general

Thousands of Afghans and foreign nationals have surged on to the tarmac at Kabul airport seeking a place on a flight out of the country, amid chaotic scenes that unfolded as the Taliban took control of the city. With the Taliban installed in the presidential palace and the elected president having fled the country, access to Hamid Karzai airport, five kilometres from the centre of the capital, is now possible only through Taliban checkpoints. The US, UK, Germany, Canada and a host of other coalition nations are all seeking to evacuate their nationals from the country. The airport reportedly came under fire on Sunday. Videos from the airport show people pouring into the terminal building, and scenes of dozens being pulled into the back of a C-17A military aircraft on the tarmac. Thousands of people – including parents carrying young children – are seen surging towards planes on the airfield. US Humvees are also on the ground at the airport. <br/>

The skies over the north Atlantic are still unusually empty. But a new battle for a share of some of the busiest and most lucrative flight paths in the world is already under way. US airline JetBlue defied the aviation crisis by launching its first transatlantic service this week, promising to spark a price war with rivals including British Airways and Virgin Atlantic. Fares for return trips start at GBP329 in economy and GBP999 in business class, significantly cheaper than many rivals. Within hours of the inaugural flight landing under cloudy skies at London’s Heathrow airport, JetBlue’s British CE Robin Hayes was trumpeting victory over the “very high fares” of his rivals. Hayes said prices have fallen across the board since his airline announced its pricing plans in May, and took credit for it. “I am 100 per cent certain it is because of JetBlue,” he said. But JetBlue is not the only airline gambling that passengers will rush back once US and UK travel restrictions are fully lifted. Norwegian start-up Norse Atlantic Airways this week said it expected to have a fleet of 15 planes flying across the Atlantic by next summer, while Aer Lingus has secured approval to start flights between Manchester and the US. Transatlantic flights are the crown jewel in global aviation. Worth an estimated $9b a year in revenue before the pandemic, established airlines have relied on them for a steady stream of corporate customers and wealthy holidaymakers willing to pay high prices to sit in premium class seats. This lucrative air corridor has attracted ambitious new entrants since Freddie Laker’s Skytrain burst on to the market in the late 1970s.<br/>

German officials classified the United States as “high risk” on Friday because of the rising number of cases there, affecting unvaccinated tourists who wish to travel to the European country. After weeks of being able to visit Germany relatively easily, American tourists and other nonessential travelers will have to quarantine for 10 days, starting Sunday, if they cannot document full vaccination or immunity from a past infection. They can shorten their quarantine with a negative test on the fifth day. The new classification is part of a weekly assessment done by German officials based mostly on infection rates in other countries. Turkey and Israel were also reclassified as high risk. Coronavirus cases in the United States — which reported 186,840 new cases on Friday — have steadily risen since early July, driven largely by the more contagious Delta variant of the virus. Germany has averaged about 3,000 new cases per day in the past seven days. Germany had reopened its borders to tourists from the United States in late June, after more than a year of a complete ban on nonessential travelers from most countries outside the European Union. The United States has maintained its ban on European travelers since the early days of the pandemic.<br/>

Britain's Gatwick Airport urged the government to make international travel easier after lockdown restrictions drove it to a first-half loss of GBP245m and forced it to ask its banks for a temporary reprieve. Strict COVID-19 rules during the six months to June 30 meant passenger numbers at Gatwick, usually Britain's second busiest airport, plunged 97% from pre-pandemic levels. The airport, whose majority owner is France's Vinci alongside minority holder financial investor Global Infrastructure Partners, said it was in talks with its banks over a temporary waiver of its borrowing terms due to the exceptional circumstances affecting air travel. Bigger rival Heathrow said in July it had also sought a waiver of a debt covenant. Britain has been slower to reopen travel than the rest of Europe despite its fast vaccination programme, prompting heavy criticism from airports as well as airlines like British Airways and easyJet. Since July, the government has relaxed some rules but expensive COVID-19 tests for many destinations remain in place, and last minute rule changes have deterred travel. Gatwick said Britain was falling behind its European neighbours, with travel bookings at 16% of their pre-pandemic levels, whereas France and Germany had risen to about 50%. "Our government needs to act now and remove unnecessary and costly PCR testing requirements for passengers, particularly for those double vaccinated," Gatwick CE Stewart Wingate said Friday.<br/>

