general

Airlines from China and Canada began adding back regular direct flights this week, connecting Toronto and Vancouver with four Chinese cities following a deal between aviation regulators that is expected to ease demand. At least five airlines would increase their frequencies within the next two months, the Chinese aviation regulator has said via state-backed media outlets since October 30, connecting two of Canada’s major cities with Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Shenzhen. Hainan Airlines led the resumption on Sunday, with a flight taking off from Toronto en route to Beijing. Air Canada, Air China, China Southern Airlines and China Eastern Airlines are expected to follow suit. The “surge” in direct flights would smooth exchanges of people, plus business travel, while encouraging a recovery in the respective air transport markets, the Civil Aviation Administration of China said, according to the official Xinhua News Agency on October 30. Montreal-based Air Canada said it would increase the frequency of its round-trip flights between Vancouver and Shanghai from four to seven per week starting from December 7. The airline would also resume daily flights between Vancouver and Beijing from January 15. Adding back flights reflects the “importance of these markets in Air Canada’s global network”, the carrier’s revenue and network planning, said vice-president Mark Galardo. The resumptions followed “many rounds of negotiations” between the countries’ civil aviation authorities, Xinhua added. “As a result of this positive engagement, Canadian and Chinese carriers are now permitted to incrementally operate a limited increased level of service between the two countries that is in line with passenger demand,” Laurel Rasmus, consul and programme manager with the Canadian Consulate General in Hong Kong, said on Wednesday.<br/>

Spanish infrastructure firm Ferrovial and joint-venture partner Macquarie Group are selling the entire shareholding of AGS Airports Holdings, the owner of three major UK airports. AGS Airports is the parent of Aberdeen and Glasgow airports in Scotland, and Southampton airport on the English south coast. Under the agreement they will be transferred to AviAlliance, which has interests in Athens, Hamburg, Dusseldorf and San Juan airports. AviAlliance has recently divested its participation in Budapest airport. Ferrovial and Macquarie each hold 50% of AGS, which was established in 2014. All three of AGS’s UK airports were among seven formerly run by BAA before the UK competition regulator ordered the company to be broken up. Ferrovial says the agreement values the entirety of the shareholding at GBP900m ($1.15b), and says the overall deal represents an enterprise value of GBP1.53b. It estimates it will recognise a E290m capital gain from the deal, which it expects will close in the first quarter of next year. Macquarie says the three airports handle over 10.8m passengers per year.<br/>

Asia-Pacific travel demand has recovered from the pandemic, but earnings at the region's airlines are under pressure from supply chain problems disrupting operations and exposing them to strengthening consumer protection rules, industry executives say. A shortage of parts, labour and new planes as the aviation industry emerged from the pandemic has coincided with higher-than-expected repairs needed on the latest-generation engines. "The supply chain issue is the biggest challenge the industry is facing," Subhas Menon, the director general of the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA) said at the trade body's annual meeting in Brunei this week. Turnaround times for engine maintenance are at record lengths, with airlines having to cut flights, move parts around and lease stop-gap engines or planes to keep operations ticking. Thai Airways CEO Chai Eamsiri said servicing the Rolls-Royce engines on its Boeing 787 jets used to take around three months, but that has blown out to about six. "We have to stretch the aircraft. We used to operate 12.5 hours a day, now we have to stretch it to 13 plus," he told Reuters on the sidelines of the gathering. The heads of major carriers including Thai Airways, Singapore Airlines, Malaysia Airlines and Kazakhstan's Air Astana expressed frustration with maintenance times and said governments trying to improve consumer protections should stop placing the blame on airlines for delays.<br/>

Schools and many businesses shut in Hong Kong on Thursday morning after authorities issued the third highest typhoon warning overnight as tropical storm Toraji skirted about 150 km (93 miles) south of the financial hub.<br/>Toraji is expected to weaken and move away from Hong Kong with winds moderating gradually during the day, the city's observatory said.<br/>The strong wind alert will be lowered to signal 3 from 8 by 10:20 a.m. (0220 GMT), the observatory said, which will allow many businesses to reopen for the rest of the day. The city's stock market remained open for trading on Thursday morning for the first time during a typhoon, while the city's Airport Authority said operations and flights were running normally.<br/>

One of Japan’s busiest airports has vowed to clamp down on customer harassment as it unveiled measures to tackle inappropriate behaviour and boost service quality. Narita airport said awareness about the problem among passengers varied due to nationality or cultural background, prompting it to formulate a clear policy on the issue. The rule, a first-of-its-kind in the country’s air hubs, defines customer harassment as actions that “harm the working environment of airport staff physically or psychologically”. The guidelines were framed after businesses at the airport reported multiple instances of patrons losing their cool, including a traveller who berated an airline worker and demanded payment for missing their flight despite the employee not being at fault. “Therefore, by clearly presenting our basic policy, we intend not only to secure the safety of airport staff but also to provide safety and security to airport users and provide even better services,” Narita International Airport Corporation said in a late October statement. According to the airport operator, the facility handled 29.5m passengers in the first nine months of the year. Narita’s advisory also highlighted nine types of commonly encountered unsavoury behaviour that included yelling, verbal abuse, defamation, excessive demand for services, stalking and making obscene remarks.<br/>

