IATA is warning states will have to dig deeper over the coming months to support struggling airlines as travel restrictions continue to tighten in response to new strains of the Covid virus. While airlines entered the year with optimism, the roll-out of vaccines meant a recovery in air travel demand may be in sight, this has been tempered by a series of moves by states to curtail travel as a number of more contagious Covid strains emerged. ”I think the short-term outlook has certainly darkened,” acknowledged IATA chief economist Brian Pearce. ”The critical time will be the summer season, because that is when airlines make most of their money. This is the seasonally low-time of year for travel. The vaccine should make all the difference, so the second half of the year should be and feel very different to what it’s feeling like now. So we are hoping this is the dark before the dawn.” While the heightened restrictions are further impacting travel demand, Pearce says the association already had a “very conservative” forecast under which it expects traffic this year to be around half 2019 levels. However he adds: ”What we have also seen is airlines getting very low yields on passengers, partly because they have been pricing to try to stimulate demand….so revenues have been worse than the passenger [traffic] situation. So we will be looking at that closely when we come to update our outlook on cash burn, which is clearly going to be very significant in the first part of this year.”<br/>
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The airline industry has called on the WHO to rule it’s safe for people to fly without quarantining once they’ve had a coronavirus vaccine. Acknowledgement of that principle from the UN agency is vital to the development of a digital-travel pass aimed at getting people moving again once infection rates ease, the IATA said Wednesday. “We can say whatever we want, what we do need is for the WHO to come out and say the same thing, so that it becomes a universal acceptance that once you’re vaccinated you should not have to go through any of these hoops,” Nick Careen, IATA’s senior VP for passenger matters, said in a briefing. The development of common standards for vaccine certificates, a key aspect of IATA’s proposed Travel Pass smartphone app, needs to move much faster, Careen said. Paper-based accreditation is more open to fraud, with several cases having already emerged, he said. The IATA app, which can also be used to store a negative test result, is due to be launched in March. “We have been suggesting this for months,” he said. “The WHO needs a fire lit underneath it to get this done sooner rather than later. Even then, there’s no guarantee that every government will adopt the standard right away.” The WHO’S Emergency Committee on Covid-19 doesn’t recommend countries demand proof of vaccination from incoming travelers, as the impact of inoculations in reducing transmission is unknown, the agency said on Jan. 15. <br/>
US airport screenings fell to the lowest level in more than six months as Covid-19 infections climb and the Biden administration introduces new travel restrictions. The TSA screened just 468,933 people at US airports on Tuesday, down 71% from a year ago when more than 1.6m people went through those checkpoints. It was the fewest number of screenings since July 4, the TSA said. The CEOs of Delta and United recently warned that the industry faces a difficult start to 2021. Executives expect it to take several more months before more Covid-19 inoculations fuel a significant rebound in travel demand. American Airlines and Southwest will report results and their 2021 outlooks on Thursday. Travel demand usually falls early in the year. But in addition to a slow rollout of vaccines, bookings are further challenged by increased travel restrictions aimed at curbing the spread of the virus. The Biden administration this week extended an entry ban on most non-US citizens who have recently been in Brazil, the UK and much of Europe, and added South Africa to those rules as virus mutations from those areas spread. The US government on Tuesday also started requiring travelers, including citizens, to show proof of a recent negative Covid test before boarding flights to the United States. <br/>
They’re essential workers performing critical safety work and have been assigned priority designation to receive the coronavirus vaccine. Yet tens of thousands of airport security screeners, air-traffic controllers and federal accident investigators who must report to work in spite of the virus ravaging the US haven’t gotten the shot and aren’t sure how and when they will. “It’s incredibly frustrating,” said Jennifer Homendy, one of five members of the NTSB. “The vaccine rollout from my point of view has been mismanaged.” The problem, according to multiple officials, is that the shots are being delivered by scores of state and local health agencies, which are using varying standards for who should be given priority. In some cases, employees have been told they qualify for the vaccine, only to be directed back to their employer after saying they work for the federal government, Homendy said. Nowhere has the impact been more severe than among the roughly 50,000 TSA Transportation Screening Officers. So far in the pandemic, more than 6,100 TSA employees, most of them airport screeners, have contracted coronavirus and 14 have died, according to TSA.<br/>
Pete Buttigieg, a former mayor who challenged Joe Biden for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, won US Senate Commerce Committee approval on Wednesday, 21-3, to head the US Transportation Department. The full Senate will cast a final vote as early as this week on Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who will oversee aviation, highways, vehicles, pipelines and transit as Biden’s secretary of transportation. Biden, who entered the White House a week ago, has proposed $20b in additional government assistance to help US transit systems struggling with a massive falloff in ridership amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Congress has allocated $39b in emergency funding for transit systems, including $14b approved last month, and $65b in government loans and bailouts to US passenger airlines. Lawmakers awarded $12b to airports and $2b to the Amtrak passenger train service.<br/>
