Airlines have been warned that coronavirus vaccines will not be a solution to the aviation industry’s problems with quarantine requirements expected to persist for many months, and borders to open and close unpredictably. Last year was the worst on record for the aviation industry due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, with full year traffic down around two thirds on 2019. And the IATA isn’t predicting 2021 will be much better with losses of US$39b forecast for the global industry over the year. Capa – Centre for Aviation founder and chairman emeritus Peter Harbison said international air travel would struggle to get off the ground in 2021 with revenue for airlines in the first half of 2021 looking “something close to catastrophic”. He said vaccines were “not the solution” to the industry’s problems and would instead be a “sideshow” for international aviation for most of the year. Vaccines would take many months to roll out and vaccination priority was going to be given to people who had, in most cases, lower travel propensity, he said. “The younger, healthier people will not receive vaccinations till later in 2021 – that’s if they receive them at all in 2021,” Harbison said. “Then there's the point that no one is vaccinated until everybody is vaccinated.” The number of different vaccines and recognition and safety standards of those would also be an issue, he said. “This remains with national health authorities, and they have varying levels of risk tolerance.”<br/>
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Forward airline bookings have weakened going into Q1 2021, as IATA warns that the situation is likely to get worse before it gets better. The organisation’s chief economist Brian Pearce notes that while the industry saw “some modest improvement in bookings in the weeks following the vaccine announcement news” in Q4 2020, that trend was reversed towards the end of December and into the first few days of 2021. “We’ve actually seen quite a sharp drop-off in bookings, which means that the immediate outlook looks pretty challenging,” he explains, citing the impact of spiking virus cases and the imposition of further travel restrictions by governments around the world. Today, bookings for Q1 2021 are down 75%, 82% and 81% year-on-year respectively for January, February and March. At the same point of Q4 2020 – which Pearce notes was “already weak” – IATA figures show forward bookings were down 71%, 81% and 80% year-on-year respectively for October, November and December.<br/>
The US will soon require airline passengers to prove they recently tested negative for Covid-19 before flying to the country, the CDC said Tuesday. The measure, which aims to curb the spread of the disease, comes as new infections have hit records. Starting Jan. 26, arriving travelers will have to test negative for Covid-19 within three days of their flight to the US, the CDC said. “Testing does not eliminate all risk, but when combined with a period of staying at home and everyday precautions like wearing masks and social distancing, it can make travel safer, healthier, and more responsible by reducing spread on planes, in airports, and at destinations,” CDC Director Robert Redfield said. The agency last month started requiring negative Covid tests for travelers flying from the UK, as a more contagious strain of the virus was detected there, though it has since been found around the US. <br/>
Supporters of President Donald Trump who breached the US Capitol should be banned from flying, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said on Tuesday, calling those in the mob insurrectionists who are a threat to national security. Schumer said US officials should place people who were inside the Capitol building on the federal “no fly” list. “We cannot allow these same insurrectionists to get on a plane and cause more violence and more damage,” Schumer said. He discussed the matter with FBI Director Christopher Wray. Acting US Attorney Michael Sherwin of the Washington office told a news conference on Tuesday that the Justice Department has identified more than 170 potential suspects in the Capitol violence to date and charged more than 70. Asked about the possibility of adding suspects to the no-fly list, Steven M. D’Antuono, an FBI official who heads the Washington Field Office, said it is “something that we are actively looking at.” Schumer said in a letter on Tuesday to the FBI and TSA, “it is an attempt to stop democracy as we know it, using domestic terrorism to assault our system of government, thereby qualifying these insurrectionists for the No-Fly List.”<br/>
US airlines carried 61% fewer passengers in November over the same month in 2019 as the coronavirus pandemic continues to discourage air travel, the Transportation Department said Tuesday. The decline was down slightly from the 62% decline in October. The largest 21 U.S. airlines carried 28.5 million passengers in November down from 72.8 million passengers in November 2019. It was the lowest monthly decline since April, when air travel fell to just 3 million passengers, down 96%.<br/>
