Source: Chair of the House Committee on Transportation - US House of Representatives The Chair of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Peter DeFazio (D-OR) issued the following statement after Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator Steve Dickson announced his resignation effective March 31, 2022. “While Administrator Dickson and I didn’t always see eye to eye, I thank him for his dedicated service to our country during such a challenging time for aviation. President Biden must now nominate a new leader committed to the highest standards of aviation safety, which means someone who will aggressively implement our landmark certification reform legislation, hold Boeing accountable for the tragic consequences of their decision to put profits over people when rolling out the [...]

Source: ACI Airports Council International (ACI) World, in collaboration with the Airport Services Association (ASA), have released a new Ground Handling Service Provider (GHSP) and Airport Operator Agreement Template to facilitate and promote a safe and efficient aviation ecosystem. The Agreement Template is a crucial guidance document to improve collaboration between airport operators and GHSPs, by helping to formalize the relationships between the organizations as well as to harmonize requirements and standards for operating at an airport and around an aircraft. The guidance document can also help overcome some of the additional safety challenges brought on by the social and economic impact of the pandemic, namely the capacity to offer services according to defined service levels. Together, through improved operational [...]

Source: US Department of Transportation December 2021 Passenger Enplanements up 118% from December 2020, down 16% from December 2019 For the calendar year 2021, U.S. scheduled service airlines carried 670.4M passengers (preliminary), an increase of 303.6M passengers (83%) from 2020 and a decrease of 245.9M passengers (27%) from pre-pandemic 2019. In 2019, the last full calendar year before the onset of COVID-19, domestic flights accounted for 88% of all passengers, and international flights accounted for 12%. In 2021, domestic flights accounted for 91% of all passengers, and international flights accounted for 9%. U.S. airlines carried 66.3 million scheduled service passengers in December 2021 (preliminary), 118% more than in December 2020 and 16% fewer than in pre-pandemic December 2019, according to [...]

Source: ICAO ICAO Secretary General Juan Carlos Salazar recently signed a new cooperative agreement with the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Office (UNOCT) to further advance joint counter-terrorism cooperation to strengthen the security of international air transport, trade, and border management. Formalized on 12 February 2022 with UNOCT Under-Secretary-General, Mr. Vladimir Ivanovich Voronkov, the agreement builds on ICAO’s key role in supporting the implementation of the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy (A/RES/75/291) and numerous Security Council resolutions on counter-terrorism, aviation security, and facilitation (identity and border control management). It is additionally expected to maximize related deliverables to Member States in a variety of areas of ICAO/UNOCT focus, including initiatives pertaining to unmanned aircraft systems (drones) and cybersecurity. Highlighting ICAO’s commitment to continue [...]

Source: AFA-CWA The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO (AFA) representing over 4,600 Flight Attendants at Spirit Airlines and 2,900 Flight Attendants at Frontier Airlines, released the following statement on the proposed merger: "AFA-CWA represents Flight Attendants at both Spirit and Frontier. We were notified of the merger moments before the announcement hit Wall Street and the media. Our first priority is to determine whether this merger will improve conditions for Flight Attendants just like the benefits the companies have described for shareholders and consumers. Our support of the merger will depend on this. "As a practical matter, our union Constitution and Bylaws provides a detailed process for this review with the AFA leadership from each airline."

Source: IATA IATA latest business confidence survey of airlines CFOs and heads of cargo. Key points: IATA’s survey of airlines CFOs and Heads of Cargo, conducted in December 2021-January 2022, shows that pressure on airline profitability diminished in Q4. The improvement is expected to continue in the year ahead. However, the respondents were more cautious than in the previous survey due to the Omicron impact, soaring jet fuel prices and rising market competition that puts pressure on yields. A majority of survey participants reported improving passenger and cargo volumes in Q4 2021 versus Q4 2020. They also expect this trend to continue in the future – notably on the passenger side of the business. The survey results suggest no significant change in employment levels [...]

Source: A4A Airlines for America (A4A), the industry trade organization for the leading U.S. airlines, led a coalition of travel-industry groups urging U.S. health officials to remove the requirement for pre-departure testing for vaccinated passengers traveling to the United States. Download [294.94 KB]