general

Sean Duffy, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s choice to lead the Department of Transportation, received bipartisan support from lawmakers on Wednesday after promising to continue efforts to improve roadway safety and address challenges with the nation’s aviation system if confirmed. During his confirmation hearing on Wednesday before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, Duffy was questioned on a range of topics, from the continuing oversight of Boeing to whether drivers of electric vehicles should contribute to the highway trust fund. Duffy, 53, has a varied background, having been a Fox Business host, a lawmaker from Wisconsin, a lobbyist in Washington, a district attorney and, when younger, a reality television personality. But he has little experience in transportation or managing large organizations. Yet no senator asked especially challenging questions. Committee members from both parties seemed eager to talk about infrastructure projects that affect their areas, with Duffy agreeing to visit the states they represent in the coming year. If approved by the Senate, Duffy would inherit an agency with a budget of more than $100b that has been in the spotlight following a number of high-profile incidents. Last year, a cargo ship hit and destroyed the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, and a series of near collisions at U.S. airports prompted new concerns about aviation safety. <br/>

Poland’s prime minister appeared on Wednesday to confirm the conclusions of Western intelligence officials who had warned of a Russian plot to blow up cargo aircraft over Western countries. “I can only confirm that Russia planned acts of air terror, not just against Poland but against airlines across the globe,” the prime minister, Donald Tusk, said during a meeting with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky. Tusk did not elaborate, and it was unclear whether officials believed that Moscow was continuing to actively plan such an action. Officials first became aware of the plot over the summer, when incendiary devices placed at shipping hubs in Britain and Germany ignited fires that caused minimal damage. In November, four Western officials briefed on intelligence about the operation said the fires had been part of a test of security measures carried out by Russia’s military intelligence service, known as the GRU. The ultimate goal of the plot was not known, but intelligence agencies started an investigation into whether the intent was to destroy planes on American or European runways, or even blow up an aircraft midair. By the fall, the White House became so concerned that President Biden ordered his national security adviser and the C.I.A. director to warn top aides of Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, that such plotting could provoke a severe reaction from the United States. Any acts of sabotage that caused mass casualties would represent a serious escalation of conflict between Moscow and Washington, and the United States would hold Russia responsible for “enabling terrorism,” a senior official told The New York Times. While the Kremlin has denied that its agents engage in sabotage, Western officials say Moscow has ordered its intelligence services to find ways to bring the war in Ukraine, soon to enter its fourth year, to Europe and the United States.<br/>

UK air navigation service NATS has implemented a new arrival separation technique for London Heathrow aimed at squeezing out additional capacity while complying with wake-vortex requirements. The technique introduces a new method of deriving minimum separation between arriving aircraft pairs, refining the calculation by taking into account specific characteristics of the aircraft models rather than relying on broad wake categories. NATS says the technique – known as Pairwise – has been implemented at its Swanwick area control centre which handles traffic in the southern UK. Pairwise enables separation to be tailored in a “far more granular way”, it states, and allows controllers to reduce unnecessary distance between certain aircraft types. “While the overall number of flights at Heathrow is capped, being able to land more aircraft per hour will provide valuable additional tactical capacity,” says NATS. This will assist with reducing delays and provide greater resilience during disruption.<br/>

Aena, the operator of all Spanish commercial airports, intends to make its terminals in the country carbon neutral in 2026, CE Maurici Lucena said on Wednesday. The company is investing E750m in the process, he said during an event held in Madrid. He was referring to the airport infrastructure, and not the airplanes using the infrastructure. "It will take more time for airlines to decarbonise, and it's more difficult for them," he added. "Air transportation is the sector where decarbonising will be the most expensive."<br/>

