airport
Myanmar airport closed following reported drone attack
Flight operations at Myanmar's second-busiest airport have been halted, as the country's military-backed government accused rebel groups of attempted drone attacks. Myanmar Airways International said on its Facebook page late on Thursday that all international flights from Mandalay's Tada-U International Airport on September 11 and 12 had been cancelled. The state-run Global New Light of Myanmar outlet reported that security forces had thwarted an attack on the airport by the People's Defence Force. It said the pro-democracy rebel group had fired six "suicide drones" at the facility. "The attack temporarily disrupted some domestic flights. However, no casualties or damage to vehicles or airport runways were reported," the newspaper said.
Europe targeted by spiralling campaign of sabotage and Russia is the chief suspect
As summer temperatures in Europe smashed records this summer and many politicians shifted to holiday mode, Russia remained focused on its war. Not only did its military attacks across Ukraine intensify last month, becoming ever more deadly for civilians, Russia also appears to have escalated its sabotage campaign across Europe. This time, military and defence sector sites were the prime target. A full month after drones packed with explosives were found at Leipzig's airport, used by Ukraine to transport military goods, Germany's interior minister has declared that Russia is responsible. Russia's President Vladimir Putin is demanding proof, as always, and his officials call the accusation absurd.
What to know about Germany's drone attack accusations against Russia
What to know about Germany's drone attack accusations against Russia Share What to know about Germany's drone attack accusations against Russia on social media Germany has formally accused Russia of attempting an attack last month at the Leipzig-Halle airport, a state-owned facility in the eastern part of the country. On Tuesday, German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said his country's intelligence community had determined that a drone discovered at the airport was consistent with Russian technology. The drone had been bearing explosives, according to official reports. The incident is seen as part of a growing trend in Europe, where officials fear Russia is mounting a campaign of intimidation against members of the NATO military alliance. What was found at the Leipzig airport?
Germany accuses Russia of drone attack on Leipzig airport
The German government has accused Russia of being behind an attempted drone attack on a major regional airport last month. Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said on Tuesday that the attempted attack on Leipzig/Halle Airport in eastern Germany using a drone laden with explosives fits a known pattern of "Russian hybrid operations". "Taken together, police investigations, patterns of the offences and intelligence findings establish Russian responsibility for the attempted attack," he said, standing alongside Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul. The drone was found at the airport near a Ukrainian plane on the evening of August 4 and defused. The findings were announced as several European countries that are providing Ukraine with support as it defends itself against Russia's invasion have reported an increase in sabotage attacks and attempts that they blame on Russia.
'New level of danger': Drone incidents scare Europe amid Russia-Ukraine war
Is the war entering a new phase? 'New level of danger': Drone incidents scare Europe amid Russia-Ukraine war A quadcopter drone with plastic explosives attached to it flew unnoticed past air defence installations at Germany's Leipzig/Halle Airport, a key NATO airlift hub, on August 4. The drone hit a Ukrainian cargo plane but failed to detonate. It fell onto the tarmac and was found four hours later by a bus driver who stepped on it and called security, German media reported. DNA traces linked the drone to a firebomb that was mailed to the same airport and set a freight container on fire in July 2024, the Bild tabloid reported.
Could Russia be involved in German airport drone-bomb?
German airport drone-bomb: Could Russia be involved? As Germany investigates how a drone loaded with explosives reached a runway at Leipzig airport, there is renewed talk in Europe of hybrid war. The interior minister is warning of a new level of danger from an attack that may involve foreign powers. There is no proof at this stage to link the flying bomb directly to Russia, which denies any role. But as well as the means and the motive, Moscow does have form.
Airport drop-off fees up by a third - here are the priciest
Drop-off fees at the UK's major airports have risen by a third on average since last summer, new analysis has found. The RAC looked at the cost of pulling up at the closest point to terminals at the 20 busiest airports - 16 had put up their fees since last year. Two London airports, Gatwick and Stansted, topped the price table at £10. Trade body Airports UK said free drop-offs were available and fees were part of airports' business models and climate change objectives . London Gatwick's is the highest farewell fee, charging £10 for 10 minutes on the forecourt outside either of its terminals. At Stansted, £10 buys a more generous 15 minutes, at Express Set Down outside departures.
Aeolus: AMulti-structural Flight Delay Dataset
We introduce Aeolus, a large-scale Multi-modal Flight Delay Dataset designed to advance research on flight delay prediction and support the development of foundation models for tabular data. Existing datasets in this domain are typically limited to flat tabular structures and fail to capture the spatiotemporal dynamics inherent in delay propagation. Aeolus addresses this limitation by providing three aligned modalities: (i) a tabular dataset with rich operational, meteorological, and airportlevel features for over 50 million flights; (ii) a flight chain module that models delay propagation along sequential flight legs, capturing upstream and downstream dependencies; and (iii) a flight network graph that encodes shared aircraft, crew, and airport resource connections, enabling cross-flight relational reasoning. The dataset is carefully constructed with temporal splits, comprehensive features, and strict leakage prevention to support realistic and reproducible machine learning evaluation. Aeolus supports a broad range of tasks, including regression, classification, temporal structure modeling, and graph learning, serving as a unified benchmark across tabular, sequential, and graph modalities. We release baseline experiments and preprocessing tools to facilitate adoption.