The CDC and the State Department on Monday said to avoid travel to the UK as the delta variant of Covid-19 continues to spread. The warnings are “Level 4,” the CDC and State Department’s highest. While not binding, they come after airline executives and other members of the travel industry have pressed the Biden administration to loosen existing Covid travel restrictions that have devastated demand for international bookings. The United States has had an entry ban in place for non-US citizens from the EU, UK and other countries for much of the coronavirus pandemic, though several European nations have recently opened their doors to international visitors. Canada, however, said Monday it will allow fully vaccinated US citizens into the country for nonessential travel starting Aug. 9. The CDC said if individuals must travel to the UK, they should be fully vaccinated against Covid. Meanwhile, England lifted remaining Covid-19 restrictions on Monday, allowing for indoor gatherings and the reopening of nightclubs.<br/>
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Canada is poised to welcome back fully vaccinated travelers, including Americans, after over a year of strict controls at the border. Beginning on Aug. 9, citizens and permanent residents of the United States, who have been fully vaccinated for at least 14 days before travel, will be allowed to enter Canada, federal government officials said on Monday. Then, if all goes well, Canada hopes to allow visitors from other countries beginning on Sept. 7, a date that could change depending on conditions. Pressure has been building on both sides of the border to reopen, to boost tourism and allow separated families to reunite (though Canada has made some exceptions for relatives). The two countries have renewed the closure every month since the border closed to non-essential travel on March 21, 2020. Commercial traffic was never halted. Before the pandemic, Canada was the second most popular foreign destination for Americans, behind Mexico. Canada is ready to lift border restrictions because it has made rapid progress vaccinating its population after months of delays. It now has higher vaccination rates than the United States, with 50% of its population fully vaccinated, and 75% of residents having received at least one dose, according to its federal public health agency. PM Justin Trudeau had indicated that Canada would begin to open its border after it crossed the 75% threshold for residents who are at least partly vaccinated.<br/>
The EU antitrust regulator on Monday scrapped a two-and-half-year investigation into travel booking companies Amadeus and Sabre, citing a lack of conclusive evidence. The two were targeted by the European Commission in November 2018 on concerns that their contract terms could prevent airlines and travel agents from changing to rival ticket agents. “The evidence collected is not sufficiently conclusive to justify pursuing the investigation further,” the EU competition watchdog said. It said it would continue to monitor the sector. The Commission is currently reviewing rules that specify the relationship between airlines, booking system providers and travel agents. The EU decision was welcomed by Amadeus. “Amadeus has worked closely with the Commission in an open and transparent manner since the launch of its investigation in 2018,” a company spokesperson said. Airlines usually sell the bulk of their tickets via travel agents and other third parties but have a tense relationship with global distribution service providers such as Amadeus and Sabre, which use software networks to sell products such as airline tickets and hotel rooms to consumers.<br/>
London’s Heathrow airport was thronged with travelers Monday as the UK eased travel curbs -- but pre-holiday enthusiasm was replaced with anger for some after last-minute rule changes added unexpected complications to their trip. While fully vaccinated tourists headed for the Mediterranean were cheered by the removal of quarantine requirements on their return, people bound for France hit out at a decision late Friday that means they’ll still need to self-isolate. Madeline Russell, a London-based dentist flying to the southern French city of Toulouse to visit her mother, said she was skeptical that the spread of the beta variant of Covid-19 was the sole motivation for reinstating the quarantine, as Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government has maintained. “There are obviously underlying political reasons why they singled out France,” Russell said before boarding a BA flight with her husband and baby. “What’s most frustrating is that they chop and change. They announce something then rapidly change tune so quickly.” The UK created a new “amber plus” category in its traffic-light border system that makes it harder to travel to France, the only country with that designation. <br/>
The EU digital travel certificate is working well and will gradually become part of the travel experience like presenting a passport, Ryanair CE Eddie Wilson has said. From Monday, restrictions on non-essential foreign travel have been lifted, meaning passengers are able to take holidays abroad, visit relatives overseas, or travel for other such reasons. The lion’s share of passengers were vaccinated, Wilson said and he predicted that travel would shortly return to “some level of normality”. Bookings were very strong, he added, as travel was returning to normal throughout Europe and in the US. “The real issue for the Government is this winter, there is going to be less capacity this winter. People are going to wake up and say, ‘why do we have less connections?’ Inward tourism is vital for jobs,” he said. It was important for carriers to be able to bring people into the country. Wilson called on the Minister for Tourism Eamon Ryan to implement the Aviation Task Force report as there were much more affordable airports elsewhere in Europe and in other countries governments had “bailed out” their airlines. “We’re not going to get that traffic back,” he said.<br/>
