The number of people killed in large commercial airplane crashes rose in 2020 to 299 worldwide, even as the number of crashes fell by more than 50%, a Dutch consulting firm said on Friday. Aviation consulting firm To70 said in 2020 there were 40 accidents involving large commercial passenger planes, five of which were fatal, resulting in 299 fatalities. In 2019 there were 86 accidents, eight of which were fatal, resulting in 257 fatalities. Large commercial airplanes had 0.27 fatal accidents per million flights in 2020, To70 said, or one fatal crash every 3.7m flights -- up from 0.18 fatal accidents per million flights in 2019. The decline in crashes came amid a sharp decline in flights due to the coronavirus pandemic. Flightradar24 reported commercial flights it tracked worldwide in 2020 fell 42% to 24.4m. More than half of all deaths in the To70 review were the 176 people killed in January 2020 when a Ukrainian plane was shot down in Iranian airspace. The second deadliest incident was the May crash of a Pakistan airliner crashed in May killing 98. Large passenger airplanes covered by the statistics are used by nearly all travelers on airlines but exclude small commuter airplanes in service.<br/>
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European airlines are stepping up pressure on airports to slash landing charges, leading to warnings of a race to the bottom in an industry decimated by the pandemic. Ryanair, Wizz Air and easyJet are among the carriers pushing airports to discount fees as they decide where to fly when passengers begin returning in significant numbers. Michael O’Leary, CE of Ryanair, said that airports will be under “ferocious pressure” to recover their traffic levels. O’Leary offered the example of his airline’s expansion at Venice airport, where a new base and 18 new routes were announced in December following what Ryanair called “competitive” pricing. “Aircraft numbers are going to move significantly to wherever we can get the best deals,” he said. Airports typically make up their income from a mix of landing fees for the use of their runways by airlines and revenues from their own facilities including retail space, catering and car parking. The collapse in passenger numbers during the pandemic has blown a hole in both these business lines. Olivier Jankovec, DG of airports lobby group ACI Europe, warned that airports’ financial situations were worsening and the pressure to discount their charges was unsustainable. “When you hear from airlines like easyJet, Ryanair or Wizz Air, it is very clear they want to use the crisis as an opportunity to lower their costs . . . We are basically at the moment in an airports beauty contest,” he said. “You can’t expect airport charges to go down forever, that race to the bottom is not sustainable,” he said, pointing to fixed costs such as air traffic control and other infrastructure that cannot be cut in a crisis. <br/>
Britons living in EU countries have been barred from returning to them after Christmas in a post-Brexit row over residency. People trying to return to Spain and Italy after their Christmas holidays were either turned back on arrival or barred from getting on to flights after being told that their pre-Brexit "green cards" were not valid for entry. The problems began on Saturday when border officials at airports in Madrid and Barcelona refused to recognise the documents despite declarations by the Spanish and Italian governments that they should be treated as valid for entry. Instead, border officials insisted they would not allow entry to anyone without a new post Brexit photo-ID card, which most British residents have applied for but have yet to receive. As a result, British passengers were turned back on arrival on at least two flights to Barcelona and had to return to the UK. Passengers on one flight from Newcastle had to fly back without their baggage, which was left at the airport. The problems spiralled when airlines also started refusing to fly resident Britons back to Spain or Italy without the new post-Brexit foreign identity card. Airlines can be fined if they allow people to fly to a country without the right documentation. At least nine people were prevented from boarding a BA/Iberia flight from Heathrow to Madrid on Saturday night despite having pre-Brexit "green cards". Story has more.<br/>
The Boeing 737-8 Max will not be used for commercial operations in Singapore until the authorities are satisfied that all safety concerns about the aircraft have been addressed. The Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) Thursday said it has given SilkAir - the regional arm of Singapore Airlines (SIA) Group - a permit to fly the plane back to Singapore for retrofitting and upgrading. But this does not constitute approval for a return to service, it said. It issued the statement a day after the first of six SilkAir Boeing 737-8 Max planes returned from the Alice Springs aircraft storage facility in Australia. The planes had been grounded since March 2019 and were subsequently flown to the Alice Springs facility. CAAS deputy director-general Tay Tiang Guan said the authority is currently reviewing the aircraft's airworthiness. "As part of this review, CAAS will consider the United States Federal Aviation Administration's requirements and will determine if there is a need to impose additional requirements before we lift the suspension on Boeing 737 Max operations."<br/>
Singapore’s Changi Airport, routinely voted the world’s best and a key part of the city-state’s psyche, is reinventing itself for the Covid era and beyond. In a bid to keep people engaged until life returns to normal, it’s offering glamping for families at Jewel, the nature-themed entertainment complex open to the public, as well as a host of holiday offerings from canopy park tours that involve topiary walks and bouncing on a sky net, to seasonal dining menus. With an eye further into the future, slices of the nearby Singapore Expo site are being transformed into a giant construction site as 840 guest and meeting rooms are built in short order -- part of Connect@Changi, a sprawling facility to house overseas business visitors as part of a bubble initiative. “There are more people, especially on weekends,” said Jasmine Hoon, a server at Paris Baguette, a coffee shop in Jewel selling upmarket pastries and wraps. “Sales have gone up and the vaccines are also giving people hope.” Nearby, children start making themselves at home in large white tents erected as part of the airport’s Glampcations in the Clouds initiative. People can stay overnight amid the greenery and wake to the sound of splashing water from the world’s largest indoor waterfall. Prices start from S$320 ($240) and slots have been fully booked for weeks. Story has more.<br/>
