general

The Thanksgiving holiday rush neared its full stride at U.S. airports Tuesday, putting travelers’ patience to the test. The TSA expected to screen more than 2.8m people on Tuesday and 2.9m on Wednesday after handling more than 2.5m people on Monday. Things appeared to be going relatively smoothly at most airports, given the big crowds. By early evening Tuesday on the East Coast, only about 70 U.S. flights had been canceled but more than 3,200 had been delayed. Airlines averaged about 4,500 daily flight delays during the previous three days, according to tracking service FlightAware. On the ground, there were a couple slow-speed collisions at Boston Logan International Airport. An American Airlines plane pulling into a gate touched wingtips with a parked Frontier Airlines plane on Monday, but no injuries were reported. On Monday night, a tug towing an empty JetBlue plane struck a Cape Air plane, and two Cape Air pilots were taken to a hospital as a precaution, according to an airport spokesperson. An Arctic blast in the Midwest and wet weather in the Eastern U.S. could disrupt travel over the next several days. A storm system that moved across the West Coast was forecast to bring heavy snow Wednesday to the Intermountain West, including the Rockies in Colorado, the Bitterroot Range in Idaho and Montana, and the Wasatch Mountains of Utah, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. For Thanksgiving Day, forecasters expect clear weather over the western two-thirds of the country but a mix of rain and snow from Michigan and Ohio through New England.<br/>

A Senate subcommittee on Tuesday slammed U.S. airlines large and small over fees to pick seats on flights. Between 2018 and 2023 American, Delta, United, Spirit and Frontier brought in $12.4b in seating fees, including for seats with extra legroom as well as those in “preferred” locations that are closer to the front of the plane, or window or aisle seats, said the report from the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Last year, United’s revenue from seating fees totaled $1.3b, the first time since at least 2018 that category surpassed checked bag-fee revenue, the report said. While most major U.S. airlines have gotten rid of ticket change fees for standard economy tickets, they have added fees to select more popular or roomier seats on board. Carriers have also been racing to add more premium seats on board to increase revenue. Stamping out so-called junk fees has been a priority for the Biden administration. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., the subcommittee’s chair, said airline executives have been called to testify about the practice at a Dec. 4 hearing called “The Sky’s the Limit—New Revelations About Airline Fees.” Airlines for America, a trade group that represents the largest U.S. carriers, said air travel has become more affordable and that customers can choose what they want to pay for onboard.<br/>

The FAA said on Tuesday it will not require any immediate action after convening a review board to consider concerns about Boeing 737 MAX engines after two bird strike incidents on Southwest Airlines planes in 2023. The FAA Corrective Action Review Board reviewed the CFM LEAP-1B engine bird strikes which led to smoke entering two Boeing 737 MAX aircraft. The board determined the issue does not warrant immediate action and the FAA will follow its standard regulatory process to address it, the agency said. "The FAA continues to assess how these events could affect other engines with similar structural designs," the agency said, adding it will issue a notice to foreign aviation regulators "about new information Boeing provided to operators of aircraft with LEAP-1B engines." The FAA had been considering recommendations for new takeoff procedures to close the airflow to one or both engines to address the potential impact of a bird strike and prevent smoke from entering the cockpit. The development of a permanent fix could extend delays to certification of Boeing's MAX 7 and MAX 10 models. Reuters reported last week the FAA was considering whether a change in procedures made sense to address the extremely rare incident when pilots have an established procedure to address the issue. Boeing said Tuesday it continues "to follow regulatory processes to properly address potential issues and ensure the continued safety of the global fleet." Southwest said on Tuesday it previously notified flight crews about the effects of certain bird strikes following the two events and "reiterated the importance of following established safety procedures that are part of the company's recurrent pilot training."<br/>

Alaska Air Group and Delta Air Lines have lost their bid to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that emissions from their aircraft at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport are responsible for a deadly mixture of toxic pollution. U.S. District Judge Jamal Whitehead in Seattle on Monday rejected the airlines' arguments that federal law governing airline routes and clean air standards preempted state-law claims pursued by individuals who live near the airport. Steve Berman, a lawyer for the plaintiffs at Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro, in an email called the ruling "a first step toward environmental justice for this class." Delta in a statement said it was "carefully reviewing the court's ruling and next steps." Alaska Air declined to comment. The plaintiffs in the proposed class action are seeking to represent home owners and residents living within a five-mile radius of Sea-Tac Airport in what their lawyers call the facility's "Contamination Zone." The area has more than 300,000 residents and includes the Seattle suburbs of Burien, Des Moines, SeaTac and Tukwila. The plaintiffs say that in that zone, rates of cancer, heart disease and chronic respiratory disease are higher than in nearby areas. In a lawsuit filed in April 2023, the residents alleged that pollution produced by the two main airlines at Sea-Tac, Alaska and Delta, included carbon monoxide, lead and particulate matter and was linked to hundreds of deaths every year. They said the pollution was pervasive enough that soot-like sediment would build up on their roofs, yards and cars and that the communities that were harmed were disproportionately low income and racial minorities.<br/>

