From digital certificates to "health passports", countries and airlines across the globe are hoping to relaunch travel by letting people prove their Covid-free status. But with patchy vaccine access around the world and mounting concerns over data privacy, questions are swirling about how the measures will work in practice. Most programmes under development are geared towards facilitating travel and come in the form of smartphone apps with varying criteria for a clean bill of health. Vaccine passports, for example, are a popular way to approach proof of immunity with jab rollouts underway across the globe. There are also apps that accept positive antibody tests as proof of immunity for those who have had the virus and recovered. But the WHO has warned that there is no evidence to show that recovered Covid sufferers with antibodies are protected from a second infection. French President Emmanuel Macron recently suggested yet another, more localised form of Covid-free permission slip: the so-called "health pass". Story has more.<br/>
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Governments around the world are not moving quickly enough to plan for the reopening of international travel markets, in the view of IATA, particularly when it comes to the creation of digital standards for Covid-19 testing and vaccination records. IATA DG Alexandre de Juniac reiterated the industry body’s belief that the recovery in international air travel has the potential to begin in earnest during the upcoming Northern Hemisphere summer season. But despite evidence that consumers and governments want digital apps such as IATA’s Travel Pass to facilitate the safe return of that international flying, much work is left to do in terms of creating a “trusted” system. IATA’s senior vice-president for airport, passenger, cargo and security, Nick Careen, explained: “If a government is going to request some form of assertation that you have had a test… or a vaccination… there will need to be processes in place that help to prove that, or [the recovery of air travel] will not be sustainable.”<br/>
Two years after a 737 Max system failure led to fatal crashes, airlines are rapidly bringing the Boeing jet back into service. On Thursday, Southwest, which owns more of the jets than any other carrier, will become the 15th airline to fly the plane since the grounding was lifted in November. All 737 Max planes were grounded world-wide in March of 2019 after the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 — the second fatal crash in five months involving the jet. The two crashes killed everyone on board, a total of 346 people.<br/>Boeing insists that 20 months of investigation, improvements and review by the Federal Aviation Administration has made the plane as safe or safer than any other. But critics — including family members of those killed — disagree. There have so far been more than 9,000 passenger flights aboard the aircraft since the grounding was lifted, according to Boeing. Brazilian carrier GOL and American Airlines became the first carriers to fly passengers on a 737 Max in December. American has used the plane on more than 400 flights, more than any other airline, according to Cirium, which tracks passenger jet usage.<br/>"Bookings on the Max are comparable to other aircraft, and we aren't seeing data to suggest customers don't want to fly the aircraft," said a spokesman for American.<br/>
Dirt-cheap fares are popping up from airlines brave enough to expand or start out amid the Covid crisis, as they try to eke out sales and get a jump on competitors that have pared back operations. Airlines worldwide cut US$1b of expenses a day last year to cope with the slump in passengers, and that's given them some wiggle room to lower ticket prices. More broadly, cost savings are emerging for carriers as unwanted planes become available on the cheap. Thousands of laid off flight crew are also eager for work, allowing some airlines to go on hiring sprees. Ultra-cheap fares could help revive the market by luring back customers who've been reluctant to fly due to border restrictions and lengthy quarantines. Vaccine roll-outs add to the bullishness, even with air passenger travel in an unprecedented funk and a return to pre-crisis levels not expected before 2024.<br/>
US airlines are adding jobs as industry employment extends a rebound from a low in October, when tens of thousands of airline workers were briefly laid off after federal payroll aid expired. Cargo airlines have added jobs while passenger airlines have shed workers, mostly through incentives for workers to quit or take early retirement. The DoT said Tuesday that 713,949 people held full-time or part-time jobs at airlines in mid-January, up from 694,638 in December and the low of 673,278 in October. However, the industry’s January employment was still down 5% from January 2020.<br/>
China has rolled out an international vaccine health certificate in anticipation that it will be recognised by other countries soon, making global travel easier. The country is among the first in the world to issue a vaccine passport that shows details of a traveller's Covid-19 inoculation, as well as nucleic acid and antibody test results. Chinese citizens can register for the certificate on a WeChat mini programme launched on Monday, a day after Foreign Minister Wang Yi announced the initiative at his annual press conference. The passport, available in both digital and paper formats, will help promote world economic recovery and facilitate cross-border travel, said the foreign ministry on Monday. "The pandemic is still with us, but the world economy needs to be restarted and people-to-people exchanges resumed with no more delays," said ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian. China is ready to discuss with other countries on establishing mutually recognised mechanisms for health codes, he said.<br/>
