Kenya Airports Authority said. Indian billionaire Gautam Adani’s company offered to help build a new passenger terminal and second runway at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in the capital, Nairobi, as well as refurbish existing facilities, KAA acting Managing Director Henry Ogoye said in a statement on Wednesday. The proposal will be subjected to technical, financial and legal reviews to ensure it complies with the nation’s public-private partnerships laws, he said. Ogoye made the announcement after lawmaker Richard Onyonka petitioned parliament to scrutinize a build-operate-transfer agreement with the Kenyan government. The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project on Wednesday questioned why the Kenyan authorities are considering a private proposal after experts advised the government earlier this year to put out a public tender for the project. The KAA referred a request for comment on the OCCRP report to Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi’s office, which didn’t immediately respond to queries. Kenya has previously refurbished and expanded its main airport and has had plans for a second runaway in an effort to retain its status as a regional aviation hub. Neighboring Ethiopia, which operates Africa’s biggest airplane fleet, has chipped away at that dominance in recent years. An estimated $1.85b of spending is required to address “challenges” identified at the airport, about $830m of which would be required in the first five years of a proposed upgrade project, according to the Adani proposal. The investment required is “significant and cannot be funded with the prevailing fiscal constraints without recourse to private funding,” the company said.<br/>
The plane crash that killed 18 people in Nepal on Wednesday was at once horrific and sadly common, one of dozens of aviation disasters in the small Himalayan nation in the past decade. After each new accident, investigators point the blame in many directions, citing weather, difficult terrain, overworked pilots, aging aircraft. But a root problem is left unaddressed: A conflict of interest in which the officials who provide lucrative aviation services are the same ones who regulate them. This arrangement leaves the country’s Civil Aviation Authority to investigate itself if problems arise. It impedes, analysts and former officials say, the kind of urgent changes, and strict adherence, needed to improve oversight of life-or-death safety matters. The result has not just been frequent crashes — nearly 40 since 2010, according to government reports, resulting in over 350 deaths. Nepal’s poor record also threatens to further cut off its aviation industry from the outside world and deprive the poor nation of an important tourism stream. The European Union has barred the country’s airlines, including the national carrier, Nepal Airlines, for over a decade. If countries like India, China and the Gulf nations did the same, said Yogesh Bhattarai, a former aviation minister in Nepal, “that would be a huge loss for us.” The crashes in recent years have run the gamut, involving planes of all sizes: Fifteen helicopters, four single-engine planes and 16 double-engine planes. Except for three foreign airplanes, they have all been operated by Nepali companies. Story has more.<br/>
U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor should reject a "sweetheart" plea deal the Justice Department struck with Boeing (BA.N), opens new tab, relatives of 15 of the 346 people killed in two fatal 737 MAX crashes said on Thursday. Late Wednesday, the planemaker finalized an agreement to plead guilty to a criminal fraud conspiracy charge and pay at least $243.6m after breaching a 2021 deferred prosecution agreement. Family members said in a court filing in Texas that they will submit a comprehensive objection to the plea deal by next week, arguing that there are a number of issues, including its "outdated and misleading statement of facts," use of "inaccurate sentencing guidelines" and "ambiguous restitution commitment" by Boeing. The families cited O'Connor's statement in a February 2023 ruling: "Boeing's crime may properly be considered the deadliest corporate crime in U.S. history." Spokespeople for Boeing and the Justice Department declined to comment on the families' filing. The DOJ told Boeing earlier this month it could accept a settlement that branded the planemaker a felon or fight the charge in court. The Justice Department said in May that Boeing had breached its obligations in the agreement that shielded the planemaker from criminal prosecution stemming from misrepresentations about a key software feature tied to fatal 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019 in Indonesia and Ethiopia.<br/>
