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Argentina on Monday banned all commercial flight ticket sales until September, one of the toughest coronavirus travel bans in the world, prompting an industry outcry that the new measure will put too much strain on airlines and airports. While the country's borders have been closed since March, the new decree goes further by banning until Sept. 1 the sale and purchase of commercial flights to, from or within Argentina. The decree, signed by the National Civil Aviation Administration, said it was "understood to be reasonable" to implement the restrictions, without elaborating. Many countries in South America, including Ecuador, Peru and Colombia, have banned all commercial flights for the time being, but none have extended their timeline as far out as Argentina. "The problem was that airlines were selling tickets without having authorization to travel to Argentine soil," a spokesman for President Alberto Fernandez said. The ban would put a strain on LATAM Airlines Group, which has a significant domestic operation in Argentina, and has been seeking help from multiple governments. Argentina's largest carrier, Aerolineas Argentinas, is state-owned and could survive as long as the government is willing to subsidize it.<br/>

Turkey is deliberating whether to start reopening its economy with the resumption of some domestic flights as early as mid-May, officials with direct knowledge of the plans said. Other steps that will be discussed at a cabinet meeting later Monday will include resuming rail transportation and reopening schools, officials said. On Monday, the country reported its fewest new cases in almost three weeks. Coming off a brief recession just over a year ago, the urgency is mounting for Turkey to loosen the screws on the economy as its currency and reserves come under pressure more than a month after it introduced social-distancing measures. The plans under consideration could deliver a boost to national carrier Turkish Airlines and retailers, which have been suffering since Turkey confirmed its first case of the disease in early March. Aviation authorities say they could resume flights as early as May 15, but the decision is subject to review by health experts and approval by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. <br/>

With far fewer people flying because of travel restrictions during the coronavirus pandemic, airport security screeners are naturally finding fewer guns in carry-on baggage. But the ratio of guns to passengers seeking to board airplanes has jumped sharply. The TSA said Monday that it found 58 guns at checkpoints from March 22 to April 22, compared with 346 guns over the same stretch last year. Adjusting for the 95% drop in travelers, that means TSA screeners found one gun for every 80,000 people screened — or 2.7 times the rate of a year ago, when they found one gun for every 216,200 people.<br/>

Treasury officials have distributed nearly half of the payroll support money earmarked for US airlines and cargo carriers under provisions of the $2t economic rescue package approved by Congress last month. As of this week, $12.4b of the $29b in grants has been paid out to 93 carriers to keep front-line workers on the job, treasury officials said. In all, airlines and air cargo carriers are eligible for more than $50b in grants and loans. The payments come as the Department of Transportation issued decisions on appeals from three more airlines that sought exemptions to requirements that they continue service to certain communities as a condition of receiving grant funds through the rescue package, known as the Cares Act. At least seven other carriers filed similar appeals. United, Frontier and Sun Country airlines won partial victories to delay service to dozens of destinations they served before the coronavirus pandemic. Unlike other financial support programs created by the Cares Act, the program to aid airlines and cargo carriers has been relatively trouble-free — a relief to an industry reeling from the worst financial crisis in its history.<br/>

Boeing's head said Monday that restoring the dividend could take three to five years as the company girds for a slow air travel recovery in the wake of the coronavirus crisis. The comment from CE David Calhoun was a signal that paying back debt and keeping up Boeing's manufacturing supply chain were bigger priorities than paying dividends for the foreseeable future. Speaking at the company's annual meeting, Calhoun offered a sober outlook on the near-term prospects for commercial air travel. "Based on what we know now, we expect it will take two to three years for travel to return to 2019 levels and an additional few years beyond that for the industry's long-term trend growth to return," Calhoun said. Even before COVID-19 broke out, Boeing was already under pressure after two crashes of its 737 MAX killed 346 people, leading to a global grounding since March 2019. Boeing is expected to soon initiate talks with the US Treasury on potential federal support for the aviation giant. Boeing has not said definitively whether it will take federal aid.<br/>

Airbus is to furlough more than 3,000 staff working at its site in north Wales, the company has said. The announcement came after the plane maker’s chief executive, Guillaume Faury, warned the company was “bleeding cash at an unprecedented speed”. Airbus said about half of the staff at its Broughton site would be placed on the UK government’s job retention scheme, which pays 80% of wages up to GBP2,500 a month. It is understood the company will top up salaries by a further 5% to 10%. The coronavirus pandemic has led to airlines grounding the majority of their fleet and, earlier this month, Airbus announced a plan to cut its aircraft production rates by around a third. An Airbus spokesman said the company had “agreed with its social partners to apply the government’s job retention scheme for approximately 3,200 production and production-support employees at its commercial aircraft site in Broughton”. Airbus employs 13,500 people in the UK, at Broughton and at Filton in Bristol, and 135,000 people worldwide.<br/>

Brazil's Embraer Monday said it had begun an arbitration process against Boeing, after the US planemaker abruptly canceled a US$4.2b deal over the weekend that was years in the making. Embraer shares fell as much as 16% in Sao Paulo to a more than 8-year low on news of the cancellation, suggesting investors had hoped until the last minute that the takeover agreement would not fall apart. The sudden collapse, triggered by a deadline that Boeing refused to extend, drew an irate response from Embraer on Saturday. But on Monday, when Embraer executives hosted a call with analysts, the angry rhetoric was largely absent. Embraer is in a delicate situation, having bet the future of the company on Boeing only to find itself now in isolation and without a Plan B, all while the coronavirus crisis ravages the travel industry. Still, Embraer tried to reassure investors that it remains a solid company, although its CEO Francisco Gomes Neto acknowledged that 2020 will be a "tough" year and that 2021 "will be worse than we had thought." He added that Embraer has been able to find US$1b in cash savings for 2020, and that it has not suffered any aircraft order cancellations due to the coronavirus crisis.<br/>

Let’s just say that no one is likely to earn airline or hotel elite status this year. But major airlines and hotels don’t want to lose their highest-spending customers. So they are giving them an extra year to accumulate the points that result in free upgrades, breakfasts, club access and other perks. Airlines really had no choice, said Jamie Larounis, an industry analyst for Upgraded Points. He said taking status away from a loyal clientele who are not allowed to fly and earn miles because of travel bans “would alienate customers who might defect to the competition.” And as the airlines and hotels evaluate the economic landscape, they may find they need to do more to maintain their loyal customer bases. Helane Becker, who analyzes the airline industry as a managing director for the financial services company Cowen, recently revised her outlook from a U-shaped recovery to “more L-shaped, with a long tail,” or prolonged. She now predicts that it will take years for the number of passengers to return to 2019 levels. Airlines don’t publicize the numbers of frequent fliers or status-holders, but they are “enormously important” to airlines, according to Madhu Unnikrishnan, editor of the online industry newsletter Skift Airline Weekly. Story has more.<br/>