Growing tensions between the US and China have expanded to the airline industry as the DoT accused its counterpart in Beijing of blocking American carriers’ attempts to resume service there. The DOT late on Friday announced that China had violated a bilateral agreement allowing airline service between the two countries by failing to respond to requests by Delta and United. China “impaired the operating rights of US carriers and denied them the fair and equal opportunity to exercise their operating rights,” the department said in a notice posted to a government website. The order stopped short of imposing any restrictions or penalty on the four airlines from China serving US markets, but is a warning after repeated objections by the US failed to get action, the government said. It requires the Chinese carriers to notify the department of their schedules and any proposed changes they intend. China’s embassy in Washington didn’t immediately respond to an email requesting comment. Starting in February, the US began restricting arrivals of people from China to prevent the spread of the virus. Flights between the two countries fell from about 325 per week in January to only a few dozen. Earlier this year, China set March 12 as a baseline for resumption of service between the two countries. Because Delta, United and American Airlines Group Inc. had already halted service to the Asian nation by then, it put them at an unfair disadvantage, the DOT said.<br/>
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A group of US agencies on Friday asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to reconsider its unanimous April 22 decision to allow Ligado Networks to deploy a low-power nationwide mobile broadband network, saying it could pose a threat to global positioning systems (GPS). The US Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration filed a request on behalf of executive branch agencies, including the Defense and Transportation departments, saying the approval will cause “irreparable harms to federal government users” of GPS. It asked the FCC to “prevent Ligado from deploying its network until this petition is addressed and harmful interference concerns are resolved.” The Air Line Pilots Association, the Association of Equipment Manufacturers, International Air Transport Association and Airlines for America, Iridium Communications and Lockheed Martin this week also filed petitions asking the FCC to reconsider. The wireless satellite venture said “the Department of Defense, its contractors, and their special interest lobbyists have blanketed the Hill to spread misinformation and distort the exhaustive, engineering, and fact-driven process that the FCC, under two administrations, led. GPS will not be harmed.”<br/>
The US DOT said late on Friday it had granted tentative approval to 15 airlines to temporarily halt service to 75 US airports because of the coronavirus pandemic. Airlines must maintain minimum service levels in order to receive government assistance but many have petitioned to stop service to airports with low passenger demand. Both United and Delta won tentative approval to halt flights to 11 airports, while JetBlue Airways, Alaska Airlines and Frontier Airlines were approved to stop flights to five airports each. The department said all airports would continue to be served by at least one air carrier. The Transportation Department said objections to the order can be filed until May 28. The department has previously granted airlines waivers to cancel some additional flights and denied others. On May 12, the department said it would allow carriers to halt flights to up to 5% of required destinations. Story lists routes.<br/>
Americans took a small and cautious step to return to the skies this weekend, the start of the traditional summer travel season. The TSA reported Saturday that it screened more passengers at US airports on Thursday and Friday than at any time in the last two months. It's only a modest improvement, but crucial for the turnaround chances for the battered US travel industry. The number of travellers passing through airport screening hit 318,449 Thursday and 348,673 Friday, compared to more than 2.6m passengers on each of the same days a year ago. It was first time since March 23 that the TSA screened more than 300,000 people, and the first time since March 25 that the percentage of those screenings exceeded 10% of year-earlier figures. The lowest point occurred April 14 when fewer than 88,000 passing through screening, only 4% of the year-earlier level. Even with the modest gains of recent days, the percentage of people screened since the start of April amounts to only 6% of those screened a year ago. The nation's airlines reported more than $2 billion in losses in Q1, and forecasts for the current period are projected to be far worse. Still, with all states allowing at least some businesses to reopen in recent weeks, there are signs that Americans are making plans to travel again. Delta, United and Southwest airlines reported this week that they have seen signs of improvements in bookings, and all have started to bring some flights back to their July schedules, compared to the deep cuts of 80% to 90% in May and June. For the first time in 20 years, AAA did not issue a Memorial Day travel forecast, saying it could not trust the accuracy of the economic data it uses because of the coronavirus crisis. But AAA said its own online bookings have been rising since April, albeit modestly, suggesting travellers' confidence may be improving.<br/>
