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The head of global airline body IATA expects the industry to emerge from the coronavirus crisis smaller and more cautious, doubting airlines will try to expand through acquisitions. The airline industry has been crippled by the pandemic, which continues to leave many aircraft around the world grounded or flying near-empty as demand limps towards a recovery. “It will be a smaller industry. We are not going to recover all the capacity,” IATA Director General Willie Walsh said in a pre-recorded online interview broadcast on Monday. He cited the swathes of aircraft retired and employees laid off or placed on furlough. “It will be a more cautious industry. I don’t expect to see M&A (merger and acquisition) activity, principally because people will be guarded about the cash they have.” Walsh said that spending “valuable cash resources” would be “too risky” but he believes there will be consolidation through airlines shrinking their operations and some failing.<br/>

Global aviation faces its biggest political crisis in years after Belarus scrambled a fighter and flagged what turned out to be a false bomb alert to detain a dissident journalist, prompting US and European outrage. read more Some European airlines immediately began avoiding Belarus airspace, a key corridor between western Europe and Moscow and route for long-haul flights between western Europe and Asia. "We, like all the European airlines are looking for guidance today from the European authorities and from NATO," Ryanair CE Michael O'Leary told Ireland's Newstalk radio. Others, including Chinese and Turkish carriers, continued to fly over Belarus, which charges euro-denominated fees to use its airspace. Each flight brings Minsk revenue equivalent to some $500, adding up to millions each year, a Belarus official said. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) said it had notified its 31 member states about the incident and an airline source said the agency had recommended "caution" over Belarus. Aviation experts said a decades-old system of cooperation now faces a crucial test under the glare of East-West tensions. The UN's ICAO said the incident may have contravened a core aviation treaty: part of the international order created after World War Two.<br/>

The captain of the Ryanair plane intercepted by a Belarusian warplane and forced to land in Minsk after what turned out to be a false bomb threat had little choice but to comply, aviation experts and pilots said. The scrambling of a warplane by Belarus to arrest a journalist, Roman Protasevich, has provoked outrage among Western leaders and prompted several airlines to divert flights away from Belarusian airspace. “If the interceptor directed the Ryanair flight to Minsk, then they had to land there,” said John Cox, a former US Airways pilot who is now an aviation-safety consultant. “Pilots are trained for this, and there are internationally-agreed signals between the interceptor and the airliner,” he said, adding that pilots carry drawings or descriptions of the intercept signals with them on every flight. In the event of a bomb threat aboard, pilots would adhere to instructions on where to land and assume that the intercepting aircraft was there to help. “You don’t question the intention (of an interception) because the assumption is that they’re there on your behalf,” said one pilot at a European airline.<br/>

President Joe Biden on Monday said the forced diversion by Belarus of a commercial passenger jet so it could arrest an opposition journalist was “a direct affront to international norms” and condemned the action as an “outrageous incident.” Biden made the statement — and joined calls for an international investigation — as the European Union imposed sanctions against Belarus, including banning its airlines from using the airspace and airports in the 27-nation bloc in reaction to Sunday’s forced diversion of the Lithuania-bound Ryanair flight. The flight had originated from Greece, but was forced to land in Minsk.<br/>

Airlines have filed about 2,500 unruly-passenger reports with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration this year, including 1,900 reports of passengers not wearing required face masks, the agency said on Monday. The jump in cases in midst of the coronavirus pandemic prompted FAA Administrator Steve Dickson in March to indefinitely extend a "zero tolerance policy" on unruly air passengers imposed in January. The FAA said on Monday it had proposed new civil penalties ranging from $9,000 to $15,000 against five airline passengers for disruptive and, in some cases, assaultive behavior. The FAA has identified potential violations in 395 cases and initiated enforcement action in 30 cases. In one case, the FAA proposed a $10,500 fine against a JetBlue passenger who failed to wear a mask on a March 17 Orlando, Florida, flight to New York. He was eventually removed from the flight but delayed its departure by 28 minutes. The FAA proposed a $9,000 fine for a Southwest passenger on a Feb. 20 flight who refused to wear a mask. A flight attendant "gave the passenger a mask, and he threw it on the floor, saying he would not wear it," the FAA said, adding that the captain arranged for police to meet the passenger on arrival in Houston.<br/>

