The Justice Department and Department of Transportation are seeking public input on US air travel as the agencies explore more ways to promote competition at a time when carriers are pushing consolidation as a necessary step for their survival. In a joint statement Thursday, the departments said they are seeking information on consolidation, anticompetitive conduct and other issues that impact air travel options. “Our goal with this inquiry is to identify and remove barriers to competition so that more Americans can access the opportunities that come with good, affordable air service,” said Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. The Biden administration has targeted several industries to combat what it calls “excessive concentration,” including commercial aviation, online search, smartphones, concert tickets and debit cards. The government argues too many deals between rivals can drive up consumer costs and diminish choice. Topics the departments are seeking input on include the general impact of consolidation on US consumers and economic growth, how airport access affects airlines’ ability to compete, and the effects that anticompetitive practices have on the labor market. Airline mergers have been a key focus in recent years. The Justice Department blocked JetBlue Airways Corp.’s acquisition of Spirit Airlines Inc. and unwound a regional partnership between JetBlue and American Airlines Group Inc. <br/>
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Brazil’s two busiest airports, São Paulo state’s Guarulhos and Congonhas, are likely to receive fresh investments of up to 3.4bn reais (US$596mn). The country's largest airport, Guarulhos, will receive up to 1.4bn reais. Guarulhos is operated under a concession held by GRU Airport, which is 51% owned by GRUPar (80% local firm Invepar and 20% Airports Company South Africa) and 49% by Brazilian airport authority Infraero. The investment will be made after the country's audit court TCU authorized the extension of the concession contract. "The proposal approved by the TCU justices extends the concession period for the site until November 2033, allowing the company to operate 16 months beyond what was initially planned. On the other hand, between 2025 and 2029, new investments must be made to increase operating capacity, increase the level of security (operational and against acts of unlawful interference) and improve the quality of the services offered," the TCU said in a statement. GRU Airport will build two concourses, one for international passengers and the other for domestic passengers, expand aircraft aprons and create taxiways. It will also acquire equipment for checking luggage and on-board baggage and perimeter surveillance, as well as improvements in employee access based on biometrics, among other things, added the TCU. <br/>
In the wake of a terrorist attack on Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) in Ankara, Türkiye has raised the security alert level to orange across all airports nationwide. Security measures have been significantly enhanced at Istanbul Airport and Sabiha Gokcen Airport. In response to the threats following the attack, security protocols have been tightened throughout the country. Enhanced security measures have been implemented at both Istanbul and Sabiha Gokcen Airports to counter potential attacks planned by terrorist organizations. Vehicles entering the airports are undergoing thorough searches, and passengers are facing detailed identity checks. Sabiha Gokcen Airport has issued a statement advising passengers, “Due to the additional security measures in place at the airports, we recommend arriving at the terminal at least three hours before your flights to avoid any potential delays.”<br/>
Dubai will use artificial intelligence and cutting-edge technology to redesign the check-in, security and immigration procedures at its planned passenger terminal at Al Maktoum International Airport (DWC) for faster and easier “flow” of travellers through the massive facility. The $35b airport terminal with a capacity of 260m annual passengers is currently still in the detailed design phase and there is an opportunity to get rid of “legacy processes” that have plagued the aviation industry for years, Paul Griffiths, Dubai Airports' CE, said. “We're determined to break free from those processes and Dubai has a particularly fantastic opportunity to design a completely new operating model, which consists of high-flow and minimal disruptions to passengers when they go through the process of check-in and arrival,” Mr Griffiths told The National on Thursday. “The whole of the immigration, security and customs process, we intend to recede into the background. They will still be as robust as they are today but enabled by technology and AI processes so that when people arrive by plane at the airport to the Arrivals process or they depart … they literally flow through those processes without having to stop.” The planned changes at the new terminal in DWC are improvements on operations at Dubai International Airport (DXB) that already harnesses technology from smart gates to biometrics for faster processes.<br/>
Major global airlines are reducing services and, in some instances, withdrawing from China altogether as longer routes to Asia following the closure of Russian airspace have raised operational costs, while demand has been low. Virgin Atlantic and Scandinavian Airlines, for instance, are completely withdrawing from China, the companies’ websites show. Virgin Atlantic ceased all flights to Hong Kong — and closed an office there — in 2022, ending the airline’s 30-year presence in the Asian financial hub. A report from travel news site Skift shows that seven major airlines have retreated from the country in the past four months. John Grant, chief analyst at the aviation intelligence company OAG, said the situation is “going to get more pronounced, before it gets any better.” Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the EU and the United Kingdom, along with other Western nations, imposed a blanket flight ban on Russian aircraft. Russia responded in kind by closing its airspace, forcing many European carriers to fly longer routes to reach Asia. Longer flights require more fuel, which make flights more expensive. Chinese airlines, however, are not subject to Russian airspace prohibitions, so they can fly the same routes into Europe faster and cheaper than their European counterparts. Additionally, “airlines have had to operate with four-man flight crews because of the extended hours when, in some cases, they could have used a two- or three-man crew,” said Grant. “When flight crew are short and hours limited, that’s an expense.” Grant said European carriers have found better uses for aircraft that were deployed to China. For example, when British Airlines dropped its Beijing route, it reallocated the planes to Cape Town, he said. “Load factors” — how full the plane is — jumped from 55% on the Beijing route, to 90% on Cape Town services, he said.<br/>
