A federal safety agency is recommending that air tours and other commercial aircraft operators be required to have certificated dispatchers to help pilots plan their flights. The NTSB said Tuesday that and other recommendations are based on a study of more than 500 accidents, some of them fatal. The NTSB said it began the study after seeing a “cluster of safety issues” from investigations of crashes between 2010 and 2022. The recommendations would not apply to major airlines, which operate under the most stringent U.S. rules. The NTSB noted that historically airlines have had lower accident rates than charter operations. The board said the FAA should require air tours, commuter services, air ambulances and business jet charters to employ certificated flight dispatchers. The board said it found 12 accidents with a total of 45 deaths where flight dispatch was “deficient” because current regulations don’t require people performing the work to meet particular standards. The NTSB said it found four accidents and 11 deaths involving small planes that were not loaded in a safe manner. It recommended expanding a current rule on weight and balance documentation to single-engine planes. The board also repeated a previous recommendation that planes used in non-scheduled commercial operation be outfitted to collect data that indicates when pilots fail to follow proper procedures.<br/>
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China is expected to see record-high air passenger trips in 2024, according to Song Zhiyong, head of the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC). Speaking at the three-day Asia Pacific Summit for Aviation Safety 2024 (AP-SAS 2024) that opened in Beijing on Tuesday (Aug 13), Song said air passenger trips may reach 700m this year. During the first half of the year, the total transport turnover, passenger trips, and cargo and mail transport volume of China's civil aviation sector rose 11.9%, 9% and 18.7%, respectively, from the same period in 2019, Song noted. In terms of scale, the country's civil aviation transportation has ranked second in the world for 19 consecutive years and its contribution to global aviation growth has exceeded 20%, according to Song. At present, China boasts 4,335 transport aircraft and 262 airports, with a total transport capacity of 1.6b passengers, Song said. He added that the annual flight time of unmanned aerial vehicles has reached tens of millions of hours, and the number of newly registered drones is growing at a rate of 100,000 per month.<br/>
Boeing said on Tuesday it delivered 43 commercial jets in July, unchanged from the same month a year earlier when it faced supply chain hurdles, as the U.S. planemaker works to grow aircraft production under new CEO Kelly Ortberg. The company has pledged to grow output by the end of the year, after wrestling with supply chain snags and operating a slower assembly line since a Jan. 5 in-flight blowout of a door plug on a 737 MAX 9 jet that heightened regulatory scrutiny. The company handed over 31 MAX jets to customers last month, including a handful to Chinese carriers. Boeing had said it resumed deliveries of its best-selling airplane in July to China, in a boost for the company, after a delay stemming from regulatory issues. Boeing also finalized a guilty plea to a criminal fraud conspiracy charge and agreed to pay at least $243.6m after breaching a 2021 agreement with the U.S. Justice Department. Boeing also reported 72 gross orders in July, up from 52 during the same month a year earlier, including orders for 57 737 MAX planes that were partly announced during the Farnborough Air Show. After adjustments to reflect the backlog, Boeing reported adjusted net orders for the month of 72. That brought Boeing’s gross order total so far this year through July 31 to 228. After removing cancellations and conversions, Boeing posted a net total of 186 orders since the start of 2024.<br/>
Boeing will likely miss a key 737 MAX jet production target in 2024, analysts at rating agencies Moody's and S&P told Reuters, saying that the company faces challenges as it ramps up its strongest-selling plane.<br/>The U.S. aerospace giant's goal is to produce 38 MAX jets a month by the end of 2024, up from 25 jets a month in July. But Moody's and S&P said that goal may not be reached until 2025 due to risks like possible labor disruptions at the planemaker's facilities in the Seattle area. Boeing, however, faces no immediate risk of a credit downgrade that would drop its rating to junk levels, the two rating agencies said on Friday. Jonathan Root, lead Boeing analyst at Moody's, assumes the planemaker will end 2024 producing 32 MAX jets per month, and reach the target of 38 in the second half of 2025. "We remain in a 'show me' state of mind," he said. MAX production and deliveries, which are closely watched by investors and airlines, mostly slowed following a Jan. 5 mid-air panel blowout on a new 737 MAX 9that exposed longstanding quality-control problems at the jetmaker. Boeing slowed output so it could improve production quality, but the decline in output and deliveries has taken a toll on cash flow. It burned about $8.3b in cash in the first half of 2024 and expects free cash flow to be negative this year, burdening its balance sheet. "We see risks to reaching that number (38), including labor negotiations and the company’s history of underdelivering relative to targets," said Ben Tsocanos, aerospace director at S&P Global Ratings. "We view increasing and stabilizing MAX production as necessary to generating free cash flow, which is ultimately what we care about to maintain the rating."<br/>