Lufthansa has suspended services across its network following an IT failure at its Frankfurt hub which has left many systems "not working". In a short statement, the airline says operations have been grounded and that passengers should expect disruption to services and check-in. It attributes the problem to "construction work in the Frankfurt region", adding: "We are working on a solution swiftly." Passengers travelling domestically in Germany are advised to rebook onto train services and apply for refunds.

The US Federal Aviation Administration will launch a safety review team to find ways to avoid near collisions between jets at airports, while the agency also faces pressure to accelerate the modernisation of its Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system and prevent safety-related halts to air traffic. “I have formed the safety review team to examine the US aerospace system’s structure, culture, processes, systems and integration of safety,” acting FAA administrator Billy Nolen said on 15 February during a hearing of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. “Recent events remind us that we cannot become complacent and that we must continually invest in our aviation system.” Recent “close calls” between aircraft that lawmakers referred to during the hearing included a near collision on 4 February between a Southwest Airlines flight and a FedEx Express aircraft at Austin-Bergstrom International airport.Despite new procedures to add redundancy to the NOTAM system, Nolen says he cannot guarantee the agency can prevent another outage similar to the nationwide grounding on 11 January. “Could I sit here and tell you there will never be an issue on the NOTAM system? No, sir, I cannot,” Nolen said in response to a question asked by senator Ted Cruz during the hearing. “What I can say is we are making every effort to modernise and look at our procedures,” Nolen adds. The FAA on 11 January halted departing flights for nearly two hours due to an outage to its NOTAM system, which the agency says originated when a contractor “unintentionally deleted files” during an update to that system that provides pilots with real-time information on flight hazards and restrictions. The brief grounding of flights across the US national airspace resulted in a cascade of 1,300 flight cancellations and more than 9,500 flight delays for numerous airlines. Since that incident, the FAA now requires “a synchronisation delay to ensure that bad data from a database cannot affect a backup database”, Nolen says, adding that at least two people must now be present to improve oversight during database updates. Democrats and Republicans on the committee both agreed the FAA should accelerate its modernisation efforts to ensure safety and efficiency. During the hearing Cruz, the committee’s ranking Republican, expressed concern that “a single screwup” could ground all US air traffic. The FAA in response to the outage seeks ways to accelerate the modernisation of its NOTAM system, Nolen says, insisting that “a significant portion of the modernisation work will be complete by mid-2025”. Demanding a more secure redundancy, the committee’s chair senator Maria Cantwell during the hearing told Nolen: “I want to get an answer within a week about the NOTAM system having a separate backup, a totally separate backup that could be used.”. The FAA faces a backlog implementing new rules, many of which were mandated years ago by Congress. Scrutiny of the safety procedures and the NOTAM system have added relevance as Congress plans its latest FAA reauthorisation bill to set funding and priorities for the agency. The current legislation enacted in 2018 expires on 30 September.

