The Trump administration further eased plans to restrict passenger flights by mainland Chinese airlines to the US after China said it would permit more passenger flights by the US airlines. The US DoT said Monday it would allow a total of four round-trip flights a week by Chinese airlines, double the level it had set earlier this month. The move came after Chinese authorities said they would allow both of the US airlines seeking to return to China to operate two weekly flights each. “We welcome this action by the Chinese government, as an important first step to fully restore air travel,” the US DoT said. The change announced Monday is further indication that both the US and China are backing down from a standoff over airline service that threatened to halt scheduled passenger service between the two countries. Delta said Monday that it plans to fly from Seattle to Shanghai with a stop in Seoul next week. In July, it will fly once a week from Seattle and once from Detroit. Under an agreement with Chinese authorities, the airline will take passengers’ temperatures before departure, a spokeswoman said. United, which has also sought to resume flights to China, said it welcomes efforts to resume service and aims to relaunch flights in the coming weeks. The new level set by the DoT could accommodate the current level of flying by Chinese passenger airlines. Four Chinese airlines now operate scheduled passenger flights between the two countries.<br/>
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Iran said Monday that the coronavirus pandemic has slowed its plans to send abroad the black boxes of a Ukrainian plane its forces mistakenly shot down in January. "From the first days of this painful incident, we announced our readiness to cooperate in investigating the black boxes of the Ukrainian plane," government spokesman Ali Rabiei said. "There is nothing on our side to hide," he said in Tehran. "If it is possible to read them in Ukraine... this will be done in Ukraine. Otherwise, the black boxes will be read in France." But he said the process had been slowed by the coronavirus pandemic, which has seen most international flights cancelled. "The interruption of international flights linked to the coronavirus epidemic caused an involuntary delay," said Rabiei. "We will resume this process (of sending the black boxes) with the gradual resumption of international flights and the clarification of the results of the negotiations" between Iran and others involved in the process.<br/>
As commercial air travel plummeted in recent months amid pandemic lockdowns and closings, the few people who did venture forth faced delays, cancellations and confusing social distancing messages. But some travellers have had far fewer disruptions. They were flying on regional carriers to small airports in far-flung places like the Alaskan fishing village Cordova and tourist destinations like Bar Harbor, Me., and Greenbrier, W.Va. Those communities are among about 170 nationwide that qualify for subsidies and service through the US DoT's essential air service. The pandemic has been especially cruel to the airline industry. The major commercial carriers started cutting service in mid-March in the face of a steep decline in bookings — curtailing their level of service by as much as 90 percent at one point. But essential air service communities didn’t begin to see cuts until late April, when the DoT said service could be reduced by as much as 50 percent as long as carriers maintain one flight a day, six days a week. Even then, some communities didn’t see that much of a drop. Story has more.<br/>
Foreigners returned to Iceland Monday after a hiatus imposed by the Covid-19 outbreak, in a welcome sign for an island nation whose economy is reliant on tourism. Two planes carrying approximately 180 passengers from London and Copenhagen landed at Keflavik airport in the morning, with as many as 650 expected by the end of the day. That’s half as many tourists as had arrived during the whole month of April and about a third of total May arrivals. The visitors received free coronavirus tests directly upon arrival, the first day such a program was put into place. “We are very pleased with how well it has gone so far,” said Jonlaug Heimisdottir, the health official who is overseeing the program. Some 100 tests were completed within 40 minutes, she said.<br/>
Passenger demand at London’s second-largest airport may not return to pre-crisis levels for another three or four years as the sector grapples with severe disruption. Airports have been heavily impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, with airlines stopping or significantly reducing their flights in the wake of lockdowns and travel restrictions to contain Covid-19. “We think it will take three to four years for Gatwick to come back to 2019 passenger volume levels,” said Stewart Wingate, CEO of Gatwick. Gatwick reported just under 37m passengers in the nine months to the end of 2019, an increase of 0.3% from the same period the year before. The airport has also been under pressure after two big airlines announced plans to reduce or review their presence at Gatwick due to the current crisis. Virgin Atlantic said it will end its operations at the airport, while BA said it could not exclude the possibility of also closing its services there. “We are very hopeful that BA will continue flying, we think they will, we certainly are doing everything we can to persuade them to continue to fly to and from Gatwick and Virgin (Atlantic) are holding on to their spots, so in three or four years, they are telling us, they certainly intend to come back to Gatwick,” Wingate said.<br/>
Turkey’s Istanbul Airport has opened its third parallel runway for flight operations on 14 June. Anadolu Agency reported that the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan presided over the runway’s opening ceremony. With this runway, Istanbul Airport is the first airport in Turkey and the second in Europe, after Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, to operate three runways in parallel. In April, Istanbul Airport filed an official application with the Directorate General of Civil Aviation to ensure that its third runway would be open for flight operations by 18 June. This runway is expected to reduce the domestic taxi times by around 50%. According to a simulation, the average landing time will drop from 15 minutes to 11 minutes while average takeoff time will decrease from 22 minutes to 15 minutes.<br/>
Embraer says it secured $600m in export financing and loans, as it deals with the fallout of the coronavirus crisis and the scuppered tie-up with Boeing. The San Jose dos Campos-based planemaker says about half of the cash will be financed via the Brazilian National Bank of Economic and Social Development (BNDES), with the other half coming from private and public banks. The loans will come due in four years. The money will provide working capital to help with the production of passenger commercial aircraft as well as executive jets. “These working capital financial lines, generally available to exporting companies, will further reinforce the cash position of the company, guaranteeing funds from the production phase through the moment of product shipment for the export market,” Embraer said Monday. The fresh money will not alter the shareholder structure at the world’s third-largest aircraft manufacturer, and the company says it is looking for further forms of financing if needed.<br/>