Dutch carrier KLM will reportedly suspend 270 flights to the Netherlands after the country’s government imposed new requirements to try to stem the spread of the coronavirus. Various media reports on 20 January that the Amsterdam-based airline will stop operating all of its intercontinental flights as well as some connections between the Dutch capital and other European destinations starting on 22 January. European flights cancelled include those connections where the carrier’s crew must spend a night. “We cannot run the risk of our staff being stranded somewhere. This is why we are stopping all intercontinental flights from Friday & all flights to European destinations where crew members have to spend the night”, KLM reportedly tells Dutch media. Attempts to reach the airline independently were not immediately successful and the airline had not posted an update on its website. On social media, numerous customer questions to the airline about this decision went unanswered. The airline’s official Twitter account responded that the carrier is “awaiting further information”. KLM does not operate domestic services due to the small geographic size of its home country. The Netherlands have been in a lockdown since mid-December, with schools, the hospitality industry and retail stores selling non-essential items closed. On 20 January the government recommended stricter measures to mitigate continued spread of the coronavirus, including a curfew and a temporary ban on flights to South Africa, South American countries and the United Kingdom. It also requires passengers bound for the Netherlands from abroad take a rapid test prior to departure as well as a standard PCR test upon arrival.

The new US administration of President Joe Biden is requiring face coverings be worn on flights for the next 100 days, in a more rigorous attempt to contain exploding coronavirus case counts across the country. On 20 January, Biden signed an executive order called the “100 Days Masking Challenge,” which requires face masks to be worn on all federal property, including national parks, and during interstate travel on public transportation by air, land or sea. It was one of his first official acts after his inauguration earlier in the day. In addition, he is asking state and local leaders as well as business executives to implement mask-wearing in their areas of responsibility. Airlines have been clamoring for such a federal mandate for months, saying it would add weight and enforcement to the mask requirement that US airlines have already implemented. Pilots’ union Air Line Pilots’ Association, International (ALPA) says on 20 January that it supports the president’s move. “Voluntary implementation leaves too much risk of Covid-19 exposure for frontline aviation workers,” the organisation says on its Twitter feed. While most air travellers comply with mask rules, US airlines have had to ban hundreds of passengers for various unruly behaviour that includes refusal to wear face coverings since the coronavirus pandemic’s initial lockdowns in March 2020. Last week, the FAA said that it had seen “a disturbing increase” in disruptions to flights in the past weeks. FAA Administrator Steve Dickson signed an order, in effect through 30 March, enforcing a more stringent policy against passengers who create a disturbance on aircraft that could lead to a safety hazard for aircraft, crew or other customers.

Europe’s safety regulator will next week approve the return to service of the Boeing 737 Max when it releases its final airworthiness directive (AD) for the troubled twinjet. Speaking during a media roundtable on 19 January, Patrick Ky, executive director of the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), said that once the AD was published “the Max will be cleared to fly again from our perspective”. However, operators will need to ensure that the relevant changes to the aircraft have been made, notably updates to the flight-control system and the controversial Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) software, plus alterations to wiring. In addition, pilots will need to undergo training to familiarise themselves with MCAS and its possible failure, Ky adds. MCAS was a significant contributor to both fatal 737 Max crashes after it erroneously activated – triggered by faulty Angle-of-Attack (AoA) sensors – and repeatedly pushed the nose of the aircraft down until their crews lost control. A combined 346 people were killed in the crashes in October 2017 and Mach 2018. EASA published its draft AD in November, with comments closing at the turn of the year. Changes over that version are mostly focused on phrasing, rather than introducing new requirements, Ky says. He stresses that in order to recertificate the Max, the agency had to be certain that four conditions were met: that the causes of the two crashes were fully understood; that the factors which contributed to the accidents were solved; that certain previously undeclared “safety critical components” were approved by EASA; and that pilots were properly informed and trained “on the Max and all the changes and modifications that have been made”. “We are confident that those four prerequisites have been met,” says Ky. The Max has been grounded in Europe since March 2019. Although EASA identified ”safety critical components” that it “did not see as part of the first certification”, it does not blame a lack of “transparency” on the part of the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for this oversight. Rather, says Ky, “the way we were organised meant we did not have the information”. That has led the agency to change its approach to future certifications, he says. He says that the main difference in recertification requirements for the 737 Max between Europe – and Canada – and the USA is the ability to disable the stick-shaker warning if pilots are certain that they understand the cause of an angle-of-attack (AoA) sensor fault. Otherwise, he says, the crew would have to perform the remainder of the flight “with the stick continuing to kick for one or two hours”. Although consideration was given to mandating equipping the Max with a third AoA sensor, Ky says that was discounted following consultation with Boeing and the FAA. “The overall architecture or design of the aircraft is coming from the 1970s so it is not that easy to add new electronic components or sensors in such an architecture,” he says. Installing a third sensor onto the aircraft “would have been extremely difficult”, he says. As a compromise, Boeing will develop a “synthetic sensor” which will help to calculate the true AoA figure in the event of a disagreement between the two external probes. This will make its debut in the 737 Max 10 from 2022 and will then be retrofitted into the in-service fleet. The safety of the system has been reviewed by EASA test pilots and human factors specialists, plus “normal airline pilots”, says Ky. European carriers that took delivery of the 737 Max prior to its grounding include Icelandair, LOT, Norwegian, SmartWings and TUI. Meanwhile, EASA is working on the certification of the high-density Max 8-200 which has been ordered by Irish carrier Ryanair. Approval is due “in the coming weeks”, says Ky, clearing it for operation during the summer season.