South African company Comair Limited, which ceased airline operations last year, has filed a lawsuit against Boeing in US federal court, seeking $83 million in damages and accusing the airframer of fraud and breach of contract related to a deal for eight 737 Max jets. Comair, which moved to cancel its Max order after two fatal crashes led regulators around the world to ground the aircraft for safety reviews, accuses Boeing of having "refused to return the advanced deposits on the seven aircraft it never delivered". It adds in its 6 February filing to a US district court in Seattle that it had "paid Boeing more than $45 million in advanced payments on seven 737 Max aircraft and full payment on the one 737 Max aircraft it received", and argues: "Comair suffered additional damages as a result of the grounding of its 737 Max for a total loss of more than $83 million." Boeing declined to comment. Comair began liquidating its assets in June 2022, after shuttering operations at the end of May. It had been conducting franchise services on behalf of British Airways and low-cost carrier Kulula. Boeing admitted to "conspiring to defraud the United States" as part of a January 2021 deferred prosecution agreement with the US Department of Justice. This pertained to a criminal charge accusing the airframer of defrauding the Federal Aviation Administration during safety certification of the Max. The DOJ in its statement on the deal said Boeing had admitted to "deception" of the FAA regarding the Max's Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) implicated in the two accidents. Boeing agreed to meet certain conditions in exchange for immunity from criminal prosecution. Comair has filed a civil lawsuit against the airframer. The Comair suit joins other cases related to Boeing's certification of the Max with the FAA and the fatal crashes. The prospect of criminal charges resurfaced in October 2022 when US district judge Reed O'Connor of the Northern District of Texas ruled that Boeing had through deception of the FAA "directly and proximately harmed" the 346 people who died in the two crashes. Those people and their families could therefore legally be considered "crime victims", O'Connor ruled. A ruling published by O'Connor on 9 February, however, states that while the DOJ violated crime victims' rights law in negotiating a plea deal with Boeing, his district court lacks the "statutory authority to supervise, or substantively review and reject" that federal immunity deal. "Boeing's crime may properly be considered the deadliest corporate crime in US history," O'Connor states in the ruling, adding that Congress may be the appropriate venue to address the DOJ's immunity deal. "This court has immense sympathy for the victims and loved ones of those who died in the tragic plane crashes resulting from Boeing's criminal conspiracy," adds O'Connor. The DOJ in court filings opposes attempts to void the deferred prosecution agreement with Boeing, stating that it "would impose serious hardships on the parties and the many victims who have received compensation". Paul Cassell, the attorney representing crash victims' relatives, is arguing felony charges against Boeing on their behalf. The relatives plan to appeal their case to the US Fifth Circuit court of appeals, Cassell says, arguing that the DOJ violated crime victims' rights by not including the relatives during the department's negotiations with Boeing "We are optimistic our appeal will vindicate the families' rights in this case and ensure that never again are deals like this one reached secretly and without victim involvement," Cassell says. The DOJ had not opposed a ruling by O'Connor that ordered a Boeing representative to appear during an arraignment on 26 January. The airframer filed a not guilty plea against criminal charges during that court appearance. In response to O'Connor's ruling on 9 February, Boeing shared a statement it gave following the arraignment. "We are deeply sorry to all who lost loved ones on Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Flight 302," Boeing says. "We will never forget the lives lost in these accidents and their memory drives us every day to uphold our responsibility to all who depend on the safety of our products. We have made broad and deep changes across our company, and made changes to the design of the 737 Max to ensure that accidents like these never happen again. We also are committed to continuing to comply scrupulously with all of our obligations under the agreement we entered into with the Justice Department two years ago." Testimony at the 26 January hearing included a joint statement by the father, mother and twin sister of Andrea Manfredi, who died on the Lion Air flight. The statement referred to their refusal of a $5 million settlement offered to them by Boeing and accused the company of trying to avoid accountability. "We would happily not take a dollar from them if it meant the executives all going to jail for what they did," they said. O’Connor's ruling also denies requests by LOT Polish Airlines and Czech carrier Smartwings to be declared as crime victims in the felony case against Boeing. LOT had in October 2021 filed a separate civil lawsuit against Boeing in US district court in Seattle. The carrier accused the airframer of fraud and sought $250 million in damages related to revenue that it claimed was lost due to cancellations and disruptions to its fleet plan during the grounding of Max aircraft, along with the costs incurred while storing those grounded jets. The Polish airline stated that it had lease agreements for 14 Max aircraft by the time of the grounding in March 2019. Five had been delivered and could not be operated during the grounding. Smartwings also has an ongoing civil lawsuit against Boeing in US district court in Seattle, again accusing the airframer of fraud related to Max orders. The Czech airline in its June 2021 court filing states it had received seven Max jets as of March 2019 and was scheduled to receive dozens more through lease and purchase agreements in a shift to an all-Max fleet. The carrier is seeking "direct, incidental and consequential damages" from Boeing, including the refund of $833,332 given to the airframer as an advance payment. A jury trial in the Smartwings case is scheduled for 13 November and could take 10-14 days, a court order states. Smartwings has seven Max 8s in service and 11 more on order, fleets data shows, while LOT has seven Max 8 jets in service and four in storage.