Airlines tapped a wave of investor enthusiasm to raise more than $16b from bond markets in Q1, shoring up their finances as travel disruption stretches into a second year. The figures highlight how the world’s biggest carriers have been able to raise a wall of money to help them through a period of unprecedented turmoil, with a third of the world’s fleet of commercial aircraft still in storage as passenger numbers collapse. They also underline investor confidence in the long-term prospects of the strongest companies in the sector, as Covid-19 vaccines offer a way to reopen travel once curbs on movement are eased in major economies. Airlines raised $16.6b in Q1 this year, according to data provider Dealogic, just short of the record $17.5b set in Q2 2020 as companies dashed for cash during the initial, frantic stages of the pandemic. Overall, airlines raised $42.6b in the debt markets in 2020, the most on record. The activity has proven a boon for investment banks, which made more than $200m in fees from airlines, a Q1 record, Dealogic said. Investors have been willing to lend to strong airlines that are expected to emerge from the crisis relatively unscathed, but benign market conditions have also helped carriers, said Josef Pospisil, head of utilities and transport at Fitch Ratings. “I am not sure it would be exactly the same if it wasn't for the stimulus across the board,” he added.<br/>
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Federal authorities said fully vaccinated people can resume recreational travel in the US at “low risk,” and signaled a relaxation of operational guidelines for cruise ships, handing a major boost to the nation’s battered tourism industry. Releasing its long-awaited travel guidance Friday, the US CDC said vaccinated individuals don’t need a Covid test and don’t need to quarantine, when traveling domestically. They should still wear a mask and avoid crowds. Carriers including United are already flying at as much as 80% of capacity, and 1.6m people passed through TSA checkpoints on Thursday, well above the 124,000 who did so a year before. For international travel, people don’t need a test unless it’s required by their destination country and don’t need to quarantine once back in the US, but should be tested before boarding a return flight. The head of the CDC said she still recommends against non-essential travel -- even for vaccinated people -- but that the agency has a duty to update its guidance as more science becomes available. “We know that right now we have a surging number of cases. I would advocate against general travel overall,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said in a White House briefing. “Our guidance is silent on recommending or not recommending fully vaccinated people travel; our guidance speaks to the safety of doing so. If you are vaccinated, it’s lower risk.”<br/>
The US travel industry has welcomed a new public health determination that fully vaccinated people may travel domestically without being subject to Covid-19 tests or mandatory quarantines. The determination comes as part of new travel guidance issued by the CDC on 2 April. However, the CDC adds that vaccinated people should still follow mask- and physical-distancing rules, and wash their hands frequently in order to minimise the risk of transmission. “The CDC’s new travel guidance is a major step in the right direction that is supported by the science and will take the brakes off the industry that has been hardest hit by the fallout of Covid by far,” says US Travel Association chief executive Roger Dow on 2 April. “As travel comes back, US jobs come back.” The Travel Technology Association adds that “Americans are eager to begin travelling again, and this new guidance is an important step towards the recovery of the travel and tourism industry and the broader US economy”. Airline industry executives have said in past weeks that customer demand rebounded in the first quarter as US vaccination efforts got into full swing. Potential travellers are relieving pent-up demand from a year of travel restrictions, and feel more comfortable planning travel, airlines said.<br/>
The US FAA has proposed requiring airlines to replace fuel system processors on Boeing 737 Max jets, citing problems with fuel shut-off systems. Boeing already addressed the concern in a 2020 service bulletin that described procedures for replacing a processor unit. The issue involves a problem with the “automatic shut-off system” on 737 Max 8 and Max 9s, says the FAA in a proposed airworthiness directive (AD) issued on 2 April. During refueling, that system is supposed to automatically close a valve when the tank is full. If the automatic shut-off feature fails, the system should generate a flashing warning on the jets’ “refuel panel”, notifying fuel operators of the failure, the FAA says. The agency received reports that the system works improperly during refueling the Max’s right-side tank. Specifically, the system does not flash the warning if the automatic shut-off valve fails to close. The failure is caused by “the flashing threshold in the [fuel quantity processor unit] not being set at the correct fuel level”, the proposed AD says.<br/>
