Pilots report pressure to extend working hours and fears of penalties for declaring themselves unfit to fly

Three in four European airline pilots have taken microsleeps in the cockpit, while almost a quarter routinely fly despite being too fatigued to work, according to a report.

The findings, based on a survey of almost 7,200 captains and first officers by the European Cockpit Association (ECA), include pilots reporting insufficient rest, pressure to extend working hours and fears of being penalised for declaring themselves unfit to fly.

When stomach bugs meet turbulence, air travel can become a health hazard for all onboard – and it happens, unfortunately, ‘more regularly than you would think’

A little over an hour into their transatlantic flight, Kate Carson’s daughters had just lain down to sleep when suddenly their Air New Zealand “cuddle class” skycouch became a “nightmare” scene.

A stomach bug that had been troubling their family during the holiday reared its head again: her youngest, three years old, started throwing up. “The first time, she was asleep, and no one saw it coming, and it went all into the seat … down the side and into the crack,” Carson says.

Conflict in Middle East is pushing jet fuel costs higher and many carriers are not hedged against such increases, Michael O’Leary says

Ryanair’s chief executive has predicted a record increase in European air fares next year, as airlines grapple with fuel bills pushed higher by the Middle East conflict.

Many carriers are not hedged against rising jet fuel costs, Michael O’Leary said, which he predicted would lead to airline bankruptcies and takeovers. He forecast these pressures would result in the price of plane tickets rising by as much as 20%.

Capt Smit Machchhar said he screamed for help as he reached to open the cockpit door on flight FZ1073

The captain of a flydubai flight who was attacked by a co-pilot who intended to crash the plane has described ⁠blocking axe blows to his head and screaming for help as he reached to open the cockpit door.

Capt Smit ⁠Machchhar has been hailed ⁠as a ​hero for his role in averting disaster on the flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv last month, helping to thwart what the UAE ⁠attorney general has said was an attempted suicide attack by the co-pilot who had intended to crash the plane into Ben Gurion airport.

As the planet warms, airlines are grappling with what this means for air travel – and for the passengers who simply refuse to keep their seatbelts fastened

It was a swelteringly hot afternoon in south-west Myanmar on 21 May 2024. Tropical thunderstorms, showers and highs of 36C were forecast for the area around the Irrawaddy Basin. High above, monsoonal heat and humidity were building into a vast convective column of water vapour, a towering cumulonimbus cloud soaring up to 35,000ft (more than 10,500 metres) into the air. From the ground, it would have looked like something from a children’s picture book – a soft, fluffy white mass. But for Singapore Airlines flight SQ321 passing just above, it was anything but benign.

In the cabin of the Boeing 777, passengers were being woken up for breakfast with three hours to go on the journey from London to Singapore. For the 210 travellers on board, the past 10 hours had been uneventful. The seatbelt signs were off. Some were milling around, others were using the toilets, and cabin staff were preparing trolleys for service. At 2.19pm and 23 seconds local time, moderate turbulence shook the plane for 17 seconds and the seatbelt sign was switched on. Then, as one passenger described it, it was “like a grenade had gone off”. In just 4.6 seconds, any passenger not strapped in hit the roof with 1.5 times the force of gravity and was thrown back on the floor in an instant.

Actor experienced a ‘medical emergency’ on flight during which she allegedly injured crew members, statement says

Actor Selma Blair did not mean to hurt anyone during the recent flight which led to her arrest on allegations that she assaulted a pair of cabin crew members, a police officer and a nurse, her representatives said on Friday in a statement that characterized the episode as a medical emergency.

The lengthy statement also dismissed prior media coverage of Blair’s arrest after a Delta Air Lines flight from Los Angeles to New York as unsympathetic and inaccurate, singling out reporting from several outlets alleging that she tried to open the door of the airplane that she and her fellow passengers were on.

Chancellor says government will study responses to public consultation, with airports being ‘big part of jobs and growth’

John Healey has said there is a pro-growth case for going ahead with a third runway at Heathrow despite the prime minister declining to back it.

Healey’s predecessor as chancellor, Rachel Reeves, put approval of the long-planned runway at the heart of her “growth speech” last year, saying it would “make Britain the world’s best-connected place to do business”.

Aircraft taken out of operation after flight from Perth after the discovery of parasitic insects on board

Qantas has been forced to ground a plane in Rome after bedbugs were discovered on the aircraft on its way from Perth.

The parasitic insects were found in the front of the economy section of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner as it made its way from Perth to Rome for the QF5 flight on 9 October, a source with knowledge of the incident confirmed on Tuesday.

Donald Trump evaluating whether US should join Saudi strikes against the Iran-backed Yemeni rebels

The latest attack on the international airport in Saudi Arabia’s capital of Riyadh killed 12 people and injured more than 300 others, civil aviation authorities said early on Sunday, with some in a critical condition. A Saudi-led coalition blamed Iran-backed Houthi rebels in neighbouring Yemen.

A missile struck a King Khalid international airport complex housing terminals 3 and 4 for domestic flights, a regional official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorised to speak to the media.

Hammam al-Hammami is believed to have been targeting the passenger terminal at Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv

The co-pilot who tried to seize control of a passenger jet flying from Dubai to Tel Aviv last week was planning to launch a suicide attack targeting the passenger terminal at Israel’s international airport, prosecutors in the United Arab Emirates said on Friday.

Hammam al-Hammami attacked the plane’s Indian pilot with an emergency axe, but failed to prevent his badly injured colleague from opening the cockpit’s security door to allow passengers to overpower his assailant.

