The UK government has announced a £43 million investment package aimed at accelerating the development of green aviation technologies.
The funding, confirmed today (Tuesday, January 20th), is designed to support the research and development of zero-emission aircraft and low-carbon fuels as part of a broader strategy to reach net-zero aviation by 2050.
The initiative aims to catalyze private investment and facilitate planned expansions at Heathrow, Gatwick, and Luton airports. By decarbonizing the sector, the government hopes to balance economic growth with environmental targets.
Beyond aircraft propulsion, the funding will also investigate methods to reduce climate-warming water vapour trails, known as contrails (condensation trails), and assist the Civil Aviation Authority in establishing safety regulations for hydrogen-powered flight.
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander emphasized the economic benefits of the transition, stating: “Our £43 million investment will deliver the technology of the future, grow the economy and support highly skilled jobs as part of our mission to deliver national renewal.”
She noted that emerging technologies such as hydrogen fuel are essential to reducing the climate impact of flying while expanding connectivity.
Competitions for the funding will open in February, inviting bids from UK businesses, researchers, and universities. The investment is complemented by the Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) Bill, which will provide price guarantees for UK fuel producers later this year and an additional £63 million to accelerate the construction of new SAF production plants.
The aviation industry has welcomed the move as a practical step towards operational change. Duncan McCourt, Chief Executive of Sustainable Aviation, commented: “We know that aviation is one of the most challenging sectors to decarbonise, and, as we continue on the road to net zero by 2050, industry action combined with government investment are required.”
Additionally, a portion of the fund will be used to track fuel usage in regions such as Africa and the Caribbean. This measure is intended to ensure that UK airlines remain competitive by helping lower-income countries participate in global carbon-offsetting schemes.
In a windowless room at Denver police headquarters on a recent Thursday afternoon, Officer Chris Velarde activated a police drone to investigate a potential car break-in.
Officer Chris Velarde flies a drone and monitors live footage from its camera from Denver Police Department headquarters on Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
Several floors above, the drone launched from the roof and flew itself — essentially on autopilot — to the site of the call, reported as a man breaking into a car with a crowbar near the Santa Fe Arts District.
The drone whizzed along, 200 feet up, in a straight line across blocks, buildings and streets during the roughly mile-long flight from police headquarters at 1331 Cherokee St. Velarde didn’t pick up the Xbox video-game controller that manually pilots the drone until it reached the area of the call. Then he took control and trolled the block for the supposed break-in, watching live video footage transmitted from the drone on his computer monitor as he flew.
After a few moments, Velarde spotted two people jiggering the passenger-side window of a vehicle. He zoomed in on the pair, and on the car’s license plate. He ran the plate to see whether the vehicle was stolen; it was not. The people on the street didn’t look up. They didn’t seem to know a police drone was hovering above them, that they were being recorded and watched a mile away by officers and a reporter.
Two more people joined the pair at the vehicle’s window and Velarde made the call — this didn’t look like a vehicle break-in. More likely, someone had just locked their keys in their car. He cleared the call with 911 dispatchers and told them there was no need to send an officer to the scene. Then he sent the drone back to headquarters; it flew itself to the rooftop dock, landing autonomously on a platform stamped with bright blue-and-yellow QR codes.
The Denver Police Department began testing drones as first responders — that is, sending them out on 911 calls — in mid-October after signing up for two free pilot programs from rival drone companies Skydio and Flock Safety. The effort has raised concerns among privacy advocates, Denver politicians and the city’s police oversight group, particularly regarding the department’s contract with Flock, the company behind the city’s controversial network of automated license-plate readers.
Police see the drones as a way to speed up call-response times and provide more information to officers as they arrive on scene, improving, they say, both public safety and officer safety. If a drone arrives at a scene before officers, and the drone pilot can tell police on the ground that the man with the knife actually put down the weapon before the officers arrived, that helps everyone, police said.
“The more knowledge, information and intelligence that we can provide our officers on the ground, the better methods that they can use to respond to certain situations, which may cause them to not escalate unnecessarily,” said Cmdr. Clifford Barnes, who heads the department’s Cyber Bureau.
Critics say the eyes in the sky raise serious privacy concerns both with how the drones and the data they collect are used now, and with how they might be used in the future as the technology rapidly changes. They worry that the drones could create a citywide surveillance network with few legal guardrails, that the footage they collect will be used to train private companies’ AI algorithms or that police will misuse emerging AI capabilities, like facial recognition.
“When it comes to the decision of, are we going to use this thing that could potentially increase public safety, that will erode privacy rights — no one should get to decide the public is willing to give away our constitutional rights, except the people,” said Anaya Robinson, public policy director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado. “And when law enforcement makes that decision for us, it becomes extremely problematic.”
Almost 300 drone flights in 55 days
So far, only Skydio drones have flown as first responders over Denver.
Denver police signed a zero-dollar contract with Flock — without public announcement — in August for a year-long pilot of drones as first responders, but the company has yet to set up its autonomous aircraft. Skydio, on the other hand, moved quickly to get drones in the air after Denver police in October signed a contract to test up to four of the company’s drones during a free six-month pilot.
Skydio’s drones can reach about a 2-mile radius around the Denver police headquarters. The company advertises a top speed of 45 mph with 40 minutes of flight time; Denver pilots have found the drones average around 28 mph and around 25 minutes of battery life per flight.
From the first flight on Oct. 15 through Tuesday, two Skydio drones flew 297 times, according to data provided by Denver police in response to an open records request. Most of those flights — 199 — were to answer calls for service; another 82 were training flights, according to the data.
Skydio drones also surveilled events — a function police call “event overwatch” — seven times, the police data shows. Overwatch might include flying over a protest to track where the demonstrators are headed and alert officers on the ground for traffic control, Barnes said. (The police data showed that all seven overwatch flights occurred on Oct. 18, the day of Denver’s “No Kings” rally.)
The drones flew to 29 calls about a person with a weapon, 21 disturbances, 20 assaults in progress, a dozen suspicious occurrences and 11 hold-up alarms, according to data from Denver’s 911 dispatch records. The drones also flew to 39 other types of calls, including reports of prowlers, fights, burglaries, domestic violence and suicidal people.
The most common outcome for a call was that the officers were unable to locate an incident or the suspect was gone by the time the drone or police officers arrived, the records show. Across about 200 calls for service that included drone responses, police made 22 arrests and issued one citation, the dispatch data shows.
When responding to calls for service, the drones reached the scene before patrol officers 88% of the time, the police data shows. A drone was the sole police response in 80 of 199 calls for service, or about 40% of the time.
Barnes said answering calls with solely a drone improves police efficiency.
“If an officer on the ground doesn’t need to respond, and the drone pilot is comfortable with cancelling the other officers coming, we can assign those officers to more important, more pressing matters, so call-response times come down,” he said.
That approach raises questions about what the drones (which are equipped with three different cameras and a thermal imager) can and can’t see, and how officers are making decisions about call responses without actually speaking to anyone at the scene, the ACLU’s Robinson said.
“Humans have bias,” he said. Drone pilots might be more inclined to send officers to a potential car break-in in a low-income neighborhood and more likely not to in a higher-income neighborhood, he said. Or they might miss something from above that they could have seen at street level.
Officer Chris Velarde flies a drone and monitors live footage from its camera from Denver Police Department headquarters on Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
But minimizing in-person police interactions with residents, particularly in over-policed neighborhoods, can also be a positive, said Julia Richman, chair of Denver’s Citizen Oversight Board, which provides civilian oversight of the police department.
“Where my head goes is the other outcome, where they roll up on those people who are trying to get keys out of the car and then they shoot them,” she said. “Actually, (the drone-only response) seems like a really good outcome.”
The oversight group has talked with Denver police over the last two years about developing its drone program, she said. The department created a seven-page policy to guide their use; the policy aims to ensure “civil rights and reasonable expectations of privacy are a key component of any decision made to deploy” a drone.
But Richman said she was surprised by aspects of the police department’s pilot programs despite the ongoing conversations with department leadership.
