“Have vaccine, will travel,” appear to be buzzwords in the network planning department at Delta Air Lines as the carrier adds flights to Iceland following the country’s decision to reopen to vaccinated travelers. The Atlanta-based carrier will add new service between Boston and Reykjavík from May 20, and resume flights between both Minneapolis/St. Paul and New York JFK and the Icelandic capital the same month. All three routes will be flown with Boeing 757-200 aircraft. The move comes less than two weeks after Iceland announced that it would reopen without restrictions to all non-European travelers who are fully vaccinated. “As confidence in travel rises, we hope more countries continue reopening to vaccinated travelers,” said Joe Esposito, senior vice president of network planning at Delta, on Friday. Delta’s move portends a new trend among international airline planning: jumping at markets as they remove Covid-19 travel restrictions. European carriers are already doing this within the 25-nation EU bloc as individual members ease limits. And with many would-be travelers eager to get out — that “pent up demand” nearly every airline executive likes to mention — more such international routes seem inevitable.<br/>
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The French government and the EU's executive are close to an agreement on the terms of a bailout for Air France, which like other carriers has been hammered by the coronavirus pandemic, Le Monde reported. The expected deal would see Air France give up fewer airport flight slots at its Paris base than initially sought by the European Commission, notably at Orly airport, the newspaper said in a report published late on Friday. A spokeswoman for the Commission said it was in contact with the French authorities. "We cannot prejudge the timing or outcome of these contacts," she added. Air France and France's economy ministry declined to comment. <br/>
Talks between the EU and Italy on a restructuring plan for Alitalia face a stumbling block as the European Commission demands the carrier give up a significant number of airport slots, three sources close to the matter said. Brussels and Rome have been in talks since the beginning of this year over Italy’s plan to restructure the ailing airline through the launch of a new, state-owned company called ITA. Under Rome’s plan, ITA should take over the brand, the slots and part of the assets of the old carrier to start flying with a small fleet before the summer. However, the nationalisation and injection of E3b in taxpayers’ money into the new carrier need EU clearance, and a further delay in talks between Rome and Brussels could put at risk the Italian carrier’s summer season. “That’s where the problem lies, in (Milan city airport) Linate’s slots,” one source with knowledge of the matter said. Another source said the Commission is demanding a significant reduction in the slots that Alitalia would transfer to ITA, and said the ITA business plan has not been cleared yet by Brussels.<br/>
The EC has approved E24.7m of Italian state aid for Alitalia to compensate the airline for losses suffered during the pandemic, the EU executive said Friday. It is the third authorisation for subsidies to Alitalia that the Commission has approved since the beginning of the pandemic, it said. The new support measure takes to nearly E300m the total of state aid approved by the EU in favour of Alitalia for damages caused by the pandemic from March to December 2020. “The measure approved today enables Italy to provide further compensation for direct damages suffered by Alitalia between November and December 2020,” EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said. She added that the EU’s investigations continue into two support measures worth a total of E1.3b that Italy granted to Alitalia in 2017 and 2019.<br/>
Kenya Airways said it has suspended domestic flights to comply with new anti-coronavirus lockdown measures announced by the east African country’s President Uhuru Kenyatta on Friday. The airline, partly owned Air France-KLM, said in a tweeted statement late on Friday it would, from March 29, halt all flights from its hub in the capital Nairobi to Mombasa, the Indian ocean port city, and Kisumu, a lakeside town in the country’s west. Domestic flights would be suspended until further notice. International flights remain unaffected. On Friday, Kenyatta announced travel restrictions in the capital Nairobi and four surrounding counties to slow surging COVID-19 infections. Under the new curbs, authorities said Nairobi and the counties of Kajiado, Machakos, Kiambu and Nakuru would be treated as one zone, and residents would be barred from crossing over to other areas.<br/>
Vietnam Airlines has resumed inbound commercial international flights, with a flight from Taiwan to the coastal city of Da Nang marking the first permitted into the nation after months of coronavirus lockdown, state media said on Friday. Two hundred passengers flew from Taipei to Da Nang on Thursday, with travellers requiring a negative Covid-19 test in order to board the aircraft. All arrivals must also pay for a mandatory 14-day period of quarantine. At the time of writing, it remains unclear exactly how many inbound international flights will be permitted and from which countries. Vietnam ceased all international flights at the end of March last year as part of measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19 within the country. <br/>