The Federal Aviation Administration is ordering airlines to replace fuel manifolds on some GE Aviation GEnx-2B67 engines, which power Boeing 747-8s, due to the risk of an engine fire.

An airworthiness directive that takes effect on 4 January comes in response to an engine fire caused by "low-cycle fatigue cracking of the fuel manifold".

The order requires airlines to replace the manifolds during the next shop visit.

The issue affected 424 GEnx-2B engines worldwide, but GE already issued a service bulletin and only 140 engines still require fixes, the company says.

Those 424 engines compose the bulk of engines on the worldwide in-service fleet of 123 747-8s and 747-8Fs, according to Flight Fleets Analyzer.

European Union politicians have moved a step closer to tightening up regulations governing the thorny subject of ensuring fair competition for air transport within the bloc.

The European Parliament says its negotiators and those of the European Council reached a provisional agreement on 20 November on rules to “ease” the process for opening investigations into unfair practices.

These rules could be used to identify cases where it is suspected that competition is being distorted in a way that "cause injury or threaten to cause injury" to EU-based air carriers.

These include providing subsidies to own airlines,"preferential access" to airport services or "unfair pricing" by non-EU country airlines. They also set out the procedures for "redressive measures".

Airlines, unions and regulators are working to understand the 737 Max's flight systems while unions uncover seeming errors in emergency "runaway stabiliser" checklists.

The work comes amid reports that the US industry was unaware Boeing had equipped the 737 Max with a new system that has been linked to the 29 October crash of a Lion Air 737 Max 8.

"We are working at an extraordinarily positive pace to share information," says a spokesperson for the Allied Pilots Association (APA), which represents pilots at American Airlines, a 737 Max operator.

"We are looking at differences between the Max and the non-Max aircraft" in an effort to understand nuances in stall prevention and notification systems, the union adds.