Qantas is not the only airline confident that international travel will resume in December, with Air Canada announcing it will restart its first Australian route - and vaccination will be mandatory. The airline will fly Sydney-Vancouver four times a week with the first flight to Vancouver taking off on December 17. Before the outbreak of COVID-19, Air Canada had regular non-stop flights from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane to Vancouver. Air Canada suspended its flights to Australia in April last year. The airline will fly a 300-seat Boeing 777-300LR on the route, the second-largest aircraft in the carrier's fleet. Air Canada has previously flown Boeing 787 Dreamliners on its Melbourne and Brisbane routes. Air Canada has a partnership with Virgin Australia, allowing passengers to earn frequent flyer and status points through Virgin's rewards program, Velocity. Qantas has also flagged its intention to start Sydney-Vancouver flights from December 20. <br/>
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EgyptAir, the state-owned flag carrier of Egypt, will start operating direct flights between Tel Aviv and Cairo next month. Officials confirmed in March of Egypt's interest in having its national airline operate regular direct flights to and from Israel. The airline is expected to fly the route four times a week beginning in October after the Jewish holiday of Sukkot concludes. Currently, the only flights between Ben Gurion Airport and Cairo International Airport are operated discreetly by Air Sinai, a subsidiary of EgyptAir. The Air Sinai flights are unmarked without the Egyptian flag. Air Sinai was established in 1982 under the terms of the 1979 Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty which stipulated that there must be active civilian aviation routes between the two countries. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennet on Monday for talks in the resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh in a sign of warming relations between the two countries.<br/>
Air New Zealand is planning to have an electric aircraft in its fleet by 2030, and its turboprop fleets will eventually be replaced with aircraft powered by alternative energy, its chief pilot says. In an interview for Capa – Centre of Aviation, Air New Zealand chief operational integrity and safety officer, David Morgan, said the national carrier, and the aviation industry, had to find solutions to reduce emissions and combat climate change. “We are of the view that we would like to see a zero carbon aircraft in our fleet sooner rather than later.” Morgan said he hoped that would be by 2030. The pilot would probably begin as a trial and carry just cargo, not passengers, he said.<br/>