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Tens of millions of residents along the East Coast are bracing for several inches of snow Sunday followed by dangerously cold temperatures that will grip much of the country from the Northern Plains to the tip of Maine. Winter storm warnings issued by the National Weather Service have already gone into effect for parts of the Mid-Atlantic through Monday morning, with the forecast projecting up to a half foot (15 centimeters) of snow. Warnings will begin in New England on Sunday afternoon, with parts of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine and Connecticut seeing as much as 10 inches (25 centimeters) of snow. Marc Chenard, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in College Park Maryland, projected that as many as 70m residents will be under some kind of winter storm warning in the coming days including in New England and the Mid-Atlantic. Large cities such as Philadelphia, New York and Boston could see several inches of snow this evening with the highest totals accumulating outside of major cities. “There will certainly be some more hazardous road conditions anywhere from D.C. up the whole I-95 corridor and then inland from there later today and tonight,” Chenard said. “Then it gets quite cold behind that. By Monday morning, any roads that haven’t been treated or cleared will still likely be some hazardous travel conditions.”<br/>

The U.S. FAA and officials from the Turks and Caicos Islands have launched probes into SpaceX's explosive Starship rocket test that sent debris streaking over the northern Caribbean and forced airlines to divert dozens of flights. "There are no reports of public injury, and the FAA is working with SpaceX and appropriate authorities to confirm reports of public property damage on Turks and Caicos," said the FAA, which oversees private rocket launch activity. An upgraded version of SpaceX's Starship exploded in space over the Bahamas roughly eight minutes into the company's seventh flight test from Texas on Thursday. It sent fields of blazing debris for miles across the sky over the Turks and Caicos, a British Overseas Territory. Residents in the South and North Caicos islands described to Reuters intense rumbling that shook the ground and said they received messages from friends in North Caicos who found charred pieces of what they believed to be Starship debris. There is a "multi-agency investigation that is ongoing" into the Starship explosion, the commissioner of the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force, Fitz Bailey, told Reuters. He declined to comment on reports of public property damage from the debris.<br/>

The latest disintegration of a SpaceX test flight was a spectacular sight, as broken-up rocket parts streaked like jellyfish tendrils across the Caribbean sky on Thursday evening. But some experts say focusing on that dazzling light show, as many people and media outlets did, highlights a lack of understanding of the environmental aftermath of these spacecraft failures. Moriba Jah, professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Texas Austin, compares it to marvelling at the beauty of a nuclear bomb's mushroom cloud. "Being mesmerized by the magic of the debris [means] not realizing what it implies," Jah said. "This stuff can harm ecosystems, can affect populations." There is also the more immediate threat, illustrated by this incident, posed by several tonnes of flaming wreckage raining down on the waters and, though the odds are slim, maybe even on some unlucky patch of land. Thursday's test of Starship — which was made up of two parts, the upper stage Starship (in this case, Ship 33) and the lower stage Super Heavy Booster — lasted about eight and half minutes. In that time, audiences saw the most powerful rocket ever made successfully separate both stages, and an impressive "chopstick" catch of the Super Heavy booster.<br/>

Days before bitter cold descends on the nation’s capital for the inauguration of Donald Trump, Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport has a problem with its heating system in the terminal. “Reagan National Airport is aware of a problem that developed on Friday with its primary heating system and is working to make repairs as soon as possible,” Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which runs Reagan, told CNN in a statement. “The airport will remain open. The terminal is still at comfortable temperature levels. We will continue to monitor that and update if it changes,” MWAA told CNN in an email. The airport says it is trying to mitigate the problem. “In the meantime, the airport is conserving heat and has set up alternate heating sources to support normal airline flight operations and shopping and dining options,” the statement said. Delta Air Lines, which operates out of Reagan, sent a text message to a customer saying, in part, “Temperatures within the airport may be much cooler than normal during your travel …”<br/>

A major annual air finance gathering largely skirted round the topic of sustainability this week - a rare departure from the industry's usual tight messaging on curbing emissions that left some delegates concerned about the impact of "ESG fatigue". In contrast with the attention devoted to climate topics at earlier events, this year's Airline Economics conference was overshadowed instead by the scramble facing airlines just to keep their jets flying as they deal with parts shortages. "The general consensus is that the sustainability subject is moving off centre," Simon Newitt, president of Sweden's Heart Aerospace, which is developing a 30-seat electric plane, told Reuters on the sidelines of the Dublin gathering. "There are obviously very short-term issues that are occupying the various players' minds, but that doesn't mean that sustainability has somehow gone away." Bottlenecks and parts shortages have forced airlines to keep older jets flying for longer, even as targets for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) in the European Union come into force. Industry leaders say there is less optimism over reaching the industry's over-arching goal of net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Aviation is responsible for 2-3% of carbon emissions. "The rose-tinted glasses have come off," Deion McCarthy, an executive at Dubai Aerospace Enterprise, told the conference.<br/>The increasingly tempered view comes weeks after airlines group IATA warned that not enough progress was being made to increase the supply of SAF as other problems take priority. The industry body insists that the targets are intact, however. "Long-term, it's going to be an important part of getting to net zero ... but 2024 was a tough year," said Gordon Grant, head of investor relations at lessor Aviation Capital Group.<br/>