Lithuania has found no evidence of terrorism or sabotage so far in its investigation of a DHL cargo plane crash near Vilnius airport, prosecutors said on Tuesday. The aircraft's black boxes containing flight data and voice recorders have been found and investigators are preparing to examine the material, the government later said in a statement. The plane crashed as it came in to land in the early hours of Monday, killing one person on board in what Germany's foreign minister later said might have been an accident or a hybrid attack in "volatile times". The Lithuanian General Prosecutor's office is leading one of two official probes into the crash of the Boeing 737-400, which was operated by Spanish airline Swiftair on behalf of the German logistics group. "Our initial information does not indicate that we need to be investigating more serious actions," Prosecutor Arturas Urbelis said in a statement, adding that the probe was still under way. "We might find signs of activities of other kinds as we investigate," Urbelis said.<br/>

The expansion of green jet fuels could suffer a significant set-back under president-elect Donald Trump, according to aviation officials, who fear the reversal of tax credits needed to kick-start the sector. The comments by members of airlines trade body IATA and American Airlines at an airlines industry conference in London are among the first assessments of what a Trump presidency could mean for nascent clean jet fuels. "There are these big potential risks on what the Trump policy is actually going to be and how this really affects everybody's motivation to pursue climate change," Marie Owens Thomsen, chief economist for airlines trade body IATA, told Reuters. The 2022 U.S. Inflation Reduction Act contains hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies for clean energy and is billed as outgoing President Joe Biden's signature law to combat climate change. Europe's airlines sector, which will have to meet a new mandate for use of sustainable aviation fuels starting in 2026, has repeatedly pointed to the IRA as a useful model to encourage investment into the construction of new SAF production plants. President-elect Donald Trump, a climate skeptic, has vowed to rescind it, something that would require the support of Congress. While existing SAF production facilities are likely to continue producing the fuel, government affairs experts at airlines have said, any rollback of the IRA could put the future of new projects at risk. As it stands, sustainable aviation fuel makes up only around 1% of the world's jet fuel usage, with experts saying the production rate of the green fuel needs to grow quickly for the sector to achieve a goal of net zero carbon emissions by 2050.<br/>

Malaysia plans to start producing sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) in 2027, with an initial production capacity of one million metric tons per year, Plantation and Commodities Minister Johari Abdul Ghani said on Tuesday. The production capacity will gradually increase based on factory output and feedstock availability, the minister told parliament. Malaysia, the world's second-largest palm oil producer, is in a strategic position to become one of the world's leading SAF producers, he said. Under the government's National Energy Transition Roadmap published in 2023, the government established an SAF blending mandate starting with 1%, aiming for a 47% blend by 2050. Johari added that EcoCeres Renewable Fuels Sdn Bhd and Petronas, in partnership with Enilive and Euglena, are constructing a SAF refinery and production plant with capacity of 350,000 and 650,000 metric tons per year, respectively. "With the development of these two plants, we will have the capacity to produce one million metric tons of SAF," he said, adding that any surplus could be exported to other non-producing SAF countries. He said the government was also considering various tax incentives to attract investors to Malaysia and establish the country as an SAF development hub. Johari added that SAF production would benefit small farmers and palm industry players as palm waste has a higher value than crude palm oil itself. In the Asean region, Singapore has announced that it plans to require all flights departing the country to use SAF starting in 2026 and plans to raise it to 3-5% by 2030, subject to global developments and the wider availability and adoption of SAF. In October, Indonesia flew its first commercial flight using palm oil-blended jet fuel. The flight operated by flag carrier Garuda Indonesia carried more than 100 passengers from the capital Jakarta to Surakarta city about 550 km away.<br/>

Canberra’s most recent aviation white paper has underlined the challenges facing new entrants in Australia’s airline market and reiterated the government’s view that slot reform is needed at Sydney airport. While observing that the country’s aviation sector has rebounded strongly from the coronavirus pandemic, the white paper observes that conditions are still difficult. It points to Regional Express’s (Rex) entry into administration in July after it attempted to enter Australia’s domestic market, shortly following the collapse of low-cost carrier Bonza earlier in the year. “These latest events demonstrate the inherent challenges faced by small players in Australia’s market – which has never grown sustainably beyond 2 major carriers – and highlight the critical importance of strong policy and regulatory settings to protect the rights of aviation customers in a smaller market,” says the white paper. The white paper observes that slot reform is key at Sydney. It expresses the view that Australia’s incumbent carriers hurt competition by taking more Sydney slots than they intend to operate and then cancelling flights. While legal, this practice acts as a block against competitors. Speaking on Australian radio, Transport and Infrastructure Minister Catherine King said that while Australia’s airlines are acting within the rules, they are “tactically” deciding when to cancel flights, even referring to the practice as “gaming” the system.<br/>