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Qantas said Thursday the pandemic cost it A$4b ($2.9b) in revenue in the last fiscal year and warned that international travel won't resume before mid-2021. The Australian airline reported an underlying profit before tax of AU$124m ($89m) for the fiscal year that ended on June, a 90.6% decline from the AU$1.33b profit posted a year before. The carrier’s statutory net loss for the latest year was AU$1.96b ($141b). Qantas CE Alan Joyce said international routes would not reopen until the middle of next year and US services might depend on a COVID-19 vaccine becoming widely available. Routes would be reopened country by country, depending on virus spread. “New Zealand is an obvious example that should potentially open up relatively fast compared to the other countries around the world,” Joyce said. “The US, with the level of prevalence there, is probably going to take some time. It’s probably going to need a vaccine before we could see that happening,” he said. Joyce said Qantas was in a better financial position than many airlines to survive the pandemic. “We have the lowest cash burn, we believe, of any major airline group in the world,” Joyce said.<br/>

A plane attempting to land at a Russian airport was delayed for about 20 minutes due to an unusual hazard on the runway -- a wandering bear. The S7 Airlines flight from Novosibirsk was coming in for a landing Monday at the airport in Magadan when the flight crew spotted a bear on the tarmac. The crew spotted the bear while at about 500 feet, allowing for the flight to adjust and circle around the airport. The plane made a second landing attempt about 20 minutes later, and the plane safely touched down after the crew verified that the bear had moved on from its dangerous position.<br/>