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After flying into the financial turbulence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the airline sector expects passenger traffic to take off despite concerns about the industry's impact on climate change. In its latest look at trends for the sector, the IATA said it doesn't expect world air traffic to resume to its pre-pandemic level before 2023. But over 20 years, air traffic should almost double, from 4.5b passengers in 2019 to 8.5b in 2039. That is, however, a drop of one billion passengers from IATA's pre-crisis forecast. Nevertheless that will be good news for aircraft manufacturers, who slowed down production during the crisis as airlines cancelled orders to stay financially afloat. Airbus has already announced it plans to step up the manufacturing cadence of its best-selling A320 single-aisle aircraft and should reach a record level already in 2023. Boeing, for its part, forecasts that airlines will need 43,110 new aircraft through 2039, which will result in a near doubling of the global fleet. Asia alone will account for 40% of that demand. As with the Sep11 attacks or the global financial crisis of 2007-2009, "the industry will prove resilient again", Darren Hulst, VP of marketing at Boeing, said last year. Marc Ivaldi, research director at the Paris-based School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, noted that only 1% of the population currently uses air travel. "With the simple demographic rise and the fact that people become richer there will be rising demand for air travel and thus for aircraft," he told AFP. Story has more.<br/>

More than two million travelers passed through US airport security checkpoints on Friday, the first time since March 2020 that such a milestone had been reached, according to the TSA. “The growing number of travelers demonstrates this country’s resilience and the high level of confidence in Covid-19 countermeasures,” Darby LaJoye, a TSA official, said Saturday. “TSA stands ready to provide a safe and secure screening process as part of the overall travel experience.” The agency screened 2,028,961 travelers on Friday, almost four times more than the 519,304 people that passed through security checkpoints a year earlier. Friday’s number is still only about 74% of the total on the same date in 2019. Air travel came close to hitting the two-million mark on the Friday before Memorial Day in May, when more than 1.95m people went through security checkpoints, according to the TSA. Still, significantly more Americans preferred to travel by road for Memorial Day weekend. Before the holiday, AAA said it expected about nine out of 10 travelers would drive to their destinations. Before the start of the pandemic, an average of about 2 million to 2.5 million travelers were screened daily by the TSA.<br/>

A new cleaning regimen is cutting back on flight delays as the skies grow busier this summer. But the new procedures aren't for planes or even airport terminals — they're for air traffic control towers. The cleaning methods are being instituted in Federal Aviation Administration air traffic control towers and facilities around the country, federal officials tell CNN. The aim is to reduce the need for these behind-the-scenes employees who route aircraft to have to clear out after a colleague tests positive for coronavirus.<br/>Covid cases among air traffic employees can ground flights, arrivals and departures to a halt. Employees at the busy New York Air Route Traffic Control Center have tested positive on more than two dozen occasions. The new procedures have helped avoid more than 165 such "ATC zero" incidents, the FAA says. Increased access to Covid vaccines has likely also reduced the number of controllers falling ill. Earlier in the pandemic, the FAA frequently closed facilities once it learned of a coronavirus case. A cleaning contractor would come in to treat the facility, and controllers working at the time were required to leave to avoid the odors of the cleaning chemicals. The new daily cleanings are scheduled for the lowest-traffic periods, and they use non-toxic chemicals approved by the EPA. That allows controllers to continue working nearby. FAA Administrator Steve Dickson said the change "has really kept the supply chains running and it's allowed the aviation system to continue to function effectively."<br/>

European regulators are continuing to evaluate slot rules for the coming winter season in light of likely lower traffic volumes as European transport commissioner Adina Valean says it is too early to say when the 80:20 use-it-or-lose-it slots rules will return. Regulators temporarily suspended the requirement for airlines to operate 80% of landing and take-off slots in order to retain them for the following year’s season as traffic demand collapsed due to the pandemic. While the emergency action prevented airlines from having to fly empty aircraft purely to retain their slots, the likes of Wizz Air argued the rules prevent new entrants from filling capacity at slot-constrained airports. As a first step to normalising the rules, airlines during the current European summer season have been required to use a minimum of 50% of their take-off and landing slots in order to retain them for 2022. Valean acknowledged the emergency waiver has had unintended negative consequences on competition. “It is clear air traffic is not going to recover to pre-pandemic levels, so we cannot expect you to operate the normal 80% of the slots,” Valean says of the coming winter. ”So since we have the possibility through the regulation to give further relief from the normal slot rules, we will adopt probably…a new slot-use threshold for the winter. ”We are currently gathering data and trying to monitor how air traffic develops, which changes regularly. At this stage I cannot say when the 80:20 rule should apply again,” she says.<br/>

The number of passengers travelling through UK airports fell by 223m last year, an annual decline of 75%, as governments imposed travel bans and restrictions because of the coronavirus pandemic. About 74m people passed through UK airports in 2020, less than a quarter of the 297m recorded in 2019, according to PA Media’s analysis of annual Civil Aviation Authority data. The Airport Operators Association (AOA) said the figures demonstrated the devastating impact of the virus on aviation. Cardiff airport suffered the largest drop in passenger numbers at 86.7%, followed by Glasgow Prestwick at 85.8% and Exeter at 85.5%. The figure for Southampton fell by 83.4%, London City by 82.3% and Leeds Bradford by 81.2%. Heathrow recorded a 72.7% decline from 80.9m passengers in 2019 to 22.1m last year. The figures include all passengers who travelled through British airports excluding the Channel Islands or Isle of Man. Demand for air travel collapsed in March 2020 when the UK went into its first national lockdown, mirroring lockdowns elsewhere and forcing airlines around the world to ground their planes. Travel began to recover by late summer and into the autumn, but passenger numbers plummeted again in November after many restrictions were reimposed in the UK as it faced a second wave of the virus. Karen Dee, the AOA’s chief executive, said: “These figures lay bare the devastating impact Covid-19 has had on UK airports. With passengers down nearly 90% between April and December 2020, airports’ economic output was decimated and significant numbers of jobs were lost.”<br/>

