Universal coronavirus tests for departing passengers offer the only realistic hope of reviving demand for flights in the absence of a vaccine, the IATA said. The 100% adoption of rapid antigen tests, which should be available next month, would remove any need for quarantines that are currently “killing” the market, IATA chief Alexandre de Juniac said Tuesday. While the call for testing isn’t new, the outlook has turned increasingly grim for airlines taking stock of a disappointing summer with rising infection rates and restrictions dashing hopes for a recovery. To date, the industry’s many calls for a unified approach to air travel have been hampered by individual countries loath to surrender health policy responsibilities to outsiders. Even proposals for so-called travel bubbles between pair of countries have run up against red tape and authority split among various agencies. IATA will seek to convince governments of the case for rapid testing through the UN-mandated ICAO, De Juniac said, adding that all of its members back the proposal. The airline industry’s main trade group has repeatedly blamed travel restrictions for holding back demand. Tests would cost as little as $10, could be performed by staff without professional medical training, and would deliver a result in 15 minutes with 97% sensitivity, IATA said. As well as allowing nations to relax curbs on flying, a universal testing regime would provide people with reassurance that fellow passengers were Covid-free. Governments should fund the programme, De Juniac said. Passenger traffic showed little improvement in August, according to IATA. Brian Pearce, its chief economist, said gains were limited mainly to domestic markets and that any advance in international demand was very, very slow.<br/>
general
Air carriers and their unions Tuesday ratcheted up pleas for an extended Covid-19 aid package to forestall layoffs, but a sudden Supreme Court vacancy and partisan rancor are dimming the prospects. “At this point, it looks like everything is pretty much frozen,” said former Senator Byron Dorgan, who served on the committee overseeing transportation policy. “It doesn’t look like anything is going to happen.” Weeks of lobbying, trips to the White House by airline executives and the prospects of massive job losses in states where incumbent Republican Senators face tough re-election challenges -- such as at airline hubs in Georgia, Arizona and Colorado -- haven’t resulted in movement. The frustration was evident at a press conference outside the Capitol Tuesday held by a group of airline executives, union leaders and lawmakers from both parties. “I just can’t believe that we may not be able to do the right thing simply because our elected officials can’t come to any sort of compromise agreement,” said Doug Parker, chairman and CEO at American Airlines Group. “We’re better than that.” Without congressional action, tens of thousands of US airline workers will lose their jobs on Oct. 1, just weeks before elections. Pelosi and Oregon Representative Peter DeFazio, chairman of the House Transportation Committee, spoke to airline executives and labor leaders in separate phone calls last Friday. Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, chairman of the the House Democratic Caucus, said Tuesday he does not expect the matter to be addressed in a bill separate from a broader stimulus relief measure. “I know there are discussions taking place at a high level,” Jeffries said. “The Republicans are paying lip-service to the notion that we should step in to the situation but we really haven’t seen any movement in that regard.” The lack of action despite bipartisan letters of support and bill introductions is prompting unusually blunt language from participants seeking help. Story has details.<br/>
The Trump administration is urging US lawmakers to pass separate bills to aid airlines and other sectors, given failure to reach agreement on a broader package of stimulus funding, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Tuesday. The US Congress has been deadlocked over another round of economic stimulus aimed at blunting the effects of the coronavirus pandemic that has now killed over 200,000 people in the US. US airlines, facing a huge drop in demand due to virus-related lockdowns, on Tuesday mounted a last-ditch bid to persuade Congress to approve a new $25b bailout to help avert thousands of furloughs set to begin Oct. 1. Delta has agreed to delay a decision on pilot furloughs until Nov. 1, the pilots union said Tuesday. Two key Republican senators this week introduced a bill that would authorize $28.8b in payroll aid for the airlines. But congressional aides say a stand-alone measure is unlikely to win passage given aid requests from so many other struggling industries. McEnany said talks about a broader stimulus measure were continuing with House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and said the White House's agreement to accept a measure valued at $1.5t could still lead to some progress. In the absence of a bigger bill, she urged Pelosi to work on separate legislation to address the needs of airlines, which have warned that they will be forced to carry out mass layoffs unless they receive additional assistance. "The onus is really on Speaker Pelosi, so we encourage her to send one-off bills, perhaps airline funding, or other elements that we could work through the process to get to the American people," she told a briefing at the White House.<br/>
