Heathrow Airport executives on Monday defended their response to a fire that shut down Europe’s busiest air hub for almost a day, after Britain’s energy system operator suggested that the facility had enough electricity from other sources to keep running. More than 1,300 flights were canceled on Friday after a fire knocked out one of the three electrical substations that supply Heathrow with power. More than 200,000 passengers had journeys disrupted, and industry experts say the chaos will cost airlines tens of millions of dollars. The airport reopened after about 18 hours when Heathrow had reconfigured its power supply — something Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said that “required hundreds of systems to be safely powered down and then safely powered up with extensive testing.” Heathrow said that it ran a full schedule on Saturday and Sunday, with 400,000 passengers passing through on 2,500 weekend flights. The fire’s huge impact raised concern about the resilience of Britain’s energy system to accidents, natural disasters or attacks. The government has ordered an investigation into “any wider lessons to be learned on energy resilience for critical national infrastructure.” Counterterrorism police initially led the investigation into the fire, which came as authorities across Europe gird against sabotage backed by Russia. The head of Britain’s MI6 spy agency has accused Moscow of mounting a “staggeringly reckless” sabotage campaign against allies of Ukraine, which has been trying to repel Russia’s full-scale invasion for more than three years. Police say they have found “no indication of any foul play,” and the London Fire Brigade said that it’s leading the investigation, which is focused on the substation’s electrical distribution equipment. Gareth Bacon, the transport spokesman of the opposition Conservative Party, said that “malicious actors ... will undoubtedly have taken note of this weekend’s events.”<br/>
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Heathrow is coming under growing scrutiny over its decision to close for nearly 24 hours following a fire at a nearby electrical substation, even though it was still able to receive power from other parts of the grid. Senior management at Europe’s busiest airport took the decision to close on Friday as they battled to restore full power to a complex that uses the same amount of electricity as a small city. But John Pettigrew, CE of National Grid which operates Britain’s high-voltage transmission network, told the Financial Times that two other substations serving Heathrow were working throughout the incident, meaning the airport never lost potential access to power. As concerns grow over the resilience of the UK’s critical infrastructure, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer on Monday said “there are questions” for airport executives to answer over the scale of disruption. Heathrow has enough diesel generators to power critical operations, including its control tower and runway lights, and passengers were able to safely leave the airport late on Thursday night after the outage was first reported. But its generators do not have the capacity to run the whole airport. Simon Gallagher, managing director of UK Networks Services, a consultancy specialising in power grids, said few other airports have better backup supplies than Heathrow. But he said other industries “are far more resilient”. “The airport industry as a whole has this issue with resilience . . . other industries with even bigger connections ensure they never go off supply,” he said. A nearby data centre run by Ark Data Centres, which is equipped with 12 emergency generators, was also affected by Friday’s substation fire, but says it managed to avoid disruption by switching on its backup supply. “I don’t think that the people buying services off me would buy them without this resilience built in,” said Huw Owen, Ark’s CE. Story has more.<br/>
Ministers are “closely monitoring” how airlines look after their passengers following the “unprecedented” Heathrow shutdown, the Transport Secretary has said. Heidi Alexander told the Commons the Government “is acutely aware of the need to ensure that passengers are well looked after”, after around 200,000 passengers were disrupted by the closure. A fire at the North Hyde electricity substation last week disrupted power supplies at the West London hub. Alexander said “back-up systems ensured safety and security systems and protocols were maintained at all times”, but these systems – including diesel generators – were not designed to support the airport’s full operations. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said earlier on Monday he was “not comfortable” with the shutdown. At the despatch box, the Transport Secretary said: “The Government is acutely aware of the need to ensure that passengers are well looked after and their consumer rights are protected. “This is why UK law ensures that airlines must provide passengers with a refund within seven days or to be rerouted to their destination under the same conditions. “We are closely monitoring to ensure that passengers are properly supported.”<br/>