“What was never discussed, not once, was the idea of a third party running those drones or those drones being autonomous,” she said, referring to the drone companies. “What has changed with this latest pilot is the key features and key aspects that would create public concern had never been discussed with us.”
Both Flock and Skydio advertise autonomous features powered by artificial intelligence. Skydio uses AI for its autonomous flight paths, obstacle avoidance and tracking people and cars.
Flock, which also offers autonomous flight, advertises its drones as integrating with its automated license-plate readers. The license-plate readers — there are more than 100 around Denver — automatically photograph every car that passes by them. If a license plate is stolen or involved in a crime, the license-plate readers alert police within seconds.
Police Chief Ron Thomas and Mayor Mike Johnston defended the surveillance network as an invaluable crime-solving tool this year against mounting public discontent around how much data the machines collected and how that data was used — particularly around sharing information with the federal government for the purposes of immigration enforcement.
That privacy debate around Flock’s license plate readers unfolded in communities across Colorado and nationwide this year. In Loveland, the police department for a time allowed U.S. Border Patrol agents to access its Flock cameras before blocking that access. In Longmont, councilmembers voted Wednesday to look for alternatives to replace the 20 Flock license plate readers in that city.
When Denver City Council members, some driven by privacy concerns, voted against continuing Flock’s license-plate readers in May, Johnston extended the surveillance anyway through a free five-month contract extension with Flock in October that did not require approval from the council. Against that backdrop, Denver police quietly signed on for Flock’s drone pilot in August.
Barnes said the police department will not use any license-plate reader capabilities available on Flock drones. Such a feature would constitute “random surveillance,” which is prohibited under the department’s drone policy. The drones never fly without an officer’s direct involvement, he added.
The blue 2-mile-radius line seen on a computer screen shows the range of Denver police Skydio drones flown from Denver Police headquarters. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
The policy also prohibits drones from filming anywhere a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy unless police have a warrant, and says officers should take “reasonable precautions … to avoid inadvertently recording or transmitting images of areas where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy.”
Denver police do receive search warrants to fly drones for particular operations outside of the drones-as-first-responder program. In October, a Denver police detective sought and received a warrant to fly a drone over a shooting suspect’s home in Cherry Hills Village to check whether a truck involved in the shooting was parked at the wooded property.
The warrant noted that when driving home from anywhere outside Cherry Hills Village, the suspect could not reach his house without passing by Flock license-plate readers, and that photos from those license-plate readers suggested the truck was at the property.
Denver Councilwoman Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez and Councilman Kevin Flynn both told The Post they were not aware of the police department’s Skydio drone pilot before hearing about it from the newspaper, even though they are both on the city’s Surveillance Technology Task Force. The new group began meeting in August largely to consider Flock license-plate readers, as well as other types of surveillance technology, Gonzales-Gutierrez said.
“We haven’t talked about it in the task force, and the charge of our work in the task force is to come up with those guardrails that need to be put in place for these types of technology being utilized by law enforcement,” she said. “I feel like they just keep moving on without us being able to complete our work.”
Police don’t need permission from the City Council to carry out the pilot programs, Gonzales-Gutierrez said, but she was disappointed by the lack of communication and collaboration from the department.
Flynn sees the potential of police drones, particularly in speeding up officer response times, which can sometimes be dismal in the far-flung areas of his southwestern district.
“If a drone can get there to a 911 call and it can help an officer at headquarters assess the scene before a staffed car could get there, I would love that,” he said.
But he wants to be sure they are used in a way that respects residents’ rights. He would not support using the drones for general patrolling or surveillance, he said.
“This pilot is an excellent opportunity to test all of those boundaries and see if there are ways to operate a system that can be very useful for public safety without crossing boundaries,” he said.”…And maybe we don’t keep using them. That is the point of a pilot.”
‘These are flying cops’
The Skydio drones film from the moment they are launched until they drop in to land.
When the drone is on its way to a call — flying at the 200-foot altitude limit set by the Federal Aviation Administration — its cameras remain pointed at the horizon. In Denver’s denser neighborhoods, the Skydio drones at that height flew among buildings, sometimes at eye-level with balconies, offices and apartment windows, according to video of four flights obtained by The Post through an open records request.
“What if someone is in their apartment unit in one of these giant buildings and they’re changing, and they have their window open because they’re way up high and they don’t think anyone is watching them?” Gonzales-Gutierrez said. “That is crazy.”
The drones buzzed over rooftop decks, balconies and elevated apartment complex pools, the videos show. On one trip, a drone flew past the Colorado State Capitol Building, recording three people on a balcony on the tower under the building’s golden dome. Another time, the drone pilot zoomed in on a license plate so tightly that the car’s small, decorative “LOVE” decal was clearly visible.
Flynn noted that a 200-foot altitude would put the drones well above most of the homes in his less-dense district, and that people on their porches or balconies aren’t somewhere private.
“If someone is out on a balcony, sitting there reading a book… generally speaking, if you are out in public there’s no expectation of privacy,” he said.
The Skydio drones recorded about 54 hours of footage in the first eight weeks of their operation, according to data provided by the police department. Police leadership opted to have the drones’ cameras on and recording whenever the drone is in flight to boost transparency about how the drones are being used, Barnes said.
“It makes sense to keep the camera rolling,” Barnes said. “Then, if there’s an allegation, we just make sure that footage is recorded and treated like digital evidence, uploaded to the evidence management platform so it could be reviewed as necessary. We’re just trying to make sure we establish that balance, being as transparent as possible.”
Drone footage unrelated to criminal investigations is automatically deleted after 60 days, he said. While it’s retained, it’s stored in an evidence system that keeps a record of anyone who looks at it. The drone unit’s sergeant, Brent Kohls, also audits the flight reports monthly. (Footage used in criminal investigations will be on the same retention schedule as body-worn camera footage, police said.)
Kohls noted it would be unusual for the drone footage to be viewed only by the pilot. The feed is often displayed on the wall of the police department’s Real-Time Crime Center as it comes in.
ACLU attorney Nathan Freed Wessler, deputy director of the organization’s speech, privacy and technology project, would rather see police keep the recording off while flying a drone to a call, even if the camera is still livestreaming to police headquarters. In that scenario, a drone pilot might still see a woman tanning topless on her rooftop pool deck, he said, but the government wouldn’t then keep a recording of that privacy violation, amplifying it further.
“The thing we are really worried about is police start deploying drones as first responders for the majority of their calls for service and suddenly you have this crisscrossing network of surveillance all over the city,” Freed Wessler said. “You have the potential for a pervasive record of what everyone is doing all the time.”
Kohls said an officer flying a drone who spotted a different crime occurring while en route to another call would stop to report and respond to that secondary crime, just like an officer would on the ground.
“Absolutely, if an officer sees a crime happening, they’re going to get on the radio, alert dispatch to what they’re observing,” Kohls said. “Hopefully, if they have a few minutes of battery time left still, they can extend their time and circle or overwatch on that scene to provide hopefully life-saving radio traffic, whatever information they need to relay to dispatch to get other officers heading, or the fire department heading that way.”
State and federal laws have not yet caught up to how police are using drones, Freed Wessler said. The Fourth Amendment has what’s known as the plain-view exception, which allows police officers who are lawfully in a place to take action if they see evidence of a crime happening in plain sight.
“The problem here is we are not talking about police doing a thing we would normally expect them to do,” Freed Wessler said. “We are talking about police taking advantage of a new technology that gives them a totally new power to fly at virtually no expense over any part of the city at any time of day and see a whole bunch of stuff happening.”
A Denver police drone lands on its docking station on the roof of Denver Police headquarters in Denver, on Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
Police have broad leeway to watch suspects without first getting a search warrant — like by peering through a fence or climbing the steps of a nearby building to look into a yard. But that’s different from using a subtle video camera to record a person 24/7 for months, the justices concluded.
So far, that’s the closest ruling in Colorado on the issue of drone surveillance, Freed Wessler said. Robinson, the policy director at the ACLU of Colorado, said lawmakers should act to regulate police drone use — either at the state or local level.