Greece said Sunday it was extending restrictions on domestic flights until April 12 and on international flights until April 19 as the number of new COVID-19 infections continues to rise. Under the restrictions, passengers flying to Greece must receive a negative PCR test 72 hours before arrival and undergo random testing for COVID-19. All foreign travellers are quarantined for seven days. Israeli travellers who have been fully vaccinated at least two weeks before travel will not need to be quarantined following a bilateral agreement on tourism between the two countries. Most flights from non-European Union member states are banned, with the exception of 10 countries including Britain.<br/>
Easter at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport typically starts two weeks early as extra staff are trained to cope with one of the busiest weekends of the year. On Friday, an eerie calm pervaded Europe’s largest airport as France slides back into lockdown. Instead of crowded check-ins and relentless take-offs and landings, rows of unused trolleys and redundant queuing barriers greeted visitors to one of the world’s busiest transport hubs. “It’s nothing like what you would normally see,” said Amor, who has worked at the airport for 20 years, organising check-in zones and passenger assistance for an airport sub-contractor. “The airport would be full of people going to Turkey, Greece, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt for the spring holidays. We handled a Tunisia flight yesterday and there were 80 people,” he said. Air France typically serves Tunis with 150-seat jets. Charles de Gaulle on Thursday handled 18.1% of the number of passengers seen on the same day in 2019, Aeroports de Paris said. Adjusting for different dates for Easter, throughput on the few open concourses is closer to 20-25% of a usual Easter. The enforced lull is more striking given that the airport’s 11 terminals have been condensed into two during the pandemic, though some were already closed for maintenance.<br/>
UK PM Boris Johnson will on Monday set out plans to allow Britons to resume foreign holidays, with high-vaccination destinations such as the US, Dubai and Israel likely to be among the first placed on a “green list”. People briefed on Johnson’s plan said vaccination rates — more than infection levels — would be a key factor in determining the relative safety of holiday destinations, which will be rated on a “traffic light system”. Those countries with lower rates of vaccinations — including many popular European destinations such as France, Italy and Spain — could be subject to more rigorous testing regimes or remain off-limits for longer. “They will be placing more weight on vaccinations than the number of cases,” said one person briefed on the plan. A travel industry executive familiar with the discussions confirmed that the extent of the rollout of jabs in a third country would “play an important role and [was] more important than infection [rates]”. Scientific evidence suggests that people who have been inoculated are less likely to transmit the virus and Britain has one of the highest rates of immunisation in the world. Johnson will give an interim statement on work by the government’s “global travel task force” on Easter Monday. It will set out the framework that will guide decisions on the reopening of foreign travel. Under current rules, overseas travel is only allowed for “essential” business purposes.<br/>
In Thailand, it’s the all-important tourism sector that has jumped to the head of the COVID-19 vaccination line, with the country’s most popular resort island embarking on a mass inoculation programme two months ahead of the rest of the country. The island of Phuket aims to deliver shots to at least 460,000 people - most of its population - as it gears up for July 1, when vaccinated overseas visitors will no longer be required to quarantine. Phuket also has its own international airport and tourists would be able to roam the island freely without posing any coronavirus risk to the rest of Thailand’s population. “If we can build immunity for 70-80% of the population on the island, we can receive foreign tourists who have been vaccinated without the need for quarantine,” Phuket’s Vice Governor Piyapong Choowong said. While medical workers, members of the cabinet and the elderly were the first to be vaccinated, Thailand’s decision to prioritise Phuket over other parts of the country underscores the central role of tourism to the economy. Just 6.7m foreign tourists visited Thailand in 2020, spending some $11b. That compares with nearly 40m in 2019, when they spent $61b.<br/>