The new US administration of President Joe Biden is requiring face coverings be worn on flights for the next 100 days, in a more rigorous attempt to contain exploding coronavirus case counts across the country. On Wednesday, Biden signed an executive order called the “100 Days Masking Challenge,” which requires face masks to be worn on all federal property, including national parks, and during interstate travel on public transportation by air, land or sea. It was one of his first official acts after his inauguration earlier in the day. In addition, he is asking state and local leaders as well as business executives to implement mask-wearing in their areas of responsibility. Airlines have been clamoring for such a federal mandate for months, saying it would add weight and enforcement to the mask requirement that US airlines have already implemented. Pilots’ union Air Line Pilots’ Association, International (ALPA) says on 20 January that it supports the president’s move. “Voluntary implementation leaves too much risk of Covid-19 exposure for frontline aviation workers,” the organisation says on its Twitter feed.<br/>
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The US DOT intends to collect additional passenger ticket data from airlines as part of an overhaul of its Origin-Destination Survey. The agency on Tuesday released a proposed rule that would require a broader swath of airlines to submit data. The DOT also proposes that airlines be required to submit more ticket data and to do so monthly, not quarterly. For years, the US has required that large US passenger airlines submit a “10% sample of airline tickets” to the DOT every quarter. Required ticket data includes the dollar value of tickets and travellers’ starting and ending points. The DOT exempts airlines that operate aircraft with less than 60 seats from participating. The data, which the DOT publishes in its quarterly Origin-Destination Survey, can be used to “plan air services, develop commercial aviation infrastructure, measure the economic impact of passenger flows and create business plans for start-up airlines”, says the DOT. But the agency says its current requirements are based on “accounting processes long abandoned by airlines”. As a result, the data does not reflect “today’s decentralised and integrated industrywide practices…and, in some cases, is not capable of accurately documenting consumer behaviour.”<br/>
The FAA is proposing inspections of 25 Boeing 737 Max 9s after determining that a fuel sealant was not applied during manufacturing. The sealant in question is intended to act as a “fuel barrier” on “blowout” doors, says an FAA proposed airworthiness directive (AD) released on Tuesday. “Application of sealant on the left wing and right wing leading-edge outboard blowout door was missing during the airplane manufacturing process on some model 737-9 airplanes,” the proposed order says. “In the event of a substantial fuel leak from the wing box, missing sealant could result in an unintended drain path allowing fuel to come into contact with the engine.” The result could be a “large ground fire”. Boeing says the issue stems from since-updated 737 Max 9 work instructions.<br/>
The airport in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, will conduct mandatory coronavirus screenings for all outbound passengers starting on Monday, one of the first airports in the country to take advantage of a decision to allow such evaluations by the FAA last month. Under the new “Travel Well” program, the Eastern Iowa Airport will ask a handful of short screening questions and take the temperature of each departing passenger. Travelers who show no signs of having the coronavirus and have no exposure to it will be sent on to the Transportation Security Administration checkpoint. “The Travel Well program will provide an efficient approach to screening passengers and employees,” said Marty Lenss, the airport’s director. Travelers who might be infected with or exposed to the virus will receive a private second screening. The ultimate decision on whether individuals may board their flight will rest with individual airlines. <br/>
Airlines around the world are slashing more flights into the new year as the worst crisis to hit the industry shows no sign of letting up. Europe remains the region hardest hit by curbs on travel, with carriers operating at about a quarter of their capacity before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to John Grant, an analyst at aviation data group OAG. Even China, which spent the latter part of last year flying more or less as normal, has seen a 12% reduction in flights as of Jan. 18, he said. “It’s not looking good, and if anything it’s moving backward,” Grant said Wednesday. “We’ve just got to stoically accept that if you want to travel internationally you have to get some sort of certification.” OAG’s figures paint a harrowing picture for an industry already on its knees after border closures and other travel restrictions first pushed bookings off a cliff last year. Hopes for a recovery this summer are in peril, after a resurgence in cases and the discovery of more transmissible new variants in a number of countries. Singapore capacity has slumped 88%, the UK is down 87% and Germany 84%, OAG data show. The arrival of vaccines offer some hope for the aviation industry, though rollouts take time and should be seen as just one solution for getting tourism back on its feet, according to the analyst. A full recovery may take as long as four more years, Grant said.<br/>