“These are flying cops,” said Beryl Lipton, senior investigative researcher at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit focused on digital privacy. “That is another one of those slippery slopes.”
Aside from the legality of surveillance, another question is how the drone footage and flight data is used by the drone companies, Lipton said.
“We live in a time where all these AI-fueled companies have a real drive to integrate AI into everything, and they’re really hungry for new data,” she said. “And we have law enforcement helping to feed these companies in a way they don’t really understand.”
Under its current agreement with Denver police, Skydio doesn’t use drone footage to train its algorithm or improve its product. Flock spells out in its contract that the company can “collect, analyze and anonymize” drone footage, then use that anonymized footage to train its “machine learning algorithms,” and enhance its services.
Lipton added that technology is moving fast — Axon, a company that powers many police departments’ body-worn cameras — this month started testing facial recognition on its cameras to automatically alert a police officer if a person they’re encountering has a warrant out for their arrest.
Prisons are experimenting with “movement analysis” to automatically flag a person’s movements as potentially aggressive before the person perpetrates violence, she said.
“We are technologically at a place where it would not be hard for a drone to fly over an area and basically serve as a license-plate reader for humans,” Lipton said. “… Some of this analysis is just not being done because it is not publicly palatable yet. But it is not like it is technologically difficult for some of these companies.”
Despite funding challenges, the FAA kept its Oklahoma City academy open, continuing to train new controllers. However, looming budget shortfalls threaten progress as the agency faces a shortage of 3,000 controllers amid rising retirements.
The problems with the nation’s air traffic control system have been spotlighted during the government shutdown, with controllers working without pay for almost a month and a half and hundreds calling in sick, resulting in thousands of flight delays or cancellations.
However, one program that is training new controllers has managed to continue operating after the Federal Aviation Administration found some additional funding.
New controllers are trained at the FAA academy in Oklahoma City, and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University professor Mike McCormick said it has managed to keep operating and graduating students during the government shutdown.
“One thing that’s different with this shutdown, that we have not seen in previous government shutdowns, is the FAA has been able to find sufficient funding to keep the air traffic control academy opened during a shutdown, so they’ve been able to train new controllers to enter the pipeline of the air traffic control workforce,” McCormick said.
“In fact, one of my graduates from the program just completed the academy training last week, and she is now on her way to Boston air traffic control center to work. So that makes a difference, because previously, government shutdowns definitely impacted on the control of workforce and the staffing numbers,” he added.
However, the funding is due to run out Nov. 15.
To speed up the hiring of new controllers, the FAA now has agreements with nine universities, including Embry-Riddle at Joint Base Andrews, to help train the next generation of men and women in control towers and other facilities.
But the money for that university program, plus the spending for billions of dollars on planned hardware and software improvements, was not available during the shutdown.
“The area where it may be impacted the most is going to be the programs and projects where you bring in new infrastructure and you update technology. During the government shutdown, those programs stop, and that means it’s a delay, but it also costs additional dollars to start those programs back up,” McCormick said.
McCormick said an estimated 3,000 new controllers are needed because Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said as many as 20 controllers are retiring every day, compared with four a day before the shutdown.
“What’s happening in the air traffic control system is very similar to what happened during the pandemic, and that is when you have stressors in the workplace that gets so difficult, those controllers who have the opportunity and the ability will retire or resign. That leads to greater than normal attrition levels. So, we’re going to have to make up for that attrition in the continued hiring program of the controller workforce,” he said.
Controllers must retire from service once they reach age 55, and it’s a long process to get them fully certified.
“It takes one to three years for a controller to certify once they get to the air traffic control facility, so we’re not going to see immediate changes to certified controllers,” he said. ”What we’ll see is that one to three years down the road, then we can bridge that gap with a 3,000 shortage across the United States.”
“With the current hiring program and with the support of institutions, like Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, we’ll be able to feed many more controllers than what we’ve seen previously into the controller workforce,” he added.
McCormick said in the history of American aviation and air traffic control history, the events of the past month and a half will go down as some of the most significant ever.
“I would say this is one of the four key events in air traffic control — the first being the air traffic controller strike in 1981 and then we had the pandemic. And we also had Sept. 11, 2001, and now we have this record-setting government shutdown,” he said.
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The US Federal Aviation Administration plans to cut 10 percent of flights in 40 high-traffic airports on Friday morning if Congress fails to reopen the federal government by then, Transportation secretary Sean Duffy and FAA chief Bryan Bedford said Wednesday.
The announcement came days after the US agency said it faced widespread shortages of air traffic controllers in half of the country’s 30 busiest airports and hours-long security lines caused by absences of Transportation Security Administration agents. Federal workers have now gone 35 days without a paycheck amid the longest government shutdown in US history.
Which flights might be canceled, and where, “is data-based,” Duffy said Wednesday. “This is based on, where is the pressure and how do we alleviate the pressure?”
When passengers fly, “they are going to make it to their destinations safely, because we’ve done our work,” Duffy said.
The FAA did not immediately respond to WIRED’s questions, and it’s unclear whether the flight cut will affect only commercial airlines or cargo and private flights as well. A 10 percent reduction in scheduled commercial flights at 40 airports could lead to some 4,000 to 5,000 canceled flights per day.
For airlines and travelers, a sudden cut in flights will likely lead to some serious logistical headaches. Duffy earlier this week warned of air travel “mass chaos” should the shutdown drag on.
But airlines have some experience responding to sudden flight reductions due to staffing issues, says Michael McCormick, a former FAA official who now heads the Air Traffic Management program at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
In the spring of 2023, during another period of air traffic controller shortages, the FAA allowed airlines to reduce their capacities in New York–area airports. (Such reductions usually force airlines to forfeit the right to a takeoff or landing; the FAA temporarily nixed that penalty.) In response, airline schedulers were able to quickly “up-gauge,” compensating for the reduced number of flights by replacing small aircraft with larger ones. That way, cutting flights didn’t necessarily reduce the number of passengers flying overall.
Should the FAA follow through on Friday, airlines will likely be able to pull off a similar up-gauging process, says McCormick. While flights will be canceled and passengers moved around, this could mean that plenty are still able to get to their destinations. The move might actually give airlines more time to prepare.
“Under the current state, it’s unpredictable which airports are going to be impacted tomorrow,” he says. “This restores some predictability.”
The National Transportation Safety Board confirmed Sunday that it is investigating an airliner that was struck by an object in its windscreen, mid-flight, over Utah.
“NTSB gathering radar, weather, flight recorder data,” the federal agency said on the social media site X. “Windscreen being sent to NTSB laboratories for examination.”
The strike occurred Thursday, during a United Airlines flight from Denver to Los Angeles. Images shared on social media showed that one of the two large windows at the front of a 737 MAX aircraft was significantly cracked. Related images also reveal a pilot’s arm that has been cut multiple times by what appear to be small shards of glass.
Object’s Origin Not Confirmed
The captain of the flight reportedly described the object that hit the plane as “space debris.” This has not been confirmed, however.
After the impact, the aircraft safely landed at Salt Lake City International Airport after being diverted.
Images of the strike showed that an object made a forceful impact near the upper-right part of the window, showing damage to the metal frame. Because aircraft windows are multiple layers thick, with laminate in between, the window pane did not shatter completely. The aircraft was flying above 30,000 feet—likely around 36,000 feet—and the cockpit apparently maintained its cabin pressure.
So was it space debris? It is impossible to know without more data. A very few species of birds can fly above 30,000 feet. However, the world’s highest flying bird, Rüppell’s vulture, is found mainly in Africa. An unregulated weather balloon is also a possibility, although it’s not clear whether the velocity would have been high enough to cause the kind of damage observed. Hail is also a potential culprit.
Assuming this was not a Shohei Ohtani home run ball, the only other potential cause of the damage is an object from space.
That was the initial conclusion of the pilot, but a meteor is more likely than space debris. Estimates vary, but a recent study in the journal Geology found that about 17,000 meteorites strike Earth in a given year. That is at least an order of magnitude greater than the amount of human-made space debris that survives reentry through Earth’s atmosphere.
