Alan Levin
Amazon’s Drone Delivery Fleet Hits Milestone With FAA Clearance
Amazon's Prime Air delivery drone is unveiled during an event in Las Vegas in June 2019. The FAA has granted the company approval to begin trailing drone deliveries. (Joe Buglewicz/Bloomberg News)
Retail behemoth Amazon .com Inc. took a big leap toward delivering goods from the sky by becoming one of only a handful of companies certified by the U.S. government to operate as a drone airline.
August 31, 2020FAA Puts Boeing Max on Path to Return to Service in October
A Boeing Co. 737 max aircraft performs a flying display on the second day of the Farnborough International Airshow 2016 in Farnborough, U.K. in 2016. (Simon Dawson/Bloomberg News)
U.S. aviation regulators announced an important milestone in returning Boeing Co.’s grounded 737 Max jet to service, an event one person familiar with the process said would happen no earlier than October.
July 21, 2020FAA’s Failure to Cull Bad Pilots Cited in Fatal Atlas Crash
A plane silhouetted in the sky. (SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg News)
The fatal crash of a cargo plane last year was caused in part by the failure of the U.S. federal government to establish a reliable system of weeding out unqualified airline pilots, investigators concluded.
July 14, 2020FAA Concludes Three Days of Test Flights of Boeing’s 737 Max
A Boeing 737 Max 7 jet flies during a demonstration in the U.K. in 2018. (Simon Dawson/Bloomberg News)
Testing of the 737 Max jetliner’s revised flight-control systems by U.S. regulators and Boeing Co. wrapped up July 1, laying the foundation for the plane’s possible return to service later this year.
July 2, 2020Driverless Car Industry Gets a Nudge on Standards, Transparency
Vehicles sit in rush hour traffic at an interchange in Los Angeles. (Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg News)
Hundreds of driverless cars have been tested in locations across the U.S. in recent years, but standards are inconsistent and in a handful of cases there have been accidents and even a death.
June 15, 2020Alphabet’s Drone Delivery Service in Virginia Sees Surge During Pandemic
An Alphabet Wing drone delivers a package at home during a demonstration in Blacksburg, Va., in 2018. (Charles Mostoller/Bloomberg News)
Alphabet Inc.’s Wing unit is seeing a dramatic increase in the number of customers using its drone delivery service in rural Virginia during the COVID-19 pandemic.
April 8, 2020US Air Travelers Dip Below 100,000 in Worst-Ever Free Fall
A mostly empty security area at San Francisco International Airport on April 2. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg News)
Almost every day over the past three weeks the number of people flying in the U.S. has reached a record low as the pandemic kept people home. But on April 7, the levels crossed a stark dividing line: fewer than 100,000 people.
April 8, 2020Airlines Ordered to Refund Cost of Flights Canceled by Virus
A traveler wearing a protective mask and gloves checks in at the Delta Air Lines counter at San Francisco International Airport on April 2. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg News)
Airlines must fully refund airfare to passengers whose flights have been canceled during the outbreak of COVID-19, the U.S. Transportation Department ordered on April 3.
April 3, 2020House Republicans Explore Aid for Airports, Loans to Airlines
Stephen Dickson, FAA administrator, speaks during a House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hearing on Dec. 11, 2019. The FAA awarded $3.2 billion to airports in 2019. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg News)
House Republicans say they are exploring a range of proposals — from loans to grants for cleaning airports — to help the aviation industry staggering under the weight of the coronavirus outbreak.
March 16, 2020FAA to Begin Certification Process for Civilian, Delivery Drones
Alphabet's Project Wing conducts example flights of their drone delivery system in Virginia in August 2018. (Charles Mostoller/Bloomberg News)
Government regulators plan to review drone designs in the same way they review other aircraft, a major step toward allowing routine drone deliveries and other flights over congested cities.
February 4, 2020