New rules took effect just before midnight Tuesday requiring millions of travelers in the US to wear masks on airplanes, trains, buses, ferries, taxis and ride-share vehicles and in airports, stations, ports and other transit hubs. The new rules were ordered by the US CDC late Friday to address the spread of COVID-19 after being blocked by President Donald Trump from imposing the requirements in August. President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Jan. 21 tasking federal agencies with issuing rules “to save lives and allow all Americans, including the millions of people employed in the transportation industry, to travel and work safely.” Advocacy group FlyersRights.org Monday urged the Biden administration to go farther and mandate the use of N95, KN95 or surgical masks on airplanes as well as “stricter social distancing guidelines, temperature checks (and) rapid testing.” The CDC order allows homemade masks. The TSA issued security directives Sunday allowing them to issue civil penalties and deny access to flights to travelers not wearing masks. The rules will be in effect through at least May 11. Travelers are permitted for brief periods to remove masks for eating, drinking, or taking medications but masks “must be worn between bites and sips,” TSA said. TSA said air carriers must make “best efforts to disembark the person who refuses to comply as soon as practicable.”<br/>
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People across the US Northeast on Tuesday were digging themselves out from a massive storm that dumped more than 2 feet of snow on the region as airlines resumed flights and officials expressed relief the damage had not been worse. At least three people died due to the storm. Thousands of households lost power and COVID-19 vaccination programs were suspended in several states. But by Tuesday afternoon officials appeared relieved that the level of damage and destruction had not been as bad as it might have been. “This is one the most extensive snow events in the history of New York City, so our crews had an incredible job in front of them,” Patrick Foye, chairman of New York state’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority, told a news conference. The city’s LaGuardia Airport and John F. Kennedy International Airport began to resume flights after canceling more than 700 on Monday and earlier on Tuesday.<br/>
The lethargic rollout of coronavirus vaccines will delay any recovery for the airline sector, according to Association of Asia Pacific Airlines director general Subhas Menon. Menon notes that while great hopes are pinned on vaccines, the timespans involved in production and distribution suggest 2021 will continue to be an extremely challenging year for airlines in the region. “A person who is vaccinated is not going to fall prey to the virus, but they still need to prove that someone who’s vaccinated is not infectious,” he says. “How vaccines will play a part is if more and more countries roll out vaccinations and people in the country are immunised.” Menon is concerned, however, that the rather slow pace of immunisation in some countries could mean it is not until 2022 that people get vaccinated, particularly in developing countries. During 2020 Asia-Pacific airlines carried 69m passengers, just 18% of the volumes recorded in 2019. Offered seat capacity was 19% of the previous year, and the average international load factor was a dismal 61%.<br/>
Aeroporti di Roma (AdR) aims to extend COVID-tested flights to more international destinations, including Japan and North America, its CEO said Tuesday, in an expansion of a trial scheme that has been running since December. AdR, part of Italian infrastructure group Atlantia, has been offering COVID-tested flights on the Rome-New York and Rome-Atlanta routes in partnership with Alitalia and Delta. As the end of the trial for these flights approaches, AdR, which manages Rome’s Fiumicino airport, has asked Italy’s government to extend it, CEO Marco Troncone said, presenting the project at a conference hosted by European airport lobby ACI Europe. Troncone said: “We are working to obtain an extension of the trial phase beyond February 15 and to get more airlines, airports and institutions involved to promote effective, sustainable and homogeneous protocols across Europe”.<br/>
A fragile recovery in Asian aviation is being snuffed out by a resurgence of Covid-19 in the region, pushing back forecasts for when air travel will get back to pre-virus levels and weighing on jet fuel margins. Chinese seat capacity on domestic and international flights has fallen more than 20% from the end of September, when it almost got back to January 2020 levels, according to OAG Aviation, a flight data and analytics provider. People are being encouraged not to travel over the Lunar New Year period, which runs through early March, suggesting capacity may not rise until late this quarter. The rapid rebound in Chinese aviation had been a rare bright spot for jet fuel, which has taken the biggest hit among oil products from the pandemic. The drop in flights is more bad news for Asian refiners that are also struggling with weakening demand for other transport fuels. It’s been offset, however, by increased consumption of kerosene due to a colder-than-normal winter. “The depth of the latest Covid-19 spike, its impact on aviation and subsequent consumer demand suggests that the hoped for recovery toward the back end of 2021 may not be as strong as expected,” said Mayur Patel, head of Asia at OAG Aviation. A full recovery in Asian air travel may now take until 2025, instead of the company’s previous forecast of 2024, he said.<br/>