Both main airports serving Belgium's capital, Brussels Airport and Charleroi Airport, have cancelled all flights departing on March 31 due to a one-day nationwide strike, they said on Monday. The strike is the second planned over the new government's labour market reforms. Brussels Airport said arrivals would also be affected as ground crews and security staff join the walkout in protest at the new government's proposal to reform pensions and the labour market.<br/>
Russian federal air transport authority Rosaviatsia has issued its first aircraft maintenance certificate under a new unifying regulation with which all servicing organisations will need to comply. Moscow Vnukovo-based firm AviaComplex – which was formerly known as VTS Jets – secured the certificate from Rosaviatsia on 21 March. The FAP-145 approval is intended to establish “transparent and clear” requirements for all maintenance service providers which, says Rosaviatsia, were “not present” in the earlier FAP-109 version of the rules. It states that the regulations, including monitoring mechanisms, are based on accumulated experience and approaches to aviation maintenance “tested in global practice”. Rosaviatsia deputy head of airworthiness maintenance Alexander Sysoev says they will allow the authority to “impose a single standard”. All organisations with FAP-109 and FAP-285 approvals which carry out maintenance on Russian-registered aircraft, their engines and components, must undergo the new certification procedure by 1 September next year. AviaComplex spent three months preparing to obtain certification. The company specialises particularly in maintenance for Boeing 737s and Yakovlev Superjet 100s, as well as their engines and components. “The new rules are a significant step in the development of the aircraft maintenance industry,” says CE Alexander Popov. “Compared with the previous [FAP-109], they contain many procedures that detail the work of MRO organisations. As a result, flights for passengers will become even safer.”<br/>
Hong Kong’s civil aviation regulator is tightening rules on carriage of lithium-ion devices, days after an in-flight fire over China reportedly resulted in an Airbus A320 diversion. The Civil Aviation Department says it is “highly concerned” about “recent safety incidents” on board aircraft suspected to have involved lithium-battery power banks. While it does not specify these incidents, an Air Busan Airbus A321 was destroyed by fire on the ground at Gimhae in January. The inquiry has yet to conclude but it spurred the Korean government to revise regulations on storing lithium-ion devices in cabin overhead bins.On 20 March a Hong Kong Airlines A320, operating from Hangzhou, diverted to Fuzhou after an apparent fire in an overhead bin. The Civil Aviation Department has not made reference to this occurrence, but states that it met with local airline representatives the following day, 21 March, and is issuing a new notice regarding passenger carriage and use of power banks. It says that, from 7 April, airlines should “not allow” passengers to use power banks to charge other portable electronic devices, or recharge power banks during flight. “Stowage of power banks in the overhead compartments is also prohibited with the same effective date,” it adds.<br/>
IATA has established the Civil Aviation Decarbonization Organization (CADO) to manage the IATA-developed Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) Registry when it is released. CADO is incorporated as a not-for-profit organization in Canada and headquartered in Montreal. IATA is the founding member of CADO and its role in CADO will include ongoing technical support and operations. “CADO will turbocharge the imminent launch of the IATA-developed SAF Registry. Its mandate is to manage the SAF Registry as a separate entity from IATA with an open and global approach that supports the scrutiny needed,” said Marie Owens Thomsen, IATA’s SVP, Sustainability. In fact, the door is open for any stakeholder in the SAF value chain, including governments, to join CADO.” IATA says the SAF Registry is critical market infrastructure for a global and transparent global market for SAF. “Ramping-up SAF production is the common goal and the structure we are putting in place with CADO is an important step,” said Willie Walsh, IATA’s Director General.<br/>
