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‘Seconds count’: Avoiding airplane collisions at airports could come down to cockpit alerts
ABOARD A HONEYWELL TEST PLANE — Aerospace giant Honeywell is building new cockpit alerts that developers say will give airline pilots more precious time to react to hazards at airports.
Honeywell senior test pilot Capt. Kirk Vining late last month put the alerts — called Surface Alert, or SURF-A — to the test by recreating some of the most serious near disasters at airports in recent aviation history.
Moments before landing at Topeka Regional Airport, a Gulfstream G550 business jet was stopped on the same runway where Vining was about to touch down at the Kansas airport.
“Traffic on runway!” called out the automated alert in the cockpit of Honeywell’s test plane: a 43-year-old Boeing 757, as Vining pulled up, aborted his landing and flew around the airport safely.
Honeywell’s Boeing 757 test plane on the ground in Topeka, Kansas.
Erin Black/CNBC
A host of serious close calls in recent years has raised concerns about how to better avoid them in ever-more congested airports. The National Transportation Safety Board and other safety experts have urged more advanced cockpit alerts like the ones Honeywell is testing.
Runway incursions, when a plane, person or vehicle is on the runway when they shouldn’t be, averaged 4.5 a day last year. The Federal Aviation Administration categorizes them by severity, where the top and rarest two are: “a serious incident in which a collision was narrowly avoided” followed by “an incident in which separation decreases and there is a significant potential for collision may result in a time-critical corrective/evasive response to avoid a collision.”
Serious runway incursions at U.S. airports peaked at 22 in 2023, the most in at least a decade. The FAA has added new lighting and other safety technology at airports around the country to try to get to its goal of zero close calls.
‘Good at being a bad pilot’
“He’s very good at being a bad pilot,” Thea Feyereisen, a distinguished technical fellow for Honeywell Aerospace Technologies, said of Vining. Her unit develops new cockpit features for aviators, and she said she expects the new suite to win regulator certification next year.
“Seconds count when you’re operating near the runway, and the sooner you can let the pilots know of a potential serious situation, the better,” Feyereisen said.
The Honeywell test plane wasn’t configured like a regular passenger jet, and there weren’t any paying customers on board. It had a set of roomy seats toward the front of the plane, but in the back, Honeywell flight engineers were positioned at consoles, monitoring flight data and the alerts in real time. Earlier that day, Honeywell demonstrated the technology on a flight with Department of Transportation, FAA and NTSB officials on board, a company spokesman told CNBC.
Vining performed a simulation of another incident from 2023, when an American Airlines 777 bound for London crossed a runway where a Delta Air Lines 737 was taking off instead of holding short of the runway as an air traffic controller instructed. The Delta pilot in that situation aborted takeoff and both planes landed safely at their destinations.
Consoles aboard Honeywell’s test plane, a Boeing 757.
Magdalena Petrova/CNBC
Honeywell said its SURF-A alerts could have given the pilots 10 additional seconds of reaction time with a potential collision notice. The new program Honeywell is testing uses Automatic Dependent Surveillance – Broadcast, or ADS-B data, a GPS for an airplane.
“It’s usually a very good working environment between pilots, air traffic control, airport management,” Vining said. “We get it done safely, efficiently and smoothly. But you could also see just the slightest interruption, a little variation, and things can go wrong very quickly.”
The aerospace giant already offers another suite of alerts that tells pilots if they’re about to make a mistake like landing or taking off on a taxiway instead of a runway, for example, with visual alerts on a screen as well as aural warnings — “Caution! Taxiway!” The so-called Smart X package also alerts pilots if flaps are not set correctly, if the runway is too short, or if they are coming in too high or too fast, among other situations.
“As aircraft get closer to the airports where there are other airplanes that are also flying low to the ground, attempting to land, that’s the most dangerous spot to have a collision occur,” said Jeff Guzzetti, a retired air safety investigator with the NTSB and the FAA.
Those alerts have been on Alaska Airlines planes for years and, more recently, Southwest Airlines has added them. Honeywell said the alerts are currently flying on more than 3,000 planes operated by 20 airlines, but that’s still limited adoption with hundreds of carriers operating worldwide.
“Since we’ve implemented the software, I can’t think of an instance where we’ve had a runway incursion,” said Dave Hunt, Southwest’s vice president of safety and security and a 737 pilot.
American Airlines was also training its pilots on those alerts in the second quarter of the year, according to a lesson plan that was seen by CNBC. Last month, American received its first aircraft with the runway awareness and other alerts on board, a spokeswoman said, adding that its Boeing 737 pilots have now been trained on the tools.
