Aviation

The Turkish Foreign Ministry has dismissed accusations from the Russian Defense Ministry, which accused Ankara of breaching the Open Skies Treaty by refusing to allow a reconnaissance plane to fly over Turkish territory near Syria. 

The Athens International Airport set a new traffic record with 1.1 million passengers in January, up 11.9% from the same month last year, representing the highest January figure ever recorded, it announced on Tuesday.

A predator drone belonging to the U.S. military crashed in a field after taking off from the ?ncirlik Air Base in the southern province of Adana early on Feb. 3.

Pilot Vladimir Vodopivec on February 2 managed to safely land a commercial aircraft after an explosion ripped off a part of its fuselage near the right wing.

Daily Blic said the pilot is a 64-year-old Belgrader who in the past worked for Serbia's Jat Airways and Montenegro Airlines, and now flies for Daallo Airlines.

The Irish low-cost airline Ryanair announced on Tuesday that it will be operating two new daily winter services from the Bulgarian capital to Rome Ciampino and Milan Malpensa starting from October 30.

With the latest two additions, the winter 2016 schedule of Ryanair will deliver six new routes from Sofia.

Until Jan. 29, elementary military technology described a Russian Su-24 aircraft as a supersonic, all-weather bomber developed in the Soviet Union, and a Su-34 as a jet designed for tactical deployment against ground and naval targets on solo and group missions with counter-fire and electronic warfare counter-measures.

A bomb threat on a plane which was about to leave Faro airport in Portugal’s southern region of Algarve for Lisbon was evacuated early on Tuesday, a spokesman for the country’s flag carrier TAP said.

Russia is due to conduct observation flights over Turkish territory on Feb. 1-5, under the framework of the Treaty on Open Skies, the Turkish General Staff has announced. The flights come days after Turkey said a Russian SU-34 jet had violated its airspace on Jan. 29 despite warnings, once more stoking tensions between two countries supporting opposite sides in Syria's war.

Dubai International Airport remained the world's busiest for international passengers in 2015 as traffic grew 10.7 percent, boosted by the addition of new airlines and routes, the airport's operator said on Feb. 1. 

Annual traffic rose to 78 million passengers from 70.5 million in 2014. In the month of December alone, traffic climbed 8.5 percent to 7.05 million people. 

Turkish Airlines Chairman ?lker Ayc? has said the company was looking forward to the opening of its "new house," the third airport in Istanbul, which will have a capacity of 90 million passengers in the first phase.