Saudi Arabia will resume international flights, opening land and sea ports as from 11am on Sunday, amid strict precautions against the new COVID-19 variant, an official source said. The country had suspended international flights and closed overland and sea ports for a fortnight starting from December 20. The kingdom stipulated that any foreign passenger, who wished to enter Saudi Arabia from the UK, South Africa, and any other country determined by the Ministry of Health (in which the new mutated type of COVID-19 has spread) must spend at least 14 days outside the country impacted with the mutated virus before entering the Kingdom, the source added. These passengers must also undergo a PCR test after the expiration of this period, to prove that they don't have COVID-19. Citizens and passengers allowed to enter the country on humanitarian grounds, coming from countries with a wide spread outbreak of the new mutated strain of the coronavirus, will be quarantined in their homes under surveillance for 14 days, with two PCR tests - the first after arrival within a maximum of 48 hours, and the second before the end of the quarantine period, on the 13th day. As for the countries that have recorded cases of the strain, passengers from these nations are to be quarantined in their homes under observation for 7 days, and undergo a PCR test, before the end of the quarantine period, on the sixth day of arrival.<br/>
Flight services between India and UK will resume from January 6, while those from UK to India will recommence from January 8, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Saturday. Last month, these services were suspended to stop the spread of a mutant Covid-19 strain which was recently discovered in the UK. The minister tweeted: "India to UK from 6 Jan 2021. UK to India from 8 Jan 2021. 30 flights will operate every week. 15 each by Indian & UK carriers. This schedule is valid till 23 Jan 2021. Further frequency will be determined after review." In another tweet, he said: "All health precautions will be taken. SOPs have been issued by @MoHFW_INDIA. Passengers will be tested both before boarding & upon arrival in India. Details are attached herewith. These are valid till 30 Jan 2021." Several countries, including India, had suspended flight services to the UK in the wake of the new mutant Covid-19 strain.<br/>
Medical companies and shippers in Canada are racing to transport time-sensitive radiochemical materials used to treat cancer, as a pandemic-induced drop in passenger flights has narrowed transportation options and created cargo delays. Half of air cargo normally travels in the belly of passenger jets rather than dedicated freighters. But flight cancellations as traffic plummeted during the pandemic have left some companies scrambling to ship treatments that decay over time, pushing up overall transportation costs. Before the pandemic, the McMaster Nuclear Reactor in the Canadian province of Ontario could ship its iodine-125 isotope anywhere in a couple of days. But since spring, deliveries of the isotope, used to treat about 70,000 patients a year with a procedure called brachytherapy, have been delayed as long as 10 days. “There’s fewer flights, so it’s creating longer routes,” said Karin Stephenson, manager of commercial operations at the reactor. “It’s been really challenging trying to get our product around.” It is a problem in Canada, where a limited domestic market and restrictions on international travel, like a 14-day quarantine for arrivals, have hit air passenger traffic harder than in some other countries like the United States. Travel volumes are down 90% at Canadian airports on an annual basis, according to the government. US cancer specialists and the American College of Radiology said they had not heard of any widespread concerns over shipping isotopes. For the broader industry, moving medical isotopes is a challenge because they decay over time. “Timing is extremely critical,” said Jan Sigger, chief executive of Netherlands-based Quirem Medical, recently acquired by Japan’s Terumo Corp. Story has more.<br/>
A plane landed Sunday at the airport in Yemen’s southern port city of Aden, officials said, the first commercial flight to arrive since the deadly missile attack last week on the facility that killed at least 25 people and wounded 110 others. The attack Wednesday took place just moments after a plane carrying members of Yemen's Cabinet landed on a flight from the Saudi Arabian capital, Riyadh. Three precision-guided missiles that struck the airport targeted the plane carrying the Cabinet members, the arrival hall and the airport s VIP lounge, according to Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack. On Sunday, the airport received a Yemenia airline flight arriving from Sudan’s capital Khartoum, according to Yemen's state-run SABA news agency. Yemeni Interior Minister Ibrahim Haidan and Aden Gov. Ahmed Lamlas were at the airport to receive the flight, the report said. Haidan said the speedy reopening of the airport has underscored “the determination of the government to overcome obstacles and face the difficulties” caused by Wednesday’s attack. The attack killed at least 25 people, including three workers from the International Committee of the Red Cross, and wounded 110 others.<br/>
For seven months in 2018, a lorry trailer was parked near a runway at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport. It housed exercise bikes and air pollution measurement equipment. Twenty-one healthy young people took turns to visit the trailer for pedalling sessions. Air was funnelled from the outside as the young people exercised, and researchers monitored their heart and lung functions. Sometimes the wind blew from the runways and sometimes the air came from nearby roads, the countryside or city. The experiment was designed to see if there were any health impacts from breathing the tiny particles, less than 20 millionths of a millimetre across, that are produced in huge numbers from aircraft engines. These are missed by conventional measurements of air pollution, but there is increasing evidence that they can spread tens of kilometres downwind from an airport. For instance, aviation particles were recently found in the centres of Barcelona, Helsinki, London and Zurich, when the wind blew from each city’s airport, potentially affecting millions of people. At Schiphol, the young people had reduced lung function and changes to heart rhythms after breathing ultrafine particles from the aircraft engines.<br/>