Global air travel demand rose 8.0% in November, the fastest growth rate in 5 months, IATA reported in its monthly update. Regionally, Asia Pacific returned the biggest increase during the month, with an 11.3% rise in revenue passenger kms. Europe grew by a healthy 7.9%, with Latin America on 5.8%, Africa 5.6% and North America 5.4%. “The airline industry is in a good place entering 2018. November's strong demand gives the industry momentum,” IATA DG Alexandre de Juniac said. “Passengers not only have more travel choices than ever, the cost of travel in real terms has never been cheaper.” All regions kept capacity below demand growth, returning increased load factors for the month. Asia Pacific added 9.0% more capacity in available seat km terms, Europe 5.8%, Latin America 4.7% and North America 4.6%. <br/>
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Former US transportation secretary Ray LaHood will lead an independent investigation of the disruptions at New York JFK following a winter storm last week, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey announced. JFK experienced a surge in rescheduled arrivals, gate delays and ground-equipment breakdowns in the wake of a Jan 4 winter storm that deposited 8 in. of snow there. Jan 6, the Port Authority and terminal operators requested that the FAA limit some flights into the airport. Then, Jan. 7, a water pipe feeding the sprinkler system in Terminal 4 broke, flooding the facility and causing authorities to cut off power to the affected areas. LaHood, who served as transportation secretary from 2009–13 will assemble a team of independent experts to investigate the incident. <br/>
London Heathrow, which has operated its 2 runways close to capacity since the start of the decade, managed to squeeze in 2.3m additional passengers last year as airlines deployed bigger planes and carried more people per flight. The traveller tally at the airport increased 3.1% to 78m even as the number of aircraft movements rose just 0.2%, Heathrow Airport said Thursday. The passenger surge shows Heathrow is finding ways of accommodating more customers as it awaits construction of a GBP16b (US$22b) third runway that will lift annual capacity to 135m flyers. Backed by the govt in 2016, the new strip still faces a number of hurdles and isn’t due to open until 2025. The airport was able to add only 800 new flights or just over 2 per day by optimising take-off and landing patterns. <br/>