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The head of IATA said on Thursday a digital travel pass for COVID-19 test results and vaccine certifications would go live in the coming weeks following a testing phase. The mobile application, which has been tested by some airlines, was originally designed to facilitate passenger screening at the airport check-in and aircraft boarding stages. However, IATA says it has since modified the app for when passengers are also checked by immigration officers on arrival. "(The) feedback (has) been very positive. We expect to go live out of the testing mode in the next couple of weeks," International Air Transport Association (IATA) Director General Willie Walsh said. Around 60,000 people have been registered to test the system, he said.<br/>

The US CDC said Thursday it will no longer require travelers to wear masks in outdoor transit hubs and in outdoor spaces on ferries, buses and trolleys, due to the lower risk of coronavirus transmission outdoors. The change is the first in the CDC's transit mask policy announced in January and came after a lengthy review by the White House Office of Management and Budget's regulatory arm. The CDC said it made the change "because of the lower risk of transmission outdoors ... Masks are still required indoors on all forms of transportation" regardless of vaccination status. The change means people can take masks off outdoors while waiting for a train, in an outdoor courtyard of an airport or in open-air transit modes. The change came after the Biden administration held extensive discussions with transit unions and other groups. The administration is considering other modest changes to its indoor transit mask policies, including potentially allowing vaccinated airline workers to remove their masks in rooms not accessible to the public. The CDC in May said fully vaccinated people do not need to wear masks outdoors and can avoid wearing them indoors in most places. In April, the Biden administration extended face mask requirements across all US transportation networks through Sept. 13 to address the spread of COVID-19.<br/>

The TSA has asked some of its office workers to help security officers with a surge of summer travel at the nation's airports, a TSA official said Thursday. The ask, including to local administrative offices, comes in addition to a campaign aiming to hire 6,000 workers. The official said it has hired 3,100 transportation security officers -- the blue-shirted checkpoint employees -- so far this year. The official acknowledged the request for volunteers from its office ranks is outlined in an internal memo, which was first reported by The Washington Post. The official said offices "have been sending up volunteers throughout the week and they've been accepted to deploy." The official characterized the request as the sort the agency typically makes around busy travel periods, such as Memorial Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas. In the past, airports and airlines have also offered their employees to help with non-security roles at checkpoints -- such as managing lines and organizing conveyor belt bins -- to make the screening process smoother. The agency is combating retention challenges it has grappled with for years, plus the stress of the pandemic. Although TSA jobs offer the stability of a federal job and other benefits like the ability to transfer airports when moving, a watchdog report in 2018 identified low pay and limited career progression as common reasons for quitting.<br/>

Airlines hit hard by Covid-19 sought swifter action to loosen restrictions on travel following pledges from the US and the UK to reopen lucrative trans-Atlantic links. Carriers welcomed an agreement by President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Boris Johnson to create a joint task force to explore options for resuming flights, but are pushing for their administrations to go further than the tentative gesture. “Quickly is the key,” said Airlines for America. “We believe the science is already there.” Vaccinated people ought to be able to travel, added Luis Gallego, CEO of IAG. Given progress with rolling out inoculations in both countries, “we don’t see why they have to have restrictions between the US and the UK.” The North Atlantic corridor joining the US with Europe is the single most profitable corner of the global aviation market, filled with premium travelers paying extra for first-class and business-class seats. The connection pumps billions of dollars into the British and American economies and supports hundreds of thousands of jobs, according to Drew Crawley, CCO of American Express Global Business Travel. “The continued closure of these vital routes for more than 400 days has been detrimental to economic recovery in both countries,” Crawley said.<br/>

The government said Thursday it has decided to ban planes operated by any Belarusian airline from landing in Japan after the Eastern European country forced a civilian plane to land and arrested a dissident journalist on board last month. Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said the government will also advise Japanese airlines to avoid flying over Belarus, given the country’s action last month possibly violated the Convention on International Civil Aviation. The ban on arrivals by Belarusian planes is symbolic, as Japan and Belarus have no direct air connection. It follows a move by the European Union last week to ban Belarusian airlines from flying over the EU’s airspace or using its airports. “We strongly condemn the forced landing of a civilian aircraft and the arbitrary arrest of a specific passenger on board by the Belarusian authorities, and we demand the immediate release of the arrested journalist,” Kato said at a regular news conference. The Japanese move also came after the foreign ministers of the Group of Seven industrialized nations condemned the action by Belarus.<br/>

The prime minister's special adviser on the downing of flight PS752 says as long as Iran refuses to tell the whole truth about the crash, the country's airspace remains unsafe. "Canada should, in my view, be raising this issue in every forum, (the International Civil Aviation Organization), in other agencies of the United Nations, through every channel and means to make sure that the world does not forget," Ralph Goodale said Thursday at the House of Commons transport committee. Goodale, a former Liberal cabinet minister, is now the Canadian high commissioner in the United Kingdom. But in 2020 he was appointed by PM Justin Trudeau as a special adviser to help guide Canada's response to the crash. He delivered a report last year critical of existing international rules for investigating plane crashes, which allow the country where the crash happens to lead the investigation, even in a situation like this where Iran was responsible for the crash. Iran, Goodale told the committee, has been evasive and misleading from day one. "The world needs to take this seriously," he said. "There is no reason for anyone to believe that the skies over Tehran are any safer today than they were in January of 2020."<br/>