Democratic Senators Richard Blumenthal and Ed Markey called on the FAA to make public all data and information used to justify the Boeing 737 MAX’s return to service and disclose any internal objections raised by FAA employees. The FAA has proposed requiring a series of software upgrades and other changes to be made before the return of the 737 MAX to service. The airplane has been grounded since March 2019 after two fatal crashes in five months killed 346 people. “Robust transparency is needed to ensure that independent experts and the public can review whether this aircraft is truly safe before it takes to the skies again,” the senators wrote. Boeing declined to comment. The FAA said it would respond directly to the senators. The senators cited reports that suggested the FAA had often yielded to Boeing. “The FAA has demonstrated a disturbing pattern of deferral to Boeing in the past, and we feel strongly that the agency must fully disclose of all information related to its determinations moving forward,” the senators wrote.<br/>
Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury stepped up his warning on forced job cuts at the European planemaker as a sharper-than-expected decline in travel leads carriers to push back deliveries of new jets. “The situation has worsened” coming out of the summer high season, he said Tuesday. “Airlines are in a more difficult situation after the holidays than what we were hoping.” The industrial giant, whose cost-cutting plans call for the elimination of 15,000 jobs, will have to “adapt to the new environment,” he added, in particular on the employment front. The shares dropped as much as 2.7%. “It will be very difficult to stick with voluntary departures,” Faury said, reiterating that the company “is potentially at risk” if it doesn’t take the right steps. He pointed to a 40% decline in the jet maker’s production and deliveries. France is braced to absorb about one-third of the planned cuts and Faury on Tuesday said talks with unions are aimed at using tools like part-time employment and state support of research and development to avoid forcing people to leave the company. “Airlines aren’t canceling their orders but they aren’t honoring deliveries,” Faury said. “The delays on deliveries are very strong” because carriers don’t have the means to take ownership of the planes after passengers and revenue dried up. Airbus’s 40% reduction in output is holding but “I’m extremely cautious about how the crisis is developing and what is coming next with Covid,” he said.<br/>
Passenger throughput at Beijing’s newest airport, Daxing International, hit the 10m mark on Tuesday, nearly a year since the facility commenced operations. The airport, which opened late September last year, adds that it expects total passenger throughput by the end of the year to be around 16m passengers. The news comes amid the backdrop of the coronavirus outbreak, which originated in China, but has since been by brought under control by the Chinese government. It also comes as domestic air travel in China is seeing a post-pandemic recovery, with carriers offering steep discounts to stimulate travel demand. Daxing airport began operations on 25 September last year, five days ahead of its scheduled opening date. With four runways, it is dubbed the world’s largest single-terminal airport building. Fully operational, it is expected to handle more than 70m passengers a year, with targets to increase that to 100m a year. The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) notes that the number of flights a day now at Daxing is in excess of 660, with the number of passengers a day more than 92,000. The airport sees 18 Chinese carriers operating from it, including China Southern, which is using the airport as its Beijing hub. International carriers that are operating out of Daxing include Finnair, British Airways, as well as Royal Brunei Airlines.<br/>
Plans for a rail link between the Great Western mainline and Heathrow Airport will be delayed by up to two years. A planning application for the long-anticipated scheme, which would allow people living to the west of Heathrow to travel direct to the airport, had been expected this year. But Network Rail said the proposal had been delayed by the impact of Covid-19. Reading Borough Council's lead for transport Tony Page described the delay as "deplorable". According to the GBP900m proposal trains would run every 15 minutes from Reading to Heathrow, with a journey of less than half an hour. Currently rail passengers from the Thames Valley, Wales and the West have to travel via London. Network Rail said a Court of Appeal ruling and the pandemic's effect on the aviation industry had delayed the Department of Transport's progress with the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project - which requires a Development Consent Order (DCO) for planning permission. They said in a statement: "The Department has been clear that whilst it fully supports the development of a Western Rail Link to Heathrow, this is subject to a satisfactory business case and the agreement of acceptable terms with the Heathrow aviation industry."<br/>The DCO is expected to be submitted next winter.<br/>
Foreign air crew on stopovers in New Zealand will now stay in the Government’s manage isolation facilities. New Zealand Aviation Coalition co-chair Justin Tighe-Umbers said the 11 airlines flying to New Zealand would all meet the Ministry of Health request. Six airlines were already using Government managed isolation facilities and the rest were managing their way out of contracts with existing accommodation providers and were expected to be using official isolation hotels by the end of September, Tighe-Umbers said. Until now overseas in bound air crew have been required to self-isolate in accommodation that has been approved by their airline. The accommodation must have met or exceeded the criteria for accommodation in a managed facility. The crew had to travel directly to the hotel from the airport and remain in their room using the hotel room service until they travelled back to the airport for their next flight. Airlines would continue to pay the cost of accommodating their air crews, Tighe-Umbers said. “Air crew already following very strict processes on arrival in NZ and they’ve been audited by the Ministry of Health with no serious findings,” Tighe-Umbers said. “These changes are not about addressing any problem with international air crew.”<br/>