Source: FAA The FAA issued an Emergency Airworthiness Directive (AD) (PDF) tonight that requires U.S. operators of airplanes equipped with certain Pratt & Whitney PW4000 engines to inspect these engines before further flight. The FAA is taking this action as the result of a fan-blade failure that occurred Saturday on a Boeing 777-200 that had just departed from Denver International Airport. Although the aircraft landed safely, the failure resulted in damage to the engine, an in-flight engine fire, and damage to the airplane. After reviewing the available data and considering other safety factors, the FAA determined that operators must conduct a thermal acoustic image (TAI) inspection of the large titanium fan blades located at the front of each engine. TAI technology can detect [...]

Source: ICAO ICAO and the World Customs Organization (WCO) have published a joint statement calling on governments to demonstrate maximum flexibility with respect to border clearance and air transport supply chain operations essential to the effective distribution of COVID-19 vaccines and related medical supplies.   In a separate but related development, the two agencies have also developed new guidelines to help countries achieve better alignment of their customs and security procedures.   Signed by ICAO Secretary General Dr. Fang Liu and WCO Secretary General Dr. Kunio Mikuriya, the joint statement on vaccines urges the rapid establishment of the infrastructure needed to support end-to-end vaccine storage and logistics for public supplies.   Improved open collaboration between the aviation and customs communities [...]

Source: RAA Following today’s markup by the House Financial Services Committee of S. Con. Res 5, Regional Airline Association (RAA) President and CEO Faye Malarkey Black offered this statement: “RAA applauds the advancement of critical legislation helping American businesses, workers and families cope with harm from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Our members and their workforce are grateful the package includes $15 billion to airline employees and contractors to extend the Payroll Support Program (PSP). We thank House Transportation & Infrastructure Chairman Peter DeFazio (D-OR) and House Financial Service Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) for their leadership in passing this extension out of committee. Every dollar of the PSP3 program will help support non-executive payroll, avoiding dramatic furloughs upon the expiration [...]

Source: ICAO Speaking at a World Economic Forum (WEF) Policy Session on “Building a Path to Net-Zero Aviation” yesterday, ICAO Secretary General Dr. Fang Liu highlighted opportunities now at hand to enhance the sustainability and resilience of the global civil aviation sector. Dr. Liu’s remarks were part of the lively series of exchanges with other invited panelists including the Hon. Grant Shapps, Secretary of State for Transport for the United Kingdom, Dick Benschop, Chief Executive Officer, Royal Schiphol Group, and Grazia Vittadini, Chief. Technology Officer, Airbus. The goal of the sessions was to gather perspectives across the aviation value-chain on key challenges and priorities, review the commitment to cross-sector collaboration and calls to action to drive quick, deliberate, strategic, and equitable [...]

Source: ACI   Forecasts reveal potential recovery path but without assistance uncertainty persists New forecasts from Airports Council International (ACI) World show the path to recovery in 2021 will be slow and uncertain and, without government policy support and assistance, the industry continues to face collapse. ACI World's most recent COVID-19 impact analysis revealed the global airport industry experienced a reduction of more than 6 billion passengers by the end of 2020, representing a decline of -64.2% of global passenger traffic, with a reduction in revenue of $111.8 billion. ACI’s newly published World Airport Traffic Forecasts reveal, over the next five years, global passenger traffic worldwide is expected to grow at an annualized rate of +2.4%, affected negatively in the [...]

Source: ICAO Speaking  to the 8th Virtual Meeting of the UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) Global Tourism Crisis Committee this week, ICAO Secretary General Dr. Fang Liu acknowledged that the latest measures to confront the most recent waves of COVID-19 transmission are weighing heavily on global travel and tourism.   She emphasized that there were few signs of near-term relief ahead for travel and tourism markets, given that the world is still faced with limited supplies of vaccines, and insufficient data on the transmission of the virus by persons that have been vaccinated.   Dr. Liu underscored that ICAO is collaborating with States, partner agencies and industry on the global vaccine distribution challenge, and to develop further guidance applicable to [...]

Source: ICAO With its latest economic impact analysis of COVID-19 now completed, the UN agency for civil aviation has confirmed that international passenger traffic suffered a dramatic 60 per cent drop over 2020, bringing air travel totals back to 2003 levels. ICAO reports that as seat capacity fell by 50 per cent last year, passenger totals dropped by 60 per cent with just 1.8 billion passengers taking to the air during the first year of the pandemic, compared to 4.5 billion in 2019. Its numbers also point to airline financial losses of 370 billion dollars resulting from the COVID-19 impacts, with airports and air navigation services providers (ANSPs) losing a further 115 billion and 13 billion, respectively. The pandemic plunge [...]

Source: ICAO ICAO Secretary General Dr. Fang Liu addressed the members of the Women in Aviation International’s India Chapter on 8 January 2021, providing introductory remarks to its virtual meeting on “Connecting the dots – Recovery for aviation, tourism and hospitality”.   The Secretary General’s comments focused mainly on the significant gender equality challenges still facing the air transport sector, and the opportunity to address current imbalances as the sector pivots and recovers from COVID-19.   “While it is becoming more common to see women in positions of power and prominence, in both the public and private sectors, we still remain under-represented in most professional, leadership, and decision-making categories,” Dr. Liu noted. “In the aviation sector more specifically, which is [...]