Thousands of Britons who have received their coronavirus vaccine are set to be offered a health passport as part of a government-funded trial taking place this month. The passport, created by biometrics firm iProov and cybersecurity firm Mvine, will be issued in the form of a free app allowing users to digitally prove if they have received the vaccine. The trial will be overseen by two directors of public health in local authorities and will be complete in March. However, the locations have yet to be agreed. Innovate UK, the government’s science and research funding agency, has pumped GBP75,000 into the project. The aim of the trial is to show how the passports can be used to help the NHS keep track of the number of people that have received the first or second dose of the vaccine. Frank Joshi, director and founder of Mvine, said the company first began working on the passes to demonstrate test results but had since acquired more funding to pivot into vaccination passports. “The idea is that we are there ready and waiting in the event that we find ourselves interested in a situation where we need to prove something about ourselves,” he said. “Originally we started off with this need to prove whether you’ve had an antibody test, but it can be equally used to demonstrate whether you’ve been vaccinated.”<br/>
Boeing had its worst year for net aircraft sales on record in 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic added to the company’s woes, but more interest for its beleaguered 737 Max planes cropped up at the end of the year. The Chicago-based manufacturer on Tuesday said it logged gross orders for 184 aircraft in 2020, including more than 80 of its 737 Max planes in December, a month after US regulators lifted a 20-month ban on the jetliners following two deadly crashes. Customers canceled orders for more than 650 planes last year. Boeing removed more than 1,000 planes from its backlog, taking into account orders it didn’t think would be fulfilled. That marked the worst year for net orders on record for the company, according to data from Teal Group, an aerospace consulting firm. Boeing delivered 157 planes in 2020, the fewest since 1984, according to Richard Aboulafia, vice president of analysis at Teal Group. The 737 Max grounding and the pandemic weren’t Boeing’s only problems last year. Additional inspections of the company’s 787 Dreamliner planes delayed deliveries of the wide-body jets, which are more expensive than the 737 line. Last month, CFO Greg Smith said Boeing would further trim production of the Dreamliners to five a month from six. Before the pandemic Boeing had planned to ramp up production of the planes to as many as 14 a month, but repeatedly scaled back production targets as demand slipped.<br/>
Since the pandemic started nearly a year ago, 15,000 fewer people arrive and depart daily from the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, known as CVG. Yet the 60% drop in passenger traffic is not so apparent on the airport’s four runways, which are handling a record amount of air cargo — nearly 4,000 tons a day. Ranked by the FAA as the nation’s sixth-largest cargo airport, CVG’s standing is about to climb higher. Amazon Air, the e-commerce giant’s five-year-old cargo airline, is completing a 798,000-square-foot sorting center, seven-level parking structure and acres of freshly poured concrete to accommodate 20 aircraft. The new facility, under construction on a 640-acre site along the airport’s southern boundary, is scheduled to open in the fall. It represents about a third of the $1.5b, three-million-square-foot air cargo hub Amazon is committed to building at CVG. “This hub is going to let us to get packages to customers faster,” Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder and CE, said during the groundbreaking ceremony at CVG in May 2019. “That’s a big deal.” By far the largest air cargo construction project in the airport’s 74-year history, the mile-long facility will be the center of Amazon Air’s national air transport network, which now has more than 70 aircraft and hundreds of daily flights to 35 other cities in the US. Last week, Amazon announced the purchase of 11 Boeing 767-300 aircraft as part of an effort to expand its fleet. The new building is a signal measure of Amazon’s influence as the largest online retailer and its dedication to fast delivery. Both have helped generate a wave of air cargo construction at airports across the United States. Story has more.<br/>
Canada has named a new Minister of Transport in a cabinet reshuffle as the country’s airline industry continues to suffer from the effects of the global coronavirus crisis. Omar Alghabra will replace Marc Garneau, a former astronaut who had been the transport minister since 2015 and is moving on to become the country’s minister of foreign affairs. Alghabra was a member of the Canadian parliament from 2006-2008 and was reelected in 2015. The National Airlines Council of Canada (NACC), which represents the country’s most major carriers, welcomes the new minister, but adds that Canada’s aviation industry is “in crisis” after the global health pandemic precipitated strict travel restrictions that remain in force. “We are losing connectivity and service to communities across Canada at a rate that threatens to unwind billions of dollars in investment made over the past ten years that has supported hundreds of thousands of jobs and driven a level of connectivity and service that underpinned economic growth in every region of Canada,” says Mike McNaney, the lobby group’s CE.<br/>