Coordinated attacks on passengers at Istanbul’s international airport killed at least 36 people on Tuesday as the fallout from Syria’s civil war tore through the terminal at one of the busiest travel times of the year. Islamic State is likely responsible for the killings, PM Binali Yildirim said. Once an affiliate of al-Qaeda, Islamic State carried out beheadings and crucifixions as it took parts of Syria and northern Iraq. While losing ground in recent months, it is striking abroad more frequently and claimed responsibility for similar airport attacks in Brussels in March. “First I heard the gunfire, then the explosions,” Koray Arslan, who was at the nearby domestic terminal, said in a phone interview. “They were very powerful. I could feel the tremors under my feet.” The attacks, which also injured about 150 people, went off in rapid succession at the airport around 10 p.m. Many of Turkey’s children ended school terms this month, which coincides with the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. The “attack shows terrorism is a global threat,” Yildirim said from the Istanbul airport, where he assessed the situation and met with emergency personnel. “Our country has the necessary power and determination to overcome over these heinous attacks.” Istanbul Governor Vasip Sahin said three suicide bombers took part in the attack near security checkpoints at the entrance to the airport’s arrivals hall. Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag told lawmakers in parliament that one attacker had sprayed gunfire from a Kalashnikov rifle at people around him before blowing himself up. None of the attackers got past security controls, according to a Turkish official. He said two of them detonated their vests at the arrival hall, and a third in a nearby parking lot. Turkish Airlines, the national carrier, has suspended all flights until 8 a.m. on Wednesday. The attack is the latest to target airports and the aviation industry in the Middle East and Europe, coming three months after suicide bombers struck Brussels airport. It serves as reminder of the vulnerability of airport lobbies and other public places where large numbers of people congregate, said Hans Weber, an aviation consultant in San Diego.<br/>
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The first regional jet produced in China’s initiative to compete in the commercial aircraft market made its debut flight Tuesday carrying 70 passengers. The ARJ21-700 jet is one of a series of initiatives launched by the ruling Communist Party to transform China from the world’s low-cost factory into a creator of profitable technology in aviation, clean energy and other fields. The plane operated by Chengdu Airlines took its passengers from the western city of Chengdu to Shanghai in two hours. China is one of the biggest aviation markets but relies on foreign-made aircraft. Beijing wants to capture more of those sales. Its major airlines are state-owned, which gives the ruling party a captive pool of potential customers that can be ordered to buy Chinese-made aircraft. The ARJ21 — or Asian Regional Jet for the 21st Century — is intended to make its state-owned manufacturer, Commercial Aircraft Corp of China, a competitor to Bombardier Inc of Canada and Brazil’s Embraer SA. “The first flight of the ARJ21 marks the beginning of commercial, or passenger, operations for the ARJ21 and signifies the first time a domestically made regional jet has been used by a Chinese airline,” said the COMAC chairman, Jin Zhuanglong. The ARJ21 initiative was launched in 2002. It was scheduled to deliver its first plane in 2007 but that was pushed back due to technical problems.<br/>
The British government is still on course to make a decision this summer on where to build a new London airport runway, a spokeswoman said, despite the political chaos caused by the EU exit vote. After Prime Minister David Cameron's announcement that he will resign by October, a group of business leaders wrote a letter to a newspaper on Monday calling for the long-awaited investment decision to be taken "as a matter of urgency". Cameron's government has taken four years to decide where to build a new runway, with Heathrow seen as the front-runner over rival Gatwick, and a final decision had been due in weeks. Former London mayor Boris Johnson, the front-runner to succeed Cameron as prime minister, has opposed expansion at Heathrow and once said he would lie down in front of the bulldozers to stop a third runway being built there. Past attempts to expand Heathrow, located close to densely-populated west London, have been hampered by local opposition, due to concerns about increased noise and air pollution. The CE of Gatwick, located south of the city in a less populated area, is due to say in a speech that Brexit has strengthened his argument that it would be easier and more effective to build the runway there. "It is now clearer than ever that only Gatwick can deliver the new runway Britain needs," Gatwick CEO Stewart Wingate will tell a conference on Tuesday, according to extracts of the speech provided to media. "In these uncertain times that means Gatwick can give the country certainty of delivery. Britain cannot afford yet more delay."<br/>