A careful analysis of the glass and metal impacted by the object should be able to reveal its origin.
From policy reversals to fee introductions and digital transformations at borders, 2025 has seen significant changes in travel rules that affect millions of passengers globally. Here, experts unpack some of the biggest updates so far this year.
Travel Rules Changes for 2025:
No Mandatory Cash Compensation for Delays
A key proposal that would have required airlines to provide mandatory cash compensation to passengers for controllable delays was scrapped in September.
“I think one of the biggest changes was in September, the Trump administration dropped a Biden-era plan that would have required airlines to provide cash compensation for significant flight delays,” travel expert Bobby Laurie, a former flight attendant and in-flight policy and procedure analyst, told Newsweek. “As a result, there is no federal rule mandating that airlines pay passengers for delays caused by issues within the carrier’s control.”
According to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, the Department of Transportation (DOT) previously issued an “Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) that examined requiring U.S. and foreign air carriers to adopt and adhere to customer service plans identifying essential services,” such as meals, rebooking, hotel stays, transportation to or from the hotel, timely customer service, as well as “compensation which airlines would be required to provide to mitigate passenger inconveniences” when a flight cancellation or delay was “due to circumstances within the airline’s control.”
However, the office noted that “consistent with Department and administration priorities, the Department plans to withdraw the ANPRM.”
Each airline sets its own compensation policies. According to the website of the DOT, which was last updated on September 11, “If an airline has made a commitment to provide a particular service or compensation, then the Department can hold the airline accountable.”
The DOT guidance advises that “controllable delays” include those due to maintenance, crew issues, fueling, or baggage loading. Passengers are advised to check with their carrier during delays, as amenities such as meals or hotel stays vary by airline.
American Airlines Removes Bag Sizers at Boarding Gates
While the move doesn’t change actual baggage size limits, it alters enforcement. “The bag sizer isn’t a ‘rule change’ per se,” Laurie told Newsweek. “The bag sizes are still in force, but the agents can now eyeball it and also take the passengers’ word for it.”
Southwest Airlines Ends ‘Bags Fly Free’ Policy
Perhaps one of the most dramatic shifts in airline policy this year came from Southwest Airlines. Known for its “Bags Fly Free” mantra, the airline eliminated free checked bags for most travelers on flights booked from May 28 onward.
“One of the biggest shakeups in the travel industry this year comes from Southwest Airlines,” Sarah Silbert from Points Path, a flight search browser extension tool, told Newsweek. “The airline ended that longstanding perk…and has now joined the ranks of other major U.S. airlines by introducing hefty checked bag fees.”
Sarah Pardi, a travel expert at the global insurance firm Insurte, told Newsweek: “Checking a bag can be expensive, so it was definitely a selling point for customers looking for a great deal.”
Travelers with a Southwest credit card or A-List status can still check one bag for free.
Spirit Airlines Offers Two Free Checked Bags—to Some
While other carriers tighten baggage perks, Spirit Airlines has taken a different approach. As of 2025, the ultra-low-cost carrier now allows co-branded credit card holders to check two bags for free—provided the booking is made directly through the airline.
Pardi said: “The Free Spirit Travel More Mastercard, which is co-branded with Bank of America, will allow Spirit Airlines travelers a two-bag allowance each when tickets are booked directly through Spirit with the credit card.”
Southwest To Introduce Assigned Seating
While not yet active, another big shift is on the horizon for Southwest Airlines. As of January 27, 2026, the airline will transition from its open seating model to an assigned seating system.
“One of the more quirky experiences when flying Southwest is that seats are not assigned,” Pardi told Newsweek. “Starting January 27 of 2026, this is changing…fare choices will include Standard, Preferred, and Extra Legroom.”
Southwest’s website confirms the change, promising “seat options that allow you to choose the experience you prefer,” and highlighting upgrades as part of its broader rebrand, including new cabin designs and loyalty perks.
Digital Entry Replaces Passport Stamps
A major change across the pond will affect American travelers looking to collect passport stamps while trekking around Europe. As of October 12, the European Union began rolling out its Entry/Exit System (EES), phasing out physical passport stamps in favor of biometric data collection at border checkpoints.
“The new Entry/Exit System (EES) started to be operational on 12 October 2025,” according to the European Commission’s official travel website. The system captures fingerprints and facial images, and will be gradually deployed across the Schengen Area, with full implementation expected by April 10, 2026.
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Ever since a side panel on one of its 737 Max passenger jets blew out at nearly 15,000 feet in January 2024, news from aviation giant Boeing has been almost unrelentingly awful. At times it was so dire the very future of U.S. industry’s former crown jewel looked doubtful, amid revelations about its flippant attitude toward production safety, and customer threats to turn to European rival Airbus for new airframes Boeing struggled to deliver.
But now, 21 months after that Alaska Airlines incident terrified the 171 passengers aboard — and goaded the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) into ordering Boeing to entirely revamp its flawed assembly and safety inspection system — the company finally appears to be ascending back toward business success through an overhaul of its once famed culture of safety first. For starters, just this week Boeing announced it delivered 55 planes to customer airlines in September — the highest number for the month since 2018. That wasn’t all.
The company also said it’s looking to increase output of its best-selling 737 Max to 42 aircraft per month, up from the 38 monthly rate allowed under the production cap the FAA imposed after the Alaska Airlines incident. That’s part of Boeing’s wider return to manufacturing form, which it confirmed today with the additional news it delivered a total of 440 commercial planes to customers during the first nine months of 2025. It also inked gross orders for 96 planes in September, bringing its running total for 2025 to 870 craft.
That’s the result of an ongoing Boeing workplace revolution of culture, employee attitudes, and manufacturing procedures. That required the company to revamp its assembly and safety inspection processes, and also forced executives to regainthe trust of floor workers. Many of those employees were subjected to scorn, retaliation, and even dismissal for alerting superiors to production flaws they’d seen in planes, or reporting dangerously shoddy assembly practices.
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That continuing reform effort is feeding the new, virtuous cycle of business activity Boeing reported this week. It’s also generating cash the company badly needs after losing nearly $12 billion since 2024 — and a whopping $36 billion since 2019. It also appears to have halted the succession of what appeared to be near-death developments following the 2024 Alaska Airlines side panel blowout.
A critical moment in the turnaround drive came in August 2024, when the Boeing board tapped aviation industry veteran Kelly Ortberg to take controls of the nosediving company. In doing so, Ortberg focused on restoring the manufacturing giant’s former culture of industrial and safety excellence that had been lost in recent decades.
That occurred as C-suite executives prioritized profitability and shareholder dividends over other considerations — including spending the time and money to fix aircraft flaws employees had reported. It also involved selling off suppliers of essential aircraft components that had long been integrated into Boeing’s manufacturing and assembly operation.
The new signs that Ortberg’s internal reform campaign is bearing fruit comes at a critical time for the wider airline industry, too. Many carriers complain of having to pare back or delay expansion plans because of a shortage of new planes.
Indeed, about the only good news Boeing had received since the 737 Max side panel blowout was Airbus’s inability to fully capitalize on the turbulence rocking its American competitor. Enduring post-pandemic disruptions in the European consortium’s supply chain limited its production capabilities, even as Boeing’s own output was reduced by the FAA cap.
But despite the continued improvements, Boeing still has a way to go before returning to top form.
Its 440 plane deliveries so far this year are still lower than the 568 aircraft it handed off to customers during the same period in 2018 — when the company’s real problems began. That year the crash of one of its 737 Max planes killed 189 people aboard, and sparked investigations that revealed the manufacturer’s shocking disregard for reported safety lapses.
Then, in 2019, a second 737 Max operated by Ethiopian Airlines crashed, resulting in 157 deaths. Additional fallout and damning revelations that arose after that accident continued battering Boeing’s reputation for safety, and fueled increasingly miserable financial results. With the 2024 Alaska Airlines incident looking like it could become the coup de grâce, the company’s board replaced the management veteran it appointed in 2020 with the trained engineer and aviation sector executive Ortberg.
