general

The U.S. Army has turned over to the Senate a 2024 August memo detailing why it routinely failed to use a safety system known as ADS-B on helicopter flights around Reagan Washington National Airport, Senator Ted Cruz said Thursday.<br/>Cruz, who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee, had threatened to subpoena the memo, but the army turned it over to the Senate Armed Services Committee, which then gave it to the Commerce Committee, he told Reuters. Cruz said the committee is reviewing the memo. An Army Black Hawk helicopter did not have the system operating during a routine training mission when it collided with an American Airlines regional jet on January 29 near the airport, killing 67 people. An Army official confirmed that the report had been sent to the Armed Services Committee and added that it has been rescinded. Reuters reviewed a copy of the three-page memo that gives guidance to commanders on when to operates aircraft with ADS-B intentionally turned off. The Army had refused to turn over the memo after a request from Cruz, a Republican, and Senator Maria Cantwell, the top Democrat. "It begs the question, what doesn't the army want Congress and the American people to know about why it was flying partially blind?" Cruz said last week. ADS-B, or automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast, is an advanced surveillance technology that transmits an aircraft's location. Cruz said if civilians were to die in another collision<br/>between a passenger jet and a Black Hawk helicopter that was not using the safety system "those deaths will be on the army's hands."<br/>

Argentina’s trains and subways were disrupted, flights grounded, grain shipments interrupted, deliveries halted and banks shuttered as unions held a general strike Thursday against the libertarian government of President Javier Milei. The daylong strike comes as Milei is 16 months into a presidency that has sought to eliminate Argentina’s fiscal deficit through severe austerity measures. The stoppage — led by the country’s main union confederation, CGT — tried to bring Argentina to a standstill a day after union activists joined a weekly protest of retirees rallying for increases to their government pensions, most of which are now set at the equivalent of some $300 a month and have lost significant ground to inflation. Union members, including train conductors, teachers, customs officials, trash collectors and postal workers, walked off the job at midnight on Wednesday for 24 hours. Airports emptied as the main airlines halted operations. Many public hospitals were only dealing with emergencies. The government said the stoppage cost the economy some $880m.<br/>

Senior UK government figures, including the country’s deputy leader, are backing a GBP30m ($39m) investment plan to re-open Doncaster Sheffield airport and support the creation of a sustainable aviation hub in the area. Efforts to re-open the South Yorkshire airport – which closed in 2022 after 17 years, during which it was persistently unprofitable – have been gaining momentum, with Munich airport’s consultancy arm recently recruited to assist the scheme. “Previous governments stood by as Doncaster Sheffield airport was closed by its owner despite the overwhelming support for it to stay open,” says UK deputy prime minister Angela Rayner. “It now sits idle despite the potential to drive jobs and growth across the north.” Devolved funding will be invested in the aviation hub by the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority, a partnership of regional councils. The government says it has also started exploring, with the authority and other representatives, the extent to which the airport project could “unlock wider benefits” in the region. “I’m thrilled to see devolved funding for South Yorkshire being used to revitalise the airport project, and boost the region as a whole,” says transport secretary Heidi Alexander. “I look forward to the first flights taking to the sky.” South Yorkshire mayor Oliver Coppard describes the funding package as “significant” and a “vital signal” of a “shared commitment” to the airport and the region’s economy. “To now have the support of a government who don’t just understand that opportunity but truly want to help us realise it, couldn’t be more important,” he adds.<br/>

Airbus aims for its second A320neo final assembly line in Mobile to be operating in the third quarter of this year and is sticking to a goal of producing 14 A220s monthly by 2026 despite stubborn supply constraints. The company is “getting the third line ramped up” and expects it will “be ready in the… third quarter of this year”, Robin Hayes, CE of Airbus in America told FlightGlobal on 8 April. Airbus opened its Mobile facility with a single A320 assembly line ten years ago and opened an A220 line in Mobile in 2020, supplementing A220 production in Mirabel, Canada. In 2022, the company revealed plans to construct a second A320neo-family line in Mobile, at the time aiming to have that line operating in the second quarter of 2025. Hayes, speaking at the MRO Americas conference in Atlanta, also said Airbus still aims to reach a goal of producing, at its Mirabel and Mobile sites, a combined 14 A220s in 2026. “We are on course for…getting up to that rate,” he says. But Airbus has a long way to go. It delivered just 17 A220s in the first three months of 2025 and only 75 of the jets in 2024. The manufacturer has been working to hike production amid a steady stream of supply chain difficulties that arose during the Covid-19 pandemic and that continue to hinder output.<br/>

