Federal authorities are planning to fine two unmasked and unruly passengers accused of hitting and grabbing flight attendants amid a rash of disruptive and sometimes violent incidents on board planes. One passenger accused of grabbing and striking two flight attendants during a February flight faces a fine of $32,750, the FAA said on Wednesday. A passenger on a different flight is accused of hitting "one of the flight attendants with his bags" and faces a $16,500 fine. Altogether, the FAA on Wednesday disclosed four new fines against passengers from among 1,300 reports of passenger misbehavior sent in by flight crews in the past three months alone, a spokesman said. Investigators have so far identified potential violations in about 260 of those cases, and the four new fines bring the number of cases the FAA has described publicly since late 2020 to 13. Reports from flight crews of unruly passengers used to be so infrequent that the FAA did not tally them, a spokesman said. But alarm grew within the agency as incidents appeared to climb. Instead of one report of a troublesome passenger every few days, flight crews were calling in with multiple issues daily, the spokesman said. At the same time, the number of passengers is significantly depressed -- still 40% below pre-pandemic levels, according to air carrier group Airlines for America.<br/>
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Family members who lost relatives in the second deadly crash of a Boeing 737 Max met with Transportation Department officials Wednesday to renew their push for the ouster of top federal aviation officials, whom they accuse of being too cozy with Boeing. The families demanded that the Biden administration replace the head of the FAA, Stephen Dickson, the FAA's top safety official, Ali Bahrami, and two others. Several hundred relatives and friends of passengers who died in the 2019 crash of an Ethiopian Airlines Max signed a letter to President Joe Biden and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg demanding the changes. “The FAA has been, and continues to be, more interested in protecting Boeing and the aviation industry than safety,” they wrote. Michael Stumo, whose daughter Samya died in the crash, said the officials — including Buttigieg's chief of staff and the deputy FAA administrator — said they will review FAA personnel and recent reform legislation passed by Congress, but made no promises. A Transportation Department spokesman said that senior officials expressed sympathy to the families, underscored the department's commitment to safety and are "taking the family’s concerns very seriously.” The family members and key lawmakers have questioned why the FAA did not order the grounding of Max jets after one crashed in Indonesia, five months before the Ethiopian crash. <br/>
Singapore’s government said it’s assessing any potential changes to a planned travel bubble with Hong Kong after a flareup of Covid-19 infections triggered fresh restrictions in the city-state. Singapore late Tuesday announced it would impose a three-week crackdown, including limiting social gatherings to no more than five people and tightening border curbs, to stem the spread of a new variant first identified in India. The tighter rules come a little more than a week after an agreement to open an air-travel corridor with Hong Kong on May 26. “We will monitor the situation and we will review and assess whether or not there will be any changes,” said Lawrence Wong, the minister who co-chairs the Singapore government’s virus taskforce. Singapore and Hong Kong authorities remain in contact, he said. The cluster in Singapore, which recorded its first coronavirus-related fatality in nearly two months over the weekend, underscores the fragility of travel agreements in the face of highly transmissible variants. The Hong Kong-Singapore accord, which has already been delayed several times due to infection outbreaks, includes a clear threshold on the number of linked local cases before the corridor is suspended. According to the terms of the agreement, the travel bubble will be closed for two weeks if the seven-day moving average of the daily number of unlinked local cases is more than five in either Singapore or Hong Kong. <br/>
Hong Kong’s government is considering shortening the mandatory on-arrival quarantine requirement from 21 days to seven days for those fully vaccinated, although the benefit to the city’s struggling airlines may be limited. “While the efforts of the Hong Kong government to lower the mandatory on-arrival quarantine period for fully vaccinated travelers from 21 days to seven days will be welcomed by many airlines and travellers, there would not be a drastic increase in demand for air travel even with the shortened period,” says Eric Tamang, a Hong Kong-based valuations analyst at Ascend by Cirium. “Quarantine adds extra cost and time for travellers, hindering them from travelling to and from another country.” Government adviser Ivan Hung Fan-ngai has proposed that travellers fully vaccinated against Covid-19 could, in addition to having their quarantine reduced to seven days when they arrive in Hong Kong, be allowed to serve their quarantine at home rather than in a hotel. Currently, travellers arriving in Hong Kong must serve quarantine in hotels at their own expense for between 14 and 21 days. In addition, non-Hong Kong residents who have visited places other than mainland China, Macau, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand or Singapore within 14 days of arrival will be denied entry to the city.<br/>