Spain’s Amadeus is launching a feature allowing people to upload documents such as COVID-19 vaccination certificates onto an airline app or website, as the travel industry scrambles for ways to get planes flying again. The private and public sectors of tourism-dependent countries such as Spain, Italy and Greece have sought a unified response to the patchwork of health requisites, bans and quarantines which have grounded global travel. Amadeus said on Tuesday its system, which will be hosted within an existing platform for storing identification data, is due to be deployed in the second quarter. It will allow passengers to upload certificates or results from PCR or serological tests into any airline’s mobile app or website as part of the check-in process and cut down on the need for costly manual checks.<br/>
Britain’s Heathrow Airport said on Tuesday it raised GBP350m in bonds maturing in 2028, as it bolsters its pandemic-hit finances ahead of the reopening of international travel in May. “We are extremely pleased to return to the public Class B market after nearly 10 years and the funds raised further strengthen our liquidity position,” said Sally Ding, Heathrow’s director of Treasury and Corporate Finance.<br/>
Boris Johnson is set to authorise a cut in the levy paid by airlines for domestic flights to help revive the beleaguered industry in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. The prime minister will announce a review of air passenger duty with a view to halving the current level, according to senior Whitehall figures. The recommendation will form part of a wider Union Connectivity Review by Sir Peter Hendy, the chairman of Network Rail, to be published on Wednesday, proposing a new “UK Strategic Transport Network” to oversee British transport priorities. The UK previously belonged to the Trans-European Transport Network as an EU member, paying E488m a year towards the body created to better connect the bloc’s patchwork of infrastructure, including roads, railways and airports. The government will meanwhile make GBP20m available as development funding for new projects including upgrades to the North Wales Coast rail line and the A75 motorway in Scotland and a train link between the West Coast Mainline and the proposed High Speed 2 route.<br/>
All arriving passengers at Abu Dhabi International Airport will be offered a free PCR test, with results available in 90 minutes. The lab is located inside the airport and will test samples for quick results. The new fast RT-PCR testing service has been launched with Pure Health labs and Tamouh Healthcare. Passengers arriving through terminals 1 and 3 will be tested. Results of the tests will be shared by SMS and WhatsApp and will be available on the Al Hosn mobile app. Passengers who receive a negative result and are from the list of "green" countries specified by the government of Abu Dhabi will not have to self-isolate.<br/>
Singapore has launched a travel “bubble” business hotel that allows executives to do face-to-face meetings without a risk of exposure to the coronavirus, in one of the world’s first such facilities. The hotel has meeting rooms outfitted with airtight glass panels to reduce the risk of transmission and even has a special compartment with an ultraviolet light to sanitise documents so they can be shared between participants. Some of its first guests have come from France, Germany, Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates. The hotel differs from quarantine hotels in the city-state, where guests are isolated for two weeks and must pass COVID-19 tests before being cleared to leave and join the local community. Visitors to the bubble hotel are not permitted to enter Singapore and must leave via the airport.<br/>
Boeing said on Tuesday that it sold 31 airplanes in February after accounting for cancellations, the first month in more than a year that the aerospace giant had positive sales, suggesting that it is starting to regain its footing after the 737 Max crisis. The Max was banned from flying passengers two years ago this week after a total of 346 people died in a pair of crashes aboard the plane, prompting intense scrutiny of the plane and the company. But late last year, the FAA lifted its ban on the plane, allowing the Max to begin carrying passengers again after required changes are made. Most of the world’s 190 aviation authorities have now approved the Max to fly again, according to Boeing, and 14 airlines have used the plane for more than 9,000 flights. Sales of the plane have rebounded, too. On Tuesday, Boeing said it had received 82 new airplane orders in February, about half of them for the Max, including a large order from United Airlines. Another 51 aircraft orders were canceled, and the company now has 4,041 orders in its backlog.<br/>
Deliveries of ATR turboprops barely reached double-figures last year as the joint-venture manufacturer saw demand slump due to the pandemic. In all, the airframer shipped just 10 aircraft in 2020 – with nine of those handed over in the final quarter. That marks a sharp decline on the 68 units it delivered in 2019. The total is revealed in the full-year accounts of Leonardo, a 50% shareholder in ATR alongside Airbus. Leonardo builds fuselages for the ATR 42-600 and ATR 72-600 at plants in the south of Italy, shipping them to Toulouse in France for final assembly. Just 26 fuselages were delivered to the joint venture in 2020, down from 68 a year earlier. Leonardo does not expect a significant improvement in ATR’s performance this year either: deliveries will be “far below” pre-Covid levels, it says. Production cuts at Airbus and, more significantly, Boeing, combined to hammer the company’s aerostructures unit.<br/>