Airbus and Boeing are preparing the aerospace industry for sharp increases in output of the next generation of workhorse jets to some 100 a month each, as they explore lighter plastic materials and robotic assembly, industry sources said. Facing weak supply chains and a potentially lengthy wait for future engine developments, the world's two largest planemakers are years away from launching projects to replace their decades-old Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 series, which remain in demand. But both told a packed technical audience at a Paris composites fair this month that they were already making progress in researching what the succeeding generation of models could be made of - and in turn how fast they could be built. "The goal is to recommend the best approach to transition...(to) the next airplane programme," Randy Wilkerson, who represents Boeing in a NASA research project for high-capacity manufacturing called HiCAM, told the JEC World conference in Paris. The airplanes that future models would replace are built of aluminium under methods perfected over decades. But composites are being considered for their lighter weight and flowing shape. Already heavily used on larger jets like the Boeing 787 and Airbus A350, composites save fuel and emissions but currently need time-consuming handling in pressurised autoclave ovens. To meet the demand for much larger numbers of small jets, both planemakers are increasingly studying manufacturing based on novel materials like thermoplastics at faster speeds. Speakers said ongoing studies assume future production of 80 jets a month each for Airbus and Boeing: more than twice what Boeing is producing now, following a safety crisis, and higher than Airbus' repeatedly delayed target of 75 a month. However, sources told Reuters that both planemakers are telling the composites industry they want to go even further and be ready for speeds as high as 100 a month each, a blistering pace equivalent to one roughly 200-seat jet every few hours.<br/>
Boeing is seeking to withdraw an agreement to plead guilty in a criminal case that blamed the company for deceiving regulators before two deadly crashes of 737 MAX jets, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. A U.S. judge in December rejected the deal, faulting a diversity and inclusion provision, and Boeing and the Justice Department have been negotiating toward a new agreement. President Donald Trump took over on January 20, giving his administration a chance to weigh in on the deal. Boeing declined comment. The Justice Department did not immediately comment. In July, Boeing agreed to plead guilty to a criminal fraud conspiracy charge in the wake of two fatal 737 MAX crashes. The planemaker also agreed to pay a fine of up to $487.2m and spend $455m to improve safety and compliance practices over three years of court-supervised probation as part of the deal. Relatives of the victims of the two 737 MAX crashes, which occurred in 2018 and 2019 and killed 346 people, have called the plea agreement a "sweetheart" deal that failed to adequately hold Boeing accountable for the deaths of their loved ones.An accepted plea deal would brand Boeing a convicted felon for conspiring to defraud the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration about problematic software affecting the flight control systems in the planes that crashed. In May, the DOJ found Boeing had violated the terms of a 2021 agreement that had shielded it from prosecution over the crashes. Prosecutors then decided to criminally charge Boeing and negotiate the current plea deal.<br/>The decision followed a January 5, 2024, in-flight blowout of a door panel on an Alaska Airlines' jet that exposed ongoing safety and quality issues at Boeing.<br/>
Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury said on Tuesday the planemaker's next single-aisle jet would be "evolutionary rather than revolutionary", but that this could include an open-rotor engine such as one being studied by supplier CFM. The head of the world's largest planemaker was speaking at the start of an event aimed at focusing attention on ongoing innovation following the company's decision last month to delay development of a radical hydrogen-powered regional aircraft. "There will be a significant step forward with the next generation of planes, and we're looking at technologies that will make a significant difference," Faury told the Airbus Summit. Airbus and Boeing are years away from launching new jet programmes to replace their best-selling narrow-body models as they wait for the engine industry to make the next leap in fuel efficiency, which typically comes every 15 years or so. Among designs under examination, French-U.S. venture CFM, the world's largest engine maker by units sold, is developing a demonstrator called RISE based on an efficient open fan, or visible rotor blades, with a target of 20% fuel savings by 2035. Faury, who has previously said Airbus would launch a new mainstream jet by the end of the current decade, said the model would be "evolutionary ... maybe not revolutionary, even if an open rotor, in my view, is quite revolutionary. That's one of the things we are looking at with our friends from CFM." Jointly owned by GE Aerospace and Safran, CFM competes with Pratt & Whitney to power medium-haul jets and Britain's Rolls-Royce is also eyeing a return to that segment. Faury defended a decision to delay adoption of a smaller hydrogen plane with 100 seats, saying Airbus did not want to produce a "Concorde of hydrogen" - referring to the 1960s icon that captured worldwide imagination but racked up huge losses.<br/>