Pakistan resumed flights at more airports but delayed until Tuesday the reopening of its airspace nationwide, aviation authorities said, as tension with India eased after a standoff that brought the nuclear-armed neighbours to the brink of war. Pakistan shut its airspace last week, leaving thousands of travelers stranded and forcing carriers to reroute flights, but resumed partial operations at four airports on Friday. Two more airports have since opened, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said, adding that curbs were expected to be removed Tuesday. “Some airports are open,” a spokesman said Monday, adding that airports in the capital of Islamabad, the southern port of Karachi, and the cities of Lahore, Peshawar, Quetta and Faisalabad were partly functional. He did say not why the reopening of airspace, originally scheduled for Monday, had been delayed.<br/>
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The EU and Qatar signed a broad air services pact Monday allowing Qatari and EU member state airlines unlimited airspace access between each other’s territories. The Comprehensive Air Transport Agreement includes provisions on fair competition, transparency, the environment and consumer protections, Qatar’s ministry of transport said. Both sides agreed to terms last month. The ministry said it was the first such agreement between the EU and a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) state, of which Qatar is one of six members.<br/>
Air travellers faced a rough start to the week as wintry weather snarled flights from the Great Lakes into the Northeast. The worst of Monday’s problems were in the Northeast, where flight schedules remained bogged down from wintry weather that moved through on Sunday. Snow was still falling Monday morning across parts of New England, though it was expected to wind down by afternoon. Nationwide, more than 810 flights had been canceled and another 1,600 dealyed as of 11 a.m. ET, according to flight-tracking service FlightAware. More than 475 of those cancellations were made preemptively by late Saturday as airlines pared flights in anticipation of rebooting their schedules on Monday. Monday’s cancellations follow another 1,100 on Sunday and 578 more on Saturday. That brings the US cancellation count since Saturday to about 2,300. The majority of the cancellations in that tally were made because of the weather system. For Monday, the hardest-hit airports were those serving New York City and Boston. Several mid-sized airports in New England also were seeing significant disruptions Monday.<br/>
The speed and elegant appearance of the Concorde inspired awe. Its ear-rattling sonic booms irritated people on the ground and led to restrictions on where the jet could fly. The Concorde's maiden flight was 50 years ago this month. Although the plane went out of service in 2003, its delta-wing design and drooping nose still make it instantly recognizable even to people who have never seen one in person. The Concorde was the world's first supersonic passenger plane. It was a technological marvel and a source of pride in Britain and France, whose aerospace companies joined forces to produce the plane. Its first flight occurred on March 2, 1969, in Toulouse, France. The test flight lasted 28 minutes. British Airways and Air France launched passenger flights in 1976. With four jet engines and afterburners, the plane could fly at twice the speed of sound and cruised at close to 60,000 feet, far above other airliners. It promised to revolutionize long-distance travel by cutting flying time from the US East Coast to Europe from eight hours to three and a half hours. Story has more history.<br/>