The world's largest air show fizzled out on Thursday with a solid new Saudi jetliner order unable to dispel the gloom over recent problems in producing planes fast enough to meet demand. Britain's Farnborough Airshow opened earlier this week amid alarm signals from airlines over falling yields or average fares. But delegates said they remained above historic levels and although quiet, the show confirmed demand for wide-body jets. Airbus and Boeing posted about 40 firm orders - a fraction of recent years - and were roughly level depending on whether Qatar Airways' decision to come forward as the previously unnamed buyer for an existing Boeing order was counted. Including preliminary new orders, Airbus pulled ahead after announcing a deal on Thursday for 90 planes including 15 A330neos from Saudi carrier Flynas. Reuters reported talks with Flynas on the model ahead of the show. There was none of the triumphalism seen at past events with both major planemakers recognising they had other pressing issues, including the inability of factories to keep up with recent demand because of disruption left over from the pandemic. "Almost everyone plays to the rhythm. But all it takes is one piece of the puzzle that's missing and the puzzle is not complete," Airbus planemaking CEO Christian Scherer told Reuters. "We have 4,000 suppliers that flow into one plane." With the VIP chalets pulling down the shutters on a rainy and subdued air show, with only a drizzle of new aircraft orders, the exhibition halls where the global supply chain sets up shop for the week were still humming with activity. Inside the temporary bazaar, suggestions from manufacturers that the whole supply chain bears responsibility for the industry's manufacturing woes were far from popular.<br/>
Saudi Arabia’s Flynas agreed to an outline order for as many as 160 Airbus SE jets, vaulting the European planemaker ahead of its US rival as the Farnborough International Airshow concludes. The discount airline will buy 75 single-aisle A320neo jets, as well as 15 A330neo widebody jets, Airbus said in a statement on Thursday. Flynas, an all-Airbus operator, said separately that it also has options for 55 A320neos and 15 A330s. With the late-breaking deal, Airbus has sold twice as many jets as Boeing Co. at the expo outside of London, the aviation industry’s biggest event of the year. But the US planemaker’s dominance in the wide-body category helped it nearly keep pace in terms of dollar value, based on estimates from aviation consultant Ishka. The Flynas order is a shot in the arm for Airbus’s A330 model, which is enjoying a second wind because of early availability and its favorable economics as long haul travel rebounds from the lows of the pandemic. Bloomberg News reported earlier about the potential for a Flynas order. The carrier previously had 65 A320neos on order. Order activity has been subdued at Farnborough after last year’s frenzy of post-Covid business, partly because backlogs for workhorse aircraft such as the A320neo and Boeing’s 737 Max now stretch beyond the end of the decade. <br/>
Bombardier beat analysts' estimates for second-quarter results on Thursday, helped by higher plane deliveries and stronger sales in the Canadian business jet maker's services business. Robust demand for flying private since the pandemic is helping business jet makers' order backlogs, but supply chain snags and shortages of skilled workers following a recent wave of retirements have weighed on deliveries. Bombardier said on Thursday it delivered 39 aircraft in the quarter, up 10 from a year earlier and reported a 5% higher backlog of $14.9b. The company expects to deliver between 150 and 155 aircraft in 2024.<br/>The Montreal-based company said it also burned $68m during the second quarter in free cash, a metric closely watched by investors, compared with free cash usage of $222 million a year earlier. Bombardier CEO Eric Martel said the company is demonstrating its expertise in "maintaining the industry's strongest track record for managing the supply chain." On Wednesday, Gulfstream jet maker General Dynamics reported a 50% increase in business jet deliveries in the quarter, but shares fell when the company only handed over 11 of its flagship G700 business jets, below a company target of 15.<br/>
Brazilian planemaker Embraer on Thursday opened a maintenance hub for Pratt & Whitney (P&W) engines in Portugal, which it expects to bring in an additional E600m in revenues per year once fully operational. The move comes amid surging demand for aircraft maintenance as airlines and manufacturers struggle with supply chain snags in the wake of the pandemic and more frequent engine repairs. The P&W-authorized maintenance facility at Embraer's OGMA subsidiary near Lisbon will be able to overhaul P&W engines that power jets made both by the Brazilian firm and larger peer Airbus. P&W, part of RTX Corp, has struggled since last year with a rare powder metal defect affecting mainly the Airbus A320neo jet, which led it to call for accelerated inspections that airlines say can take up to almost a year to complete. "Demand is high. All shops in the world have been full," the head of Embraer's Services & Support unit, Carlos Naufel, told Reuters. "The first engines we are receiving are from European airlines, but going forward they could come from anywhere." Consultancy Bain said in a report last week that airlines are facing their longest ever waits for engine maintenance, with demand likely to peak in 2026, constraining carriers' growth and adding costs.<br/>