The alerts aren’t required by regulators, but the FAA said it is “reviewing recommendations” from the Runway Safety Alerting Subgroup “to determine next steps,” referring to a group of airline, aerospace, pilot union, government and industry officials that last year recommended new planes include more advanced cockpit alerts in case of situational awareness issues at airports.
“The alerts occur further away from the runway so that if there’s an aircraft on the runway, you’re not having to make that decision very low to the ground,” said Jon Sites, director of flight operations safety at Alaska Airlines.
The Swiss cheese model
Honeywell’s test plane during a demonstration of new anti-collision warning technology.
Leslie Josephs/CNBC
The United States is the busiest aviation market in the world, with 44,000 flights, carrying 3 million travelers a day. Serious aviation accidents are rare, and fatal crashes are rarer still.
But a nearly 16-year streak without a fatal incident was broken on Jan. 29 when an Army Black Hawk helicopter collided into an American Airlines regional jet that was moments away from landing at Washington Reagan National Airport, killing the 67 people aboard the two aircraft and raising concerns about congested U.S. airspace to a fever pitch.
The aviation industry relies on a so-called Swiss cheese safety model, where each slice provides protection but comes with holes that are ideally covered when safety measures are stacked on top of one another.
“Aviation is built on layers of safety upon layers,” said Sites at Alaska Airlines.
Honeywell’s demonstration flight last month from Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport in Kansas City, Missouri, recreated a real incident that took place on a foggy morning in February 2023 in Austin, Texas, when a FedEx Boeing 767 plane aborted landing seconds before touching down on the same runway from which an air traffic controller cleared a Southwest 737 to take off.
The FedEx pilot had seen the outline of the Southwest plane through the fog and pulled up and later landed safely. Both flights continued to their destinations safely, but the two aircraft had gotten as close as 150 feet apart, less than the length of the FedEx 767, according to federal safety investigators.
Feyereisen said Honeywell’s technology could have provided the FedEx pilots in the 2023 Austin incident 28 seconds of advanced notice of traffic on the runway, when they only had a few moments to react, according to a report from the NTSB.
Not yet required
Engineers collect data aboard a Honeywell test plane.
Magdalena Petrova/CNBC
Feyereisen said the new technology could be retrofitted on older aircraft and is available for new jets.
“In general, the software costs tens of thousands of dollars [per plane], but not hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Feyereisen said. “So if you’re looking at [a] $150 million aircraft … it is less than a half a penny per passenger cost to the operation.”
Southwest this year added the software to its fleet of about 800 Boeing 737s. It cost between $20 million and $30 million to outfit the planes, Hunt said.
“It is cheaper than an accident,” he said.
On Feb. 25, a Southwest plane aborted its arrival after it was cleared to land at Chicago Midway International Airport when a Bombardier Challenger 350 business jet advanced onto its runway, with the Southwest jet passing less than 200 feet between the aircraft, before safely landing after a go-around, according to the NTSB.
Such close calls “are very, very rare, but obviously they’re something that are concerning and that we would try to mitigate as much as possible,” said Hunt. The Honeywell software is “very effective at ensuring our pilots are aware of where they are on the airport” and “does a really good job of preventing inadvertent runway incursions while taxiing,” he added.
Limitations
A Honeywell test pilot performs a go-around because of traffic on the runway at Topeka Regional Airport in Kansas as part of a demonstration.
Erin Black/CNBC
When developing the warnings, Feyereisen said it’s key not to overwhelm pilots with too much information, known as “nuisance alerts,” which could end up being a distraction from critical safety tasks rather than a help.
“If you’re blasting alerts through a cockpit speaker at low altitudes during a critical phase of flight, such as approach to landing or takeoff, where pilots’ attention needs to be fully focused … you create too many distractions,” Southwest’s Hunt said.
There are also limitations to the existing alerts and the new programs Honeywell is testing. To avoid in-air collisions, commercial aircraft are required to have what’s called the Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System, or TCAS, which helps them see traffic around them in displays in the cockpit. But that system is generally used for altitudes of at least 1,000 feet.
That would not have necessarily helped the pilots on the American Airlines plane that was below 400 feet in the fatal collision with the Black Hawk helicopter in January in Washington, D.C.
“We are exploring alternatives to close that gap where you kind of can merge TCAS and ADS-B-type information together,” Feyereisen said.
