Budget carriers continued to push global air traffic to new record levels last year, the ICAO said Wednesday. The figure compares with 6% growth in 2016. "The sustainability of the tremendous growth in international civil air traffic is demonstrated by the continuous improvements to its safety, security, efficiency and environmental footprint," ICAO Council president Olumuyiwa Benard Aliu said. ICAO said that LCCs flew an estimated 1.2b passengers or about 30% of the global total last year. The budget airline sector "consistently grew at a faster pace compared to the world average growth, and its market share continued to increase, specifically in emerging economies," ICAO said. It added that air travel demand growth has been supported by improving global economic conditions. <br/>
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All of Norway’s short-haul airliners should be entirely electric by 2040, the country’s airport operator said Wednesday, cementing the Nordic nation’s role as a pioneer in the field of electric transport. Avinor, the public operator of Norwegian airports, “aims to be the first in the world” to make the switch to electric air transport, CE Dag Falk-Petersen said. “We think that all flights lasting up to 1.5 hours can be flown by aircraft that are entirely electric,” he said, noting that would cover all domestic flights and those to neighbouring Scandinavian capitals. In the near future, Avinor plans to launch a tender offer to test a commercial route flown with a small electric plane with 19 seats, starting in 2025. “When we will have reached our goal, air travel will no longer be a problem for the climate, it will be a solution,” Falk-Petersen said. <br/>
The AoT will maintain the same rate of THB100 per person on domestic flights and THB700 per passenger on international flights, its president Nitinai Sirismatthakarn said Thursday. He was responding to a media report claiming the AoT planned to increase the passenger service charge to THB300 on domestic flights in an attempt to offset losses resulting from the high operating costs at airports handling domestic flights. The report claimed the largest cost was AoT's investment in installing airport security systems and luggage-scanning technology. But Nitinai denied any such proposal to raise the service charge was being submitted to the Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand. The current charges -- usually included in the price of the ticket -- have been in place since 2006 when Suvarnabhumi airport first opened. <br/>
Angola is withholding more than US$500m in revenue generated by international airlines in the country, IATA said Thursday. Africa's No. 2 crude oil producer, which is facing a shortage of foreign currency reserves, has previously not paid airlines, including South African Airways and Emirates the money due to them. The DG of IATA said blocked funds and denied access to foreign exchange in Africa were growing problems. "IATA, with the industry, is working closely with the governments of Angola and other countries on ways to make these withheld funds available. We welcome the commitment yesterday by Angola’s National Bank to work with IATA to find a practical solution to release blocked funds," said Alexandre de Juniac. IATA forecasts a trebling in the size of Angola’s air transport market to 7.1m passengers a year by 2036. <br/>