The FAA has issued an emergency order requiring aircraft operators to inspect high-pressure turbine disks in some International Aero Engines V2500s, which power Airbus A320-family jets. The emergency airworthiness directive, issued by the FAA on 22 May, takes effect on immediately. It follows a V2500 uncontained engine failure and applies to a subset of V2500s with specific first- and second-stage high-pressure turbine disks. “This emergency AD was prompted by a review of investigative findings from an event involving an uncontained failure of a high-pressure turbine first-stage disk that resulted in high-energy debris penetrating the engine cowling,” the FAA’s order says. It requires operators to perform ultrasonic inspections of affected first- and second-stage disks within 10 flight cycles. Disks that fail inspection must be replaced before further flight. The inspections must be completed in accordance with previously issued IAE service bulletins. The AD applies to engines with 15 serial numbers and does not specify how many US-operated aircraft are affected.<br/>

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Monday US authorities should not downgrade Mexico’s air safety designation, arguing that his country is complying with all the relevant norms. Reuters reported on Friday the US government is preparing to downgrade Mexico’s aviation safety rating, a move that would bar Mexican carriers from adding new US flights and limit airlines’ ability to carry out marketing agreements. “We have been complying with all the requirements. We feel that this decision should not be made,” Lopez Obrador said at a regular news conference when asked about the possibility of a US downgrade of the safety classification. The US FAA/s planned move is expected be announced in the coming days and follows a lengthy review of Mexico’s aviation oversight by the agency. Lopez Obrador said that a downgrade would “not affect (Mexican) airlines because they are mostly dedicated to transporting passengers domestically.” Downgrading Mexico from Category 1 to Category 2 would mean that current US service by Mexican carriers would be unaffected, but they could not launch new flights and airline-to-airline marketing practices such as selling seats on each other’s flights in code-share arrangements would be restricted.<br/>

Turkey welcomed 790,687 foreign visitors in April, down from a month earlier and only a quarter of the arrivals in 2019 before the pandemic hit, according to official data on Monday that suggested the tourism season may get off to a tough start. A coronavirus spike last month and a flurry of foreign travel warnings have wiped out many early bookings and raised prospects of another lost season for Turkey, which relies on the cash inflow to fund its heavy foreign debt. April’s arrivals were still up sharply from a year ago when only 24,238 foreigners trickled in. Turkey began closing borders and restricting activity in March 2020 when it logged its first COVID-19 case. Compared to March of this year, when coronavirus curbs were briefly lifted, tourist numbers dipped 12% last month. In April 2019 nearly 3.3m foreigners arrived. While the government has predicted a rebound this year, slumping tourism has dimmed economic growth and exacerbated the current account deficit. Russia - Turkey’s top source of tourists, accounting for 20% in April - last month suspended most flights until June and could extend the pandemic measure, prompting its airlines to halt most flights into the summer.<br/>

Shipping bottlenecks and spending by stuck-at-home consumers will help drive increased demand for air cargo until mid-2022. And with thousands of passenger planes, which usually carry about half of global air freight, still grounded, capacity constraints will continue to push up prices, according to Tim Scharwath, the chief executive officer of DHL Global Forwarding, Freight. “People are very willing to spend, they have more money left because they didn’t go on holiday,” Scharwath said. Air cargo capacity “will also be scarce into 2022” because slow vaccine rollouts in Asia will dissuade people from traveling, he said. Airfreight rates to North America from Hong Kong have risen as much as 24% this year after more than doubling in 2020, as the Covid-19 pandemic increased demand for electronics goods like gaming consoles and laptop computers as more people were forced to work from home. The cargo market has been a rare bright spot for Asian carriers such as Singapore Airlines and Korean Air Lines, whose businesses have been decimated by the pandemic.<br/>