The risk of being exposed to the Covid-19 virus on an airline flight drops by as much as half when airlines keep middle seats open, a new study published by the US government concludes, a safety practice the carriers have abandoned. The study is the latest to roil the waters on a controversial topic: just how risky it is to travel during the pandemic. It did not attempt to estimate infection risks and was based on modeling done before the pandemic, so didn’t consider rules that now require face masks on flights. The risk of coming in contact with the virus dropped by 23% to 57% if airlines limited passenger loads on both single-aisle and widebody jets, compared to full occupancy, according to research released by the CDC Wednesday. “Based on a data-driven model, approaches to physical distancing, including keeping middle seats vacant, could reduce exposure to SARS-CoV-2 on aircraft,” the study said. While airlines have touted research -- sometimes funded by the industry -- showing low risks from the novel coronavirus during travel, there have been studies showing transmission can occur on flights even when passengers were wearing masks.<br/>
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The long-awaited restart of international travel in England risks being derailed by queues of up to six hours at airports, according to a senior executive at Heathrow. The few passengers currently arriving at the UK’s busiest airport often spend “well in excess of two hours and up to six hours” getting through passport control, Chris Garton, Heathrow’s chief solutions officer, told parliament’s transport select committee on Wednesday. At present, border officials must manually check all arriving passengers’ coronavirus paperwork, including passenger locator forms, detailing where people have been, and proof of a negative Covid test. Queues are forming even though non-essential travel is illegal and only about 10,000-15,000 passengers are landing at Heathrow every day, a tenth of normal levels. The situation was so chaotic that police had been called to deal with “disruption” from exasperated passengers, Garton said. The government has said international travel could be allowed from mid-May for holidaymakers leaving English airports under a “traffic light” system, with Covid-19 testing but no self-isolation needed for travellers returning from countries on a “green” list. When mass travel resumes border checks would quickly become impossible to manage using the current system, according to Garton. “We want to see that bottleneck removed as soon as possible. It is a problem today, it will become a much bigger problem after May 17,” he said. <br/>
New money is flowing to low-cost airlines in the US as they take on giant carriers racing to recover from the unprecedented collapse in travel during the pandemic. Two established carriers that had already been flying sold shares in the past month, while two new airlines managed to raise more than $100m each in a little over one year to cover startup costs. All four share a common trait: low operating costs and a customer base seeking affordable flights after more than a year of hunkering down close to home. They’re striking as the domestic leisure business is rapidly returning, even though industry revenue from corporate and international travelers — the domain of bigger carriers — remains depressed. “Low-cost, leisure-focused, domestic-oriented air travel has been in vogue like it’s never been in vogue before,” said Barry Biffle, CEO of Frontier Group Holdings, which held an IPO in March after withdrawing a previous effort to sell stock seven months earlier. Story has more.<br/>
Boeing voiced optimism on Wednesday over financing for jet buyers to take deliveries as the industry looks to a recovery in air travel, while raising an amber flag over airline access to commercial bank loans. Industrywide needs for funding to support deliveries fell about 40% to $59 billion in 2020 as the pandemic stifled production already weakened by the grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX in 2019. “Despite the unprecedented impacts of COVID-19 on the global aerospace industry, there generally continues to be liquidity in the market for our customers,” said Tim Myers, president of Boeing Capital, the planemaker’s financing arm. “We expect it to further improve as travel begins to rebound.”<br/>