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The head of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will testify on Sept. 24 before the House of Representatives Transportation Committee on Boeing's quality improvement plan, the committee said Monday. FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker in late February gave Boeing 90 days to come up with a plan to address "systemic quality-control issues." Boeing delivered the plan in late May and the FAA is still assessing the planemaker's reform efforts. Boeing faces mounting scrutiny from Congress since a Jan. 5 mid-air emergency in a new Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9. Boeing did not immediately comment for this story. On Sept. 25, Whitaker will testify before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations at a hearing titled "FAA Oversight of Boeing's Broken Safety Culture." U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal, who chairs the panel, told Reuters the FAA must explain its oversight of Boeing before the January Alaska Air incident. "Instead of encouraging workers to report quality and safety concerns, Boeing’s culture pushed workers to conceal problems that required federal inspectors’ attention," Blumenthal said."The FAA has to explain what they knew and when they knew it. Boeing’s broken safety culture is in desperate need of repair, and the FAA has an essential role to play." In February, Whitaker barred Boeing from boosting production of its best-selling plane and required the company to submit a quality improvement plan. Whitaker also said the agency will continue increased on-site presence at Boeing for the foreseeable future.<br/>

Days after thousands of employees went on strike, Boeing said on Monday that it would freeze hiring and cut spending, halting production of its most popular commercial jet. Union leaders called for more than 33,000 Boeing workers to go on strike on Friday, after members voted overwhelmingly to reject a tentative contract negotiated by their union and company management. The walkout brought production of the 737 Max and other planes to a virtual halt, hampering Boeing’s recovery from a safety crisis after a panel blew off one of its planes during a passenger flight in January. The company is “working in good faith to reach a new contract agreement,” but needs to take steps to rein in spending during the walkout, Brian West, Boeing’s CFO, wrote in a message to employees on Monday. “Our business is in a difficult period,” he said. “This strike jeopardizes our recovery in a significant way and we must take necessary actions to preserve cash and safeguard our shared future.” West said Boeing would protect funding for safety, quality and customer support while cutting spending in other areas. In addition to pausing hiring, the company froze nonessential travel and eliminated first- and business-class air travel for top executives. Boeing also limited spending on consultants, advertising, marketing, charitable giving and on-site catering, and it is considering temporary furloughs for rank-and-file workers, managers and executives. West said Boeing was also planning to cut supplier spending, a move that could have prolonged consequences. The aerospace supply chain is fragile, and cost-cutting can imperil smaller vendors to larger manufacturers like Boeing or its main rival, Airbus. The supplier spending cuts include stopping most orders for parts used in Boeing’s 737, 767 and 777 airplanes, West said. It is not clear how long the strike will last, but ending it will not be easy. In a vote on Thursday, nearly 95% of Boeing workers represented by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers rejected the tentative contract, while a slightly larger share voted in favor of a strike. Many members were dissatisfied by the size of raises and retirement benefits in the proposed contract.<br/>

Boeing could lose over $100m in daily revenue until it reaches a settlement with its union that represents more than 30,000 workers, analysts said on Monday. The Seattle-area Boeing workers who build the planemaker's most popular 737 MAX and other jets in factories on the U.S. West Coast went on strike after rejecting their first full contract in 16 years last week. A prolonged strike could cost several billion dollars, fraying the planemaker's already strained finances and threatening a downgrade of its credit rating. The strike, Boeing's first since 2008, is the latest event in a tumultuous year for the company that began with a January incident when a door panel detached from a new 737 MAX jet mid-air. Shares have lost roughly 40% in value so far this year. Northcoast Research estimates the total impact of the strike could reach $3b or more. "Boeing will most likely remove 33-35 jets from the original production plan, resulting in a loss of $102m in daily revenue," said Chris Olin, an analyst at Northcoast Research. New CEO Kelly Ortberg is now confronting a labor-management battle just weeks after he was brought in to restore faith in the planemaker, which is also facing heavy scrutiny from U.S. regulators for its safety practices.<br/>