The Korea Airports Corp. (KAC) has refused to disclose its design documents related to the modernization of the localizer facility at Muan International Airport, despite a formal request from lawmakers on the National Assembly's Land Infrastructure and Transport Committee. The documents, believed to include safety assessments conducted by design firms, were withheld entirely, drawing criticism for lack of transparency. According to the National Assembly on Tuesday, Rep. Lee Yeon-hee of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea requested comprehensive design documents from the KAC regarding the localizer improvement project. The documents contain crucial information, such as optimal installation locations and measures to ensure the localizer's breakability. The controversial mound supporting the localizer existed when the airport opened, but a concrete slab was added during last year’s renovations. The requested documents included 15 items, such as the final design report, antenna design, structural and safety assessment results, stakeholder feedback and progress reports.<br/>

PTT Global Chemical says it has started producing sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) in Thailand for the first time, with planned annual output of 6m litres for the first phase. The petrochemical arm of the national oil and gas conglomerate PTT is using used cooking oil as the main raw material. It plans to expand production to 24m litres per year in the future, it said in a statement on Wednesday. “Today’s official commercial production of SAF is ready to support rapidly expanding demand for renewable energy in the Thai commercial aviation industry,” PTTGC president Toasaporn Boonyapipat said in the statement. Production of green jet fuel will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote Thailand’s potential to become a low-carbon aviation hub in Southeast Asia, the company said.<br/>

Air passenger traffic in 2024 hit 97.1m passengers, a 14.3% year-on-year increase that pointed towards continued recovery in the country's aviation sector, says Transport Minister Anthony Loke. According to Loke, this was in line with the Malaysian Aviation Commission (Mavcom) projected 95.4m to 97.6m passengers. “This represents 89% of 2019, equating to 109.3m passengers at pre-pandemic levels. It only took us three years (to show recovery),” said Loke during a press conference at the Transport Ministry on Wednesday (Jan 15). According to Loke, the increase is driven by Asean and international travellers, which registered a growth of 19.8% and 38.9%, respectively. “Several factors, such as increased flight seats, visa exemption for Indian and Chinese tourists, and increased connectivity between China, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Australia and Gulf countries drive this growth. 2024 also saw several airlines launching new routes, such as to Kazakhstan and Kenya.”<br/>

A takeover offer for Malaysia Airports by a consortium comprising the country's sovereign wealth fund and BlackRock has been extended again to Jan. 24, a stock exchange filing on Wednesday showed. Earlier this month, the offer was extended to Jan. 17. The offerors have now secured an additional 44.92% stake as of Jan. 15, the filing showed, bringing their total control to 85.77%, after they had already amassed a 40.85% stake as of early Dec. 2024. In May 2024, the consortium including Malaysia's sovereign wealth fund Khazanah and BlackRock's Global Infrastructure Partners offered to acquire all remaining shares at 11 ringgit per share, giving the airports operator an equity value of 18.4b ringgit ($4.09b). If the acceptance condition of the offer is met, the offerors do not intend to maintain the listing of the offeree on the stock exchange, the filing showed.<br/>

President-elect Donald Trump's nominee to head the U.S. Transportation Department said Boeing needs "tough love" to get back on track after a 2024 mid-air emergency and that electric vehicles should pay to use roads. "We have to make sure they are implementing their safety plan. We have to push the (Federal Aviation Administration) to make sure they're implementing their safety plan," former House lawmaker Sean Duffy told the Senate Committee at his confirmation hearing. Duffy said he would work "with Congress and the FAA to restore global confidence in Boeing and to ensure our skies are safe." "Boeing is a national security issue. Boeing is the largest exporter of American product - incredibly important. In one of my meetings someone said though they need tough love, which is what they do need," Duffy said. The FAA is maintaining tougher oversight of Boeing indefinitely, a year after a door panel missing four bolts flew off a new Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 in mid-air. It has also barred Boeing from expanding production beyond 38 MAX planes per month. FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker plans to step down on Jan. 20, while Deputy FAA Administrator Katie Thomson left the agency last week. Trump has not yet named a new nominee to head the department.<br/>

