High coronavirus infection rates in the US are threatening to undermine a global recovery in travel, according to the airline industry’s main trade group. IATA economists said Wednesday their baseline estimate for a 36% drop in traffic this year could worsen to 53% if border curbs on emerging market countries and the US remain in place. The EU this week relaxed a ban on non-essential travel from 15 countries beyond the bloc, including Australia, Canada and Japan, while maintaining a bar against visits by Americans. The decree suggests disruption to a US-EU air-travel market generating $29b a year in revenue will continue until authorities rein in the deadly disease. “There’s a compromise to find between the need to reopen and restart the economy, and the need for an approach to limit the transmission of the virus from one country to another,” IATA CEO Alexandre de Juniac said. Brian Pearce, the group’s chief economist, said a sustained slump in trans-Atlantic travel would hurt European network airlines most, since they don’t have a profitable short-haul market to fall back on, unlike their US peers. Pearce said a global recovery in flights had already dipped in the second half of June amid a resurgence of the outbreak in China, where domestic demand had been recovering.<br/>
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After coronavirus lockdowns that brought civil aviation to nearly a complete halt air traffic is slowly resuming in Europe as borders reopen, but tens of thousands of jobs are still hanging in the balance. The lockdowns saw air travel plunge by 94.3% in April compared with the same month last year, when measured by kilometres travelled by paying passengers. IATA believes the recovery in air travel is likely to be determined not only by the pace of restrictions being lifted but also by the extent health worries keep people from travelling. IATA expects the recovery to begin in domestic air travel, then extend to continental travel and finally, at the end of the year, to long-haul inter-continental flights. It sees air travel returning to its pre-coronavirus levels only in 2023. Most travel restrictions within Europe have been lifted and starting Wednesday nationals from 15 countries are allowed into the EU. The US, Russia and Brazil -- where the virus is still spreading quickly -- were left off the list. In Europe, during the week of June 15-21, an average of 7,706 flights were recorded each day, a 78% drop from the same week last year, according to Eurocontrol which manages European airspace. The airlines operating the most flights were Turkish Airlines, Lufthansa, Wizz Air, the Norwegian regional airline Wideroe, and Air France. The busiest airports were Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Frankfurt, Amsterdam-Schiphol, London-Heathrow and Istanbul.<br/>
The FAA and Boeing have completed certification test flights on the 737 MAX, a key milestone toward the plane’s return to service, the US regulator said Wednesday. The FAA said it must still evaluate data from the three days of testing and has other tasks to complete. “The agency is following a deliberate process and will take the time it needs to thoroughly review Boeing’s work,” the FAA said. “We will lift the grounding order only after FAA safety experts are satisfied that the aircraft meets certification standards.” Boeing declined to comment, saying it would defer to the FAA statement. The tests of Boeing’s proposed changes to the automated flight control system on the aircraft are a pivotal moment in the company’s worst-ever corporate crisis. The FAA must complete the data review, approve new pilot training procedures, among other steps, and is unlikely to approve the plane’s ungrounding until mid-September. If that happens, the jet is on a path to resume US service before year-end, in a process plagued by delays. The crisis has cost Boeing more than $18b, slashed production and hobbled its supply chain, with criminal and congressional investigations still ongoing. <br/>
Safety fixes after the first Boeing 737 MAX crash became snarled in FAA delays and repetitive analyses, wasting any chance US regulators had to prevent the second fatal accident, according to an investigation by the DoT internal watchdog. The 52-page report released Wednesday reiterated previously known lapses by the FAA and Boeing during initial safety approval of the MAX, but it also raised additional questions about the seeming lack of urgency both sides displayed during the five months between the two crashes to develop and implement a safety fix covering the entire fleet. Following the first MAX crash, in October 2018, it took the FAA four months just to agree on a timetable for implementing fixes once they were devised, according to the report by the DOT inspector general. The narrative released Wednesday also revealed that FAA officials spent months conducting an inconclusive internal review of problems with the plane’s original certification. Launched in January of 2019, the review got bogged down in bureaucratic procedures, never got finished and eventually was abandoned when a second MAX went down that March, according to the inspector general. The inspector general’s report provides fresh ammunition for FAA critics in Congress who argue agency officials wasted their chance to act swiftly and decisively to prevent the second, similar MAX crash that occurred less than five months later.<br/>
Pressure is mounting on the government to release the list of countries British people can go on holiday to without having to quarantine for 14 days on their return. As lockdown restrictions are eased, confusion remains among holiday-goers over which countries would be included in so-called “air bridges” – some of which were supposed to be up and running by 6 July. There were mixed suggestions over when an announcement would be made, with No 10 indicating the details would be released later this week and briefings from other Whitehall departments suggesting it would be Wednesday or Thursday. MPs have said holidaymakers need urgent clarity to avoid them making bookings that could leave them out of pocket. Talks were ongoing on Wednesday night between the health secretary, Matt Hancock, and the devolved nations about the proposals to exempt some countries from quarantine. The shadow transport secretary, Jim McMahon, said ministers had promised to inform MPs this week on where people could book holidays.<br/>
Nigeria will resume domestic flights from July 8, the government said on Wednesday, as Africa's most populous country relaxes novel coronavirus restrictions despite mounting cases and deaths. The airports for the capital Abuja and Lagos will open on July 8, while a handful of others are set to open July 11 and the rest on July 15, the government said on its official Twitter account. No date was given for the resumption of international flights. Nigeria had confirmed more than 25,000 coronavirus cases and almost 600 deaths as of Wednesday, with little sign of the outbreak slowing. Officials have expressed their concern that the outbreak in the West African country might become much worse.<br/>