Canadian airlines are welcoming the goverment’s plan to create a digital vaccination passport for international travellers, to be rolled out within weeks. “We fully support the federal government’s on-going engagement with provincial and territorial authorities to develop a standardized vaccination credential, and encourage all levels of government to work as effectively as possible to meet an early fall release date,” Mike McNaney, chief executive of the National Airlines Council of Canada (NACC), says on 11 August. “Proof of vaccination is going to be a critical component of international travel and recovery of the travel and tourism sector,” he adds. NACC represents Canada’s major carriers including Air Canada, WestJet, Air Transat and Jazz Aviation. Earlier in the day the federal government of Justin Trudeau said that it is collaborating with provinces and territories to develop a proof of vaccination “that will facilitate cross-border travel, while reducing the risk of spread and importation of Covid-19” as Canadians once again begin to venture abroad. “Our work with the provinces and territories to provide a consistent proof of vaccination is a key step forward in ensuring Canadians will have the documents they need once it is safe to travel again,” Marco Mendicino, minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship said. He added that the government is also working with ICAO and the World Health Organisation to set up the next phase of this plan. The government says the credential will be “internationally recognised” and will likely be digital. It is expected to be available to all Canadians “early this fall”.<br/>
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A raft of passenger statistics from the European airports sector provides further evidence of resurgent passenger demand across the continent. As part of its six month data release, airport trade body ACI Europe notes a massive fall in the continent’s passenger numbers through the first half of the year against the same period pre-pandemic, down by 76.9% across the European airport network. Compared to the same period last year this represents a fall of 36.2%, with facilities in the EU, EEA, UK and Switzerland falling behind their counterparts in Russia and Turkey, where demand has been bolstered by domestic traffic. However, the data also highlights a significant uptick for July, with traffic down a relatively mild 51% across Europe for the month compared with 2019, and total passenger volumes doubling from the same month in 2020. “The improvement in passenger traffic started gaining some real momentum only over the month of July,” comments the group. “This was clearly facilitated by the EU Digital Covid Certificates as well as the UK and Ireland better aligning their travel regime with the rest of Europe, and finally accepting that vaccinated travellers do not need to quarantine.”<br/>
Britain’s Heathrow Airport said that passenger numbers surged in July as the government eased travel restrictions and a recovery was underway, but warned that overall numbers were still down 80% on pre-pandemic levels as many barriers remain. Heathrow said that in July over 1.5m travellers passed through the airport, making it the busiest month since March 2020, just before COVID-19 lockdowns began in Europe and travel was essentially stopped. The airport, the busiest in Britain, and before COVID-19 the busiest in Europe, said that the government needed to do more to help travel return to even close to 2019 levels. Heathrow and airlines like BA have criticised Britain for not easing travel restrictions quickly enough despite its fast vaccine roll-out, and for complicated rules which continue to include expensive coronavirus tests. They want to see the cost of testing reduced and more countries added to the government’s list of low risk countries. Heathrow also called on Britain and the United States to reach an agreement to allow Britons to travel to the US.<br/>
Scotland's first electric-powered aircraft has taken to the skies from a new test centre in Orkney. One of the twin engines in Ampaire's six-seater Cessna Skymaster has been replaced with an electric motor. The company believes it could pave the way to retrofitting inter-island and short-haul flights with greener technologies. It is the first low-carbon aircraft to fly at the GBP3.7m sustainable aviation facility based at Kirkwall airport. The plane was built in 1974 but has been retrofitted at the company's headquarters in California. After initial test flights in Hawaii, it was shipped to Scotland for its first flight across open water between Orkney and Wick. About 90 minutes of rapid charging would provide around an hour of flight. Susan Ying from Ampaire said: "It will fly cleaner, be more efficient and more economical. It will start as a short-haul but eventually, as the technology's improving, it could go into medium to long-haul."<br/>
Dubai Airports reported a 41% drop in H1 passenger traffic, while expressing confidence that fewer travel restrictions and coming events will stoke rising activity through year-end. The number of people passing through the world’s largest airport by international traffic fell to 10.6m, as the airport served 68% of its pre-pandemic destinations, the state-owned company said Wednesday. With Expo 2020 Dubai starting in October after a one-year delay and the Dubai Airshow set for November, “we are gearing up for a massive in-rush of visitors to the United Arab Emirates in the next couple of months,” CEO Paul Griffiths said. “I think the rebound in traffic for the second half will be much greater than we’ve seen in the first half,” he said, adding that the biggest demand will come from point-to-point traffic “particularly the U.K.” <br/>