Besides wearing a mask on an airplane, there's one other thing you should definitely do if you are traveling this fall or over the holidays: Use your miles. A survey of pandemic award prices finds airlines are making award seats available at very cheap prices in miles or points. First-class seats, which give you a bit more social distance on board, are a particularly good value. In its 10 busiest markets, United's award seats for various travel dates in November averaged only 12,833 miles round trip, about half the cost of what traditionally has been a standard domestic coach ticket of 25,000 miles. JetBlue averaged only 15,167 points round trip. For first class, American was only 42,500 miles round-trip, Delta only 49,100 miles. "The answer is a resounding yes -- it is a good time to use miles, especially for premium cabins," says Jay Sorensen, president of consulting firm IdeaWorks, which priced available award tickets at US airlines on Oct. 3 for November travel, including Thanksgiving. With travel depressed, airlines have drastically reduced flights. While there are some eye-popping cash deals for flights, and tickets are usually cheap these days, the bargains offered in miles can be even better. United says MileagePlus awards this November are almost 30% cheaper in miles compared with last November. The percentage of passengers traveling on awards is up, says Michael Covey, managing director of the MileagePlus program. "As demand has come down on some of these routes, we've been able to offer MileagePlus award tickets at lower prices across our system," Covey says. More airlines adjust award prices with the ups and downs of cash prices. But offering bargains with miles has taken on greater significance in the pandemic as frequent-flier programs have lost so much appeal.<br/>
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The Japanese government said on Friday it would reduce airport landing fees by a record 45% on all domestic flights for seven months through February as airlines struggle with a plunge in demand due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Transport Minister Kazuyoshi Akaba said the decision was made in view of an unprecedented fall in travel demand, and in an effort to sustain the country’s air travel network, which he said supports economic and public activity. The fee reduction will be applied retroactively from August and last through February 2021, the ministry said.<br/>
The cost of air tickets between two major Asian financial hubs is already starting to rise less than 24 hours after Singapore and Hong Kong unveiled plans for a travel bubble that wouldn’t require people to quarantine upon arrival. The cheapest price for a return economy seat on Singapore Airlines to Hong Kong was S$558 on Friday morning up until the end of December, versus around S$400 on Thursday afternoon as the news was being announced, the airline’s website shows. Return business-class fares rose by around HK$5,000 ($645) to HK$19,000. The coronavirus pandemic has hit the flag carriers of Singapore and Hong Kong especially hard because they don’t have any domestic market to fall back on. Prior to the Covid-19 outbreak, around 1 million trips were made between the two regional centers every year, data from the Singapore and Hong Kong tourism boards show. Hong Kong-listed Cathay Pacific Airways closed up 6.1% on Thursday and rose as much as 6.4% on Friday as investors digested the news. Singapore Airlines added 0.9%. Under the travel bubble, compulsory quarantine will be replaced by coronavirus testing. Singaporean Transport Minister Ong Ye Kung said that he hopes the bubble will start in “weeks.” Other details of the agreement will be fleshed out later, the Hong Kong government said, without giving any date for when the plan will come into effect.<br/>
Heathrow Airport has rejected a union proposal on pay cuts as the London hub struggles to cope with a collapse in air travel, according to labor group Unite. Management rebuffed a package under which all employees, including top executives, would have returned bonus payments, with most staff reverting to December 2019 salary levels, the union said Thursday. Shareholders also stood to lose GBP100m in dividend payments under the plan. Unite is balloting members on strike action. A Heathrow spokesman said the Unite measures weren’t enough to see it through the coronavirus crisis. The airport’s plan is for a salary reduction of as much as 25% for about half of 4,700 front-line staff -- who include cleaners, security personnel and engineers -- to avoid compulsory redundancies. Passenger numbers at what is usually Europe’s busiest hub have become stuck at less than 20% of typical levels. The long-haul trips in which Heathrow specializes have been hardest hit, with crucial North Atlantic traffic down 95% last month. Unite said some workers face pay cuts of 8,000 pounds a year under the Heathrow proposals. The union said its own plan would see the return of bonuses ranging from GBP700 for the average employee to GBP566,000 for CEO John Holland-Kaye, who it said is also due to receive a GBP1m share-in-success payment. Heathrow said no staff will be taking a bonus this year. <br/>
The coronavirus crisis is an opportunity to address the “poor” gender imbalance among workers in the air transport industry, according to European commissioner for transport Adina Valean. Speaking at the International Aviation Women’s Association annual conference on Thursday, Valean noted that “gender balance is not an objective in itself”. Rather, she cites research showing that “a lack of diversity in the workplace leads to other problems such as harassment, bullying or depression”, while more-balanced workplaces bring “major benefits to society, the economy, the environment, and the companies themselves, enabling them to perform better”. That is crucial, because “we need, more than ever, as many brilliant minds around the table as possible”, Valean states in reference to the air transport sector’s current predicament. At face value, air transport performs better in terms of gender balance than the wider transport sector, Valean observes, with 40% of employees being women compared with 20% in the wider industry. This, however, “hides differences between occupations”, she explains, highlighting the fact that fewer than 5% of pilots are women. “Stereotypes are tenacious, and have certainly contributed to the imbalance between the number of women working as cabin crew and those working as pilots,” Valean says. “Difficult working conditions, a lack of work-life balance, also play a role. Employers need to create a working environment that welcomes and protects all employees, no matter what their gender is. This will benefit all workers, as well as their employers.”<br/>
Embraer expects regional airports and smaller passenger aircraft will emerge on top from the coronavirus pandemic due to population shifts away from big cities. “We do believe that the small airplane will have more relevance in the airline business model in the future,” Embraer strategic marketing director Daniel Galhardo Gomes said Wednesday. “Demand will come back, but it will come back in a different way.” Galhardo bases his prediction on factors including the recent surge in remote working, which is allowing people and companies to relocate from big cities to smaller towns. “We will see people looking for other places to live. They don’t have to live in big centres anymore,” Galhardo says. “Companies actually will also be able to establish their headquarters away from big centres.” Additionally, anti-globalisation sentiment in the US, Europe, Asia and elsewhere has led some manufacturers and suppliers return to home countries, centralising operations there. In the post-virus environment, such factors will drive more demand for regional and inter-regional travel, benefiting regional-aircraft makers like Brazil’s Embraer, Galhardo predicts. “There will be more business connections domestically and inter-regionally,” he adds. “It is definitely a matter of adjusting the [airline] business model.” Story has more.<br/>
The first quarantine-free flights to Australia from New Zealand touch down Friday, a one-way corridor that underlines the difficulty of restarting broad international travel. From today, New Zealanders can visit New South Wales state, home to Sydney, without having to quarantine on arrival. But those flying back to New Zealand still need to undertake mandatory hotel quarantine for 14 days, and pay for it themselves. The restrictions for those returning from Australia reflect the resurgence of Covid-19 in pockets of the country, most notably in Victoria state, which has spent months bringing a Melbourne outbreak to heel. New Zealand, in contrast, has crushed community transmission of the virus. While Singapore and Hong Kong said yesterday they’ll open their borders to one another, efforts worldwide to establish corridors have been hobbled by coronavirus flareups, and the travel clampdowns that are required to slow the spread of infection. Given the quarantine requirements in New Zealand, there’s little demand for return flights. About 90% of passengers on the Air New Zealand flight that lands shortly after midday in Sydney on Friday are traveling one way, the airline said.<br/>