US Department of Transportation secretary Sean Duffy has confirmed in a post on social media platform X that the federal government has "let go" of fewer than 400 employees at the Federal Aviation Administration. "Here's the truth: the FAA alone has a staggering 45,000 employees," Duffy writes in a 17 February X post. "Less than 400 were let go, and they were all probationary, meaning they had been hired less than a year ago. Zero air traffic controllers and critical safety personnel were let go." Duffy adds that previous US transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg "chose to use this amazing department – that is so critical to America's success – as a slush fund for the green new scam and environmental justice nonsense". David Spero, national president of the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists (PASS), AFL-CIO, stated on 15 February that the union is "troubled and disappointed by the administration's decision to fire FAA probationary employees PASS represents without cause nor based on performance or conduct". He notes that several hundred FAA employees on the evening of 14 February began receiving termination emails "sent from an 'exec order' Microsoft email address, not an official .gov email address". "These employees were devoted to their jobs and the safety critical mission of the FAA," Spero says. "This draconian action will increase the workload and place new responsibilities on a workforce that is already stretched thin." US senator Maria Cantwell, ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, states that "now is not the time to fire technicians who fix and operate more than 74,000 safety-critical pieces of equipment like radars, navigational aids and communications technology". Cantwell adds: "The FAA is already short 800 technicians and these firings inject unnecessary risk into the airspace – in the aftermath of four deadly crashes in the last month. The FAA's safety workforce needs to be a priority for this administration." The Democratic senator from Washington state on 6 February had sent a letter to Duffy criticising what she says is his "intention to involve Elon Musk in the FAA's safety systems or process". She adds in the letter: "FAA has the legal responsibility for safety oversight of companies with commercial space transportation licences. Elon Musk's SpaceX rocket launches share the airspace with commercial airplanes, and the FAA has the responsibility for keeping the entire airspace safe. SpaceX has been fined by the FAA for failing to comply with specific requirements in its launch licence. "Mr Musk, in turn, called for the firing of Mike Whitaker, the FAA administrator who the Senate confirmed 98-0 because the FAA issued a fine against SpaceX for not following the rules. We have ethics and recusal laws for a reason – to prevent corporate interference in protecting the public interest." Cantwell notes in the letter that the federal government is "now without a permanent FAA administrator to lead us through the biggest US air crash we have had in years" – a reference to the fatal mid-air collision on 29 January of a PSA Airlines MHIRJ CRJ700 and a US Army Sikorsky H-60 Black Hawk helicopter. Whitaker on 20 January stepped down as FAA administrator, a departure that coincided with the day of Donald Trump's second inauguration as US president. Trump subsequently named former FAA employee Chris Rocheleau acting administrator of the regulator.

British Airways will acquire Boeing's hangar facility and MRO business at London Gatwick airport. The IAG-owned carrier says it is establishing a new wholly owned engineering subsidiary named British Airways Engineering Gatwick (BAEG) to join its existing UK engineering operations in South Wales and Glasgow. The staff employed by Boeing at the facility will be transferred to the new subsidiary, subject to consultation, in the second quarter of this year, adds BA. It aims to recruit additional employees and grow this new facility at Gatwick in the longer term. Taking over the Boeing facility will enable it to continue to carry out minor maintenance on Boeing 777s at the airport, says BA. This increased capacity will allow the airline to in-source some scheduled heavy-maintenance work on its Airbus A320 and A321 fleet. Additionally, it will boost its capacity to carry out unscheduled repair work, as well as, BA foresees, providing additional maintenance resilience and relieving capacity challenges at other locations across its network. Carrying out more 777 and A320 and A321 maintenance at Gatwick will reduce the need to ferry these aircraft to other operational bases, supporting sustainability goals, adds BA.

Eurocontrol data shows that four of the top five busiest air routes that touched Europe last year were to or from London, underlining the UK capital's importance to the continent's air flows. Across the air traffic manager's coverage region, which stretches from Georgia in the east to Iceland in the North Atlantic, the Dublin-London route was the busiest one, with an average of 91 daily flights through 2024. The route between the Irish and UK capitals was the 27th busiest route globally. In the European ranking, it was followed by London-Amsterdam (84), Antalya-Istanbul (69), and London-New York and London-Edinburgh (both on 65). Eurocontrol notes that Amsterdam-London was the 37the busiest route globally, but its average of 84 daily flights is down from 105 in 2019, when it was the busiest European route. The air traffic manager attributes this to improved rail links between the two cities. Globally, Asia dominates the busiest city pairs, with 45 of the 100 busiest routes, led by Jeju-Seoul in South Korea with an average of 226 daily flights. This is followed by Melbourne-Sydney (157), Rio-Sao Paulo (152), Sapporo-Tokyo (147) and Fukuoka-Tokyo (137), the same top five as in 2023. New York featured in the highest number of top 100 city pairs (13), followed by Tokyo (eight) and London (seven). Separately, Eurocontrol says that across the week of 3-9 February traffic in Europe by number of flights was up 5% on last year, at nearly 25,000. Overall, year-to-date network air traffic is at 95% of 2019 levels.