Sites, the safety director at Alaska, said the D.C. crash was “a huge, unexpected event in the industry, but it’s just, I think, our track record through the last 50 years shows that this is a very, very rare event.”
“That’s why we continue as an industry to try to find even better technology out there and enhancements to the current technology to keep this from ever happening and take the probability down to as low a level as possible,” he said. “I don’t know if in any aviation system you’ll ever get to zero, but I mean, we’re going to try to get as close to zero probability as we can.”
— CNBC’s Erin Black contributed to this report.
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New Delhi: The recent GST rate rationalisation is set to boost Bihar’s economy, rooted in agriculture, handlooms, handicrafts and food processing — easing the burden on consumers, supporting rural livelihoods, strengthening MSMEs and enhancing competitiveness in exports, an official statement said on Saturday, as reported by IA.
From makhana farmers in Mithila to silk weavers in Bhagalpur, dairy producers linked with Sudha, and engineers at Madhepura’s rail factory, the GST reforms are expected to reach across the state’s traditional and modern sectors alike. The impact will be visible across agriculture, handlooms, handicrafts, dairy, fertilisers, rail manufacturing, bamboo and cane crafts, and emerging areas such as AYUSH and honey.
The reforms will boost agriculture with Makhana, Shahi Litchi and processed foods gaining from GST cuts, benefitting lakhs of farmers and MSMEs. It will also bring relief to Sudha’s 9.6 lakh farmers, supported through GST-free milk and paneer and lower rates on ghee, butter and ice-cream.
Handlooms and crafts like Bhagalpuri silk, Madhubani art, Sujini and Patharkatti stone carving will become more competitive, and farmers will benefit from cheaper fertilisers, micronutrients and machinery with 7-13 per cent expected cost savings.
In an industry push with rail hubs, AYUSH products and honey clusters will see 6-13 per cent relief in costs in the state. Bihar produces 80-90 per cent of India’s makhana, sustaining about 10 lakh families engaged in cultivation and processing. The crop is concentrated in northern Bihar’s Mithilanchal region, grown in pond networks across Darbhanga, Madhubani, Purnea, Katihar, Saharsa and adjoining districts.
With GST on makhana-based snacks reduced from 12 per cent to 5 per cent, processors and exporters are expected to gain from an effective cost reduction of about 6-7 per cent, making the product more competitive in both domestic and overseas markets. Muzaffarpur’s GI-tagged Shahi Litchi, also grown in Vaishali, Champaran, Sitamarhi and Samastipur, sustains thousands of small farmers and seasonal workers.
Bihar accounts for nearly 35 per cent of India’s litchi output. With GST on juices, jams and pickles reduced from 12 per cent to 5 per cent, there is an expected cost saving of 6-7 per cent, encouraging more local processing and supporting access to niche markets in the Gulf.
Bihar’s MSME clusters in Patna, Hajipur and Bhagalpur handle a wide variety of processed foods, with micro-units and women-led SHGs engaged in snacks, pickles, bakery and sauces. Brands like Sudha cater to Bihar and East India, while makhana-based products are reaching pan-India markets.
Bhagalpur industrial estate alone hosts over 40 food and agro units, with new food park and bottling projects adding jobs. With GST on biscuits cut from 18 per cent to 5 per cent and on namkeens and sauces from 12 per cent to 5 per cent, prices are expected to fall by 6-11 per cent, supporting demand and strengthening MSME margins.
A backbone of Bihar’s rural economy, the dairy sector sustains about 9.6 lakh mostly marginal farmers through COMFED (Sudha), with strong participation of women in collection and SHGs. Processing, chilling, transport and retail provide thousands of jobs across the state, anchored in hubs like Patna and Barauni. With UHT milk and paneer now GST-free, ghee and butter cut from 12 per cent to 5 per cent, and ice-cream from 18 per cent to 5 per cent, products are expected to be 5-13 per cent cheaper.
These cuts will ease working capital pressures on dairies, strengthen cooperative networks, and improve affordability for households across Bihar and East India, according to the official statement.
Utah-based drink chain Swig coined “dirty soda” back in 2010. Fifteen years later, the trend is fueling innovation everywhere from PepsiCo to McDonald’s, infusing the sluggish beverage category with new life.
“Dirty soda” drinks use pop as a base, followed by flavored syrups, cream or other ingredients. While Swig claims credit — and the trademark — for dirty soda, TikTok videos and the reality TV show “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” have helped the trend spread far and wide, outpacing even the soda chain’s speedy expansion.