Drugmakers in India are warning that a halt on some cargo flights from China could imperil an important link in the global pharmaceutical supply chain. The US relies heavily on India to stock its medicine cabinets, and any slowdown in output could leave pharmacies short of drugs used regularly by millions of Americans. On April 26, China’s state-run Sichuan Airlines suspended cargo flights to India for 15 days amid an alarming second Covid-19 outbreak there. China supplies 60% to 70% of the raw materials used by India’s drugmakers, as well as ingredients for finished medicines sent to markets worldwide, according to Mahesh Doshi, national president for the Indian Drug Manufacturers’ Association. If the flights remain on hold, the drug industry fears “cascading effects on its entire supply chain,” Doshi wrote in an April 29 letter to India’s external affairs minister. That could lead to domestic shortages of essential medicines and have a severe impact on exports, she said. Sichuan Airlines didn’t respond to a request for comment.<br/>
The UK is set to lift the ban on international leisure travel from mid-May but only a handful of countries are likely to be approved as holiday destinations, as ministers seek to keep control over the pandemic. PM Boris Johnson’s officials are studying the latest data on infection rates in other countries with a view to adding those with low levels of Covid-19 to a new “green list” of approved destinations for foreign travel. The details are expected to be announced on Friday, and to take effect from May 17, according to officials. Initially only a small number of nations and territories are likely to be approved but the list will be revised every three weeks to take account of the changing pandemic situation. It is currently illegal to travel overseas for holidays, under British law. Destinations that could be placed on the green list as rules are eased in the weeks ahead include Malta, Iceland, Israel, the Canary Islands and Gibraltar. John Holland-Kaye, CEO of London’s Heathrow airport, said last week that Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand and some Caribbean destinations, could also be assigned green status, and that he hadn’t given up on the US featuring.<br/>
Airlines should focus on reducing emissions from flights instead of using carbon offsets for climate commitments, experts and environmental campaigners have warned. BA and easyJet are among several leading carriers that use carbon offsets to back up claims of “carbon-neutral flying” and net zero pledges by buying credits on behalf of passengers or offering customers that opportunity to buy them when booking tickets. On Tuesday, an investigation by the Guardian and Unearthed, Greenpeace’s investigative arm into the forest protection carbon offsetting market used by airlines found it had a significant credibility problem, with experts warning the system is flawed and can produce credits with no climate benefit. Environmental campaigners said the airline industry must focus on reducing emissions from aviation and the use of offsets distracts from rising emissions from flights. In response to the investigation, several leading airlines said the use of offsets was an intermediary measure while new technologies were developed. Stephen Smith, executive director of the Oxford Net Zero Initiative, said there had been progress on developing standards of what counts as a high quality climate target, including Race to Zero and Science Based Targets (SBTi), but cautioned the area was still a “wild west”.<br/>
Boeing is adding capacity to convert old 737 passenger planes into cargo haulers, a bet on continued growth in e-commerce. The Chicago-based company said Wednesday it will add two production lines to convert Boeing 737-800s into freighters that will be operated by Cooperativa Autogestionaria de Servicios Aeroindustriales, which is located in a free-trade zone near Costa Rica’s capital, allowing for the duty-free importation of parts. Converted 737 freighters have become more popular and won orders from Amazon as the e-commerce giant adds to the fleets of airlines that fly for its Amazon Air arm. Boeing already converts 737-800s into freighters in Shanghai, Guangzhou and Jinan, China.<br/>
The transport ministry said Thursday a no-fly zone will be set up above venues of the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics from July 21 through Sept. 5 as part of anti-terrorism measures. Regular flights departing from or arriving at Tokyo’s Haneda airport will not be subject to the restriction, according to the ministry. The ministry said the no-fly zone will be in place from two hours before the start of competitions to an hour after they finish, covering flights of all altitudes. The same restrictions will apply for the opening and closing ceremonies at the National Stadium, the main Olympic venue. The no-fly zone will cover about a 3-kilometer radius from venues during competitions but will be extended to a 46-kilometer radius from the National Stadium for the ceremonies. Events held outside of Tokyo, such as the marathons to be held in Sapporo, will also be subject to no-fly zones.<br/>