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A brief, fiery showdown between the president of the United States and the president of Colombia ended by Sunday night — when the Colombian government agreed to accept all deportation flights sent by the Trump administration, including military flights. But the effects lingered in American airports until Wednesday. In a statement on Sunday night, the White House press secretary said that some of Trump’s penalties on Colombia — including so-called enhanced inspections at American ports of entry — would remain in effect “until the first planeload of Colombian deportees is successfully returned.” But even after that planeload arrived at El Dorado International Airport in Bogotá, the Colombian capital, on Tuesday, passengers were caught up in long and tedious inspections at airports in Florida. As late as Tuesday night, passengers who arrived on direct flights from Colombian cities such as Medellín reported spending up to four hours waiting in customs lines at Miami International Airport and Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. The passengers said they were placed in a separate line — regardless of their citizenship — and subjected to bag checks and screenings in which they were questioned about the motives for their travel and their connection to the Colombian government. U.S. Customs and Border Protection said it had received orders on Wednesday to stop conducting these extra inspections on people, flights and cargo arriving from Colombia. A spokeswoman for the agency, Patricia Driscoll, declined to comment on the delays or on the apparent lag in halting so-called secondary inspections.<br/>

European airports must add terminals and runways to cope with growing air traffic despite concerns about the sector's climate impact, according to industry insiders, as Britain backed expansion plans for Heathrow. British finance minister Rachel Reeves announced that the government supported plans for a third runway at the major international hub, despite opposition from environmentalists and some MPs from the Labour majority. It would be a rare expansion in Europe, where countries are torn between efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the needs of a strategic sector that has seen demand grow. The IATA, the airline industry group, and aircraft makers Boeing and Airbus expect the number of air travellers to double to 10b per year worldwide in the next 25 years. Asia will be the main driver of that growth but Europe's passenger numbers will increase by 2.3% per year over the next 20 years, adding 656m travellers by 2043. Environmental groups warn, however, that only a reduction in air traffic could help Europe reach its goal of net-zero emissions by 2050. Rising air traffic could cancel out the benefits of transitioning to sustainable aviation fuels, with European aviation emissions in 2049 potentially matching 2019 levels, according to a study by Transport & Environment (T&E) advocacy group.<br/>

Workers at the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) are to strike in a dispute over pay - but bosses said there would be no disruption to airlines. Members of the Prospect union at the organisation's head office in Crawley, West Sussex, will walk out for 24 hours on 6 February. Union members have been working to rule with no overtime for the past week. A spokesperson for the CAA said: "We continue to engage with our union colleagues, and after prolonged discussions it is disappointing that Prospect members have voted to take industrial action." Prospect said a 3-4% pay rise had been imposed on staff, which it complained had not kept pace with other deals in the industry and civil service. Rachel Curley, deputy general secretary, said: "Despite our ongoing industrial action, the CAA has still not come to the table with an offer our members can accept, so we have no choice but to escalate to a day's strike. There is still time to avoid further industrial action which will be damaging for the industry, but the employer needs to restart good faith negotiations. This is not an issue that is going to just go away, and if it continues it will start to impact airlines, causing delays to planned upgrades with a knock-on effect felt by passengers."<br/>

Chancellor Rachel Reeves set out a vision to “make Britain the world’s best connected place to do business” on Wednesday, as she signalled support for massive airport expansion across London. Reeves said the government wanted a third runway at Heathrow — even though it will take more than a decade to deliver — and signalled support for more immediate expansions at Gatwick and Luton airports. Projects at Stansted and City have already been approved. If delivered, the expanded airports could handle 309mn passengers annually — an 85% increase on the 167mn travellers who used the airports in 2023, the last year for which there is complete data — according to a Financial Times analysis. The scale of the plans show how airports, and their group of largely international investor owners, are betting that air travel will continue to grow in the coming decades, unencumbered by concerns over carbon emissions.  “The chancellor is right to get behind airports,” said Karen Dee, CE of trade association AirportsUK. “Expanding capacity will support growth . . . and will not come at the expense of our sustainability goals.” But industry experts said growth of this scale would throw up serious challenges, including the need to redraw the flight paths in the skies over London and the south east of England to accommodate all the extra aircraft, likely impacting new communities with noise pollution. Enthusiasm from the chancellor also belied barely-concealed tensions within the cabinet that have emerged over the UK’s most contentious infrastructure project in decades. If successful, it would also likely make flying more expensive, particularly from Heathrow, as the airport raises the landing fees charged to airlines to recoup the cost of building the runway. Still, Becrom Basu, a partner at LEK Consulting who has advised Heathrow, said the new capacity would be used. “The London market has been struggling to meet demand for a while . . . I think investors can be comfortable there will be a business case for that level of demand,” he said.<br/>