Now, consumers can find it nearly everywhere, from grocery store aisles to fast-food chains.
In a few weeks, Pepsi plans to unveil two ready-to-drink dirty soda-inspired beverages at the National Association of Convenience Stores trade show in Chicago. The new drinks, the Dirty Dew and the Mug Floats Vanilla Howler, follow on the heels of the Pepsi Wild Cherry & Cream flavor, which hit shelves earlier this year.
“I think it’s a great opportunity for people like us, like PepsiCo, and for consumers to experience soda in a new way — and in some ways, an old way,” Pepsi Beverages North America Chief Marketing Officer Mark Kirkham told CNBC, comparing the rise of dirty soda to root beer floats and the soda shops of yore.
PepsiCo’s lineup of dirty soda-inspired drinks includes Pepsi Wild Cherry & Cream, Dirty Mountain Dew and Mug Floats Vanilla Howler.
Source: PepsiCo
Dirty soda has also drawn new interest beyond beverage players. According to Datassential, 2.7% of U.S. eateries offer a carbonated soft drink that includes cream or milk, up from 1.5% a decade ago.
Newcomers to the trend include TGI Fridays, which launched dirty soda as a limited-time menu item this summer that could be spiked with alcohol. McDonald’s is testing flavored sodas, like a “Sprite Lunar Splash,” at more than 500 locations after winding down its drinks-focused spinoff CosMc’s in June. Yum Brands’ Taco Bell has also been offering limited-time menu items, like a dirty Mountain Dew Baja Blast.
Swig sets a trend
These days, Swig has grown to more than 140 locations across 16 states. So far this year, its same-store sales have risen 8.2%, according to the privately held company. The Larry H. Miller Company, an investment firm founded by the former Utah Jazz owner, bought a majority stake in Swig in 2022 for an undisclosed sum.
“I think we’re doing for soda what Starbucks did for coffee,” Swig CEO Alex Dunn said.
As Swig has grown, so have the number of chains looking to emulate its success. Rival soda shops like Sodalicious, Fiiz and Cool Sips are also benefiting from the trend. Coffee shops, like Dutch Bros., have also added it to their menus. And now fast-food chains are hopping on the bandwagon.
“It validates that this is a category, and McDonald’s and Taco Bell wouldn’t be getting into it if it wasn’t something that had broad appeal that they could sell everywhere, in thousands of locations,” Dunn said. “It’s kind of flattering that we created a category that now everybody is copying.”
For restaurants, adding dirty soda to the menu is easier than it might sound.
“It’s a custom drink offering that, one, allows the brands to leverage something that they already have right there: their soda machine,” said Erica Holland-Toll, culinary director at The Culinary Edge, which advises restaurants on food and beverage innovation. “Two, it incorporates either a one-touch ingredient, or if they’re already open for breakfast, it’s quite likely that they’ve got a creamer in house.”
On the other hand, offering customizable coffee drinks is usually much more difficult — which has contributed to the struggles at Starbucks.
“The espresso world — that’s so much more complicated,” Holland-Toll said.
Dirty soda also has wide appeal. With less caffeine than coffee, consumers can drink it all day long. Plus, it’s “much more accessible” than some coffee house trends, like an espresso tonic, according to Holland-Toll. The bright colors of many dirty sodas also make them more attractive to consumers, who were likely introduced to the trend via a TikTok video.
But perhaps above all, dirty soda can help restaurants draw in customers who are otherwise feeling thrifty.
“It’s an affordable fun treat. You’re not going out and spending $30 or $50, right?” said Sally Lyons Watt, chief advisor of consumer goods and foodservice insights for Circana. “It’s something that people can walk away saying, ‘Wow, that was yummy’ or ‘I feel better because I just had that.'”
A pop for beverage companies
Swig drinks.
Courtesy: Swig
A “fun treat” for consumers is adding up for beverage companies, helping reverse the decades-long trend of declining soda consumption in the U.S.
As health concerns mount and the array of beverage options expands, Americans have been drinking less soda for roughly two decades. In 2004, soda consumption peaked at 15.3 billion gallons, according to Beverage Marketing; by 2024, that figure had slid to 11.87 billion gallons. But consumption of carbonated soft drinks has been ticking up in the last two years, with 2025 estimated to reach 11.88 billion gallons. The rise of dirty soda, plus the growing popularity of prebiotic sodas, has likely helped the segment halt its downward trajectory.
