A growing number of passengers are bypassing congested hub airports and flying directly, as airlines take advantage of new jets to redraw their networks. Since the dawn of the jet age, airlines have flown large and fuel-hungry planes on the busiest intercontinental routes. These link big airports, before passengers transfer on to smaller planes to connect across a region. But advances in aircraft technology have put this “hub and spoke” model under pressure. Airlines can now use smaller and more efficient single-aisle jets, typically associated with shorter trips, on long journeys, opening up direct routes that would have been uneconomical with larger planes. Passengers flying on United Airlines across the Atlantic next summer will be able to take direct flights from the US East Coast to destinations including Bilbao in Spain, Palermo in Italy and even Greenland. “Smaller, fuel-efficient aircraft like the Boeing 737 Max 8 have enabled new nonstop service to burgeoning niche leisure destinations within reach from the US East Coast,” said Patrick Quayle, senior vice-president of global network planning and alliances at United Airlines. “Our point-to-point portfolio taps into the growing interest in diverse European locales,” he said. Other senior airline executives said that, while the hub airport was not dead, passengers were keen to bypass big airports, in part because of the disruption which has gripped many congested hubs since the pandemic. “We do hear that some passengers are avoiding the very big hubs . . . where there have been delays,” said Bogi Nils Bogason, Icelandair’s CE. The changes have led to a shift in how passengers use large airports over the past decade. Among people flying through 10 of the world’s busiest international airports last year, 55% were flying directly to their destination rather than connecting between flights. This was up from a near 50-50 split in 2015, according to a Financial Times analysis of data from OAG, an aviation analytics company.<br/>
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A winter storm is poised to pummel Texas and the US South later this week, putting the region at risk of blackouts and travel mayhem. About 4 to 6 inches (10 to 15 centimeters) of snow and ice will fall across southern Oklahoma and Texas, including Dallas, coating trees, roads and power lines from San Antonio to northern Louisiana, said Peter Mullinax, a forecaster at the US Weather Prediction Center. The system “is going to be a disruptive one with significant accumulations of snow and ice,” Mullinax said. It will start to build Wednesday night, getting stronger on Thursday before sweeping east across the South on Friday. The storm is likely to trigger widespread power outages, snarl transportation in a region where snow plows and salt trucks are rare, and ground or delay airline traffic. While temperatures won’t approach the extreme lows seen during the February 2021 storm that killed more than 200 people and left millions without power for days, any recurrence of cold raises concern about the stability of the state’s fragile power grid. <br/>
Gatwick Airport has warned the government that its plans to build an extra runway could be unaffordable if it is forced to purchase up to 4,400 homes set to be impacted by aeroplane noise. The airport has outlined a noise reduction scheme for local residents as part of its expansion plans, but it could be forced to offer relocation costs if that is rejected by local planners. A community action group which is against the project has told the BBC that the airport should have set money aside to buy the properties. The airport said it has set out a "a strong and compelling case" in mitigating the impact on air quality, noise and emissions. Gatwick's owners have sent a letter to Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander arguing that the homes purchase measure is unfair. It said: "The requirement as drafted is a gross departure from national noise policy and, if imposed, would severely bring into question whether the project could be investible or financeable."<br/>
Asia-Pacific carriers expect 2024 ended on a “positive note”, according to the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA), with international travel demand already past pre-pandemic levels. However, association director general Subhas Menon has warned of “uncertainty about the global economy and supply chain disruptions” as challenges facing the region’s operators. Menon says: “Asia-Pacific airlines remain well-poised to navigate these challenges whilst maintaining the highest safety and service standards.” The issue of supply chain disruption was a prominent talking point at the AAPA’s Assembly of Presidents in 2024, where airline CEOs detailed the challenges they faced. AAPA’s traffic data for November shows the region’s airlines carried 31m passengers in the month, a year-on-year increase of nearly 20%, led by strong long-haul travel demand. Revenue passenger kilometres in November were up about 22%, outpacing a 17.6% increase in capacity, notes AAPA. Menon adds: “Asia-Pacific airlines have led growth in international travel markets this year, benefitting from strong demand for both business and leisure travel.” As for cargo, the association reported a 10.5% increase in freight-tonne kilometres, led by “sustained e-commerce demand”, as well as a “front-loading” of export orders ahead of an expected hike in US tariffs.<br/>
