US National Transportation Safety Board chair Jennifer Homendy has notified lawmakers that Boeing was unable to identify the staff who'd worked on the Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 door plug that separated from the aircraft in flight in January. "To date, we still do not know who performed the work to open, reinstall, and close the door plug on the accident aircraft," Homendy writes in a 13 March letter to the US senate committee on commerce, science and transport. "Boeing has informed us that they are unable to find the records documenting this work." The NTSB requested access to security-camera footage that might show detail of the door plug's installation during rivet repair work at Boeing's Renton facility in September 2023, prior to the aircraft's delivery. But Homendy says the investigators were told that the footage had been overwritten. "The absence of those records will complicate the NTSB’s investigation moving forward," she adds. Boeing says that video recordings are maintained on a rolling 30-day basis, "consistent with standard practice". The NTSB identified the door crew manager but was advised that the person was on medical leave. An attorney for the manager informed the NTSB that the person would not be able to provide a statement or interview to investigators, citing medical issues, says Homendy. Boeing did provide a list of all staff who reported to the manager in September. The NTSB had requested this to "help inform our efforts to uncover who may have been involved with, and who may have information on, the opening, reinstallation, and closure of the door plug on the accident aircraft". The list did not identify which personnel conducted the door plug work, however. When during a subsequent phone call Boeing chief executive Dave Calhoun was asked for names of staff who worked on the door plug, "he stated he was unable to provide that information and maintained that Boeing has no records of the work being performed", says Homendy. The NTSB is not seeking the employees' identities for punitive purposes, but to learn about Boeing's quality assurance processes and safety culture, she stresses. "Our only intent is to identify deficiencies and recommend safety improvements so accidents like this never happen again. "I have become increasingly concerned," she adds, "that the focus on the names of individual front-line workers will negatively impact our investigation and discourage such Boeing employees from providing NTSB with information relevant to this investigation." The NTSB will use its "authority to protect the identities of the door crew and other front-line employees who come forward with information relevant to the investigation [and] continue to actively encourage anyone who can provide our investigators with information. "For the public to perceive the investigation as credible, the investigation should speak with one voice – that being the independent agency conducting the investigation," Homendy writes. "Releasing investigative information without context is misleading to congress and the public and undermines both the investigation and the integrity of the NTSB." Boeing states: "We will continue supporting this investigation in the transparent and proactive fashion we have supported all regulatory inquiries into this accident. We have worked hard to honour the rules about the release of investigative information in an environment of intense interest from our employees, customers, and other stakeholders, and we will continue our efforts to do so." In its preliminary investigation about the 5 January accident, the NTSB last month presented a photo of the closed door-plug, immediately before interior restoration work, which showed that retainer bolts for the plug were missing in three out of four locations.

German leisure carrier Condor has retired its last Boeing 767-300ER aircraft. For its final commercial flight, the aircraft, registered D-ABUK, took off from Havana, Cuba at 22:05 local time on 11 March and arrived at Frankfurt airport on 12 March, the carrier says. Condor adds that D-ABUK will no longer be part of its AOC from mid-April 2024. The aircraft is expected to take off on 16 April "with a Condor cockpit via Bangor to Goodyear, where it will be handed over to the lessor", it notes. "The Boeing 767 was successfully operated by Condor for over 30 years. The most recently retired D-ABUC even holds the Boeing record for flight hours of this type," Condor's chief operating officer Christian Schmitt says. "With the advances in technology, product and sustainability, the modernisation has now become necessary." Condor received its first three 767-300ERs in July 1991. Since 2022, the airline has phased out a total of 16 767s and replaced them with Airbus A330neos.

Cathay Pacific has delayed its full passenger capacity recovery by three months to the first quarter of 2025 from the end of this year, as it seeks to address manpower shortages after a spate of flight cancellations over Christmas and Lunar New Year. “We have learned the lesson and will continue to adopt a prudent and measured approach in rebuilding our flights and therefore have made some slight adjustment to that timeline,” says chief executive officer Ronald Lam during a 13 March earnings briefing, adding that it is not a “very significant delay” and is “still in line with global peers”. The group will require 3,400 pilots to achieve pre-pandemic passenger flight capacity, says chief operations and service delivery officer Alex McGowan. Cathay Pacific and HK Express combined have about 2,900 pilots, he goes on to say, which means the group will have to train 500 more in the year ahead. The priority, for now, is to reduce the pilot attrition rate, which McGowan says has normalised from a high of 22% in 2022. “For the full year 2023, it normalised to pre pandemic levels at 5%. And so far this year, pilot turnover has been below 2% – that's the lowest on record,” he states. When asked about future flight cancellations, Lam is confident that it will not “see a similar situation [happening] again”. Cathay Pacific announced in early January that it would cancel an average of a dozen flights daily till the end of February, as it sought to minimise disruption over the Lunar New Year holidays. Prior to that, the carrier had cancelled dozens of flights over the Christmas holidays. Lam stresses that “our service is very stable now” and that its flight cancellation incidents are past, adding that for "the rest of January and February, including CNY and March, our operation was very reliable and stable". At the briefing, Cathay Pacific chair Patrick Healy declined to give a specific profit guidance for the year but alludes that “the trend is pretty clear”. Healy says Cathay’s strong results were driven by a “unique environment” as global imbalance between supply and demand drove up yields. However, as global capacity increases, he expects the imbalance to diminish and for yield to “normalise” throughout the year. “Where that lands exactly, what that means for us... nobody knows at this point, and we're certainly not in any position to give any specific guidance on that, but I think the trend is pretty clear already.” The group ended the year with 230 aircraft in its fleet, with more than 70 jets on order and additional rights to secure up to 52 more. In 2023, the group announced an order of 32 more Airbus A320/321neos, with rights to secure 32 more. The order is on top of its existing order of 32 A321neos. It also ordered six A350 freighters and rights to secure 20 more in the same year.
The group said in January that it was mulling options for new orders of mid-sized widebody planes. McGowan says the campaign is still in “early stages” and is looking at the order to be “three or four years between now and delivery”. He calls it “a medium-haul campaign or a regional replacement campaign”, adding that it’s looking for aircraft that can serve the region effectively but also “leg stretch operations” such as to Australia and Europe. In terms of fleet movements, fleet size will largely remain stable over the next two years, with deliveries mostly matching aircraft exits due to operating leases expiring. In 2024, the group is set to take deliveries of 11 aircraft. Cathay is set to receive four A320neo family jets, while HK Express is set to take deliveries of seven A321neos, with the first delivered in February. Operating leases on 11 aircraft are also set to expire this year, covering three Cathay-operated Boeing 777-300ERs, four HK Express A320ceos and four Air Hong Kong A300-600Fs. In 2025, another seven new aircraft are set to join the fleet – two 777-9s for Cathay’s fleet and five more A321neos for HK Express. Eight leases are set to expire that year: two A330-300s and two 777-300ERs in Cathay’s fleet, one HK Express A321ceo and three Air Hong Kong A330-600Fs. The lease expirations on Air Hong Kong’s ageing A300-600Fs will see their complete exit from the fleet over the two years, which the group is set to replace them with “six second-hand A330Fs”, enabling its fleet to remain mostly stable at 15 at least through to 2025.