Over the years, iced coffee has been stealing what the beverage industry calls “share of throat” from soda. With dirty soda, consumers can marry their love of customizing a cold drink with the lower caffeine content and taste of soda.
“The carbonation makes it feel lighter in your mouth than coffee, for example,” Holland-Toll said.
Dirty soda has also been attracting younger consumers who previously didn’t drink much Pepsi or Dr Pepper. Swig’s core customer base is young women between the ages of 18 and 35, according to Dunn.
That’s true for Holly Galvin, a 31-year-old human resources professional based in Davenport, Iowa. She told CNBC that she rarely drank soda — until she saw dirty soda take the spotlight in the “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” last year. Now she makes her own dirty soda once or twice a week at home. With the onset of autumn, her go-to recipe these days uses Diet Dr Pepper as a base, with pumpkin spice creamer and a sprinkle of pumpkin pie spice on top.
Broadly, younger consumers are more inclined to seek out new drinks compared with older cohorts. Nearly three-quarters of Generation Z try a new beverage every month on average, according to Keurig Dr Pepper’s 2025 trend report.
Beverage companies say that they are seeing a broader halo effect for soda as a result of the trend.
“For us, it serves as a recruitment tool, bringing new users into the trademark,” said Katie Webb, vice president of innovation and transformation for Keurig Dr Pepper. “It really draws them all the way back to the base brand, which ends up being extremely impact for us long after.”
And just as craft cocktail culture led to the rise of canned cocktails, the popularity of dirty soda is leading beverage giants to cash in with ready-to-drink versions that capitalize on the trend. Dr Pepper Creamy Coconut was the company’s most successful limited-time carbonated soft drink to date, based on retail dollar sales, according to Webb. And Kirkham said Pepsi Wild Cherry & Cream has been one of the fastest-growing flavor segments for the company.
“Some trends start retail and move over to foodservice,” Circana’s Lyons Wyatt said. “This one was a foodservice trend moving into retail.”
With Pepsi Wild Cherry & Cream and next year’s launch of Dirty Dew and the Mug Floats Vanilla Howler, Kirkham expects that consumers will become even more creative with their concoctions.
“I think it’s actually giving [consumers] the chance to experiment even more and customize more,” he said. “Now you have a brand new base.”
Rachel Reeves has pushed for an “ambitious” youth migration deal with the EU in a bid to improve the outlook of the public finances ahead of the autumn Budget.
The chancellor told the Times an exchange scheme for young workers would be “good for the economy, good for growth and good for business”.
The UK agreed to work towards a “youth experience visa” with the EU in May this year but the specifics of the scheme are still being negotiated.
Reeves also called for the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) to factor the potential economic impact of such a scheme into its forecasts ahead of the Budget, which she hopes will reduce the need for spending cuts or tax rises.
The proposal has previously been criticised by the Conservatives and Reform UK, who have said it amounts to a partial return to freedom of movement, which ended when the UK left the EU.
Such a scheme could mean those aged 18-30 could stay for two or three years, but the details are to be negotiated.
In an interview with the Times ahead of the Labour Party’s conference in Liverpool this week, the chancellor declined to specify how many visas could be issued annually under the scheme.
The UK already has similar schemes with 11 countries including Australia, New Zealand and Japan, with people able to stay for up to three years depending on where they apply from.
Under those agreements, the UK issued just over 24,000 youth mobility visas in 2024.
The OBR has previously scored UK growth down by 4% due to the original Brexit deal.
The chancellor believes that has set a precedent and that the OBR should include the projected economic upsides of a youth mobility scheme into its upcoming forecast.
Referencing the agreement between London and Brussels earlier this year, Reeves told the Times: “As a result of that reset in May, we think the economy will be stronger. We also want the OBR to score that.”
The OBR will send its first economic forecast to the treasury on Friday, which will include the gap the chancellor will need to make up in her 26 November Budget.
Much is depending on the OBR’s expected downgrade to the underlying long-term performance of the economy, or productivity. The gap could be £20 or £30 billion per year.
In response, the chancellor has stressed a series of measures aimed to help the economy grow faster, including further trade deals.
If accepted by the independent forecasters, the inclusion of the proposed EU youth mobility scheme into its calculations could theoretically limit the extent of any new tax rises.
The OBR has scored policy moves on house building and childcare as helpful to the economy in recent years.
Speculation has been rife that the chancellor will be forced to raise taxes or cut spending in order to fill the fiscal hole, despite Labour’s election promise not to increase income tax, National Insurance or VAT for working people.
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