Russia’s aviation agency, Rosaviation, has denied requests of airlines to issue documentation necessary to conduct flights to Egypt’s largest seaside resorts, Hurghada and Sharm el-Sheikh, the agency’s order reads. Overall, more than 230 applications were filed particularly by Azur Air, Rossiya, Ural Airlines, S7 and Nordwind. On April 23, Russian Vladimir Putin and his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi agreed to relaunch air travel between Russian cities and Red Sea resorts. In early May, Moscow’s envoy to Cairo Georgy Borisenko said that aviation authorities and security agencies should complete all the necessary measures to resume flights. However, he noted that the timeline to resume air travel would largely depend on the developments linked to the coronavirus pandemic. Flights between Russia and Egypt had been fully suspended in November 2015 after a passenger plane operated by Russia’s Kogalymavia airline travelling from Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg exploded over the Sinai Peninsula, killing all 217 passengers and seven crewmembers on board. <br/>
Japan’s Narita and Haneda airports on Monday started the full-scale use of facial recognition, allowing international travelers to check in baggage and pass security checkpoints without showing passports or flight tickets. With the “Face Express” system aimed at speeding up the boarding process and providing a touchless experience for passengers, travelers need to have their photos taken at check-in when they register their passports and boarding passes upon arriving at the airports. After registering necessary data with special terminals, cameras at baggage check-in, security checkpoint entrances and boarding gates will automatically verify passengers’ identity and allow them to pass through, Narita International Airport Corp. said. “The procedure (for boarding) ended quickly and the gate opened smoothly,” said company employee Susumu Hayakawa, 29, before traveling on a Japan Airlines flight to Chicago from Narita Airport near Tokyo. The system fully came into service after Narita Airport started trialing the use of facial recognition in April, only involving airport staff and not actual travelers. It will also lead to reduced physical contact between travelers, machines, and airport and flight staff, helping to prevent the spread of virus infections, the airport operator has said. Passenger data, including facial images, will be deleted within 24 hours after registration to protect privacy.<br/>
Thai AirAsia views the forced lockdown as jeopardising its financial status as the aviation industry has been struggling without government support for over a year as it questioned the ability of the government to collect tax when large businesses have been left to die. Tassapon Bijleveld, executive chairman of Asia Aviation (AAV), the largest shareholder of Thai AirAsia (TAA), said liquidity is at a critical stage and it has had to seek emergency borrowing to help pay payroll this month. The company is preparing a business restructuring that will see new investors injecting a 3.5b-baht loan but the process has been delayed as further discussions with related authorities are needed. The airline was the first carrier to halt all domestic routes on July 12, following the partial lockdown announcement. "We stopped all flights last week as there was little demand with only 30-50 passengers per flight in July," Tassapon said. "The government never responded to our demands for soft loans which have been requested since the first lockdown last year. The ban of domestic flights now has worsened the situation," he said "We hardly see a way out from this circumstance." He said seven airlines in The Airlines Association of Thailand (AAT) will gather and call on the government this week to urgently address the impact on the aviation industry as they have suffered the most from the latest lockdown announcement. According to AAT, seven airlines in Thailand have a total workforce of more than 15,000.<br/>
The airline industry was too accepting of draconian restrictions on international travel in the first months of the pandemic, according to IATA DG Willie Walsh. Walsh laments the fact that “[governments] made it illegal for us to travel, and we all stood back and said ‘okay, that seems alright’”, making it “too easy” for them to keep borders closed. Attempts by airline leaders to balance “the public interest with the business interest” meant they were possibly “a little bit soft when we should have been pushy”, the former IAG chief recalls. Instead, “maybe we should have been challenging it a bit more, maybe we should be questioning the data and demanding greater evidence”, he suggests. If the push-back had been stronger, “I don’t think we would see the same level of restriction that we’re facing today”, Walsh states. Such frustrations led him to conclude that the industry ”needed a stronger voice”, which he now aims to offer as head of IATA. “I’ve never been shy about calling out problems when I’ve seen them,” Walsh says.<br/>
Despite concerns about soaring Covid-19 rates in the Moscow region, Russia’s MAKS will become the first major air show to be held in the pandemic era when it begins on 20 July.<br/>The biennial, six-day event is a chance for the country to showcase its aerospace capabilities to international visitors – although the usual attendance is likely to be suppressed this year as a result of travel restrictions – as well as a large domestic audience, for whom Russia’s prowess in military and commercial aviation, as well as spaceflight, are a source of great national pride. While national exhibitors – from small technology companies and suppliers to the famous design bureaus that are now part of larger groups – occupy most of the space, MAKS also plays host to dozens of overseas manufacturers, which this year include Airbus, Boeing, Cirrus, De Havilland Canada, Safran, and Viking Air. A number of notable Russian aircraft will be appearing at the show this year, such as the Irkut MC-21-310, the version of the narrowbody powered by domestic Aviadvigatel PD-14 engines, as well as the Ilyushin Il-114-300 regional turboprop and Il-112V high-wing light military transport. Less well known, the Baikal Engineering LMS-901 is a utility aircraft designed to replace the Antonov An-2.<br/>