London’s Metropolitan Police is no longer treating a substation fire that caused a power outage that led Heathrow airport to close as “a potentially criminal matter” following an investigation by counterterrorism officers. The force found “no evidence to suggest the incident was suspicious in nature”, it said on Tuesday. Counterterrorism officers opened an investigation on Friday into the fire at the North Hyde substation in west London. Europe’s busiest airport has been criticised for its decision to close for nearly 24 hours, despite the fact it was still able to receive power from other parts of the grid. The closure caused the cancellation of more than 1,300 flights, affecting hundreds of thousands of passengers, and is expected to cost airlines tens of millions of pounds. Heathrow and National Grid have sparred over the airport’s response to the outage, as anger grows among airlines and the public over the length of the shutdown. John Pettigrew, National Grid’s chief executive, told the Financial Times on Sunday that power remained available to Heathrow from two other substations in the area, even when the North Hyde site was offline. Pettigrew appeared to shift the blame on to the airport for its failure to switch to the remaining substations quickly, saying it was a “question for Heathrow” as to why it took the action it did.<br/>
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A federal judge in Texas has set a June trial date for the U.S. government’s years-old conspiracy case against Boeing for misleading regulators about the 737 Max jetliner before two of the planes crashed, killing 346 people. U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor did not explain in the scheduling order he issued on Tuesday why he decided to set the case for trial. Lawyers for the aerospace company and the Justice Department have spent months trying to renegotiate a July 2024 plea agreement that called for Boeing to plead guilty to a single felony charge. The judge rejected that deal in December, saying that diversity, inclusion and equity policies the Justice Department had in place at the time might influence the selection of a monitor to oversee the company’s compliance with the terms of its proposed sentence. Since then, O’Connor had three times extended the deadline for the two sides to report how they planned to proceed. His most recent extension, granted earlier this month, gave them until April 11 to “confer on a potential resolution of this case short of trial.” The judge revoked the remaining time with his Tuesday order, which laid out a timeline for proceedings leading up to a June 23 trial in Fort Worth. The Department of Justice declined to comment on the judge’s action. A Boeing statement shed no light on the status of the negotiations. “As stated in the parties’ recent filings, Boeing and the Department of Justice continue to be engaged in good faith discussions regarding an appropriate resolution of this matter,” the company said. The deal the judge refused to approve would have averted a criminal trial by allowing Boeing to plead guilty to conspiring to defraud Federal Aviation Administration regulators who approved minimal pilot-training requirements for the 737 Max nearly a decade ago. More intensive training in flight simulators would have increased the cost for airlines to operate the then-new plane model.<br/>
Airbus on Tuesday gave a glimpse of technologies for its next airplane, a replacement for its best-selling A320neo family due to enter service between 10 and 15 years from now. The question of when to replace the industry's top-selling model, which competes with Boeing's 737 MAX in the busiest part of the market, is one of the key decisions for Guillaume Faury as he enters a third three-year term as CEO next month. Airbus said the new airplane would be 20-30% more efficient than the current A320neo family. In the U.S., NASA has said it is working on a rival configuration with Boeing that could reduce fuel consumption and therefore emissions by up to 30%. Airbus is, however, keeping investors and competitors guessing over the scope and timing of any new project. On Monday, Faury said the plane would be evolutionary rather than revolutionary, though Airbus has warmed to a potential open-fan engine studied by CFM that he described as more revolutionary than its alternatives. On Tuesday, the company's top development officials adopted a less cautious tone at an event to promote Airbus efforts to act as a catalyst for decarbonisation. "We want to do this major gap (with the current model) which is not incremental, which is not optimisation," said Bruno Fichefeux, head of future programmes at the world's largest planemaker. "We need to make sure that these technologies come to maturity and that we can bet our design on them, and we are not there yet," he told the Airbus Summit.<br/>
Escalating U.S. tariffs and Canadian retaliatory duties could raise costs on items from aircraft components to engine repairs, according to aerospace trade groups in Canada, as a fresh round of the U.S.-led trade war looms. U.S. President Donald Trump's administration is set to enact reciprocal tariffs on trading partners on April 2, widening a dispute that has already slapped 25% duties on steel and aluminum imports to the U.S., sparking retaliation from Canada. While reports suggest some sector-specific goods would be excluded, counterstrikes are already being weighed, with Canada consulting domestic industries on proposed retaliatory tariffs on C$125 billion ($87.31 billion) of U.S. goods. Melanie Lussier, president of the trade group Aero Montreal, said Canada's proposed counter tariffs cover certain U.S.-made items like sensors that would be difficult to source elsewhere, since parts must be certified to meet safety requirements. Aerospace companies are set to discuss the prospect of being squeezed by duties from both countries at an industry supply chain summit on Tuesday in Montreal. “It could be really catastrophic, a rise in costs, loss of productivity, a loss of competitiveness," Lussier told Reuters in an interview last week. "In the end, everyone will pay more, both Americans and Canadians and it’s the passengers who will suffer." Lussier said Aero Montreal is not seeking an exemption to proposed Canadian counter duties but would like to see some U.S. products removed from the list. Aerospace contributed nearly C$29b to Canadian GDP in 2023. Finding counter-tariffs that hit the U.S. but avoid harming domestic industries has been a challenge. The European Union delayed 50% tariffs on U.S. bourbon, wine and toilet paper after Trump threatened 200% duties on European spirits.<br/>
China's Commerce Minister Wang Wentao met with President of Boeing Global Brendan Nelson on Tuesday, and called on the planemaker to deepen cooperation with China's aviation industry, the commerce ministry said in a statement. China hopes Boeing will play a positive role in maintaining the stability and health of the global aviation industry ecosystem while also contributing to the development of China-U.S. economic and trade relations, Wang told Nelson.<br/>