The twin-aisle Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner has a range of more than 7,500 nautical miles, enough to fly passengers on a 15-hour nonstop from Los Angeles to Sydney. This summer, American Airlines plans to use the 285-seat plane on several much shorter routes, like Chicago to Orlando. With many trips abroad still grounded in the pandemic, American and Delta Air Lines are opting to put the some of their large jetliners to work on domestic routes or for shorter international trips. It’s one of the ways airlines are rethinking their service in the pandemic. The planes are meant to fly long range, filling up with higher-paying passengers traveling abroad. If demand for international travel comes back, as American expects this fall, the airline would wind down the practice. “It’s like buying a Porsche to drive it to church on Sundays,” said Brian Znotins, American’s vice president of network planning. Znotins said there is usually at least some domestic service using widebody jets on high-demand routes or to position aircraft in cities for long-haul flights but the carrier is ramping up domestic service with them.<br/>
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Countries that have quickly rolled out coronavirus vaccines are only cautiously reopening for international travel, a sign it will take time for a hoped-for rebound in air traffic to develop. UK airline capacity remains stuck at about one-tenth of 2019 levels, as the government weighs a May 17 target to restart international travel. Israel, where almost 55% of the population has been fully vaccinated, is preparing to welcome visitors in groups from May 23 if they can show they’ve had the jab. Decision makers face a tough balancing act. A second summer in a row without significant air travel would deal a major setback to an already struggling aviation industry, and also to hotels, shops and restaurants that rely on tourism. Meanwhile, there are concerns that premature reopenings will help spread newer strains of the coronavirus and undermine progress toward slowing the spread of the disease. The US may provide a test case. The country has struggled to keep infection rates down, even as a powerful vaccination campaign gathers pace. While international trips to most destinations are still off-limits, domestic capacity is ramping up, with airlines planning to add flights in coming weeks. Story has more.<br/>
Hong Kong will suspend flights from India, Pakistan and the Philippines from April 20 for two weeks after the N501Y mutant COVID-19 strain was detected in the Asian financial hub for the first time, authorities said late on Sunday. The three countries would be classified as “extremely high risk” after there had been multiple imported cases carrying the strain into Hong Kong in the past 14 days, the government said. The city reported 30 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, 29 of which were imported, marking the highest daily toll since March 15. Hong Kong has recorded over 11,600 cases in total and 209 deaths. Airlines impacted by Hong Kong’s ban on travellers from India, Pakistan and the Philippines include carriers such as Cathay Pacific, Hong Kong Airlines, Vistara and Cebu Pacific.<br/>
The Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand (CAAT) is calling for the suspension of all domestic flights between 10pm and 4am, after the Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) urged all people in high-risk "red zones" to stay at home from 11pm to 4am to curb the number of new infections. As the number of new infections continues to increase, residents in 18 provinces labelled as highest-risk areas are being advised to stay at home at night, except in extraordinary cases. To bring all domestic flights in line with the government directive, the CAAT wants airports and airlines to limit, if not, suspend, flights between 10pm and 4am until further notice, said its director-general Suttipong Kongpool. While the decision will be up to the airlines, the CAAT has identified 26 flights which might be affected by the travel warning, including eight from Suvarnabhumi airport, 11 from Don Mueang, four from Phuket, two from Hat Yai and one from Chiang Mai, said Suttipong. Passengers who have booked seats on those flights will need to be informed of any changes to their schedule and they must be properly compensated if the flights are rescheduled or cancelled, the CAAT director-general said.<br/>
An electrical problem that led to dozens of Boeing 737 Max jets being suspended from service has widened after engineers found similar grounding flaws elsewhere in the cockpit, industry sources said on Friday. Airlines pulled dozens of Max jets from service a week ago after Boeing warned of a production-related electrical grounding problem in a backup power control unit situated in the cockpit on some recently built airplanes. Since then, suspected grounding problems have been found in two other places on the flight deck, the sources said. These include the storage rack where the affected control unit is kept and the instrument panel facing the pilots. Boeing had no immediate comment on the wider problem, which was first reported by Aviation Week. The glitch - which affects about a fifth of Max jets in the market - is the latest issue to beset Boeing’s most-sold model but is not related to design problems that contributed to a 20-month worldwide safety ban in the wake of two fatal crashes. Boeing is expected to draw up bulletins advising airlines how to fix the problems with grounding, or the electrical paths designed to maintain safety in the event of a surge of voltage. US regulators must first approve the bulletins.<br/>
Scott Morrison says Australia is in “no hurry” to reopen international borders, but vaccinated Australians may be able to travel for “essential” purposes in the second half of the year, with the possibility of quarantining at home on return. Just days after saying Australia would “have to get used to dealing with 1,000 cases a week or more” if the international border restrictions were lifted, the prime minister said on Sunday there was no rush to reopen Australia to the world. One of the early questions has been whether vaccinated Australians may be able to undertake quarantine at home, rather through the state hotel quarantine program. There are still more than 30,000 stranded Australians attempting to make their way home, which has created a flight backlog, with hotel quarantine spaces and reduced commercial flights limiting how many expats and returning travellers can get into Australia each week. The prime minister indicated there was the potential for Australians who have received their vaccinations to begin travelling.<br/>
Two more top-level directors could be ousted from Boeing’s board of directors next week as family members of the victims of two fatal crashes of its 737 Max jets join shareholders to push for further high-level reforms at the aerospace giant. The $146b Chicago-headquartered company holds its annual meeting on Tuesday as it attempts to recover its financial and reputational poise in the wake of the grounding of its 737 Max planes and the pandemic’s upending of the commercial travel market. Boeing has made changes to the membership and structure of its board since a second 737 Max crashed in Ethiopia in 2019, including seven directors who have already left or are due to step down next week. The changes, however, have not included two key executives under attack from some family members and shareholders, the chairman, Larry Kellner, and Edmund Giambastiani, who heads the board’s safety panel. “This is a board of private equity and celebrity politicians and failed GE cost-cutting people that are draining the company’s legacy assets for current gain for themselves and the shareholders,” said Michael Stumo, whose 24-year-old daughter Samya Rose died in the Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 crash.<br/>
Boeing has delivered almost 90 737 Max since US regulators lifted the type’s grounding last November, though airlines have placed those jet in storage, according to Cirium fleets data. Boeing last week disclosed it had recommended that customers remove an undisclosed number of Max from service due to electrical concerns. The company declines to specify how many jets are affected, but one airline said the issue only involves recently delivered jets. Still, the pace at which Boeing has offloaded its once 450-strong inventory of 737 Max puts the company on track reach its goal of delivering half those jets by year end. Boeing had continued manufacturing 737 Max amid much of the grounding, accumulating about 450 undelivered jets by late last year. In October 2020, the Chicago-based airframer’s executives said the company aimed to deliver about half those 450 aircraft before the end of 2021, and the “majority” of the balance in 2022. <br/>