The largest U.S. aerospace trade group on Friday opened the door to discussions on specific tariffs, after incoming President-elect Donald Trump suggested slapping duties on countries like Mexico and Canada. Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), which represents U.S. planemaking and defense giants like Boeing and General Dynamics, waded in on the prospect of tariffs for the first time, saying in a statement it would discuss how to tailor them to protect national security and key industries. The statement did not give specifics. "We are eager to work with the Trump administration to discuss where tariff policy may support our products, while also ensuring the industry is empowered to continue growing in a way that supports U.S. national security needs and maintains our position as a leading high-technology, U.S.-centered manufacturing sector,” the statement said. Trump's warning in November about potential 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada have already triggered threats of retaliation from Ottawa and raised concerns among sectors like automotive that the move could also hit U.S. industry. In 2023, Canada was the top import country and third largest export destination for aerospace and defense trade with the United States, according to AIA. Mexico was not among the top five.<br/>

Nigeria’s full ratification last year of the Cape Town convention will help the nation reach its goal of becoming the “aviation hub of Africa”, according to its aviation minister. Speaking at the Airline Economics Growth Frontiers conference in Dublin on 13 January, Festus Keyamo said the convention’s legal safeguards will lower risks for lessors leasing aircraft to local airlines. “Those who bring their equipment to Nigeria are safe, because we are compliant with the Cape Town convention,” says Keyamo, who is also responsible for aerospace development. “I can give my personal guarantee on that. We are here to let the world know that we are open for business.” Nigeria – Africa’s biggest country by population and its fourth largest economy, with a rapidly expanding middle class – has long struggled with attempts to establish an international flag-carrier, or even a strong home-grown airline sector. Many lessors have been deterred from financing aircraft because of concerns that the Nigerian legal system has not been robust enough to allow them to recover their assets. However, Keyamo says there are 23 private airlines in Nigeria, and several of these have the potential to become a future national carrier. “Our role is to empower these local operators to grow,” he says. “We have a free-market economy that allows all private operators to come in. There is no reason now why some of these local operators cannot grow.”<br/>

The CEO of New Zealand’s main aviation hub, Auckland Airport, said she’s worried about the industry’s lack of progress toward decarbonization as remote destinations grapple with a shortage of low-emissions fuel. Sustainable aviation fuel, aviation’s primary means of cutting pollution, accounted for just 0.3% of global jet-fuel production in 2024, even less than anticipated, the International Air Transport Association said last month. The shortfall has already prompted Air New Zealand Ltd. to publicly ditch its 2030 emissions target, the highest-profile airline to do so. Auckland International Airport Ltd. CEO Carrie Hurihanganui said New Zealand, Australia and neighboring Pacific nations need to address the lack of so-called SAF together. These countries have little alternative to long-haul flying to connect to the world, making them more reliant on SAF than Europe and North America, she said. “I do worry about it,” Hurihanganui said. “New Zealand is a geographically isolated country that relies on exports and an open economy for its wellbeing. Getting access to sustainable aviation fuel production is incredibly important.”<br/>

The cause of the fatal plane crash in South Korea last month is still to be determined, but it thrust into the spotlight a subject little understood by the general public: how airplanes are maintained. Jeju Air, the airline that operated the flight in which 179 people died, said that checks before the flight had raised no concerns and that the jet, a Boeing 737-800 that was about 15 years old, had no history of accidents. While there is no evidence that poor upkeep played a role in the crash, experts say that the plane’s repair history, which includes work performed by maintenance firms in other countries, will be an important part of the crash investigation, as is typically the case. Here’s what you should know about how airplanes are maintained. Airline executives, pilots, mechanics, regulators and others play vital, and overlapping, roles in taking care of commercial jets. At the front line is a practice that will be familiar to many travelers even if they don’t know what it is called: line maintenance, which involves regular inspections and repairs between flights. Before a jet takes off, pilots perform visual and other inspections for damage or other problems. Airline mechanics also conduct periodic checks. Often, a mechanic can troubleshoot a problem quickly, fixing it or safely patching it up until the issue can be addressed later. Serious problems can result in a long delay or cancellation. In addition, every part of a plane, down to the nuts and bolts, is subjected to routine inspections, repair or replacement. Those checks are typically scheduled based on how many hours the plane has been used, the number of flights, time or some combination of those factors. These inspections are overseen by aviation authorities around the world, with many following the lead of regulators at the Federal Aviation Administration or its European Union counterpart. When it comes to more intensive maintenance that might take a plane out of service for days or weeks, the world’s largest airlines perform much of that work on their own. Some, including Lufthansa and Delta Air Lines, even sell those services to others. But every airline outsources at least some work to the companies that make parts and planes, like Boeing and Airbus, or to third parties. Small carriers, especially, depend on the practice. Story has more.<br/>