Newark Liberty International Airport has been described many ways in its 96 years. But it has probably not been called world class, at least not recently. In fact, the airport has a longstanding reputation as one of the least appealing transportation hubs in the United States. But on Thursday, officials from the agency that runs it said they intended to take New Jersey’s largest airport “from worst to best.” Their unveiling of a “vision plan” for the transformation of the airport was light on details. The officials from the agency, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, did not know how much it would cost or how long it would take. But the officials made the announcement inside the airport’s massive Terminal A, which opened at Newark Liberty two years ago at a cost of $2.7b. That award-winning terminal, along with two new terminals at nearby La Guardia Airport in New York City, set the standard for what the entire airport in Newark could be, the officials said. The transformation of Newark Liberty will include replacing the most dilapidated of the airport’s three terminals — the 51-year-old Terminal B, which has in part relied for years on portable toilets — and the rickety AirTrain that connects the terminals to parking lots and commuter trains. Someday, it may also include replacing Terminal C, a major United Airlines hub, they said.<br/>
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Aviation safety advocates say airports in Newfoundland and Labrador — and across the country — lack the firefighting resources needed in the event of a major crash. George Power, a retired firefighter with a decades-long career at airports in Wabush, Gander and St. John's, believes change needs to happen at the federal level. "Most of the Canadian airports are not prepared to do rescue with the current setup," he told CBC Radio's The St. John's Morning Show. Power pointed to firefighter staffing levels and training for municipal firefighters as two areas of concern. According to a debriefing report from a 2022 emergency training exercise at St. John's International Airport obtained by CBC News, three firefighters were being staffed per shift at the time. The report states that the exercise simulated a crash of a plane carrying less than 20 passengers, far smaller than many of the flights that land in St. John's. Still, the reports says there was an "insufficient number of trained and qualified firefighters to be able to do any search or rescue safely." One of the report's six recommendations calls on the airport to quadruple its firefighter staffing complement to 12 firefighters per shift.<br/>
A “jet-setter” tax on Europe’s frequent flyers could slow global heating and raise €64bn (£54bn) a year at no extra cost to most people, a report has found. Carbon pollution pumped out of planes could fall by 21% if people were made to pay more for each extra flight they take beyond the first return trip, according to analysis from the New Economics Foundation (NEF) and partner organisations. Just over half the benefits in a given year would come from the 5% of people who fly the most, while 72% of people would escape fees by flying once or not at all. A frequent-flyer levy would raise cash that could be invested in trains and buses while reducing “excessive” flights for the wealthiest, said Magdalena Heuwieser from the campaign group Stay Grounded, which co-wrote the report. “Right now, it doesn’t matter whether you’re flying to visit your family for the first time in years or taking a 10th annual flight to your luxury house on the coast – you’ll be paying the same tax for that flight.” The report, shared exclusively with the Guardian, is the first to explore how a frequent-flyer levy could work in Europe.<br/>
Romania scrambled four fighter jets on Thursday after a small flying object, likely a drone, breached national airspace up to 14 km inland in the southeastern county of Constanta, the defence ministry said.<br/>The European Union and NATO state, which shares a 650-km (400-mile) border with Ukraine, has had Russian drone fragments fall onto its territory repeatedly over the past year and a half as Moscow attacks Ukrainian port infrastructure. "The radar signal indicated Romania’s land border was crossed at around 1600 GMT," the ministry said in a statement, adding the drone was first detected heading for Romania over the Black Sea. Romania scrambled two F-16 fighter jets and two Spanish F-18s which are carrying out air policing missions in the country for the rest of the year. The pilots did not see the drone. Residents of Constanta county were warned to take cover. Army personnel will search for a potential crash site on Friday morning, the ministry said. In early September, Romania and Latvia both had their airspace breached by Russian drones, prompting worries of escalation and defence ministers from NATO's eastern flank collectively called for a robust coordinated response from the alliance to drone airspace breaches. A Russian drone breached Romania's air space again in late September.<br/>
The aviation sector warns it is facing workforce shortages that could see the industry become unsustainable without policy change. New research from the Aviation Industry Association (AIANZ) and the Ringa Hora Services Workforce Development Council shows that, on average, New Zealand needs an additional 100 pilots a year. This gap is anticipated to grow further without any changes to current tertiary policy settings. AIANZ said if nothing changes, aircraft will be grounded and commercial airlines will need to cut back on schedules from as soon as 2028 for small aircraft operators, by 2030 for turboprops and by 2032 for jet operators. AIANZ CE Simon Wallace said demand for pilots is increasing by about 2-3% per year and can’t be met by New Zealand’s training system due to the high cost of study locking students out. “A major disincentive at the supply end is the cap on student loan borrowing for domestic students that has been set at $35,000 per year since 2013. Back then, government agreed to review the cap but this has not occurred. “Now, with inflation and the cost of living increases, training costs have increased to as much as $120,000 for a two-year course of study. So students are expected to fund at least an additional $50,000 on top of the $70,000 student loan they are limited to. The cost is shutting out a lot of young Kiwis aspiring to become pilots. Only those with financial support from families can afford to train.” In June, Auckland Pilot Training Group (APTG) said government policies continue to dictate the number of pilots it can train, the fees it can charge and the duration of its training programmes.<br/>
Free onboard wifi has become the latest battleground between the world's leading airlines as the once expensive and unreliable service finally delivers quality comparable to being at home. Delta, United, Japan Airlines, Air France and other global carriers have in recent weeks sought to outdo each other with competing announcements about the arrival or extension of onboard connectivity. And in sharp contrast to the growing practice of charging passengers for services that were once included in the ticket price -- such as checking bags or selecting seats -- the airlines are mostly promising that their high-speed wifi is free. Fabien Pelous, head of client experience at Air France, said the airline's plan to introduce free wifi in 2025 will be a qualitative jump for clients, admitting that the service up to now "was not satisfactory". "We looked at the state of the market, and there are new players, including Starlink, whose latest technologies offer internet quality which is almost equivalent to being at home," Pelous told AFP. The first experiments began in 2004 with Boeing and Lufthansa, and since then companies such as ViaSat, Panasonic and Thales have developed products that now equip hundreds of planes. Low-orbit satellite constellations such as Starlink were "a game changer", said Seth Miller, owner of PaxEx, a website that covers business travel. Elon Musk's Starlink already outfits planes of Hawaiian Airlines and US domestic carrier JSX. While classic telecommunication satellites orbit as high as 35,000 kilometres from earth, constellation satellites are at just 600 kilometres altitude, greatly reducing latency and allowing for video streaming.<br/>
While numerous airlines are saying goodbye to first class, some - especially in Europe - are investing more heavily than ever into the luxury cabins. Whether you’re a frequent flyer in first class or it’s a distant dream, the experience may soon be coming to an end worldwide. Oman Air has announced it’s doing away with first-class cabins once and for all, and instead opening up a new Business Studio cabin. The move follows similar ones on the likes of Turkish Airlines and Air New Zealand. Although based in Muscat, Oman Air will run many flights featuring the Business Studio in London, as well as Bangkok.<br/>While the number of airlines getting rid of first class has grown lately, it’s actually been going on since 2000. That year, as budget airlines cornered the cheaper end of the market, British Airways was the first to add lie-flat beds to its business class cabins. Soon, many rivals followed suit, which quickly devalued first-class offerings. Since then, perks in business class have got better and that’s meant that the quality gap between first and business class has been narrowing. While the name of Oman Air’s Business Studio suggests the new cabins might be replacing traditional business class, that’s actually not the case.<br/>