Boeing will pay Embraer $150m for its failed combination with the Brazilian aircraft maker, forcing the US company to hand over funds at a time when it’s trying to prop up its balance sheet. The arbitration proceedings have ended and an agreement been reached, Embraer said in a stock exchange filing on Monday. Boeing walked away from the proposed $4.2b transaction at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. “We’re pleased to have concluded the arbitration process with Embraer,” Boeing said in a statement. Boeing is currently working to secure a deal with its workforce after the main union in the Seattle manufacturing hub voted to strike, shutting down its main planemaking facilities in the area. The company, which has more than $45b in net debt, has been bleeding cash after it was forced to pare back output in the wake of a near catastrophic accident in January. A combination with Embraer would have given Boeing access to the Brazilian company’s engineers to design a new, mid-range jet family as well as its existing range of smaller jets that compete against arch-rival Airbus SE’s smallest A220 model. The termination of the deal came at a time when Boeing’s then-CEO Dave Calhoun said the company would need to adjust to a “new reality” as travel demand collapsed and airlines expected a slow recovery. Last week, Moody’s said it was reviewing Boeing’s ratings for a possible downgrade and that it “will assess the strike’s duration and impact on cash flow and the potential equity capital raising Boeing may undertake to bolster its liquidity.” A descent into junk territory would increase Boeing’s borrowing costs at a time when it’s struggling to turn around its operations.<br/>

Airlines and ferry companies have been fined more than E5.3m since 2019 after more than 14,000 people were detected arriving to the State without valid travel documentation, new figures have shown. Figures provided by the Department of Justice indicate that from 2019 until April of this year, some E5,377,470 in carrier fines have been issued. Last year alone, E1,476,000 in fines was handed down to carriers for failing to ensure passengers had appropriate travel documentation when boarding flights or ferries. The department said it could not provide a breakdown of fines by airlines or ferry companies as it was “operationally sensitive” information, while the most up-to-date figures available are to the end of the first quarter of 2024. The department said there was a reduction of one-third in the number of people arriving at Dublin Airport without documentation last year while, in the first six months of 2024, the number was approximately 50% of that in the same period in 2022. A spokesman for the Department of Justice said airlines and ferry companies play an “essential role in protecting and upholding our borders”. “They are obligated to ensure their passengers have the necessary valid passports, ID cards and visas to travel to Ireland. The department and the Garda National Immigration Bureau work closely with airlines to support them in these obligations, including through the provision of training,” he said.<br/>

The head of a British pilots’ trade union has said that airlines must do more to make the skies, which are largely dominated by male pilots, more accessible for women. Amy Leversidge, who was elected as the British Airline Pilots’ Association’s (Balpa) first female general secretary in 2023, has called for airlines to improve workplace benefits for female pilots to encourage more women to enter the field. Balpa estimates that out of the entire fleet of pilots in Britain, the percentage of females remains stuck at around 6%. In an interview with The Telegraph, Leversidge said that the progress of recruiting more women has been very slow, and female representation and visibility in aviation is only “surface level” if it is not backed up with real policies. Balpa has previously said that despite several high-profile campaigns to try and increase the small statistic of female pilots, the figure has changed little over the years, and that actions over “words and images” are needed for change. The new general secretary said that one of her goals is to increase the number of female pilots in Britain, especially in light of the country’s pilot shortage. She explained that the issue does not lie in airlines being unlikely to hire women; instead it stems from the many practical issues that discourage women from becoming pilots. “We’re trying to work with them around things like improving maternity pay and maternity leave, and what happens when you come back in terms of getting back on to the flight deck,” she told The Telegraph. “Also, how airlines can support women when they are going through menopause. And how they can support working parents with childcare. You hear some stories where both parents are pilots, and they’re handing over children in the car park between flights.”<br/>