The Airport Authority of Hong Kong sold HK$18.5b ($2.4b) of bonds in the largest-ever issuance in the financial hub’s local currency, amid a sluggish recovery in the aviation sector and delays to the airport’s expansion plan. The Hong Kong government’s statutory body priced 3-year, 5-year, 10-year and 30-year notes yielding 4.05%, 4.1%, 4.25% and 4.5%, respectively, late Tuesday. The notes received HK$25.3b of bids, all from Asia, according to a person familiar with the matter. The Hong Kong dollar issuance is largest of its kind, surpassing the HK$18b convertible-bond offering by now-liquidated developer China Evergrande Group in 2018, according to Bloomberg-compiled data. Proceeds of the bond will be used for refinancing and funding capital expenditures, including the airport’s three-runway project and general corporate purposes, according to the person. While Hong Kong airport’s three-runway system came into operation at the end of November, there will be little additional flight capacity available for at least another year. <br/>
A recent U.N. aviation agency information security incident involved the alleged release of thousands of recruitment application data records from April 2016 to July 2024, the Montreal-based body told Reuters on Tuesday. The 42,000 records, which the threat actor known as Natohub claimed to have released, do not affect any systems related to aviation safety or security, the International Civil Aviation Organization said in response to a Reuters query. "We can confirm that this incident is limited to the recruitment database and does not affect any systems related to aviation safety or security operations," ICAO said. The claim of an ICAO-related incident has been circulating for days following a post to a data breach-focused website popular with cybercriminals. Reuters could not immediately locate contact information for Natohub. Earlier on Tuesday a source told Reuters that the incident was linked to the release of job applicants' records, with a sample made public. ICAO said on Monday it was investigating a reported hacker's claim that the records had been stolen. The investigation is still ongoing and ICAO has implemented additional security measures to protect the agency's systems, it said. "We are also working to identify and notify affected individuals," ICAO said. ICAO said in the statement that the compromised data includes recruitment-related information entered by job applicants, such as names, email addresses, dates of birth, and employment history.<br/>
Airbus is counting the cost of last-minute financial concessions to airlines to overcome a spate of minor quality problems after scrambling to deliver a provisional 123 jets in December, industry sources said. The end-year rush brings preliminary 2024 deliveries to 766 jets, up 4% from 2023, but this is subject to internal audits, meaning it could still be trimmed by one or two jets before final data is released on Thursday, the sources said. Even so, the world's largest planemaker is expected to declare victory after putting a floor of 750 on its guidance of "around 770" deliveries in a briefing to analysts in October. Airbus declined comment. Reuters reported on Friday that Airbus had provisionally delivered over 765 jets. Airbus has been under pressure to meet targets and deliver on promises to investors after a profit warning in July. But unions and some airlines have raised concerns that the push to speed up deliveries has come at the expense of quality problems.<br/>
Brazilian planemaker Embraer delivered 75 aircraft in last year's fourth quarter, similar to the same period in 2023, the company said in a securities filing on Tuesday. The world's third-largest planemaker delivered 31 commercial jets and 44 executive jets during the three-month period ending in December. Embraer delivered a total of 206 aircraft last year, 14% higher than in 2023, and is expected to release full fourth-quarter earnings on February 27.<br/>
When he was still a boy making long, tedious trips between his school and his woodsy home in the mountains during the 1980s, JoeBen Bevirt began fantasizing about flying cars that could whisk him to his destination in a matter of minutes. As CEO of Joby Aviation, Bevirt is getting closer to turning his boyhood flights of fancy into a dream come true as he and latter-day versions of the Wright Brothers launch a new class of electric-powered aircraft vying to become taxis in the sky. The aircraft — known as "electric vertical take-off and landing vehicle, or eVTOL — lift off the ground like a helicopter before flying at speeds up to 200 miles per hour (322 kilometers per hour) with a range of about 100 miles (161 kilometers). And these craft do it without filling the air with excessive noise caused by fuel-powered helicopters and small airplanes. “We are just a few steps from the finish line. We want to turn what are now one- and two-hour trips into five-minute trips,” Bevirt, 51, told The Associated Press before a Joby air taxi took off on a test flight in Marina, California — located about 40 miles south from where he grew up in the mountains. Archer Aviation, a Silicon Valley a Silicon Valley company backed by automaker Stellantis and United Airlines, has been testing its own eTVOLs over farmland in Salinas, California, where a prototype called “Midnight” could be seen gliding above a tractor plowing fields last November. The tests are part of the journey that Joby Aviation and other ambitious companies that collectively have raised billions of dollars are taking to turn flying cars into more than just pie-in-the-sky concepts popularized in 1960s-era cartoon series, “The Jetsons,” and the 1982 science fiction film, “Blade Runner.”<br/>