Supporters of Myanmar’s military rallied in the nation’s largest city as it moved to suspend all flights through April, raising fresh concerns about the army’s crackdown a day after it seized power in a coup and detained senior government officials and activists. The rally in the commercial capital Yangon is the first since de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her colleagues were taken in early morning raids on Monday. “It is not a coup, but just an act of retaining the power to prevent others from misusing it,” a monk, Tipitaka Thitsar Pwintlin, told the pro-military crowd, urging them to thank the army for protecting the nation and its majority Buddhist religion. The military on Tuesday instructed airlines to suspend all flights until April 30 -- an extension of travel restrictions put in place by the previous government to contain the spread of Covid-19 -- and reopened the country’s stock exchange for trading from Wednesday. Broader sanctions like those imposed before the country’s shift to democracy more than a decade ago are likely to hit Myanmar’s 55 million citizens, many of whom overwhelmingly voted for Suu Kyi’s party.<br/>
Myanmar National Airlines said on Tuesday its domestic and international repatriation flights would resume on Feb. 4 as scheduled, following the closure of Yangon airport, the country’s main gateway, The airline made the announcement in a Facebook Post. Myanmar’s military rulers, who seized power in a coup on Monday, had earlier issued an order to close the airport until April or May, according to the airport’s manager.<br/>
Boeing sold $9.825b of bonds Tuesday, looking to refinance an over-levered balance sheet that swelled to keep money flowing in the pandemic. The planemaker is borrowing to repay a portion of the $13.8b loan it drew down at the onset of the coronavirus outbreak, part of a borrowing spree that took its debt balance up to $63.6b by year end. It’s been able to call on bond investors time and time again, riding its way through one of the worst years in its century-long history amid a halt in global travel and the grounding of its best-selling plane. Boeing issued the bonds in three parts, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. The longest portion of the offering, a five-year security that is noncallable for two years, will yield 175 basis points over Treasuries, after initially discussing around 195 basis points, said the person, who asked not to be identified as the details are private. The company had been aiming to refinance about half of the borrowings under its $13.8b delayed draw two-year term loan credit facility, which it raised early last year amid the 737 Max crisis, a second person with knowledge of the matter said before the size of the bond sale was determined. The company drew on the full amount in March amid the start of the pandemic as travel shut down, calling into question whether airlines would keep paying for new planes.<br/>
Business travel spending is forecast to grow 21% this year worldwide, helped by the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, but will not recover to pre-pandemic levels until the middle of the decade, a business travel association said on Tuesday. Spending on business travel is projected to rise to $842b in 2021, according to the Global Business Travel Association’s (GBTA) BTI Outlook, after dropping 52% in 2020 to $694b due to the pandemic. After a decade of steady annual growth, business travel is expected to have shown losses in 2020 that were 10 times greater than the declines after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks or the 2008 recession, GBTA said. Despite the expected growth in travel in 2021, uncertainty around vaccination progress and US President Joe Biden’s policies can affect the recovery. “The continued rollout of the vaccine will be central to recovery globally, as will decisions the new Biden Administration makes regarding global trade and border and quarantine policies,” said Dave Hilfman, GBTA’s interim executive director.<br/>
Qatar has not provided the Australian government with its report into the alleged non-consensual intimate medical examination of 18 women on a flight bound for Sydney last year. The women were taken off a plane and subject to medical examinations, in some cases internal examinations, to determine if they were the mother of a newborn baby found dumped in the terminal. They described the experience as absolutely terrifying. The Qatari government apologised to the women after the incident was made public in late October, saying airport security staff had violated standard procedures and those responsible would be prosecuted. It said it was conducting an investigation and would share the findings of the final report “in the very near future”. On Wednesday the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said the report had not been received, three months later. “We are disappointed that the government of Qatar has so far not provided the Australian government with a report into the incident at Hamad International Airport,” Dfat said. “Dfat continues to engage regularly with Qatari authorities to seek updates on this matter.”<br/>