The managing director of Manchester Airport has said criticisms of its facilities are unfair and defended plans to increase its capacity.<br/>The airport, which caters to 30 million passengers a year, hopes to double that figure by 2050 and has invested £1.3bn into its infrastructure in recent years. However, it was voted the UK's worst airport by Which? for the third year running, in a report based on customer surveys. Chris Woodroofe told BBC North West Tonight that the consumer magazine's report did not "properly represent" what goes on at the airport. "80% of our passengers have said you have a good, very good or excellent experience at Manchester Airport," he said. He said 98% of passengers in August queued for less than 15 minutes to get into security, with 75% queuing for less than five minutes. Woodroofe was asked about negative comparisons with other regional airports, such as Liverpool John Lennon Airport which ranked highest overall in the Which? report. He said: "I don't think you should compare a small airport that caters to a small group of destinations with Manchester Airport. "This is the airport to travel from outside of London with 200 destinations you can fly to direct." Woodroofe said 29 airlines were in the process of moving into the newly redesigned and refurbished Terminal 2, which serves 70% of Manchester's passengers. Benefits will include new security infrastructure which will mean passengers do not have to remove items like laptops from their bags, he said.<br/>

There’s a Buddha in the cockpit. The orange-robed icon looks on as the pilot speedily executes a dramatic last-minute turn to land the A319 on the slender runway. A dozen passengers, some of whom have spent the last few minutes white-knuckling the seat armrests, break out into applause. That’s just another normal working day at Bhutan’s Paro International Airport (PBH), widely considered one of the most technically difficult plane landings in the world. Maneuvering onto a short runway between two 18,000-foot peaks requires both technical knowledge and nerves of steel. The airport and its challenging conditions have only added to the mystique surrounding travel to Bhutan, a Himalayan kingdom of about 800,000 people. The unique conditions of flying in and out of Paro mean that jumbo jets are a no-go. But for aviation fans, that’s part of the appeal of visiting the Land of the Thunder Dragon. First things first: Paro is “difficult, but not dangerous,” says Captain Chimi Dorji, who has been working at Bhutan’s national state-owned airline, Druk Air (aka Royal Bhutan Airlines), for 25 years. “It is challenging on the skill of the pilot, but it’s not dangerous, because if it were dangerous, I wouldn’t be flying.” A combination of geographic factors make Paro – and much of Bhutan – visually stunning. They also make flying in and out of Paro a highly specialized skill. Paro is a category C airport, which means that pilots must have special training to fly there. They must perform the landing themselves manually, without radar. As Dorji says, it’s critical for pilots to know the landscape around the airport – mess it up by even a fraction of an inch, and you could land on top of someone’s house.<br/>

Weak demand linked to choke points in the Chinese economy has prompted airlines to plan cuts in their China-Philippine flights for the final three months of the year, according to analysts. And they say geopolitical friction between the two Asian countries is also playing a role in deterring travel that would help airlines prosper. AirAsia Philippines, China Southern Airlines and Qingdao Airlines have all indicated intentions to halt some of their flights in the fourth quarter, according to the industry data platform OAG Aviation. Philippine-based Cebu Pacific’s president, Alexander Lao, said separately last month that his airline would not restore Beijing flights because air travel had fallen short of pre-pandemic demand, the media outlet Philstar Global reported. The airline had a Manila-Beijing route in 2019. And OAG data indicates that AirAsia Philippines, an affiliate of Malaysia-based budget carrier AirAsia, will discontinue its 13 weekly Manila-Shenzhen flights from October, as well as the Beijing connection. China’s economic growth is slowing due to a property market crisis, hesitant consumption and, as of August, a softening of industrial activity. Travel outside mainland China last year reached just 60% of its 2019 levels, with more than two-thirds of those trips to nearby Hong Kong, Macau or Taiwan, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit. Andy Xie, an independent economist in Shanghai, said: “With the airline business there’s a cost issue – there’s a preference for domestic tourism in China. The cost of flying is quite high.” The anticipated flight cutbacks also come as China and the Philippines struggle through a maritime sovereignty dispute. The dispute has chilled two-way travel, said OAG Asia head Mayur Patel. And Xie noted that perceptions of personal safety risks abroad, including in the Philippines, further deter Chinese travellers.<br/>