A DHL cargo plane crashed into a house in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, killing a crew member and injuring three people. The plane, which took off from the German city of Leipzig, crashed at about 5.30am local time on Monday into a house near Vilnius airport. All 12 inhabitants of the house survived, according to emergency services. Police said they were investigating the crash, with a technical fault or human error as the most likely cause. Arūnas Paulauskas, head of Lithuanian police, said that the initial assessment was that the plane “did not fall, but landed”. He added that there was no evidence of external damage or anything happening inside the aircraft to cause the crash. One of the surviving crew members confirmed there was no smoke or fire inside the aircraft before the crash, Paulauskas added. DHL, the German parcel group, has been the target of two parcel fires in recent months involving packages sent from Lithuania. The incidents have been linked by the country’s officials to Russian military intelligence. Germany said last month that it had narrowly avoided a plane crash when a parcel destined for an aircraft’s hold burst into flames before the flight at a DHL logistics centre in Leipzig. The UK’s counterterrorism police are also investigating the origins of another package that caught fire at a DHL depot in Birmingham in July. Kęstutis Budrys, national security adviser to Lithuania’s President Gitanas Nausėda, said this month that Russian military intelligence was behind the attacks. Two European security officials said the incidents were designed to test whether flights bound for the US could be attacked in the same manner. DHL said the plane had “made an emergency landing” approximately 1km from Vilnius airport but did not provide more details, adding only that the cause of the accident was unknown and investigations were under way.<br/>
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Global airfares are set to become more expensive in 2025 even as gains moderate, according to an American Express Global Business Travel Group Inc. forecast, with ticket prices reflecting higher costs and lingering supply-chain disruptions. The slower climb in ticket expenses is a leveling off from this year’s steep post-Covid increases, the global corporate travel manager said in its annual report on the cost of flying. Fares on most routes will rise, though the size of the increases will likely vary greatly by region. North America and Europe are expected to see more “modest” increases of around 2% while Asia and Australasia, among the last regions to unwind pandemic curbs, are set to see rises of close to 14%. While airlines are largely more bullish about demand in 2025, their near-term efforts to add capacity remain hampered by delays in both new Airbus SE and Boeing Co. planes, as well as longer servicing of jet engines that prevent more aircraft from taking to the skies. Increases in ticket prices next year are likely to more than erase any decreases before 2024, meaning some fares may return to post-pandemic highs, Bloomberg News calculations based on the Amex GBT data show. The key drivers pushing up airfares include rising wages and staffing shortages, particularly with the ongoing labor disputes in North America and the cost of fuel amid ongoing geopolitical tensions, the report added. In addition, airlines continue to add new surcharges and low-cost carriers have invested in expensive extras like airport lounges and better seats. Routes between Europe and Asia will likely see a 6.6% jump for economy travel and 8.2% in business, driven largely by the higher costs associated with avoiding Russian airspace and curtailed supply, and as a number of European carriers pull out of China.<br/>
Just as sure as the turkey will taste dry, airports and highways are expected to be jam-packed during Thanksgiving week, a holiday period likely to end in another record day for air travel in the United States. The people responsible for keeping security lines, boarding areas and jetliners moving — from the U.S. transportation secretary and airline chiefs on down the line — swear they are prepared for the crowds. Airline passengers might get lucky like they did last year, when relatively few flights were canceled during the holiday week. A repeat will require the weather's cooperation. And even if skies are blue, a shortage of air traffic controllers could create delays. U.S. flights appeared to running relatively normally on Monday, with fewer than 40 canceled but more than 1,600 delayed by midday on the East Coast, according to FlightAware. Auto club and insurance company AAA predicts that nearly 80m Americans will venture at least 50 miles from home between Tuesday and next Monday. Most of them will travel by car. The Transportation Security Administration expects to screen 18.3m people at U.S. airports during the same seven-day stretch. That would be 6% more than during the corresponding days last year but fit a pattern set throughout 2024.<br/>
