The Taliban said international flights from Afghanistan will resume shortly as Qatar and Turkey help restart operations at Kabul airport and the group has complete control over the country with the last pocket of resistance in the north now defeated. “Domestic flights have already started and we’re waiting to hear when we can start overseas flights,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed said at a press conference in Kabul. “We plan to start overseas flights very soon.”<br/>
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Ask anyone old enough to remember travel before Sept. 11, 2001, and you’re likely to get a gauzy recollection of what flying was like. There was security screening, but it wasn’t anywhere near as intrusive. There were no long checkpoint lines. Passengers and their families could walk right to the gate together, postponing goodbye hugs until the last possible moment. Overall, an airport experience meant far less stress. That all ended when four hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania. The worst terror attack on American soil led to increased and sometimes tension-filled security measures in airports across the world, aimed at preventing a repeat of that awful day. The cataclysm has also contributed to other changes large and small that have reshaped the airline industry — and, for consumers, made air travel more stressful than ever. Two months after the attacks, President George W. Bush signed legislation creating the TSA, a force of federal airport screeners that replaced the private companies that airlines were hiring to handle security. The law required that all checked bags be screened, cockpit doors be reinforced, and more federal air marshals be put on flights. There has not been another 9/11. Nothing even close. But after that day, flying changed forever. Story has more.<br/>
Berlin Brandenburg Airport in Germany has continued to see a rise in passenger traffic, with the figure standing at 1.43m in August 2021. This was much higher than a year ago, which saw nearly 830,000 passengers at the Schönefeld and Tegel airports, as pandemic-related travel curbs hit the aviation sector and around 180,000 more than the holiday month of July 2021. However, the figure is lower than the pre-pandemic level of 3.2m in August 2019. BER managed approximately 12,700 aircraft movements in August 2021, 1,100 more than the previous month. Nearly 9,600 aircraft took off and landed in Schönefeld or Tegel in August 2020, while the number was nearly 25,000 in the year before that. However, goods handled last month reduced by around 150 tonnes to nearly 2,150 tonnes compared to July. The figure was still approximately 500 tonnes more compared to August 2020.<br/>
London City Airport, a favorite of regional business travelers, is seeing a tentative reawakening as British Airways and Lufthansa restore flights to key financial centers. Services to Zurich, Frankfurt and Rotterdam are resuming this month, the airport’s COO Alison FitzGerald said. “We’re seeing some early signs of good load factors, some early bookings,” FitzGerald said. “Hopefully frequencies will also increase.” The number of flights from London City is set to increase more than 70% during September to about 260 per week by month’s end, based on data from Bloomberg NEF. Still, traffic remains about 80% below 2019 levels, according to FitzGerald. The airport, which offers easy access to the City of London and Canary Wharf financial districts, is almost wholly focused on short flights because its truncated runway is limited to smaller aircraft. It has relied on leisure journeys that resumed earlier in the summer season when Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns eased, FitzGerald said. While demand for business travel in the aftermath of the pandemic remains uncertain, FitzGerald said executives are seeking out face-to-face meetings with clients, and more customers will combine business and leisure trips made possible by flexible working patterns.<br/>
FirstGroup will begin operating trains between London and Edinburgh next month with fares the company says will be low enough to challenge discount airlines on the route. The service, branded “Lumo,” is set to start Oct. 25 and will offer five round trips a day by early next year, with 60% of tickets priced at 30 pounds ($41.50) or less for a one-way journey, according to a statement Tuesday. Lumo is aiming to compete with discount flights that are often cheaper than the main East Coast train service provided by London North Eastern Railway, a government-controlled company that took over the route in 2018. The startup says its Hitachi AT300 electric trains, the same model used by LNER, will emit less than one-sixth of the carbon produced by flying. FirstGroup touted plans for Lumo in 2015 after its bid for the East Coast line lost out to Virgin Trains, which later hit financial difficulties, causing the state to step in. Lumo will operate under open-access rules that allow companies to offer limited rail services outside of Britain’s established franchise structure.<br/>
A military junta that seized power in Guinea on Sunday reopened air routes, and ordered members of a presidential security unit to confine themselves to a barracks outside Conakry, the capital. “All airlines can resume their activity subject to submitting to the relevant administrative procedure,” coup leader Colonel Mamady Doumbouya said in a statement read out on state-owned Radio Television Guineenne on Monday.<br/>
Thailand is pressing ahead with plans to reopen the country’s international borders, with major cities such as Bangkok and Chiang Mai set to welcome vaccinated travellers from 1 October. The update comes two months since the country first reopened its borders — under the auspices of the Phuket ‘Sandbox’ scheme — and has “continued to make significant progress” in inoculating its population. Other Thai cities that will be reopened from 1 October are Pattaya and Hua Hin, says the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT). While Bangkok is expected to reopen on schedule, Chiang Mai and Pattaya are reopening their international borders a month later than scheduled, most likely because of the wave of coronavirus infections that has swept across the country. The TAT had originally forecast Krabi, Chiang Mai and Pattaya to open up from 1 September, with Bangkok on 1 October, and the rest of Thailand throughout October.<br/>