Greece is at the forefront of a bid to revive travel with the help of so-called vaccine passports—certificates or digital cards testifying to the apparent low-risk status of their holders—which is gaining traction in tourist-reliant economies from the Caribbean to Thailand. Businesses that have suffered a yearlong battering from the pandemic are also coming to view the passes as a route to salvation. The IATA estimates the industry could lose $95b in cash in 2021 after already suffering the worst year on record. So airlines have supported a number of tech solutions to verify passengers’ Covid vaccination or testing results, such as the IATA Travel Pass app, the AOKpass from French travel-security company International SOS, and the CommonPass, which is being developed by a Swiss nonprofit and the World Economic Forum. A lack of standards could hinder such efforts. “There has been a lot of advocacy, but the execution has been sorely lacking,” says Jeffrey Goh, who heads the Star Alliance of 26 carriers including Air China, Deutsche Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines, and United Airlines Holdings. A single set of standards for vaccine passes needs to be agreed to at the Group of Seven or Group of 20 level, Goh says, because vaccine passports represent “a policy choice for rekindling the economy.”<br/>
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The Thiele family will remain major shareholders in German airline Lufthansa following the death of Heinz Hermann Thiele, two people with knowledge of the matter said on Thursday. There has been some uncertainty about the fate of the holdings of the billionaire who died in February. The German brake maker Knorr-Bremse and the rail technology company Vossloh said on Thursday that Thiele’s stakes would be shifted to a family foundation, meaning they would continue as anchor shareholders in those companies. Thiele has been one of the largest shareholders in Lufthansa. His stake will also be transferred to the foundation, the two sources said.<br/>
Airlines are adding new flight routes and reviving old ones, the latest sign that demand for leisure travel is picking up as the national vaccination rate moves higher. United said Thursday that it plans to add more than two dozen new flights starting Memorial Day weekend. Most will connect cities in the Midwest to tourist destinations, such as Charleston, Hilton Head and Myrtle Beach in South Carolina; Portland, Maine; Savannah, Ga.; and Pensacola, Fla. United also said it planned to offer more flights to Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America and South America in May than it did in May 2019. The airline has seen ticket sales rise in recent weeks, said Ankit Gupta, United’s vice president of domestic network planning and scheduling. Customers are booking tickets further out, too, he said, suggesting growing confidence in travel. “Over the past 12 months, this is the first time we are really feeling more bullish,” Gupta said. Story has details of other carriers too.<br/>
Austrian Airlines intends to make further cutbacks to its active fleet and headcount, and has warned that it will miss the earnings targets it outlined last year. The Lufthansa subsidiary says it will place a further two Airbus aircraft into long-term storage, reducing its fleet to just 58 jets until “at least” 2024-25, down from a pre-crisis level of around 80. Staff numbers will be reduced by 650 full-time positions by the end of 2023, on top of the 650 job cuts in the period to the start of March this year. Austrian notes this action “will not be achievable in all areas by means of natural attrition”, and is therefore exploring ways of using part-time work patterns to “reduce personnel capacity.” “Austrian Airlines will be completely different after the crisis,” states CE Alexis von Hoensbroech. “The company will be leaner, more digitalised and more modern, and reconnect Austria with the world with its long-haul hub”. The action is necessary because the Covid-19 crisis “is lasting significantly longer than expected, and the effects will be felt for several years”, he adds. “That is why we will not be able to achieve the earnings targets, which we defined last spring.”<br/>
LOT Polish Airlines and Enter Air resumed B737-8 operations on March 24 and 25, 2021, respectively, after more than a two-year gap caused by the type's grounding, while Turkish Airlines is planning to do so on April 12, 2021. The Polish flag carrier operates five B737-8s, all of them dry-leased from ALC Blarney Aircraft, the ch-aviation fleets advanced module shows. The first post-grounding flight from Warsaw Chopin to Oslo Gardermoen was operated by SP-LVD. The remaining four aircraft remain in storage, two at Warsaw Chopin airport and two in Lublin. One of the two units stored at Warsaw airport has already been recertified by the Polish Civil Aviation Authority and is expected to resume commercial operations soon. LOT said that on top of all the changes mandated by EASA, it is also planning to have each of them undergo an additional C check. Thereafter, they will also conduct internal proving flights before their reinduction into service. Turkish Airlines operates eleven B737-8s and a single B737-9. While the airline has yet to confirm the date of their formal re-entry into service, the German edition of the Hurriyet daily reported it was due to happen on April 12. <br/>
Amr Abo el-Enein has been appointed as an interim chairman of EgyptAir Holding Company. Abo el-Enein was assigned to the position after Roshdi Zakaria stepped down due to health conditions. Minister of Civil Aviation thanked and appreciated Roshdi Zakaria for his efforts during his chairmanship of EgyptAir. EgyptAir will operate on Friday 51 flights to transfer 5,431 passengers to several cities around the world.<br/>