The turnaround at Boeing since Ortberg’s arrival has been dramatic. But the key to keeping that progress going will be convincing the FAA that the company’s internal safety revamp has advanced enough to increase the 737 Max production cap to 42 jets per month. During comments made at a Morgan Stanley investor conference last month, Ortberg seemed confident getting the regulator’s approval was within reach soon.
“I think we’re pretty aligned,” Ortberg said, according to CNBC. “We’ve got to get this final metric stabilized … (and we’re) planning to be producing at 42 a month by the end of the year.”
Awaiting that, Boeing got still more good news this week — this time from Europe.
In another step forward in the company’s reform drive, European Union regulators approved the company’s planned $4.7 billion reacquisition of fuselage manufacturer Spirit AeroSystems, which was previously an integrated part of Boeing’s business and manufacturing structure.
But the unit was sold off in 2005 under the drive by executives at that time to generate cash and reduce costs by outsourcing production. They then applied relentless pressure on those newly independent suppliers to speed output and reduce prices eating into Boeing’s bottom line.
Ortberg clearly viewed that decision as a bad move in both industrial and strategic terms. As a result, even as it struggles to return to profitability, Boeing is now corralling considerable finances to reintegrate Spirit AeroSystems — and promising doing so will both streamline production and improve quality control.
“We will never compromise on safety. When staffing constraints arise, the FAA will slow down air traffic at impacted airports to ensure operations remain safe,” FAA spokesperson Hannah Walden tells WIRED, adding that Transportation secretary Sean Duffy “said that air traffic controllers who report to work will be paid. Regarding reductions in force (RIFs), DOT has been clear for months: safety critical positions—including air traffic controllers—have and will continue to be exempt from any RIFs.”
In a written statement, a spokesperson for the TSA said of employees working without pay: “It’s unfortunate they have been put in this position due to political gamesmanship. Our hope is that Democrats will soon recognize the importance of opening the government.”
On Thursday, Duffy suggested on Fox Business News that controllers and other workers who don’t come to work during the shutdown would be fired. “If we have a continual small subset of controllers that don’t show up to work, and they’re the problem children … if we have some on our staff that aren’t dedicated like we need, we’re going to let them go,” said Duffy.
One air traffic controller described this week’s working conditions as “pretty much the same” but with “an undercurrent of fear that the dipshits in charge will use this as an excuse to decertify our union and take away all bargaining rights.”
Air traffic workers know that accusations of coordinated activity and sick-outs, or informal labor actions that could violate long-standing bargaining agreements with the government, are especially perilous right now, as federal officials threaten the status of public sector unions. The Trump administration suddenly ended TSA workers’ collective bargaining agreement in March, before a court preliminarily halted the move in June. Workers worry that taking an absence, even when it’s needed, could have long-term consequences for their union—and therefore, their working conditions.
The National Air Traffic Controllers Association did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment. But a pop-up on the public union’s website notes that it “does not endorse, support, or condone any federal employees participating in or endorsing a coordinated activity that negatively affects the capacity” of the National Airspace System.
Jones, the TSA agent and union leader, says his group won’t organize sick-outs. But employees may have to call out if the lack of pay means “they don’t have the means to commute into work,” he says.
“We are sick and tired of being political pawns for Washington,” adds Jones.
While core national security operations continue, the government shutdown is eroding critical support systems. Aviation safety, cyber defense and interagency coordination are strained, increasing the risk of preventable security failures.
While the government shutdown continues, core national security missions are still operating. Counterterrorism and counterintelligence cases continue to be processed. Border security, airport screening, the Coast Guard and other front-line Homeland Security units remain on duty.
But the structure beneath that surface is deteriorating. The support systems that keep these missions resilient are thinning, and the risk of an avoidable failure is rising.
Aviation is the clearest warning sign.
Air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration screeners are working without pay and in short-staffed facilities. The result is growing sick calls, widespread delays, mounting overtime and growing fatigue. Fatigue is a well-known amplifier of safety risk.
This is not a hypothetical concern. It is an operating environment where error margins are shrinking.
Cyber defense is more vulnerable today than it was a week ago. With a large share of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency furloughed, 24-hour monitoring, incident response surge capacity and sector information sharing are reduced.
Adversaries often strike during periods of political distraction. This is one of those times.
A major intrusion or ransomware incident is more likely to spread farther and faster while CISA is understaffed.
At the Justice Department, the National Security Division and priority prosecutions are moving forward. Supporting functions are curtailed. Analytics, training and travel are limited. That slows the system’s ability to move leads across agencies and jurisdictions.
Federal courts are open, for now, on nonappropriated funds, but that buffer is temporary.
The Defense Department’s uniformed operations are steady. The strain falls on the civilian backbone. Furloughs slow maintenance, training cycles, testing and acquisition.
Readiness does not collapse in a day; it decays when the factory of preparedness is idle.
Homeland Security personnel are very active, but oversight and policy units are thin. Specialized cyber teams face the same staffing shock as the broader civilian cyber enterprise. Over time, compliance checks and interagency planning will erode.
The personnel risk is immediate.
Uncertainty over back pay is pushing essential workers into financial stress. Stress fuels absenteeism and attrition in critical posts. The longer the shutdown lasts, the higher the odds of a preventable security lapse. The front line has not vanished, but the scaffolding around it is coming apart.
The longer the shutdown continues, the deeper the nation’s adversaries can burrow into the seams of vulnerability. And the seams inside the U.S. are many and clearly exploitable.
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The Denver Board of Ethics has cleared Denver International Airport CEO Phil Washington of using his position for private gain when he flew himself and eight other executives to Madrid on a spring trip that cost about $18,000 per person.
But the board members said in a written decision that even if Washington technically followed city policy, they were “appalled” by the amount of money he approved spending for an aviation conference — and by his “seemingly cavalier attitude in responding to this complaint.”
The decision, issued Friday, came five months after CBS News Colorado revealed the cost of the tickets and other travel expenses after filing a request under the Colorado Open Records Act. Soon after the story came out in May, someone anonymously filed an ethics complaint about the report.
“While the Board of Ethics believes that officers, officials, and employees of the City and County of Denver should be better stewards of public funds, the Board must apply the facts to the law as it stands,” according to the ruling document.
In an interview with the board’s executive director, Washington said he wouldn’t have allowed the purchase of the airline tickets if he knew how much they would cost, according to the decision. But the board found that when Washington approved the expenses, the estimates he saw were mostly in line with the actual costs.
“Mr. Washington’s statement that he was unaware of the actual costs of the airfare is concerning,” the members wrote in the statement.
The airport’s travel policy allows employees to fly business class on flights longer than eight hours, and on this trip all nine flew business or first class. The group’s round-trip flights ranged in price from about $9,300 each for three officials to nearly $19,200 for the airport’s chief operating officer, Dave LaPorte. Washington’s flights cost about $12,000.
The board also took issue with Washington saying it was a “once in a lifetime opportunity” to attend the Passenger Terminal Expo and Conference, since it happens annually. Washington said the higher-class seats were necessary so that the executives could “hit the ground running” when they arrived, even though almost none of them had speaking engagements until one to two days after they arrived in Madrid.
The board found that Denver Mayor Mike Johnston’s Chief of Staff Jenn Ridder also approved the estimated expenses but said she was compelled to do so because the costs came from the airport’s own budget, rather than the city’s general fund. The airport operates off revenue it generates, including from airlines and passengers.
Washington described the three-day conference, which began April 8, as an opportunity to learn from the “best in aviation” and a chance to bring ideas back to Denver.
The Board of Ethics is an independent agency established by the city charter that investigates ethics complaints and issues opinions on ethical responsibilities.
About 10,000 Air Canada flight attendants have voted down the employer’s wage offer that the union and airline agreed to last month but another walkout is not expected.
Flight attendants at Air Canada wrapped up voting Saturday on a tentative new contract, with 99.1% voting down the airline’s wage offer.
The airline says the wage portion will now be referred to mediation as previously agreed to by both sides.
