Cathay Pacific is expanding its cold storage facilities at its cargo terminal to allow it to temporarily hold more than 8.6m vaccine doses a day as countries begin approving COVID-19 vaccines. Its current capacity is about 7.1m doses and a new cold storage room will allow for a further 1.5m doses, Cathay Director Cargo Tom Owen said Friday. Airlines battered by COVID-19 are preparing for key roles in the mass vaccine rollout that promises to unlock an immediate boost for the sector - and beyond that, its own recovery and survival. “We are the third-largest freight carrier in the world, and with our 20 dedicated freighters and cargo bellies of passenger aircraft supporting our extensive freighter network, we stand ready to assist with what will be the biggest humanitarian response to a situation involving civil aviation that anyone has ever seen,” Owen said. Cathay has invested in a new generation track-and-trace system called Ultra Track to allow freight forwarders to monitor the condition of vaccine shipments in real-time. “We will be offering the service free of charge for any COVID-19 vaccine shipments from all of the vaccine manufacturing centres,” Owen said. Ultra Track uses a low-energy Bluetooth transmitter that can record and transmit GPS positions, temperature, vibration and humidity in real-time.<br/>
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Finnair has sold another A350 to a leasing firm and will be renting back the airplane for a term of at least 12 years. It’s the latest move in the airline’s many-pronged mission to raise capital, as it awaits the outcome of a $488m loan from the Finnish government. Amid the chaos of 2020, Finnair has again sold and leased back one A350-900 in a bid to raise cash. Finnair said Thursday that the aircraft will be sold to BBAM Aviation Services Limited, with Incline B Aviation Limited Partnership as a lessor guarantor, and leased back for a period of 12 years. The airline took delivery of the plane in April 2019, one of 19 ordered by Finnair. So far, a total of 16 A350s have been delivered to the airline, but with the slump in international travel still ongoing, the need for cash is more pressing than the need to own planes. The deal, it says, will see it raising immediate capital of more than E100m.<br/>
The US Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday Qantas has agreed to pay a $100,000 civil penalty as part of a settlement for illegally importing unregistered products to Honolulu and Los Angeles. The Australia-based airline violated a federal pesticide law with multiple shipments of an unregistered product intended to disinfect drinking water to the United States, the EPA said. The airline also failed to notify EPA of a shipment of a cleaning disinfectant. "Unregistered imported pesticides can be harmful to public health and the environment," said EPA Pacific Southwest Regional Administrator John Busterud. <br/>
Australia’s Regional Express has alerted the country’s competition watchdog on what it called an “opportunistic strategy of flooding the regional airline market with excess capacity” by rival Qantas. Rex, which most recently gained regulatory approval to commence domestic jet operations, also called on the Australian government to halt subsidies to Qantas, which it argues will “entrench the market power of the dominant carrier”. The criticism comes as Qantas announced a major expansion its regional network across three states. From February 2021, the Oneworld carrier will launch seven new regional routes, most of them from Melbourne. The new flights, to be operated by Dash 8 300s, add more than 320,000 seats annually. It will also see Qantas, together with its regional unit QantasLink, operate more domestic destinations than its pre-pandemic network. Qantas also announced that it was adding frequencies to existing domestic and regional flights from 2021, tapping into what it called “pent-up demand for travel”. This comes as international borders remain closed off to curb the spread of the coronavirus. <br/>