Los Angeles International Airport increased the size of its bond sale Wednesday to about $900m, showing investors’ confidence in its ability to weather the turbulence from the pandemic-related shutdowns, as well as their eagerness for yield. At the airport’s last sale in August, some buyers balked, leaving the underwriter Goldman Sachs saddled with unsold bonds. This time, though, the new administration of President Joe Biden is pledging speedier shipments of coronavirus vaccines -- which were authorized for emergency use in December -- and investors are clamoring to own debt from issuers poised for a rebound in a post-Covid landscape. Given its strong balance sheet before the outbreak, Los Angeles’s airport is positioned well to absorb the drops in passengers and revenue, Terry Goode, a senior portfolio manager at Wells Capital Management, said before the sale. He pointed to the airport’s projection that it will have ample resources to cover debt service even if it takes five years for fliers to return to pre-pandemic levels. “If you’re going to be participating in the airport sector, LAX is one of your strongest credits,” said Goode, who was evaluating the new deal. “I would put LAX clearly as one of the winners.”<br/>
Ukraine will ban flights over its territory by 13 Russian regional air carriers and Syrian Cham Wings Airlines for three years, the government said on Wednesday, citing flights by them into and out of Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in 2014. A draft resolution approved by the cabinet prohibits “the transit of resources, flights and transportation” by the 14 airlines. It must be approved by Ukraine’s council of national security, led by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to become effective. “Air carriers of the Russian Federation systematically violate the procedure for using the airspace of Ukraine,” the government said. “Violations consist of flights within the prohibited zone over the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.” Hundreds of Russian entities, businessmen and politicians have been sanctioned by Kyiv since Ukraine’s giant neighbour annexed the Crimean peninsula. Bigger Russian airlines, including national flag carrier Aeroflot and Transaero, have been forbidden to enter Ukrainian airspace since 2015.<br/>
Boeing’s 737 Max aircraft has been given the green light to return to the skies in the UK and the EU, after a 22-month grounding following two fatal crashes. The UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said Wednesday it had lifted a ban on the 737 Max in UK airspace and that UK airlines would be allowed to fly it, shortly after the EASA also issued its final approval. However, the CAA stressed that pilot training requirements meant it would be some time before the plane takes to the air in the UK. Marking a crucial step in its return to service, a modified version of the US company’s previously bestselling aeroplane has been given permission to fly again, although not until a package of checks and training is completed. Richard Moriarty, the CAA’s chief executive, said: “Our thoughts remain with those affected by the tragic accidents of the Boeing 737 Max. This is not a decision we have taken lightly and we would not have allowed a return to service for UK operators, or lifted the ban on the aircraft operating in UK airspace, unless we were satisfied that the aircraft type is airworthy and can be operated safely.” The CAA regained the responsibility for supervising British airspace after the UK’s exit from the EU on 31 December. The CAA said the 737 Max will be “subject to close oversight” once it returns.<br/>
Boeing delayed the entry of its wide-body 777X jet into commercial service by another year and posted a record net loss of nearly $12bn for 2020, even as it began delivering the 737 Max to customers last month. The company will not start delivering the 777X — which can seat 384 passengers — to airlines until late 2023, and has taken a charge of $6.5b to reflect the programme’s decreased productivity. Several other charges brought the total for the quarter to $8.3b. The aerospace manufacturer attributed the delay to diminished demand because of Covid-19 and customer requests to take planes later, as well as an updated assessment of how long it will take aviation regulators to certify the plane. David Calhoun, CE, told investors that Boeing planned to make design changes to the jet’s actuators, which convert electrical signals to mechanical movement, as well as the software that controls them, based on global regulators’ requirements. “This schedule, and the associated financial impact, reflects a number of factors,” Calhoun said. “We remain confident in the 777X.” The market’s demand for wide-body jets was already softening before the pandemic hit. The outbreak has further deflated the appeal of larger jets to airlines as passengers’ appetite for international travel has lagged behind their return to domestic flights. <br/>
Airlines could “substantially” reduce their fuel consumption if planes become more efficient at riding the wind, according to new research. Commercial flights between New York and London during the 2019-2020 winter could have used as much as 16% less fuel if pilots had taken full advantage of the jet stream, scientists at the University of Reading said in a paper published this week. “By adopting a more flexible routing system, carbon-dioxide emissions from transatlantic flights could actually be reduced by millions of kilograms every year,” wrote lead author Cathie Wells, a PhD researcher in mathematics at the university. Waiting for more efficient aircraft could take decades, said co-author Professor Paul Williams. Therefore, “choosing flight routes that make better use of the jet stream could deliver emissions cuts that are significant, cheap and immediate.”<br/>
FedEx Corp will temporarily relocate its Hong Kong-based pilots to San Francisco because it expects the Asian financial capital to establish strict 14-day hotel quarantine requirements for crew, it said in a memo to pilots. The company said it did not think it was appropriate to subject Hong Kong-based crew members to extended periods of isolation, preventing them from seeing their families after finishing a trip. "While we don't know what the rule will state, when it will precisely take effect, or how long it will last, we do not want unknowns to prevent us from taking action on what we understand may likely occur," FedEx System Chief Pilot Robin Sebasco said in the memo. The memo said the company would cover hotel costs and out-of-pocket expenses for pilots and their families in San Francisco, while continuing to pay their housing allowances in Hong Kong.<br/>