British Airways Boeing abruptly lost altitude over Ireland due to ‘technical issue’ and returned to Heathrow

A flight from London to Chicago declared an emergency after a sudden and steep descent of 28,000 feet over Ireland and was forced to turn back to Britain.

British Airways flight BA295 was bound for Chicago’s O’Hare airport but after a “technical issue” during which oxygen masks were deployed from the ceiling, the plane landed safely back at London Heathrow.

Police and security agencies in multiple countries scramble to piece together background and intentions of Hamam al-Hammami

Investigators believe the co-pilot who tried to take control of a plane from Dubai to Tel Aviv last week originally planned his attack for July but postponed the hijacking, possibly because a friend was among the crew, regional and Israeli officials have said.

The evidence of prior planning suggests that Hamam al-Hammami, 29, may have specifically sought employment with an airline that flew to Israel in order to carry out the attack on last Wednesday’s flydubai ‌flight FZ1073, experts believe.

A third runway would fly in the face of reason. If we are to prioritise human life over short-term ‘growth’, we need to use planes less, not more

If a third runway is built at Heathrow, what will be the impact on the wealth of the nation? It will cost us somewhere between £23.4bn and £62.5bn. These are not my figures; they weren’t calculated by environmental groups, but by the Department for Transport.

For decades, government ministers have told us that airport expansion is essential for “growth”. As chancellor, Rachel Reeves claimed that a third runway at Heathrow would add 0.43% to GDP, figures we later discovered came from a report commissioned by the airport. The transport department’s own analysis concluded that the real addition to GDP would be between 0.03% and 0.05%: eight to 14 times less. Against this, it weighed the social and environmental costs of the project, to reveal a massive net loss. It found that a third runway would cause major harm to the health and wellbeing of up to 3 million local people.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

Attorney general says ‘terrorist attack’ was attempted by suspect who is said to have been barred from flying by Oman because of extremist views

The co-pilot of flydubai flight FZ1073 used an axe to attempt to carry out a “terrorist attack” during the Israel-bound flight, the United ⁠Arab Emirates prosecutor general has said.

Disaster was narrowly averted on Wednesday when passengers and crew intervened to stop the co-pilot’s attempt to take control of the plane, which had 182 people onboard and plunged 16,625ft in just over 30 seconds. The descent was so extreme that part of the rudder was ripped off.

Experts sceptical flydubai co-pilot’s only motivation was to end his own life and say key question is means of radicalisation

At about 9.30 on Wednesday morning local time, Tali Manes was taking her six-year-old daughter, Nina, to the toilet on the regular flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv when she heard a series of heavy blows against the cockpit door.

Manes, an Israeli bank executive, immediately told a flight attendant seated nearby that something was wrong. When he did not react, she shouted at him: “Something is happening in there!” Seconds later, the man “simply went to the [cockpit] door and opened it”, Manes told Israel’s Channel 12 TV.

Smit Machchhar says in video call with Indian PM that he realised if he did not get up ‘passengers would lose their lives’

The Indian pilot who helped thwart an apparent attempt to crash a flydubai flight to Tel Aviv said his faith and his desire to save his passengers allowed him to make a “last push” to open the cockpit door as he fought for his life.

Capt Smit Machchhar, who was recovering in an Abu Dhabi hospital, described to India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, how he helped save the plane and its more than 170 passengers.

Planned rule change forms part of Burnham’s bid to crack down on the ‘little charges that add up’

Airlines will be blocked from charging parents extra to sit with their children on planes, according to government plans.

The new rule would require airlines to seat passengers aged under 14 next to their parents or an accompanying adult free of charge. Passengers will also no longer need to pay to tweak the name on their flight booking if they need to correct a mistake.

Alleged flydubai attacker interrogated by Saudi security services as investigation into apparent crash attempt opens

The Omani co-pilot who stabbed his captain in an apparent attempt to crash an Israel-bound flight from Dubai had previously undergone radical Islamist indoctrination and was suicidal, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has claimed.

Israeli passengers intervened to stop the attack on Wednesday, restraining the co-pilot, while a reserve crew in the plane was able to stabilise the plummeting plane and ultimately land it safely in Saudi Arabia.

On morning service from Dubai to Tel Aviv, 150 passengers witnessed a horrific cockpit assault and a daring rescue

• Pilot who stabbed co-pilot on Israel-bound plane may have tried to crash it, says Netanyahu

As flight FZ 1073 soared west over the waters of the Gulf towards Israel, its passengers may have bemoaned a 20-minute delay at takeoff. For a low-cost airline route, flydubai’s daily service to Tel Aviv is usually convenient and reliable. The nonstop flight takes about three and a half hours and departs early enough from Dubai that it usually lands at Ben Gurion airport at about 9am local time.

That was not the case for Wednesday’s catastrophic flight. The passenger jet never made it to its scheduled destination. Instead, it dropped thousands of feet in seconds before limping down to make an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia – perhaps miraculously, since photos suggested a large part of the tail of the aircraft was missing.

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Netanyahu said one of the FlyDubai pilots stabbed his fellow pilot and intended to crash the plane.

He added that one of the passengers on the flight managed to break into the cockpit with one of the crew members, and together they “neutralised” the attacking pilot.

Almost all the passengers on the flight were Israelis. During the flight, as they were approaching Israel, one of the pilots stabbed the other pilot, and it appears he was attempting to crash the plane with everyone on board.”