“Air Canada and CUPE contemplated this potential outcome and mutually agreed that if the tentative agreement was not ratified, the wage portion would be referred to mediation and, if no agreement was reached at that stage, to arbitration,” the airline said in a statement.
“The parties also agreed that no labor disruption could be initiated, and therefore there will be no strike or lock-out, and flights will continue to operate.”
The Air Canada component of the Canadian Union of Public Employees says most terms would still form part of a new collective agreement with the airline, with the exception of the wage issue.
Air Canada restarted operations on Aug. 19 after reaching an agreement with the union for 10,000 flight attendants to end a strike that disrupted the travel plans of hundreds of thousands of travelers. The walkout impacted about 130,000 travelers a day at the peak of the summer travel season.
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PORTSMOUTH, N.H. — After a 13-year hiatus, the Navy’s Blue Angels has touched down for two shows this weekend at Pease Air National Guard Base.
“There is something about seeing these blue and gold F-18s ripping through the sky,” said Herb Gillen, producer of the “Thunder Over New Hampshire Air Show”.
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PORTSMOUTH, N.H. — After a 13-year hiatus, the Navy’s Blue Angels has touched down for two shows this weekend at Pease Air National Guard Base.
“There is something about seeing these blue and gold F-18s ripping through the sky,” said Herb Gillen, producer of the “Thunder Over New Hampshire Air Show”.
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Vaughn, a longtime Beverly resident, had been a crew member on a Lockheed P-3 maritime patrol plane stationed out of Brunswick, Maine, during the Vietnam War. He flew off the coast of Vietnam searching for, and finding, enemy submarines.
SUNY Schenectady and Federal Aviation Administration Sign Agreement for College to Join Enhanced Air Traffic-Collegiate Training Initiative (AT-CTI) Program
SCHENECTADY, N.Y., May 30, 2025 (Newswire.com)
– SUNY Schenectady County Community College and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) have signed an agreement for SUNY Schenectady to become the next school in the Enhanced Air Traffic-Collegiate Training Initiative (AT-CTI) program. SUNY Schenectady is only the sixth college or university across the country, and one of only two community colleges, that the FAA has authorized to provide the same thorough curriculum and advanced training technology offered at the agency’s Academy in Oklahoma City.
The Enhanced Initiative was created to allow qualified institutions to provide their students with equivalent FAA Academy Air Traffic Control curriculum and training. Graduates of the Enhanced AT-CTI offered at SUNY Schenectady, with FAA oversight, could be placed directly into a facility, if hired as Air Traffic Control Specialists. This means that students who graduate from the SUNY Schenectady program and pass the FAA-proctored Air Traffic Skills Assessment (ATSA) are able to bypass six months of training at the FAA site in Oklahoma City and can start working in an FAA tower. In addition to passing the ATSA, these graduates must meet medical and security requirements.
According to the FAA, “The program will increase the controller training pipeline and ensure graduates have the necessary skills to begin immediate facility training.”
Dr. Steady Moono, College President, said, “SUNY Schenectady is proud to be at the forefront of responding to a critical, national need for qualified Air Traffic Controllers by partnering with the FAA on the new Enhanced AT-CTI program. This is an extraordinary opportunity for students to gain the same rigorous curriculum and training that the FAA provides at the Academy in Oklahoma City. We welcome students from across the country as they train to begin their careers in the Air Traffic Control industry. I would like to extend my sincere appreciation to Senator Chuck Schumer who called on the FAA to include SUNY Schenectady in its Enhanced AT-CTI program, noting that the College was uniquely qualified and ready to create a pipeline of students to enter this high-paying career and address the nationwide shortage.”
New York Senator Chuck Schumer said, “Prepare for takeoff to better address the air traffic controller shortage because the FAA just approved SUNY Schenectady to join their prestigious Enhanced Air Traffic-Collegiate Training Initiative. As airports continue to struggle with the national air traffic controller shortage, I pushed to have Schenectady join this competitive program because they have proven themselves to be a leader in aviation training uniquely capable of helping equip students with the skill they need to enter this career. SUNY Schenectady’s air traffic controller training program is ready to create a local pipeline of students to enter this high-paying field tasked with protecting the safety of our skies. I’m thrilled the FAA heeded my calls and is helping the next generation of air traffic controllers reach new heights right here in the Capital Region. I commend SUNY Schenectady President Dr. Steady Moono and the college’s Aviation Program’s leadership for this new milestone and a continued high standard of training of our next generation of controllers.”
Gary Hughes, Chair of the Schenectady County Legislature, added, “We’re grateful to Senator Schumer for his steadfast support of SUNY Schenectady and his efforts to address the national shortage of air traffic controllers. The FAA’s designation highlights the strength of our Aviation Science and Air Traffic Control degree programs, which equip students with hands-on, career-ready training. With the College’s new Enhanced status, students will have even more pathways to success-including the opportunity for direct placement into an air traffic control facility-and will help keep our skies safer across the country.”
Graduates of the program earn their A.A.S. degrees in Air Traffic Control. SUNY Schenectady first began offering the degree program in ATC in 2012 and in January 2025 the College unveiled its new Air Traffic Control simulator, the largest and most comprehensive at a community college east of the Mississippi River.
The FAA-approved SUNY Schenectady ATC Simulator features:
Three ATC Tower stations for ultra-realistic training
Seven 75″ monitors for 215 degrees of complete tower immersion
Four radar TRACON stations for multi-training scenarios and realism
ATSpeak which reinforces radar, tower, ramp, pilot, and airside driver phraseologies
Seven Remote Pilot stations for real human-voice responses and pilotage
FAA Academy Curriculum for the BEST in ATC Training
In addition to the ATC degree program, SUNY Schenectady offers an A.S. degree in Aviation Science: Pilot and an Aviation Science: Non-Pilot Administration and Management degree through the Division of Business and Professional Programs, among the College’s 60 degrees, certificates, and microcredentials.
SUNY Schenectady is now accepting applications for the Enhanced AT-CTI program at www.sunysccc.edu/apply. Please contact the Office of Admissions at 518-381-1366 or admissions@sunysccc.edu for more information on how to apply.
Images of SUNY Schenectady’s Air Traffic Control simulator and captions are available here.
LONG BEACH, Calif., November 4, 2024 (Newswire.com)
– Nearly 3,000 of the top airline industry decision-makers, including representatives from 90 airlines, walked the industry’s most comprehensive show floor, APEX/IFSA Global EXPO 2024. Co-located with Future Travel Experience (FTE) the record-breaking event featured 262 exhibitors across three shows representing the full spectrum of the passenger experience.
Attendees experienced cutting-edge airline-related technologies, products, and services, such as advanced in-flight connectivity, next-generation in-flight entertainment (IFE) systems, innovative food and beverage offerings, sustainable amenity kits, biometric solutions, airport robotics, and much more.
“APEX/IFSA Global EXPO 2024 stood as a remarkable convergence of aviation’s brightest minds, where game-changing innovations and in-flight service advancements were not only discussed but realized,” APEX/IFSA CEO Dr. Joe Leader stated. “With three days of airline-driven thought leadership on best-in-class supplier solutions, we introduced a new level of collaboration to advance passenger-centric technology. Additionally, the integrated, all-in-one show floor featured key elements of the passenger experience, bridging from Future Travel Experience airport to in-flight, showcasing the best in the aviation industry.”
Industry-First Announcements
At the APEX/IFSA Global EXPO 2024, Thales and Qatar Airways made an industry-first public announcement: Qatar Airways will equip its new Airbus A321 NX fleet with Thales’ FlytEDGE, a Cloud-native IFE platform. This collaboration introduced the Crystal Cabin Award-winning FlytEDGE IFE server, which utilizes Cloud computing technologies and an open software platform to enhance the passenger experience.
Separately at the APEX/IFSA Global EXPO 2024, Riyadh Air and Panasonic Avionics launched a strategic partnership to transform in-flight entertainment. Riyadh Air will equip its fleet with Panasonic’s high-definition IFE systems, emphasizing seamless connectivity and personalized content. In a pioneering move, Riyadh Air introduced the industry’s first “no handset” philosophy across all classes of service, allowing all passengers to seamlessly control IFE using their smartphones and touchscreen.