Sydney Airport said it’s willing to hold talks with a group of suitors over a higher takeover bid, as it rebuffed a small sweetener that edged up the consortium’s offer to A$22.8b ($16.8b). The airport said Monday it’s “open to engaging” with the group if the bidders are prepared to make a proposal that reflects “long-term value.” At the same time, Sydney Airport rejected as too low the revised offer of A$8.45 a share, which was a 2.4% increase on the initial bid. After being hammered by coronavirus restrictions that have decimated airlines and tourism, Sydney Airport is clinging to hopes that vaccination rollouts around the world will allow global travel to resume. But the outlook has darkened since the airport rejected the suitors’ first approach last month. Much of Australia has been thrust into lockdown as authorities struggle to contain a breakout of the delta variant. That’s delaying any aviation recovery and increasing the financial pressure on Australia’s biggest travel hub. Sydney Airport said Monday the latest offer from suitors including IFM Investors -- an infrastructure investor owned by 23 Australian pension funds -- was “opportunistic in light of the Covid-19 pandemic.” It said an acceleration of Australia’s inoculation program in recent weeks offers a pathway to a resumption of travel. Still, the airport’s acknowledgment that it’s willing to entertain a higher offer -- at an unspecified value -- represented a softening of words since it rejected the A$8.25-a-share bid in July.<br/>

Brazilian planemaker Embraer posted its first quarterly recurring profit in more than three years on Friday and took another step toward the development of the first brand-new Western turboprop aircraft in decades. Turboprops are said to be more efficient on shorter trips and are particularly attractive at a time of higher oil prices. Embraer's new concept for the turboprop would feature engines mounted at the rear of the aircraft, an unusual change from the more conventional wing-mounted engines, the company's CCO, Arjan Meijer, said on Twitter. The company has been searching for a partner to develop a new turboprop that would compete with European manufacturer ATR, which dominates the market with a long-established model of roughly 50 to 70 seats. Embraer had previously sought to develop its turboprop under a partnership with Boeing that fell through early in the coronavirus pandemic. Meijer did not say who would supply the aircraft's engines. Pratt and Whitney currently supplies all turboprop engines, but GE Aviation is developing a competing model. Embraer reported Q2 net income of 212.8m reais ($40.5m), its first recurring profit since Q1 2018, driven by a partial recovery in travel. A year earlier it posted a loss of 1.071b reais and was scrambling to restructure operations to contend with the pandemic and the failed $4b deal with Boeing.<br/>

Richard Branson has sold a further $300m (GBP220m) stake in Virgin Galactic to raise more funds to prop up his airline, Virgin Atlantic, and other businesses hit hard by the pandemic. It is the third time Sir Richard, 71, has sold a large tranche of shares in in his space tourism company since it joined the New York stock exchange in 2019. He sold $505m worth in May 2020 and $150m in April this year, taking his total stake sales to almost $1bn. He still holds about 46m shares worth $1.2b. The parent company, Virgin Group, said in statement that it “intends to use the net proceeds from this sale to support its portfolio of global leisure, holiday and travel businesses that continue to be affected by the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, in addition to supporting the development and growth of new and existing businesses”. Virgin Investments sold 10.4m Virgin Galactic shares this week at prices of between $25 and $34, according to filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The shares fell 3% in early trading on the news, before recovering to 1% down. The sale comes about a month after Branson became the first billionaire to successfully launch a fully crewed private flight into space. Virgin Galactic’s rocket plane launched on 11 July, just days before Amazon’s Jeff Bezos blasted off in his Blue Origin New Shepard spacecraft. Virgin Atlantic, in which Virgin Group owns a 51% stake – the US airline Delta owns the other 49% – was plunged into crisis by the near-cessation of transatlantic flights at the height of the pandemic. It has required several emergency cash injections.<br/>