European airlines said on Thursday they will seek to weaken passenger compensation and refund rights in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which left the industry struggling to reimburse billions of euros in fares for grounded flights. Airlines for Europe said the so-called EU261 regulation had severely exacerbated the financial crisis for many airlines. "We're looking for a more balanced approach to consumer protection," Air France-KLM CE Ben Smith said, adding that the EU's passenger rights law was "one of the most punitive" in the world. EU rules grant consumers immediate cash refunds for cancelled flights, plus compensation for those scrapped with less than two weeks' notice or for delays of over three hours. Multibillion-euro refund bills exacerbated the cash crunch for many airlines early in the pandemic. "When events like mass cancellations get put in place this law is not flexible enough to handle such events," Smith said. The EC indicated it was not ready to consider any weakening of passenger rights. "We have always tried to strike the right balance between consumer protection and the protection of the tourism and transport industry," an EU official said. "The continued and improved protection of passenger rights is crucial to ensuring the necessary consumer trust in the transport sector."<br/>

The Singapore-Hong Kong air travel bubble will remain on hold even though the COVID-19 situation in Singapore has improved, the Ministry of Transport said Thursday. Authorities on both sides will review the situation in July before deciding on a launch date. The COVID-19 situation in Hong Kong has remained stable, with very few community cases in recent weeks, the ministry noted. “Both Singapore and Hong Kong remain strongly committed to launching the air travel bubble safely. We will continue to monitor the public health situation in both places closely,” MOT said. Both Singapore's Transport Minister S Iswaran and Hong Kong's Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Edward Yau have maintained "close contact", the ministry said, adding that they agreed that both sides would review the situation in early July, before making a decision on the target launch dates of flights under the air travel bubble. “An update will be provided at that point," said MOT. The Singapore-Hong Kong air travel bubble was initially scheduled to be launched on Nov 22 last year, but it was deferred after a rise in COVID-19 cases in Hong Kong. During a press conference by the COVID-19 multi-ministry task force on Thursday, Health Minister Ong Ye Kung said he did not think that Singapore had met the criteria for the resumption of the air travel bubble. “And even if we crossed the criteria for resumption … we are in a very cautious state,” Ong said in response to a question. “And so we probably don't want to rush. It’s important that at this state – embers are still there – we want to be quite cautious."<br/>

Singapore and Australia will work towards an air travel bubble and both nations will lay the groundwork for resuming two-way travel in a safe and calibrated manner, said the prime ministers of both countries on Thursday. Both prime ministers expressed their hope that Singapore students in Australia would be the first to get the opportunity to travel from this arrangement so that they can continue their studies, which have been disrupted by Covid-19 travel restrictions. They also said that such a move involving students could be a good opportunity to test the systems, before widening such travel arrangements. They were speaking to reporters after PM Lee Hsien Loong met his Australian counterpart Scott Morrison on Thursday at the Istana for the sixth Australia-Singapore Annual Leaders' Meeting. This is the first official visit by a foreign leader to Singapore since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, and Morrison's second stop after New Zealand last month. At a joint press conference after their meeting, Lee said they discussed the fight against Covid-19 and resuming travel between the two countries. "We discussed how two-way travel between Singapore and Australia can eventually resume, in a safe and calibrated manner, when both sides are ready," he said.<br/>

Yemen's Houthi administration has started renovating Sanaa airport, two industry sources said, as the group that controls most of northern Yemen prepares for a possible reopening of the facility under UN-led peace efforts. A Saudi Arabian-led coalition has controlled Yemen's air space since 2015, when the alliance intervened against the Iran-aligned Houthi movement that ousted the internationally recognised government from the capital, Sanaa. The coalition's spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether it had agreed to reopen air space and allow the airport to resume regular operations. The industry sources said that construction work had begun in some parts of the airport, which has been closed since 2015 with the exception of UN flights. It has been targeted dozens of times by coalition air strikes over the last six years. The military alliance says the facility is used for arms smuggling, something the Houthis deny.<br/>

SpaceX is “in talks with several” airlines to use its Starlink satellite internet network to provide travelers with inflight Wi-Fi, the leader of the company’s project said on Wednesday. “We have our own aviation product in development ... we’ve already done some demonstrations to date and [are] looking to get that product finalized to be put on aircraft in the very near future,” SpaceX vice president Jonathan Hofeller said during a panel at the Connected Aviation Intelligence Summit. Hofeller did not give a timeline for when Starlink will begin inflight services, saying that an announcement is coming “hopefully sooner rather than later.” Airlines work with satellite broadband providers for inflight Wi-Fi, with Viasat and Intelsat – the latter of which purchased Gogo’s commercial aviation business – two such companies that add connectivity on flights by airlines including Delta, JetBlue, American Airlines and United. But, while existing services use satellites in distant orbits, Starlink satellites orbit closer to the Earth and could potentially boost the speeds that passengers see inflight. Hofeller added that Starlink “provides a global mesh,” so that “airlines are flying underneath that global mesh have connectivity anywhere they go.” “Passengers and customers want a great experience that [geosynchronous satellite] systems simply cannot provide,” Hofeller said. <br/>

Airbus and Boeing watch out - one of the world’s largest aircraft owners says passenger planes could see their wings clipped by the rapid spread of flying taxi startups. Commercial air travel already faces competition from high-speed trains in parts of the world. But the head of Irish aircraft leasing firm Avolon said competition would shift skywards as it invested up to $2 billion in aerial shuttles. Avolon is among the launch customers for up to 1,000 electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing (eVOTL) aircraft being developed by Britain’s Vertical Aerospace, which plans to go public through a merger with a blank-check firm. German air shuttle startup Lilium said in March it would float on the US stock market via a similar process. The deals reflect growing interest in battery-powered aircraft that can take off and land vertically, offering a new way for travellers to beat traffic and hop between cities. Vertical’s VA-X4 has a range of 120 miles but that could be extended further, Avolon CE Domhnal Slattery said late Thursday.<br/>