Exclusive Insights from C-Suite Keynotes
At the APEX/IFSA Global EXPO, attendees had an exceptional opportunity to hear from leading airline CEOs and executives as they delivered keynote speeches that reshaped understanding of passenger service and the future of the travel experience. These industry leaders shared invaluable insights into how airlines were innovating to enhance customer satisfaction, streamline operations, and adapt to evolving passenger needs. Sessions were moderated by BBC News Correspondent & Anchor Michelle Fleury and Dr. Joe Leader. Speakers included:
Michael Rosseau, President and Chief Executive Officer, Air Canada
Matthew Klein, Executive VP and Chief Commercial Officer, Spirit Airlines
Fiona Kiesel, Chief Guest Officer, Breeze Airways
Samson Arega Bekele, Group Vice President Customer Experience, Ethiopian Airlines
Thought Leadership Conference Brings Together Top Industry Leaders
Knowledge sharing and expert insights continued as part of the Thought Leadership Conference, sponsored by Panasonic, on the tradeshow floor which brought together leading figures from the aviation industry to discuss emerging trends and critical challenges. An overview of the sessions is as follows:
Seth Miller of PAXEX.AERO led a discussion on connectivity models and their impact on airline net promoter scores with Xia Cai of Qatar Airways, Matthew Klein of Spirit Airlines, and Alex Wilcox of JSX.
Ingo Wuggetzer of Airbus was joined by Delta Flight Products’ Tyler Anderson Lennert, National Disability Authority and Center for Excellence in Universal Design’s Jack Kavanagh, and PriestmanGoode’s Jo Rowan to collectively present a cross-industry approach to develop solutions for air travel for those with mobility impairments.
Miguel Ferreira of TAP Air Portugal, Blake Rittenberg of JetBlue, and Dominic Green of United Airlines joined a panel led Maryann Simson of Jetway Communications to discuss forward-looking strategies and creative curation approaches intended to revolutionize the IFE landscape by 2030.
Oren Butansky of EL AL and Nick Ewen of The Points Guy along with Mark Muren of United Airlines and Captain Wirush Theparak, Thai Airwaysexplored strategies to maximize in-flight ancillary revenue through personalized passenger experiences, leveraging data and technology to boost loyalty and profitability.
Stephan Schulte of Lufthansa Group and Joshua Hirschheimer of Porsche Consultingfocused on overcoming persistent supply chain challenges affecting onboard product innovation.
Riyadh Air’s Anton Vidgen, Aeroméxico’s Antonio Fernandez, Cathay Pacific’s Guillaume Vivet, Southwest Airlines’ Matthew Kiesel, and Delta Air Lines’ Ekrem Dimbiloglu joined a debate moderated by Jetway Communications’ Maryann Simson, on the future of in-flight entertainment preferences between traditional seatback screens and the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) trend.
Duncan Jackson of FlightPath3D with Ekrem Dimbiloglu of Delta Air Lines unveiled the first airline launch of FlightPath3D’s accessibility in in-flight maps, detailing how the innovative Accessibility Map aims to improve the travel experience for passengers with unique needs.
Lufthansa Group’s Laura Petry and Spafax’s Dimitrios Tsirangelos explored the Connected Content Stream solution, a Crystal Cabin Award finalist, that not only enhance passenger engagement but are also set to transform the travel experience by delivering real-time content updates and personalized services directly to passengers’ devices.
Mehdi El Kouch of Airbus, Fabien Pelous of Air France, Patrick Brannelly of Emirates, Paul Verhagen of SAS, and Mustafa Mucahitoglu of Turkish Airlines joined a panel moderated by Robynne Trueman of PAX Tech that analyzed groundbreaking digital innovations for the next-gen airline cabin, demonstrating how cutting-edge technologies and customer-centric design can reshape passenger experiences.
VIP Experiences: The JetZero Experience
The APEX/IFSA Global EXPO also offered airline professionals access to exclusive VIP events such as The JetZero Experience on Sunday 27 October. JetZero, a pioneering aerospace startup based in Long Beach, showcased their innovative blended-wing body airplane capable of flying trans-oceanic routes and with up to 50% less fuel consumption than a traditional tube-and-wing aircraft. APEX/IFSA airline members and media were given a first-hand look at JetZero’s revolutionary airplane with a walkthrough of JetZero’s cutting-edge facility and discussions with the visionary team behind this aviation breakthrough.
APEX/IFSA Awards Ceremony Highlights Excellence in the Airline Industry
On the last day of the APEX Global EXPO, top airline and supplier members celebrated their peers during the prestigious APEX/IFSA Awards Ceremony, where airlines were recognized for their efforts to enhance the passenger experience over the last year. Hosted collectively by Dr. Joe Leader, BBC News’ Michelle Fleury and The Points Guy’s Nicky Kelvin, the evening honored outstanding airlines and suppliers in the following categories:
2025 World Class Rating: The top 10 airlines in the world awarded in this category achieved the highest audited international standards beyond APEX Five Star™in safety, sustainability, service, and inclusiveness. Click here for the 2025 recipients.
2025 APEX Five Star™ and APEX Four Star™ Airline Awards: These airlines were recognized based on verified passenger feedback via TripIt over 1 million flights, representing the most reliable metric for passenger satisfaction. Click here for the 2025 recipients.
2025 APEX Best In Airline Awards: Recognizing the global airlines providing the best passenger experiences in Cabin Service, Entertainment, Food & Beverage, Seat Comfort & Wi-Fi as voted on by the passengers. Click here for the 2025 recipients.
2025 APEX/IFSA Awards: Celebrating the best of industry and innovation, APEX/IFSA Awards recognize the new achievements and initiatives that were successfully implemented in the past year. Click here for the 2025 recipients.
APEX CEO Lifetime Achievement Award: Dr. Joe Leader presented Air France-KLM Group CEO, Benjamin Smith, with the APEX CEO Lifetime Achievement Award. Through the industry titan’s visionary leadership, Air France-KLM has excelled in all its commercial, operations, and customer service functions, leading to impressive financial performance and taking the airline’s passenger experience to new heights. Click here for more information.
APEX Lifetime Achievement Award: Dr. Joe Leader also presented SVP of Non-Theatrical Sales at Paramount Pictures, Joan Filippini, with the APEX Lifetime Achievement Award at the APEX/IFSA Awards Ceremony. Her leadership revolutionized in-flight entertainment content distribution, driving Paramount’s revenues to unprecedented levels. Click here for more information.
The 2025 APEX/IFSA Awards Ceremony, which took place during this year’s APEX/IFSA Global EXPO, was sponsored by gategroup and Thales, and in part by BBC News, Blulabs, Formia, Jetliner Cabins, Paramount Pictures, Safran, and Touch.
About the Airline Passenger Experience Association (APEX)
As a global non-profit and one of the world’s largest international airline associations, APEX accelerates the industry with the backing of nearly every major airline and valued supplier. APEX reinvests all its resources to serving its members, strengthening the worldwide airline industry, advancing thought-leadership, fostering business opportunities via events, developing global initiatives, setting key airline standards, and highlighting well-deserved recognition across our industry. In conjunction with both the International Flight Services Association (IFSA) and Future Travel Experience (FTE), APEX serves the full spectrum of the end-to-end travel experience.
About the International Flight Services Association (IFSA)
The International Flight Services Association (IFSA) is a global professional association serving the needs and interests of airline and railway personnel, caterers and suppliers who provide onboard services on regularly scheduled travel routes. Under the umbrella of APEX (Airline Passenger Experience Association) serving every major airline in the world, IFSA is dedicated to the advancement of the art and science of the multi- billion dollar in-flight and railway onboard service industry. For more information about IFSA, please visit ifsa.aero, or follow IFSA on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
LONG BEACH, Calif., October 31, 2024 (Newswire.com)
– Yesterday, the aviation industry celebrated the outstanding contributions to passenger experience by its member airlines and suppliers over the past year at the APEX/IFSA Awards Ceremony. This illustrious event in Long Beach, California, hosted by the Airline Passenger Experience Association (APEX) and the International Flight Services Association (IFSA), saw individuals, airlines, and suppliers at the top of the industry rewarded for their dedication to service excellence and innovation.