The CE of Airbus said he was confident the company would reach its target of manufacturing 75 single-aisle aircraft a month in 2027, given its investment, focus on its supply chain and the hiring of people ahead of time. "By 2027 we will be with the capacity rate 75 fully in place, and that's something we are very confident of," CEO Guillaume Faury told reporters on Wednesday. The European planemaker had in July cut its annual delivery target to "around 770" aircraft from 800 after Faury said he had been "blind-sided" by a drop in supplies from enginemaker CFM. But he called it a short-term issue that affected deliveries last year and would affect them this year but not beyond. "The CFM engine issues are absolutely not a problem to the rate 75," he said. As production ramps up towards target, Faury said Airbus was trying to ensure that each supplier has a plan in place to overcome potential issues. "We are going at the pace of the slowest of our suppliers," he said. Asked about whether Airbus was considering raising production beyond 75 per month in the years after 2027, he said that was not on the cards for now. "The plan is to go to 75 and stay at 75 for some years," he said. "This is a prudent level of production in terms of being sure that the demand will remain higher than the supply for quite a while."<br/>

The Vietnam government said late on Wednesday that it will consider removing regulatory hurdles to allow aircraft manufactured by Chinese state-owned planemaker COMAC to operate in the country. COMAC is seeking to establish itself as an alternative to leading Western planemakers Airbus and Boeing. However, its two passenger plane models currently operate almost exclusively within mainland China, and the company seeks to expand its presence in international markets. Before an airline can operate any aircraft model, it must receive approval from the national aviation regulator. Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha assigned the transport ministry to review existing rules to remove regulatory hurdles to enable COMAC planes to operate in Vietnam, the government said in a statement, after a meeting in Hanoi between Ha and COMAC Board Director Tan Wangeng. COMAC has been eyeing Vietnam as a potential market for some time, and conducted a southeast Asia marketing tour last February, during which it flew two demonstration planes to the country. COMAC lacks benchmark certifications from the EU or the United States for its short-haul regional jet, C909, and its larger C919 model. Industry sources suggest that this is hindering the company's efforts to sell or lease to foreign airlines. Ha said as an initial step low-cost carrier VietJet, Vietnam's leading private airline, may work with a Chinese airline operating COMAC planes to test aircraft on some routes.<br/>

The CEO of fast-growing aircraft lessor AviLease on Wednesday said he expects Boeing and Airbus to get their supply issues under control in the next four years and said he will be opportunistic about possible aircraft orders. AviLease , backed by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), plans to increase its balance sheet from around $8b to around $20b by 2030, through acquisitions of rivals, buying individual planes and "potentially" doing large orders, CE Ted O'Byrne said.<br/>

Airlines will have to deal with more disruption and ground more planes because the maintenance needs of todays’ aircraft are higher than previous generations, the head of the world’s largest aircraft leasing company has warned.  “What we are seeing is that at the moment, when [planes] are in service they are not as durable as the predecessor aircraft,” said Aengus Kelly, CE of AerCap.  Kelly said the latest aircraft models were “likely for many, many years to come, to spend more time in their maintenance hangar than their predecessors did”. The problems were caused by the industry’s overall drive to improve the technology on this generation of aircraft and engines, including greater fuel-efficiency. “We wouldn’t have as many of these issues today if the technology that was installed on these assets had maybe not been quite as ambitious but had been a bit more durable — then you wouldn’t have the shortages of parts and labour that are leading to these supply chain bottlenecks,” he said.  Airlines, he added, would have to ensure they had spare planes on standby “because you expect one of your fleet to be unserviceable”.  The warning from Kelly, whose company is also the world’s biggest engine leasing group, will stoke concerns of a possible repeat of last year’s travel disruptions, when airlines such as British Airways and Wizz Air were forced to cancel hundreds of flights for unscheduled repairs over issues with engines and securing spare parts.  Kelly said he believed the durability issue was a much “bigger challenge” for the industry in the longer term than delays in deliveries by Airbus and Boeing, which have led to tensions between the two main manufacturers and their airline customers.<br/>