Hong Kong no longer has the busiest airport for international traffic in Asia after the coronavirus pandemic wiped out travel, leaving South Korea’s Incheon International Airport in top spot, albeit with drastically fewer numbers than previous years. Hong Kong International Airport handled 8.84m passengers in 2020, an 88% plunge from the previous year. That sent it down two spots to third, below Seoul’s Incheon and Singapore’s Changi Airport in second. Incheon processed 11.96m passengers last year, leaving it on top of the pile for the first time ever. Changi handled 11.8m. All three airports handled more than 60m passengers in 2019, but the pandemic then came along and scorched demand for travel. Hong Kong and Singapore were affected more than most as they don’t have a domestic market to cater to, while transit traffic also slowed due to restrictions on movement. On top of that, for Hong Kong, visitor numbers started slowing in H2 2019 as anti-government protests gripped the city. South Korea took a less stringent approach to containing the virus than Singapore and Hong Kong, keeping its borders relatively open and avoiding lockdowns. The government encouraged safe social distancing and made mask-wearing mandatory early on. Taking into account domestic traffic, the main airports in Beijing and Shanghai had far more passengers than Incheon, Changi and Hong Kong as China brought its outbreak largely under control and air travel within the country recovered. Beijing Capital International Airport handled 34.5m domestic and international passengers in 2020, while 30.5m passed through Shanghai Pudong.<br/>
Britain’s airlines, airports and aviation manufacturers pleaded for immediate financial support from the government and a longer-term recovery plan after COVID-19 stopped travel and new testing requirements dashed bounce-back hopes. Three trade bodies said they wrote to British PM Boris Johnson on Wednesday to ask for a package of measures including temporarily suspending business rates and a tax on flying, extra loans for airlines and access to funds for the aerospace supply chain. Help was needed to “protect companies from the threat to their survival” posed by the pandemic, and to prevent more jobs being put at risk, said Airlines UK, which represents British Airways, easyJet and others, the Airport Operators Association and the UK aerospace trade body ADS. Britain’s current lockdowns ban most international travel. Flight volumes in the UK are down 80% compared to 2019 and over 45,000 jobs have already been lost in the sector, with more threatened, the groups said. New rules Britain introduced on Monday, which require a negative pre-departure test for travellers plus a period of quarantine on arrival, are a further blow they warned. The government needs to plan to re-introduce some quarantine-free travel and a cheaper testing regime to aid the aviation recovery once vaccines are rolled out, they said. “To achieve a strong overall economic recovery from this crisis the UK must sustain aviation and aerospace industries that connect us to global trading partners and provide vital jobs in every part of the country,” ADS CE Paul Everitt said.<br/>
Britain’s aviation regulator, granted new powers in the Brexit split, faces an early test of how it uses them with the looming return of Boeing’s 737 Max jetliner. Approval of the Max to fly again after two fatal crashes provides a chance for the Civil Aviation Authority to demonstrate its independence. At the same time it highlights the challenge of carving out a role in a regulatory landscape dominated by the US FAA, which backed the Max in 2020, and the EASA, set to do so next week. Early expectations after Britain’s 2016 vote to quit the EU were that the CAA would remain an associate member of EASA. But leaving the European Court of Justice with ultimate jurisdiction was deemed incompatible with the UK aim of recovering sovereign powers from the bloc. Even then, had EASA ruled on the Max before the end of the Brexit transition period on Dec. 31, the CAA would have been spared such an early test. “From a practical standpoint the CAA’s task is unprecedented,” said Jan Walulik, who heads the Civil Aviation Laboratory at the Centre for Antitrust and Regulatory Studies, Warsaw. “Never before has a national aviation authority had to take on enhanced responsibility of such scale.” The CAA will make an independent decision on the Max, while sticking quite closely to the looming EASA directive, with which it was involved, Assistant Director Jonathan Nicholson said. It’s likely to follow EASA in allowing pilots to disable an erroneously activated “stick-shaker” alarm to prevent distraction, according to a person familiar with the situation who asked not to be named. The alarm shakes the control column violently in an emergency, though regulators in Europe and Canada have questioned whether it could contribute to cockpit crews’ confusion in chaotic moments.<br/>
Changi Airport saw an 82.8% drop in passenger traffic last year, according to statistics published on Wednesday on the airport group's website. Passenger traffic dropped from 68.3m passenger movements through the airport in 2019 to 11.8m in 2020. The airport was hit hardest during the circuit breaker months of April and May. During that period, there was a 99.5% drop in passenger traffic, compared with the same period in 2019. The situation is improving slightly, however, with the drop decreasing in severity towards the end of the year when traffic dropped by 97.6% in December. Freight volume and commercial aircraft traffic were also affected.<br/>
EASA is considering the potential for some relaxation of the rules which currently restrict single-pilot operations in commercial aviation. “We believe that this could be implemented quite soon, typically for phases of the flight when you don’t necessarily need two pilots in the cockpit,” said the agency’s executive director Patrick Ky during a media roundtable on 19 January. EASA’s rules stipulate that on-duty crew members ”shall remain at the assigned station, unless absence is necessary for the performance of duties in connection with the operations or for physiological needs” – such as a toilet break – ”provided at least one suitably qualified pilot remains at the controls of the aircraft at all times.” By Ky says it “might make sense” to change those regulations to permit just one pilot on the flightdeck during the cruise while the other rests. But safety systems would also have to be introduced to ensure that “if there is any problem there is no unsafe condition”. Although EASA is examining its implications, a more significant relaxation of the rules allowing single-pilot operations for the entire flight is further away, says Ky. In case of crew incapacitation, advanced autonomous systems would need to be in place to “fly the aircraft without a pilot being in command”, he says. “It is bringing in a lot of other questions. I don’t think we are there yet but it is certainly an area of interest for everyone.”<br/>