Workers who clean airplanes, remove trash and help with wheelchairs at Charlotte's airport, one of the nation's busiest, went on strike Monday during a busy week of Thanksgiving travel to demand higher wages. The Service Employees International Union announced the strike in a statement early Monday, saying the workers would demand “an end to poverty wages and respect on the job during the holiday travel season.” The strike was expected to last 24 hours, said union spokesperson Sean Keady. Employees of ABM and Prospect Airport Services cast ballots Friday to authorize the work stoppage at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, a hub for American Airlines. The two companies contract with American, one of the world's biggest carriers, to provide services such as cleaning airplane interiors, removing trash and escorting passengers in wheelchairs. American doesn’t expect “any significant disruption” to its flights this week as a result of the strike, the company said in a statement. More than 30 American flights at the Charlotte airport — about 4% of the airline's flights — were delayed at midafternoon Monday, according to FlightAware, which isn’t out of the ordinary. Workers say they previously complained that they can't afford basic necessities, including food, housing or car repairs. They described living paycheck to paycheck while performing jobs that keep planes running on schedule. Most of them earn $12.50 to $19 an hour, union officials said.<br/>
Heathrow’s incoming largest shareholder has thrown its weight behind expanding the UK’s largest airport, and said it would back management if it tried to build a third runway. French private equity group Ardian agreed to buy a 23% stake in Heathrow in June, part of a GBP3.3b shake-up in ownership at the airport which also saw Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund buy a stake. With the deal expected to complete before the end of next month, Ardian’s head of infrastructure Mathias Burghardt told the Financial Times that Heathrow needed to expand in the coming years. “Growth is in our DNA. We don’t invest in companies, or in infrastructure if they don’t have a growth plan,” he said. Heathrow’s CE Thomas Woldbye is within months expected to announce the airport’s first expansion plan since the pandemic, which will prioritise small-scale improvements to increase passenger numbers. He told an industry conference on Monday that Heathrow hoped to make a final decision on whether to press ahead with the planning process for a third runway by the end of 2025. But the only way to significantly increase capacity would be to build a new runway, a politically contentious topic that has remained unresolved for decades. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s cabinet is split over whether to back a third runway, the FT reported this month. Burghardt backed Woldbye’s plan, and said he would then support a third runway if there was “consensus” behind it. “The first thing is to grow the airport within the existing footprint, and then . . . how can we ensure growth beyond the existing footprint?” “If management designs growth, which could be a third runway . . . and if there is consensus, first with the government, but beyond that, other stakeholders, we certainly will support it for sure,” he said. But amid rising concerns about the difficulty of decarbonising aviation, Burghardt said any plans would be contingent on a credible plan to lower emissions. <br/>
A “new and improved” task force to cut aviation emissions has been launched by the Government. Transport Secretary Louise Haigh pledged to work with the industry to make the UK “a global leader in sustainable travel”. The Jet Zero Taskforce will aim to support the production and delivery of sustainable aviation fuels (Saf) and zero-emission flights, as well as consider how to improve aviation systems to make them more efficient. It will feature an annual CE-level meeting chaired by Ms Haigh and attended by Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband. Other members will include the bosses of airlines such as easyJet and Virgin Atlantic, airports including Heathrow and Manchester, as well as fuel producers, trade bodies and leading universities. Haigh said: “Climate change is one of the biggest challenges we face, and together with industry, I am determined to build an aviation sector that’s future-ready and better for the planet. We need to make flying a cleaner, greener experience and the new and improved Jet Zero Taskforce will be the driving force behind this transition. I look forward to working with all members to deliver meaningful changes that will boost our economy and make the UK a global leader in sustainable travel.”<br/>
The authority managing Hong Kong’s international airport is doing all it can to coax overseas airlines and seek new routes to fill the extra capacity created by the soon-to-debut three-runway system while waiting for city flag carrier Cathay Pacific Airways to fully restore its pre-pandemic passenger capacity. In an exclusive interview with the Post, the Airport Authority’s acting CEO, Vivian Cheung Kar-fay, said it had taken a spate of proactive actions “beyond what an airport would do”, including offering financial incentives to airlines to increase and create routes, giving away free air tickets to attract tourists, and organising high-profile conferences to draw business travellers. Hong Kong International Airport’s HK$141.5b (US$18b) three-runway system will debut on Thursday and will add in stages 50% in passenger capacity to 120m annually. It will double the cargo capacity from 5m tonnes now to 10m tonnes per annum by around 2035. Cathay, meanwhile, delayed its target of returning to pre-pandemic passenger levels by three months from the end of this year to the first quarter of 2025. “I’m still expecting that, hoping there is no revised plan because a large part of our plan depends on their plan,” Cheung said.<br/>