Airbus brought an expanded portfolio of products designed to aid accessibility to AIX, ranging from wheelchairs to tactile placards. Many of the developments are being carried out with partners, or even with Airbus taking only a marketing role. “We can only solve the challenges ahead as a global team, as an industry, as a cabin and cargo interior industry. Nobody can do that alone,” stressed Eric Ezell, head of cabin and cargo innovation. “That’s why we’re totally open to partnerships. We have active partnerships already in place for a variety of topics and the essence of that is that we’re seeking to collaborate, to collect views especially with the affected groups who are working a lot to set the scene and give concrete examples.” Axel Becker, manager, trend research, emphasises Airbus’s customer centric approach, looking at the passengers and focusing not only on wheelchairs but on all types of disabilities – blind and low-vision, deaf and hard of hearing, cognitive, permanent wheelchair use, restricted mobility and so on. <br/>

Long-haul first class with a glass of Champagne in hand is the slowly dying dream of many travelers, with carriers like American Airlines, Qatar Airways and United Airlines sounding the death knell for international top-tier experiences on their planes. Always looking to maximize profits, such airlines have come to believe that improved business class seats are the way forward, rendering the posh, private echelons at the pointy end of the plane redundant. International “first class will not exist … at American Airlines for the simple reason that our customers aren’t buying it,” American’s former Chief Revenue Officer Vasu Raja told CNN in 2022. Not everyone agrees. Some airlines, including Air France, Emirates and Lufthansa, are now doubling down on first class and upgrading their offerings for those travelers willing to splash out for a truly luxury, bespoke experience. First class “remains hugely important to us,” Emirates President Tim Clark told travel industry website Skift in 2023. In March, Air France and Lufthansa both unveiled the latest iterations of their top offerings. The former is leaning into an all-inclusive luxury experience that Air France-KLM CEO Ben Smith described as “as close to a private-jet experience as possible.” The new La Première includes an exclusive experience on the ground at the airline’s main Paris hub, and what it described as an elegant and personalized product aloft. The new La Première suite debuts on Air France’s flights to New York JFK this spring. Eventually, 19 of its Boeing 777-300ERs will be fitted with the luxurious product. Lufthansa’s new Allegris First Class leans heavily on privacy and, as the airline’s Chief Customer Officer Heiko Reitz put it, “individuality.” Everything about the new suites from seat position to temperature and airflow are at the passenger’s finger tips. “We wanted to create a retreat above the clouds,” Reitz said at a recent preview of the product. “This setting is not a seat, this setting here is a living room — an area where you feel comfortable, where you feel cozy.”<br/>

Another batch of Airbus A320neo-family jets are set to be disassembled for parts, as supply chain shortages make the practice of parting-out relatively new jets increasingly attractive. The latest maintenance firm to join the trend is aftermarket provider AerFin, which has closed a deal to acquire four A320neo-family aircraft, the company’s senior vice-president of the Americas Jacqueline Fernandez said on 9 April. “They will be hitting us towards the end of this year,” Fernandez says at the MRO Americas event in Atlanta. She confirms the aircraft are powered by Pratt & Whitney PW1100G geared turbofans (GTFs) and that AerFin will scavenge the jets for spare parts, known in the industry as “used serviceable material”. Fernandez declines to provide more detail about the aircraft. But having GTFs is notable because P&W has recalled those engines due to a manufacturing error that might have left them with defective metallic components. As a result, hundreds of GTF-powered A320neos and A220s are grounded globally for engine maintenance that can take close to a year to complete. AerFin is the third company in recent days to disclose plans to part-out Airbus jets with GTFs.<br/>