Articles by Jamie Freed

Insurers, Regulators Warn About Safety of Jets Reactivated After Pandemic Storage

SYDNEY – Regulators, insurers and experts are warning airlines to take extra care when reactivating planes left in extended storage during the COVID-19 pandemic, citing potential pilot rustiness, maintenance errors and even insect nests blocking key sensors. The unprecedented number …

Airlines, Airports Urge UN to Accept COVID Testing Over Quarantines

Airlines and airports will ask a UN-led task force meeting on Tuesday to recommend countries accept a negative COVID-19 test within 48 hours of travel as an alternative to quarantines that have decimated demand for travel, according to a document …

Grounded Airplanes at Risk from Asia’s Tropical Storm Season, Industry Experts Warn

Airlines, airports and insurers across Asia are bracing for the prospect of unusually high damage as the region’s tropical storm season begins, as hundreds of aircraft grounded by the coronavirus pandemic can’t be moved easily. Major airports in storm-vulnerable regions …

Insight: Problems on Doomed Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX Started Seconds After Takeoff

Minutes after take-off, the pilots of an Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX were caught in a bad situation. A key sensor had been wrecked, possibly by hitting a foreign object, according to four aviation experts and two U.S. officials who were …

Deadly Lion Air Crash Puts Spotlight on Safety Culture Within Indonesia’s Airlines

In April 2013, a Lion Air Boeing 737 missed the runway on the Indonesian resort island of Bali in bad weather and plowed into the sea, cracking its fuselage open on the rocks. All 108 on board survived. But a …

Airport Operators Take Action Against Rising Seas, Powerful Storms as Climate Changes

Global airport operators, faced with rising sea levels and more powerful storms as the climate changes, are starting to invest in measures including higher runways, seawalls and better drainage systems to future-proof immovable assets. In early September, a seawall at …

Airlines Urged to Use Predictive Models, Data Sharing to Keep Skies Safe

Global airlines, coming off a record-low accident rate in 2017, need to guard against complacency over safety as heavy growth in travel demand stretches the air transport system, industry leaders warned at a conference this week. There were no jet …

Regulators Had Concerns About Engine Type That Blew in Southwest Plane

European regulators this month began requiring an inspection by early next year of the type of engine that blew apart on a fatal Southwest Airlines flight on Tuesday, and a source said U.S. regulators were near a similar rule. The …

Fearing Collisions, Airlines Support Global Drone Registry

Concerned by a rise in near collisions by unmanned aircraft and commercial jets, the world’s airlines back development of a United Nations-led global registry for drones, an executive of their trade group said on Tuesday. The International Air Transport Association …

Australia Floods in Wake of Cyclone Debbie Kill 4, Disrupt Mining

Damage to rail lines in cyclone-hit northeast Australia is set to disrupt exports of the steel-making material from the world’s largest coking coal region, underpinning prices and raising the prospect of major producers declaring force majeure. The extent of the …