The Treasury has been urged to spend millions of pounds maintaining aircraft that have been grounded by the UK’s travel restrictions. An “aircraft furlough” scheme would subsidise the cost of keeping planes in working order, under plans proposed by British Airways. Airlines UK, a trade body, also issued a plea to extend Rishi Sunak’s job retention scheme for the aviation sector until 2022. However, Treasury sources downplayed this as a realistic possibility. The renewed request for state support comes with aviation bosses incensed by the slow progress of reopening Britain’s borders. On Thursday, BA put thousands of workers back on furlough. Portugal was the only realistic holiday destination included on the Government’s “green list” in May. It was then removed at the start of June. Shai Weiss, Virgin Atlantic boss, said: “Failure to provide clear and transparent guidance on the methodology and data the Government is basing their decisions on undermines the traffic light framework and damages consumer and business confidence.” John Holland-Kaye, Heathrow CE, said: “The UK is cut off from almost the entire world with closed borders, trade routes from Heathrow grounded and the very freedom that vaccination offers to the world is being denied to British citizens.” <br/>

Dubai Airshow is set to highlight the growth in business aviation and provide a platform for industry experts to shape the future of the industry with the deployment of ground-breaking technologies. Business aviation is one of the key sectors that will be represented at the event, with 30% of the attendance being involved in that part of the industry. Key names in business aviation that will be taking part in Dubai Airshow 2021 include Airbus, Boeing, Airports World Company LTD, CAE, Citadel Completions, Comlux, Dassault Aviation, Embraer, Emojet, Gainjet Aviation, Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation, and Pilatus Aircraft. In the wake of Covid-19, business aviation has proved to be a more flexible, reliable flight option, providing safety and security. <br/>

About two-thirds of people eligible for inoculation against COVID-19 have now received two doses of the vaccine in Dubai, the tourist and business hub of the United Arab Emirates, Dubai Health Authority said. Dubai is the most populous of the seven emirates that make up the UAE and has one of the world's busiest airports. For six months the UAE has been running one of the world's fastest vaccination campaigns against COVID-19, initially using a vaccine developed by the China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) and then adding the Pfizer/BioNTech and AstraZeneca shots and Russia's Sputnik V. DHA deputy director general Alawi Alsheikh Ali said Saturday that 83% of people aged over 16 - or about 2.3m people - had now received at least one dose of a vaccine and that 64% had received two doses in the emirate.<br/>

The earnings of international airline operators reflect the uneven recovery from the pandemic as they struggle with debt taken on to weather last year's plunge in passenger traffic. While carriers based in the US, where vaccinations have progressed, bottom out, Southeast Asian airlines continue to face headwinds. AirAsia Group's operations will take about two years to normalize, CEO Tony Fernandes indicated during the Southeast Asian discount carrier's January-March earnings release. Coronavirus infections remain high in AirAsia's service area, including its home base of Malaysia, where a nationwide lockdown started on June 1. The company last month reported a net loss of 767m ringgit ($186.7m), bringing its capital ratio below zero and falling into negative net worth. Singapore Airlines reported a record net loss of 4.27b Singapore dollars ($3.2b) for the year ended March 2021. THAI went into a reorganization last year, with liabilities exceeding assets by 129b baht ($4.1b) at year-end. Airlines shoulder high-fixed costs, including labor and plane leases. When the pandemic halted or greatly curtailed business, they borrowed heavily to secure an operating cushion. Interest-bearing debt at 20 major airlines reached $285b as of the March-end, growing 40% from a year earlier. The 20 carriers posted losses as they borrowed to pad reserves, reducing their collective capital ratio from 18% to 10%. The cash drain in the airline industry is likely to continue. The IATA projects that global carriers will burn through $81b in cash this year, compared with $149b in 2020. <br/>

Aerospace manufacturers need to start preparing for a labor crunch. This time last year, the biggest makers of planes and their components were in layoff mode as the Covid-19 pandemic brought air travel to a virtual standstill and crippled demand for new jets. But with more than 2 billion vaccines now administered worldwide, passenger demand has rebounded and airlines have renewed interest in expanding their fleets to accommodate the snapback. Southwest this week topped up its order for the smallest version of Boeing’s 737 Max and said it now expects to spend about $1.5b on aircraft next year, more than double its previous projection. United, meanwhile, is eyeing a revamp of its fleet that may include an order of at least 100 Max jets, Bloomberg News reported Thursday. Boeing recorded its fourth consecutive month of orders outpacing cancellations in May, even as the company continues to struggle with delivery pauses. Airbus has laid out plans to exceed its pre-Covid production pace for its best-selling A320 series by 2023. That aggressive timeline raised eyebrows among analysts but may reflect a desire to kick the supply chain into gear. It’s easier said than done. Aerospace suppliers — particularly engine manufacturers — already struggled to keep up with ever-increasing production targets from Airbus and Boeing before Covid, and airlines regularly complained about quality control hiccups and delivery delays. Those issues will be compounded by the pandemic whiplash effect, particularly when it comes to rehiring workers. <br/>