The Philippines is ramping up efforts to contain the devastation caused by severe tropical storm Trami, which has killed 25 people, affected millions and shut government offices for a third straight day on Friday. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said the government is working urgently to carry out relief and evacuation efforts, as the storm barreled across the main Luzon island where widespread flooding had submerged towns and cut power in some provinces. “We have directed all government agencies to reinforce the bulwark which we have built against this raging tempest,” Marcos said in a statement late Thursday. The storm has damaged 209 hectares of crops, the national disaster management agency said its latest report. Local airlines canceled more than 60 domestic flights on Friday, while the coast guard said over 10,000 passengers and 96 vessels remained stranded in various ports.<br/>
A decade ago, Boeing stopped offering the gold standard of pension plans — one that pays out guaranteed sums to retirees. The loss of the pension still angers many members of the company’s largest union. On Wednesday, the union’s members voted by a large margin to reject an improved contract proposal from management largely because the agreement would not restore the pension. The vote will prolong a five-week strike that is frustrating the jet maker’s efforts to recover from years of crisis. Retirement benefits have become the biggest sticking point in the impasse between Boeing and its workers after the company came close to meeting the union’s demands in other areas, including offering raises of nearly 40% over the life of the new four-year contract. Retirement and labor experts say reaching a compromise on the issue could be difficult. That’s because Boeing is highly unlikely to want to shoulder the much higher cost of a traditional defined-benefit pension plan compared with the defined-contribution plans that have become standard in much of corporate America. Members of the union, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, seem just as determined not to back down from their demands for greater retirement security. “I believe all workers deserve a defined-benefit pension,” Jon Holden, president of District 751 of the union, which represents the vast majority of the workers, said Wednesday after 64% of those voting rejected the offer. “It wasn’t right to take it away, and it’s a righteous fight to try to retrieve it back.” Boeing has previously said it is unwilling to restore the pension plan it froze in 2014. “They’re prohibitively expensive, and that’s why virtually all private employers have transitioned away from them,” the company said in a statement last month, referring to defined-benefit pension plans. <br/>
The White House said on Thursday it was encouraging Boeing and the union representing about 33,000 striking machinists to continue working to reach a deal, a day after workers rejected the planemaker's latest contract offer. President Joe Biden "directed his team … to encourage parties to continue working to achieve an agreement that works, certainly for all parties," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters. "We're going to continue to monitor those negotiations and continue to make sure that we encourage that." Earlier on Thursday, the Labor Department said Acting Secretary Julie Su was in contact with Boeing and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. She was in Seattle twice last week to assist in contract talks that are aimed at ending a six-week strike that has halted production of Boeing's best-selling 737 MAX as well as 767 and 777 wide-body programs. A spokesperson for Su said she "is available to support" Boeing and IAM.<br/>
Spirit AeroSystems is weighing furloughs or layoffs of hundreds more employees if the Boeing machinists’ strike stretches beyond Nov. 25, a company spokesman told CNBC on Thursday. Boeing’s machinists, whose strike is about to enter its sixth week, voted 64% against a newly proposed labor contract on Wednesday, extending the work stoppage that has halted production of most of Boeing’s aircraft, which is centered in the Seattle area. Spirit, which makes fuselages for Boeing’s best-selling 737 Max as well as other major parts, had already been preparing to temporarily furlough about 700 workers in its Wichita, Kansas, facilities. Those 21-day furloughs could begin next week. Further reductions would be in addition to those furloughs, but no decision has been made, said Spirit spokesman Joe Buccino. Spirit’s consideration of additional furloughs demonstrates how the lengthy strike is weighing on an already-fragile aerospace supply chain. Boeing suppliers have largely hesitated to cut staff in part because they had spent years rebuilding their workforces in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Airbus is also facing similar supply chain pressure. More than 32,000 Boeing machinists in the Puget Sound area, Oregon and other locations walked off the job on Sept. 13 after turning down an earlier tentative agreement. Boeing is in the process of acquiring Spirit, a deal it expects to close next year. Spirit has been burning through cash and, on Wednesday, reported a third-quarter net loss of $477m, more than double a year earlier. Boeing’s new CEO Kelly Ortberg has said getting a deal with its Seattle-area machinists and ending the strike is a top priority, and the workers’ union has said it is eager to get back to the negotiating table.<br/>
Airbus A220 operators are being instructed to install a new production baseline software for flight-control computers to remedy a number of deficiencies reported on in-service aircraft. The upgrade is required for all three flight-control computers on the twinjet type, states a Transport Canada directive. Its mandate follows occurrences of nuisance messages – including rudder, aileron or spoiler failure – resulting from erroneous transmissions from the remote electronic unit which handles flight computer commands. Analysis of the problems also turned up “design deficiencies” in the software, says the directive. These include weaknesses in built-in test and monitoring routines, it says, as well as a lack of “robustness” which might not prevent inadvertent autopilot engagement during take-off or unannunciated spoiler deployment. The autopilot issue was the subject of previous regulatory action, with A220 operators ordered to alert pilots – through flight manual amendment – to the possibility of premature rotation if the autopilot was inadvertently engaged late in the take-off roll. Transport Canada says the software issues could lead to increased crew workload and even a “large reduction of safety margins”.<br/>