The government will support the reopening of Doncaster Sheffield Airport (DSA), Chancellor Rachel Reeves has said. In a major speech on economic growth, Reeves said the government would work with City of Doncaster Council and South Yorkshire Mayor Oliver Coppard to "recreate South Yorkshire Airport City as a thriving regional airport". The Airport City plan includes reopening the airport, building hundreds of homes and creating a "world-leading sustainable aviation hub", Coppard said. A decision from the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority on the council's plan to use £100m of public money on the reopening is expected by summer. Eight hundred jobs were lost in November 2022 when DSA closed after Peel, the owner of the airport and the land, deemed it was not financially viable. Reeves said: "It now sits idle despite the potential to drive jobs and growth across the North." She recalled there was "overwhelming support" for it to stay open at the time. Coppard said the Airport City plan would "create good jobs in the industries of the future", make "best use" of public money and reduce carbon emissions from flying.<br/>

Elon Musk stopped by the operations of his competitor Boeing to look into the long-delayed efforts to renovate two 747 jets into the next generation of Air Force One jets, Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg said Tuesday. Ortberg said the company talked with Musk – CEO of both Tesla and Boeing competitor SpaceX – as well as with the Air Force about what to do to speed up deliveries of the jets that originally were supposed to be delivered by 2022 but now aren’t expected until at least 2027, according to reports. Boeing won’t confirm a new delivery date, saying it is in discussions with Air Force. “The president wants the airplane sooner, and so we’re working with Elon and the team to figure what can we do to pull up the schedule of that aircraft,” Ortberg said on CNBC. He called the talks with Musk “constructive.” “They sincerely are looking at things in the contract or in the process that are slowing us down that are not providing value,” he said. Although Musk’s December 18 visit to Boeing was previously reported, Ortberg’s statement that the company continues to work with Musk was new. Ortberg said he has also spoken with President Donald Trump. “He’s keenly focused on American jobs,” he told CNBC. “We build these planes in the US, and we export them throughout the world. So, I think the administration is going to be very supportive, not just of Boeing, but of all the aerospace industry.” But in a call with investors later in the morning Ortberg said that there was “no silver bullet” for the Air Force One program, technically known as VC-25B. Air Force One is the designation only when the president is on board a plane. “I do feel better about our ability to better manage the performance in 2025,” Ortberg said. Musk, as head of a Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE, is tasked with eliminating wasteful government spending. Although the two Air Force One jets are more than $1b over budget each, those costs will fall on Boeing, not taxpayers, as part of fixed price contracts under which the Air Force will pay $3.9b for the two planes.<br/>

Boeing has made progress winnowing its once-massive inventory of undelivered 737 Max and 787s and is now preparing to shutter so-called “shadow factories” in which it has been completing rework on the aircraft. The company’s inventory at the end of 2024 included 55 737 Max 8s and 25 787s that had been produced prior to 2023, Boeing CFO Brian West said during the company’s 2024 earnings call on 28 January. By comparison, Boeing’s inventory of those aircraft stood at 140 737 Max 8s and 50 787s at the end of 2023. The company has been tracking its stockpile for several years since it began accumulating a large inventory of jets when production continued but deliveries stopped the during the 737 Max grounding between March 2019 and November 2020. But the inventory also swelled because Chinese airlines refused to accept 737 Max for several years after the grounding ended. Many of Boeing’s stored 737s and 787s have required rework due to manufacturing issues. At one point, Boeing was sitting on some 450 undelivered 737 Max and 120 undelivered 787s. So far this year, Boeing has already delivered around 10 of the 55 737 Max 8s in its inventory at end-2024, says West. “We now expect to shut down the shadow factory mid-year, and to deliver all the remaining [Max 8s] to customers within the year.”<br/>