ICAO Secretary General Dr. Fang Liu was in Beijing earlier this week, where she provided remarks to a special closing ceremony for the ICAO Civil Aviation Authority Senior and Middle Managers Training Course conducted there.

Global airline body IATA called on Thursday for steps to reduce the risk of rogue drone operations including a registry of higher caliber drones, bigger fines, and jail sentences after flights were grounded at London's Gatwick airport.

The British airline easyJet cancelled all its Gatwick flights on Thursday after drones flying near the airport grounded flights and said the disruption is expected to continue into Friday.

Heathrow Airport was hit by its own travel chaos earlier today, after a day of cancellations and confusion at Gatwick.

The European Union is close to striking air traffic agreements with Qatar and a group of countries in southeast Asia, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

British Airways announced on Tuesday it will resume flights to Pakistan next summer, in a major vote of confidence from a Western airline a decade after suspending operations due to security fears.

Flying Colours Corp. the maintenance, refurbishment and completion specialist, has completed the industry's first trio of Bombardier Challenger 650 medevac interiors. Number three, under contract from Bombardier Specialized Aircraft, was completed in December and has already arrived at Swiss Air-Rescue Rega's base in Switzerland alongside the first two aircraft which were completed earlier this year. The third jet replicates the format of the first two cabins and is kitted out to meet the needs of demanding medevac operations.

Embraer has announced the signing of a contract with the Government of Kiribati, in partnership with their national airline, Air Kiribati, for two firm orders for the E190-E2 E-Jets and two purchase rights for the same model. With all purchase rights being exercised, the contract has a value of USD 243 million, based on current list prices. The order will be included in Embraer's 2018 fourth-quarter backlog.

Embraer celebrates the delivery of its 1,500th E-Jet, an E175, to Seattle-based Horizon Air, a wholly owned subsidiary of Alaska Air Group, Inc. Horizon Air's E175 is configured with 12 seats in first class, 12 in premium class and 52 in the main cabin. By the end of the year, Horizon will have a fleet of 26 E175 with four more jets scheduled for delivery in 2019.

Strategies to ensure that sufficient numbers of competent aviation professionals are available to operate, manage and maintain the global air transport system in the coming decades received a major boost last week, with new agreements and initiatives being forged during ICAO's Second Next General of Aviation Professionals (NGAP/2) Global Summit, hosted by the Shenzhen Municipal People's Government of Guangdong Province, the Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and Beihang University.