Domestic flights will resume across India on Monday after a day of "hard negotiations", the federal civil aviation minister said on Sunday, after some states sought to limit the number of flights. Flights will restart under an easing of restrictions imposed over the coronavirus, though the number of new cases rose by a record 24-hour amount on Sunday. The 6,767 new cases took the total to over 131,000. Airlines are preparing to resume about a third of their domestic flight operations from Monday, even without clarity over what quarantine rules may apply to passengers. The western state of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu in the south and West Bengal in the east -- business hubs and home to India's busiest airports -- had said they were not prepared to open for flights as coronavirus cases rose, state government officials said. Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu agreed to operate limited flights from Monday, while southern state of Andhra Pradesh would allow flights from Tuesday, India's civil aviation minister, Hardeep Singh Puri, said on Twitter late on Sunday. "It has been a long day of hard negotiations with various state government to recommence civil aviation operations in the country.....Domestic flights will recommence across the country from tomorrow," he said. West Bengal urged the central government to postpone the resumption of passenger flights to Kolkata as it focuses on rescue work after Cyclone Amphan hit the city. Limited aviation operations in West Bengal will commence from Thursday, Puri said. India's federal structure gives its 28 states flexibility to set their own rules, complicating government efforts to kickstart the economy.<br/>
Plane-makers will have to slash production further, putting tens of thousands more UK aerospace jobs at risk as the economic turmoil caused by coronavirus intensifies. Trade body ADS is bracing for up to 25,000 aerospace jobs to go – almost a quarter of the total across the sector – because of the collapse in air travel resulting from Covid-19. Last week, Rolls-Royce announced that 9,000 of its 52,000 jobs worldwide are to be axed, with the cuts falling particularly hard in Britain. Both Airbus and Boeing have already reduced the number of airliners they build by about a third. The US company has already said it will shed 16,000 staff – 10% of its workforce – while Airbus is understood to be preparing for “savage” reductions in staff numbers. Demand for new aircraft has collapsed. Airlines have delayed orders of new planes or cancelled them altogether. Agency Partners, the analyst firm, warned that Airbus, which had been producing far more airliners than Boeing whose bestselling 737 Max was grounded, had “clearly not made deep enough cuts”. The research house predicted a further reduction in output at the European plane-maker, taking output to about a third of pre-coronavirus levels. Analyst Nick Cunningham added: “Both Airbus and Boeing are being massively optimistic about demand. In two years’ time, we might get back to 75% of where demand was before Covid, meaning the global fleet is a quarter too large. We’re going to see very few deliveries of new airliners over the next few years.”<br/>
As runways around the world fell nearly silent in recent months due to the pandemic, one US airport stood out: Anchorage, Alaska. Sitting about halfway between Asia’s industrial centers and North America, Ted Stevens Anchorage International has been booming with cargo shipments, including loads of masks and other medical equipment, aboard planes stopping to refuel. At least several times in recent weeks -- such as April 25 and May 2 -- it topped all other US commercial airports, including traditional powerhouses such as Atlanta and Chicago, with the most flights, according to the airport and newly released federal data. For April, it was ranked 10th and flights exceeded those at New York City’s three commercial airports and the corporate jet hub in Teterboro, New Jersey, combined. By some counts, it has been the world’s busiest. It’s an upside-down honor that makes airport manager Jim Szczesniak uncomfortable. “Being the world’s busiest is not a title that we want,” Szczesniak said of the facility, where the terminals feature life-sized stuffed animals such as a moose and grizzly bear. “The world’s busiest airport is a bad situation for us to be in. It just shows you how bad the passenger side of the house is doing right now.” Flights into and out of the 520 US airports with air-traffic towers fell 54.5% in April, compared with the same month last year, according to FAA data. That’s 2.5m fewer operations.<br/>
The prospect of long waits at germ-filled airports makes owning a business jet an attractive proposition right now for executives. At the same time, a sharp recession could drain the corporate treasury of funds to buy one. The private-aviation industry is now stuck in this tug of war unleashed by the Covid-19 crisis. Short term, the pandemic has been quite damaging. Earlier this month, Ohio-based NetJets—the world’s largest private-plane operator—more than halved the number of aircraft it plans to receive this year to 25 from around 60, and announced job cuts in the US and Europe. This is in part a result of business-jet makers being forced to furlough employees, affecting production. Private planes occupy an infamously cyclical niche within the aviation industry. During the global financial crisis, as corporations slashed budgets and sought to appear less opulent to the public, the number of business jets shipped world-wide fell from over 1,300 in 2008 to under 700 in 2011, according to the General Aviation Manufacturers Association. Demand didn’t edge up until 2018 and 2019, when new aircraft models sparked fresh interest. Without face-to-face negotiations, transactions have now frozen. As Scott Connelly, CE of Cessna-owner Textron, put it in a recent call with analysts, developing new customers is very difficult unless “folks can do demo rides.” As lockdowns ease, though, this time could really be different—at least up to a point. Story has more.<br/>