Recognitions and honors celebrated during the APEX/IFSA Awards Ceremony included:
APEX CEO Lifetime Achievement Award: Dr. Joe Leader presented Air France-KLM Group CEO, Benjamin Smith, with the APEX CEO Lifetime Achievement Award. Through the industry titan’s visionary leadership, Air France-KLM has excelled in all its commercial, operations, and customer service functions, leading to impressive financial performance and taking the airline’s passenger experience to new heights. Read the release here.
APEX Lifetime Achievement Award: Dr. Leader also presented SVP of Non-Theatrical Sales at Paramount Pictures, Joan Filippini, with the APEX Lifetime Achievement Award at the APEX/IFSA Award Ceremony. Her leadership revolutionized in-flight entertainment (IFE) content distribution, showcasing Paramount as a name that is as known in the sky as it is on the ground. Read the release here.
APEX Top 100 Airlines: A Global Standard of Excellence: Powered by TripIt, the world’s leading travel management app, APEX proudly recognized the top 100 airlines, setting new benchmarks in passenger experience. Based on millions of flight reviews, these elite airlines are pioneering innovation and redefining air travel worldwide.
2025 APEX World Class: Achieving a Five-Star rating is commendable but APEX World Class™ distinguishes itself through an intensive audit process conducted by Yates and Partners. The highest echelon of airline excellence, the World Class Awards are awarded to the top 10 airlines that lead the industry in safety, sustainability, service, and inclusiveness, based on extensive audit and customer assessment. The 2025 APEX World Class airlines are ANA, Emirates, KLM, Japan Airlines, Oman Air, Qatar Airways, Singapore Airlines, Turkish Airlines, and Xiamen Airlines. Read the release here.
2025 APEX Five Star™ and Four Star™ Airline Awards: The APEX Five Star™ and Four Star™ Airline Awards are the only global awards based on neutral, third-party passenger feedback, rated and certified by an external auditing company. To maintain the exclusivity of the ratings this year, the criteria was tightened, limiting the APEX Five Star™ to the Top 40 airlines globally and the APEX Four Star™ category to the next 50 airlines. Together with the Top 10 APEX World Class airlines, these represent the Top 100 Airlines for passenger experience. Click here for the 2025 APEX Five Star™ and 2025 APEX Four Star™ Airline Award recipients.
APEX World Class™ Lounge Awards audited by YATES+: Building off the original APEX World Class, YATES+ and the Airline Passenger Experience Association (APEX) launched the APEX World Class™ Lounge Awards audited by YATES+ in September 2024. This pioneering program stands as the world’s first dedicated audit and recognition initiative specifically designed to elevate the global airport lounge guest experience. The 2025 APEX World Class™ Lounges are Japan Airlines First Class Lounge Haneda Internal Airport (Tokyo), Japan Airlines First Class Lounge Narita International Airport (Tokyo), Oman Air Business Lounge Muscat International Airport, The Pearl Lounge, Bahrain International Airport.
2025 APEX Best™ in Airline Awards: These awards recognize the airlines delivering the best passenger experiences in Cabin Service, Entertainment, Food & Beverage, Seat Comfort & Wi-Fi as voted by the passengers across more than 600 airlines globally via TripIt®. The following airlines were selected by passengers as the top global airlines in their respective categories: Delta Air Lines for Best Wi-Fi, Qatar Airways for Best Food and Beverage (presented in conjunction with IFSA), Qatar Airways for Best Seat Comfort, Singapore Airlines for Best Entertainment, and Xiamen for Best Cabin Service. Virgin Atlantic was also awarded 2025 APEX Best™ in Europe Award for Overall Airline. Click here for more information on the regional winners.
APEX/IFSA Awards: Celebrating the best of industry and innovation, APEX/IFSA Awards recognize the new achievements and initiatives that were successfully implemented in the past year. The entries were first reviewed and scored by a panel of judges comprised of current APEX/IFSA members. The finalists were then judged during the EXPO by a panel of media judges.
2025 APEX AWARD WINNERS:
JSX – Innovation Award for Best Inflight Connectivity
Lufthansa – Innovation Award for Best Inflight Entertainment
2025 APEX/IFSA AWARD WINNER:
Qatar Airways – Innovation Award for Best Cabin
2025 IFSA AWARD WINNERS:
Delta Air Lines with Formia – Best Onboard Amenity
Virgin Atlantic – Best Inflight Food or Beverage
Click here for more information on the APEX/IFSA Awards.
The 2025 APEX/IFSA Awards Ceremony, which took place during this year’s APEX/IFSA Global EXPO, was sponsored in part by BBC News, Blulabs, Formia, gategroup, Jetliner Cabins, Paramount Pictures, Safran, Thales, and Touch. Nicky Kelvin, Editor at Large of The Points Guy, was the Master of Ceremonies.
For more information on the APEX Award Ceremony and photos of all the awards given out, please visit apex.aero and follow APEX on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
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About the Airline Passenger Experience Association (APEX) As a global non-profit and one of the world’s largest international airline associations, APEX accelerates the industry with the backing of nearly every major airline and valued supplier. APEX reinvests all its resources to serving its members, strengthening the worldwide airline industry, advancing thought leadership, fostering business opportunities via events, developing global initiatives, setting key airline standards, and highlighting well-deserved recognition across our industry. In conjunction with both the International Flight Services Association (IFSA) and Future Travel Experience (FTE), APEX serves the full spectrum of the end-to-end travel experience.
About the International Flight Services Association (IFSA) The International Flight Services Association (IFSA) is a global professional association serving the needs and interests of airline and railway personnel, caterers and suppliers who provide onboard services on regularly scheduled travel routes. Under the umbrella of APEX (Airline Passenger Experience Association) serving every major airline in the world, IFSA is dedicated to the advancement of the art and science of the multi-billion dollar inflight and railway onboard service industry. For more information about IFSA, please visit ifsa.apex.aero, or follow IFSA on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
For decades, it was the only way to visualize global time and daylight before the internet. Despite the company changing hands and moving from California to Oregon, then to Colorado Springs, Colorado, the Geochron has remained a niche product with a passionate fan base. Only a handful of skilled technicians can craft these complex timepieces, and its limited production has kept it an exclusive item rather than a mass-market success.
Today, Bolan’s passion for the Geochron still shines: He has expanded to digital offerings in the hope of ensuring this anachronistic timepiece stays relevant in a world driven by data and convenience. During the pandemic, Bolan took the show on the road, riding his BMW RT motorcycle around the lower 48 to visit a Geochron owner in every state. That trek let him put faces to purchase orders, giving Bolan better insight into clock’s small but fervent fanbase.
Though the timing didn’t align, one of the potential visits was with the owner of Long Island Watch, Marc Frankel, whose Geochron will look familiar to anyone who views his YouTube videos. Frankel, who trained as an aerospace engineer, is quick to point out not just that he has a Geochron but also the intricacies of a device that accurately captures the sun’s analemma, its figure-eight path in the sky.
Frankel first encountered the clock in a Sharper Image catalog, which was very much in line with the clientele Geochron had targeted for decades. “Then I saw it in Hunt for Red October, and I was like, ‘Oh my God!’—and I know Reagan had one as well,” Frankel says. “I love the map of the sunlight curve and how, over time, through the orbit of the planet, the sun hits it. It just changes, and that’s amazing to me. I looked into getting something that could mimic it, but a screensaver for 99 cents wasn’t mechanical enough for me. So, I ponied up the few grand, and it’s been with me ever since.”
Frankel draws parallels between the Geochron and an automatic watch: While a 99-cent screensaver, or an Apple Watch, can show you all the same information and so much more, the mechanical nature of a Geochron and a self-winding watch tickles some nerdy fiber. To Frankel, that mechanical nervous system keeps the Geochron relevant.
