US airline chiefs have been seeking the limelight like never before as they try to lure back both budget and business travelers. Delta’s Ed Bastian has mounted a media blitz at a pace of more than two interviews a week this year. Scott Kirby has been trying to burnish United’s corporate-citizenship clout by talking up its diversity goals and climate-change response. And at Southwest, Gary Kelly has ventured onto such non-financial venues as CBS’s Face the Nation and Axios on HBO. What started out last year as a public plea for government aid has morphed into a regular part of the job. CEOs are using their higher profile in the public arena to coax travelers back and call for less stringent global travel restrictions. Those efforts are apt to continue until the industry makes a fuller recovery -- a process that could take until next year at the earliest and may stretch into 2024, according to industry lobbying group Airlines for America. “Until the industry is really back, there is going to be this thirst for the most real-time information we can get” directly from CEOs, said Ben Baldanza, a JetBlue Airways board member and former CEO of Spirit. The tone of CEO communications is getting brighter, at least. Gone are the days when airline bosses used grim employee memos and securities filings to outline survival measures such as parking planes and cutting routes. <br/>
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A worker shortage at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport became so severe last month that one of its top executives sent a message to shops and restaurants: Don’t steal each other’s employees. “As you know, we are experiencing one of the greatest hiring challenges in the history of DFW Airport,” Ken Buchanan, executive vice president of revenue management and customer experience, wrote to concessionaires in a May 27 letter reviewed by CNBC. “As we prepare for a busy summer, please continue to practice DFW Airport’s high standards of hiring operations and refrain from soliciting employees from other DFW operations.” “Poaching,” he added, to be clear. After more than a year of coronavirus pandemic lockdowns, travelers busting out of their homes for vacation have been met with long security lines, hourslong hold times with airlines and fewer options at the airport for everything from coffee to fried chicken sandwiches because of understaffing. The TSA is offering $1,000 hiring bonuses as part of its push to add 6,000 screeners by the end of September. So far it has hired about 4,000, a TSA spokeswoman said. Airports serving Austin, Texas; Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; and Charlotte, North Carolina, have told travelers to arrive as much as three hours early in recent weeks because of long security lines.<br/>
Boeing has suffered a setback in its effort to win regulatory approval for the 777X, a large jet designed for long-range flights. After nine months of deliberations, the FAA said in a May 13 letter to Boeing that it was unconvinced that the company was ready to move ahead with “type inspection authorization.” Securing that authorization signifies that a plane is about three-fourths of the way to being certified and is necessary to move forward in that process. The FAA said that it would need to commit more agency resources to certifying the plane, that Boeing might need to conduct more test flights and that the 777X was unlikely to be certified before late 2023. Originally scheduled to enter service in 2020, the 777X has been delayed many times. Boeing’s CE said earlier this year that he did not expect certification until late 2023. “Boeing remains fully focused on safety as our highest priority throughout 777X development,” the company said. “As we subject the airplane to a comprehensive test program to demonstrate its safety and reliability, we are working through a rigorous development process to ensure we meet all applicable requirements.” News of the letter, reported Sunday by The Seattle Times, comes as Boeing struggles to overcome problems on several fronts. <br/>
Boeing is finalizing a set of three safety enhancements to the engines on its popular 737 Next Generation models to prevent debris from escaping during a failure, according to US regulators. The FAA outlined the fixes in a letter to the NTSB, dated April 2. The NTSB had recommended improvements in the engine designs after a chunk of metal flew off a Southwest engine over Pennsylvania on April 17, 2018, killing a woman who was seated where the metal hit a window. Once Boeing finalizes what are known as service bulletins instructing operators how to strengthen the smooth curved surface at the front of the engine that guides air into the turbine, the FAA plans to mandate them, the agency said in the letter. The FAA anticipated last April that Boeing would finalize the bulletins by July, though such work is often delayed. <br/>
The cities of Portland and Salem in Oregon, and Seattle in Washington set new temperature records on Monday as the Pacific Northwest baked under a heatwave that has shut down much of daily life for residents. In Salem, Oregon’s state capitol, temperatures reached 117 degrees Fahrenheit (47.2 degrees Celsius), the hottest since record-keeping began in the 1890s. Seattle-Tacoma International Airport set an all-time high temperature of 106 Fahrenheit, breaking the record set one day earlier. Portland’s airport temperature reached 115 on Monday, breaking the all-time high for the third day in a row. Before setting a record of 112 on Sunday and 108 on Saturday, the previous mark of 107 had not been reached since 1981, the National Weather Service said. “To put it in perspective, today will likely go down in history as the hottest day ever recorded for places such as Seattle, WA and Portland, OR,” the National Weather Service said, predicting the heatwave could begin to ease on Tuesday.<br/>
