The EU recommended keeping its external borders shut to Americans and most other foreigners for at least two more weeks as fears grow of a second coronavirus wave, according to officials familiar with the matter. Member-government envoys in Brussels on Tuesday urged no expansion of a list of 15 countries -- Canada, Japan, South Korea and China among them -- whose residents were given the green light two weeks ago to visit the EU, the officials said on the condition of anonymity. The diplomats also recommended shortening the list to 13 states by removing Serbia and Montenegro as a result of new infections there, the people said. The plan marks the first biweekly review of a July 1 EU move to loosen a pandemic-induced curb on non-essential travel to the bloc. The ban on non-essential travel to the EU has so far largely showcased voluntary coordination among member countries under the aegis of the European Commission, the 27-nation bloc’s executive arm, which formally has no decision-making power over the matter. Health policy in Europe is primarily a national responsibility. Still, some EU capitals are going their own way. European airline and airport groups last week criticized the failure of member countries to uniformly follow the recommendation regarding the July 1 loosening, citing “a patchwork system of travel restrictions and border controls throughout Europe.”<br/>
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US airlines carried 89% fewer passengers in May compared with last year, a massive decline that is still better than a historic low in April amid the coronavirus pandemic, the US Transportation Department said Tuesday. The 20 largest US airlines carried 7.9m passengers in May down from 74.8m passengers in May 2019. Still, the airlines carried more than twice as many passengers in May than in April, when passenger traffic fell 96%, up from 3m passengers on all US airlines in April. International US traffic fell 98% in May to 182,000 passengers, down from 9.9m.<br/>
The US, Canada and Mexico are poised to extend their agreements to keep their shared borders closed to non-essential travel to Aug. 21, officials said Tuesday. The agreements would extend the closures by another 30 days. A person familiar with the matter said final confirmation of the US, Canada agreement has yet occurred but is likely. The restrictions were announced on March 18 and were extended in April, May and June. Mexico’s Foreign Affairs ministry said via Twitter Tuesday that “after reviewing the development of the spread of COVID-19” Mexico had proposed to the US government that they extend the restrictions on ground travel at the US-Mexico border for 30 more days. Canadian PM Justin Trudeau said this week that a decision on the border would be announced later this week. “We’re going to continue to work hard to keep Canadians safe and to keep our economies flowing, and we will have more to say later,” Trudeau said.<br/>
Ireland may start random testing visitors for Covid-19 if they come from countries where the disease is deemed not under control. Leo Varadkar, the tánaiste (deputy prime minister), said Tuesday the government was considering introducing the tests as the country, which has largely suppressed community transmission, experiences growing concern that imported cases could trigger a second wave. Varadkar said any testing would be for people coming from countries not on Dublin’s “green list” of countries deemed to have the pandemic largely under control. The list – due to published next week – will specify which countries people can travel to and from without restrictions. Currently visitors from all countries are supposed to quarantine for 14 days, one the strictest regimes in the European Union. Some opposition politicians and public health experts have called for Ireland to send a message that tourists are not welcome for now and that anybody who does visit will be tested and subject to strict quarantine, with violations punishable by jail. The government said it will not go that far. Varadkar ruled out mandatory testing as legally unsound and problematic and cited quarantine hotels in Australia which ended up hosting clusters and becoming sources of infection.<br/>
The flood of cancelled Boeing plane orders has returned. The company reported Tuesday that 60 orders were canceled in June, mostly by aircraft leasing companies. It's not as bad as the 150 orders cancelled in March and 108 in April. But after seeing cancelled orders plummet in May to only 18 cancellations, June's 60 cancellations were a move in the wrong direction. Boeing also dropped an additional 123 planes from its backlog of orders because it no longer can be certain those orders will be filled. Some of that uncertainty is due to the financial condition of an airline customer. But counted among those tenuous orders are 97 planes that Norwegian Air Shuttle says it has cancelled, but which Boeing has yet to acknowledge in its cancellation total. Fortunately for Boeing it still has more than 4,500 jets in its backlog, enough to keep its factories working for years to come. But the June results mean Boeing has 843 canceled or uncertain orders in 2020, compared to only 59 new orders. On the other side of the ledger, it could count only one new order in the month -- for a 767 freighter destined for FedEx (FDX).<br/>
The operator of Narita International Airport said Tuesday that it will reopen one of its two runways that has been closed since April due to the novel coronavirus pandemic. Narita International Airport Corp. will reopen the 2,500m Runway B on July 22, ahead of the nation's four-day holiday that starts the following day. The airport operator closed the runway April 12 after both international and domestic flight passengers decreased sharply due to the coronavirus outbreak. However, since the government lifted the state of emergency over the virus in late May, low-cost carriers have gradually resumed operations of domestic flight services. The airport is thus hoping to reopen Runway B to meet an expected increase in demand during the four-day holiday and the Bon summer holiday period in mid-August.<br/>