Several international airlines canceled flights to and from Indonesia’s tourist island of Bali on Wednesday as an ongoing volcanic eruption left travelers stranded at airports. Tourists told The Associated Press that they have been stuck at Bali’s airport since Tuesday after their flights were suddenly canceled. Media reports said that thousands of people were stranded at airports in Indonesia and Australia, but an exact number wasn't given. Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki volcano on the remote island of Flores in East Nusa Tenggara province spewed towering columns of hot ash high into the air since its initial huge eruption on Nov. 4 killed nine people and injured dozens of others. The 1,584-meter (5,197-foot) volcano shot up ash at least 17 times on Tuesday, with the largest column recorded at 9 kilometers (5 1/2 miles) high, the Center for Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation said. Authorities on Tuesday expanded the danger zone as the volcano erupted again to 9 kilometers (5 1/2 miles) as volcanic materials, including smoldering rocks, lava, and hot, thumb-size fragments of gravel and ash, were thrown up to 8 kilometers (5 miles) from the crater since Friday. The activity at the volcano has disturbed flights at Bali’s I Gusti Ngurah Rai international airport since the eruption started, airport general manager Ahmad Syaugi Shahab said. Over the past four days, 84 flights, including 36 scheduled to depart and 48 due to arrive, were affected.<br/>

Boeing said on Wednesday it is issuing layoff notices starting this week to workers impacted by a broader plan by the heavily indebted planemaker to cut 17,000 jobs, or 10% of its global workforce. U.S. staff receiving the notices this week will stay on Boeing's payroll until January to comply with federal requirements that give workers 60 days' notice prior to ending their employment. News that Boeing would send out the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) in mid-November was widely expected. “As previously announced, we are adjusting our workforce levels to align with our financial reality and a more focused set of priorities," Boeing said in a statement. "We are committed to ensuring our employees have support during this challenging time."<br/>

Airbus has raised its forecast for the number of new aircraft Asia-Pacific and its major drivers China and India need over the next two decades to 19,500 planes, while announcing the company has exceeded 50% market share for the backlog of widebody planes in the region for the first time. Anand Stanley, president of Airbus Asia-Pacific, said on Wednesday the planes accounted for 46% of the 42,430 new aircraft needed globally by 2043. “With this surge in demand, the region’s fleet will continue to expand, driven by both growth and replacement needs, with sustainability initiatives becoming more prevalent,” he said. Presenting the company’s forecast at the Association of Asia-Pacific Airlines’ annual assembly of presidents in Brunei, he said the projections underscored the region’s continued growth and importance globally. “The Asia-Pacific forecast, which includes China and India, reflects a year-on-year growth of 3% in terms of new aircraft needed,” Stanley said. He also revealed Airbus had reached more than 50% of market share for the backlog of widebody planes in Asia-Pacific, overtaking rival Boeing. He attributed the achievement to the success of the A330neo and the A350 models. Stanley said it was the first time the company had reached the milestone. “We’re very, very pleased that on the widebody side we have surpassed the 50% market share in our backlog thanks to platforms such as the A350, especially the A350-1000, that have been endorsed as the replacement for the 777 fleet,” he said.<br/>

Brazilian planemaker Embraer said on Wednesday at China's largest air show in Zhuhai that it planned to focus on strengthening its supply chain, with Chinese companies able to play a role. Embraer is the world's third-largest planemaker and focuses on up to 150-seat single-aisle regional and executive aircraft, sitting just below Airbus' and Boeing's best-selling A320 and 737 families and rivalling the Airbus A220. At Zhuhai, Embraer's CCO, Martyn Holmes, noted that China's President Xi Jinping would soon visit Brazil. The G20 summit will be held there this month. "I think it's an exciting moment for us to be having that (supply chain) conversation with Chinese suppliers and looking how we evolve," Holmes said. China is Brazil's top trade partner. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said earlier this year that he wanted to discuss a "long-term strategic partnership" with China. Industry sources have said Embraer is looking for a strategic partner for a possible new passenger jet project to compete more directly with Airbus and Boeing. Since the COVID-19 pandemic Embraer has pushed to expand in Asia with its latest range of more efficient E2 jets, saying post-pandemic travel trends in the region created more demand for more frequent secondary and tertiary airport connections.<br/>

Turboprop aircraft maker ATR said on Wednesday it would scrap development of a new model designed to take off and land on short runways and concentrate instead on its existing portfolio. The French-Italian company, co-owned by Airbus and Leonardo, said the decision to halt the new ATR 42-600S Short Take-Off and Landing (STOL) development followed an extensive market review and lingering supply chain tensions. ATR is the world's largest producer of regional turboprop planes, with a family of aircraft seating 42 to 78 people. In 2019, the Toulouse-based manufacturer announced plans to develop a special version of its smallest model designed to squeeze in and out of airports with runways as short as 800 metres (2,600 feet), backed by 20 provisional orders. Customers for the version included Air Tahiti, Papua New Guinea's PNG Air and Irish lessor Elix Aviation Capital, according to previous ATR announcements. It said when launching the project that the new design would unlock access to 500 additional airports, reflecting rapid regional economic development in markets such as Asia. But announcing the decision to close the project on Wednesday, ATR said the number of targeted airports in Southeast Asia that might need such a plane had shrunk because of runway extensions or the construction of nearby alternative airports. France's Force Ouvriere union said there had been doubts over business plans and development costs. It warned of economic losses caused by the repayment of airline deposits and said ATR workers had been shocked by the decision to halt the project.<br/>