Argentina’s decision to limit the number of international travelers in a bid to curb the spread of Covid risks stranding thousands of its citizens abroad, according to airline industry groups. Argentina’s government, which has already banned foreign tourists from entering the country for months, announced late Friday that only 600 travelers per day will be allowed to arrive on international flights, down from a previous quota of 2,000 people. The measure, in effect since Saturday, is intended to reduce the circulation of people amid growing numbers of Covid-19 cases in the country. The IATA, among other airline groups, called for an urgent meeting with government officials to discuss the matter. “By taking such unilateral and short-notice decisions, the government risks further isolating the country,” Peter Cerda, IATA’s regional vice president for the Americas, said in a statement over the weekend. The measure “will force airlines to strand thousands of passengers, mainly Argentinian citizens and residents, outside the country.” <br/>
Groups representing Europe’s largest airlines and airports have warned of chaos and hours-long queues unless countries better coordinate the roll-out of the EU’s digital COVID-19 certificate and ensure passengers are processed before arriving at airports. The European Union’s system of digital COVID-19 travel certificates is due to come into force on Thursday, but airports group ACI and airlines representative bodies A4E, IATA and ERA warned in a letter to EU national leaders of a “worrying patchwork of approaches” across the continent. “As passenger traffic increases in the coming weeks, the risk of chaos at European Airports is real,” the groups said in the joint letter sent on Monday. The digital certificates are designed to show, via QR codes, whether passengers are fully vaccinated, have immunity due to recent recovery from COVID-19 or have had a negative test. They are designed to be used for travel throughout the EU from July 1, but would require extra checks and the right equipment to read the codes. The letter said the only way to avoid huge queues and delays during the peak summer season was to implement a system whereby both the vaccination certificate and passenger locator forms are processed remotely before the passenger arrives at the airport. Checks must only take place in the country of departure and not on arrival and national governments should manage the health data and provide equipment to check the QR codes, the letter said.<br/>
Portugal and Malta have introduced measures to restrict UK travellers who are not fully vaccinated. The Portuguese government says travellers will have to quarantine for 14 days unless they can prove they received their second vaccine dose a fortnight before arrival. Malta is also only allowing double-vaccinated people in from Wednesday. In Spain, UK travellers need to prove they are fully vaccinated, or provide a negative PCR test on arrival. The Portuguese government added the UK to the list of countries from which travellers must quarantine "at home or a place indicated by the health authorities". The rules came into effect at midnight. The new quarantine measures apply only to those travelling to mainland Portugal, not Madeira. There were 19 flights listed as departing on Monday from UK airports to Portugal's mainland airports - Lisbon, Faro and Porto.<br/>
Hong Kong will ban all passenger flights from Britain starting on Thursday (July 1), labelling the country “extremely high risk”, just as it loosens entry requirements for people travelling from most other parts of the world. “From 0.00am on July 1 (Hong Kong time), all passenger flights from the UK will be prohibited from landing,” the government said Monday. The decision was made “in view of the recent rebound of the epidemic situation in the UK and the widespread Delta variant virus strain there, coupled with a number of cases with L452R mutant virus strains detected by tests from people arriving from the UK”, it said. Only a handful of other countries are in Hong Kong’s highest risk category: Brazil, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines and South Africa. Britain was on Hong Kong’s "extremely high risk" category from December to May, but then lowered to "very high risk" as its outbreak eased. While cases are on the rise again in Britain, the move comes amid political tensions between China and Britain over Beijing’s crackdown on dissent and media freedom in the former British colony. The British government has repeatedly said China has breached the Sino-British Joint Declaration that paved the way for Hong Kong’s handover in 1997.<br/>
China's long-awaited Chengdu Tianfu International Airport has officially begun operations, offering travelers a new gateway to Sichuan province. Its inaugural flight, operated by Sichuan Airlines, took off at 11:10 a.m. on Sunday, bound for Beijing. Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, is now the third city in the country to have two international airports, joining Shanghai and Beijing. Constructed at a cost of about 70b Chinese yuan ($10.8b), phase one of Chengdu Tianfu International Airport has the capacity to handle up to 60m passengers per year, further opening up the country's southwest region. Three runways and two terminals, covering a total area of 710,000 square meters, are in operation. State media outlet Xinhua reported the airport will eventually house terminals covering 1.4m square meters, capable of handling 120m passengers annually.<br/>