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The Biden administration will announce on Thursday it plans to award 16 slots for flights at Newark International airport in New Jersey to a low-cost carrier to spur competition at the busy northeast US airport. The US Justice Department had urged transportation officials to decline to retire the 16 Newark slots and instead make them available in order to spur competition, according to a source familiar with the matter. Separately, the FAA will announce it is extending temporary waivers of minimum flight requirements at some major US airports through late March 2022 for international operations because of the coronavirus pandemic, sources said. Airlines can lose their slots at congested airports if they do not use them at least 80% of the time. The FAA is proposing extending temporary waivers of the requirements at New York’s JFK and LaGuardia airports and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport that were to expire in late October. United, which has a hub at Newark, flies about 65% of all Newark flights. Newark was the 15th-busiest US airport in 2020 by total passengers. “Opening up more slots at Newark to lower cost carriers will provide air travelers with more choices and lower prices,” said Deputy Transportation Secretary Polly Trottenberg. In a joint notice, the Transportation Department and FAA said without the reassignment of the slots to a low-cost carrier “it is highly unlikely that there will be any significant reduction in fares.”<br/>

The US Justice Department said on Thursday it would work with congested airports in the United States to keep the airline industry competitive. The statement came after the Biden administration announced it would award 16 slots for flights at Newark airport in New Jersey to an unnamed low-cost carrier to spur competition at the busy northeast US airport.<br/>

Airport gates are usually the last point of solid ground that fliers experience before taking to the skies, but at one US airport this month, a remarkable engineering feat saw several gates embark on their own incredible journey. In what's believed to be an aviation industry first, four newly built gates -- boxy rooms made of concrete, glass and steel -- could be seen crawling in the middle of the night across the tarmac at Texas' Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, the second busiest airport in the United States, before being installed in their new home at Terminal C. The almost inconceivable achievement was completed late last Thursday night and into the following morning, when the final gate -- built remotely on airport land for its Terminal C -- was carried via a high-tech, flatbed truck across one runway and hooked up to the terminal for use by American Airlines at their primary hub. Three other new gates were moved the same way from August 26 through September 8. Next year, passengers will be boarding and disembarking flights through them, if all goes according to plan. DFW officials said that this mode of gate construction and transport -- in the works before the pandemic began -- is a first for airports worldwide. They also said it could create a template for other airports to copy, since it creates both time and cost efficiencies and also offers sustainability features.<br/>

Colombia plans to start the bidding process for the construction and modernization of three airports in Q4 as part of a larger $13b infrastructure plan. The expansion of the capacity of the airport that serves Cali, the nation’s third-largest city, as well as those of Buenaventura and Neiva, in western Colombia, have an estimated cost of 3t pesos ($786m), Transport Minister Angela Maria Orozco said at an infrastructure event. The Andean nation is planning a pipeline of infrastructure projects, including highways, airports, waterways and railroads, known as 5G. President Ivan Duque’s administration expects to award around half of them before its term ends in Aug. 2022, said Orozco. “This has been an ongoing titanic effort, with many actors,” Orozco said. “Colombia has shown that if we come together, we can bring these projects to fruition.” <br/>

European low-cost airlines have clear advantages over larger flag carriers in a post-pandemic world, analysts said, despite the massive support packages deployed from governments around the world. It’s been a bruising time for airlines as the coronavirus pandemic brought travel to a halt. But now, low-cost carriers seem to be showing signs of recovery compared with national carriers, which can often be subsidized or given preferential treatment. “You are seeing legacy carriers unable to move so quickly compared with the lost-cost carriers out of the pandemic,” Paul Charles, CEO of the luxury travel consultancy firm The PC Agency said Monday. The IATA said earlier this month that both international and domestic flights surged in July compared to June, but demand was still “far below pre-pandemic levels.” In Europe alone, passenger traffic was still down 56.5% from July 2019. However, easyJet, a British low-cost carrier, said it expects to fly up to 60% of its 2019 levels in the three months between July and September. In comparison, IAG said it only expects to fly around 45% of its 2019 capacity over the same period. Lufthansa, another flag carrier, predicts it will fly around 40% of its 2019 levels in the whole of 2021. Budget airline Ryanair, meanwhile, said its fiscal full-year traffic to March could reach between 90 and 100m passengers — which would represent between 60% and 67% of the 148.6m passengers it flew in the full year to March 2<br/>

Travellers returning to England from Turkey will not have to quarantine as the government is set to remove dozens of countries from the so-called COVID red list for travel, The Times newspaper said on Thursday. Ministers will also announce on Friday that they will scrap the amber classification to simplify the traffic light system for international travel, instead dividing countries into either green list or red list, the newspaper said. The red list - countries from which arrivals must quarantine in a hotel - will be more than halved, meaning that the vast majority of countries will be opened up for double-jabbed British tourists to visit freely, according to The Times. The paper said a requirement for fully vaccinated travellers coming to Britain to take a PCR test will be scrapped, along with a need for passengers to take a lateral flow test up to 72 hours before their arrival.<br/>

One year after completing one of the first studies into canine detection of COVID-19, the United Arab Emirates now has 38 sniffer dogs working at its airports that can identify infected persons at a 98.2%success rate. Dubai Police trained the cohort, which includes German Shepherds, Labradors, Cocker Spaniels and Border Collies, to recognise the scent of COVID-19 using samples of sweat from people with confirmed infections, collected by holding a swab in an armpit for a few minutes. “A very small amount of that is then put into a jar - it has the scent of the patient - then we put the sample out for the dog to sniff ... When he gives us a sign, we give him a treat,” said First Lieutenant Nasser al-Falasi of Dubai Police, supervisor of the programme at the K9 training centre in Dubai’s Awir region. In the centre’s large training hall, police handlers walk the dogs along a row of metal boxes, of which only one contains a positive sample. The dogs sniff the samples and within seconds sit down to signal that they have found something. Police trainer Fatima al-Jasmi, who is on the COVID-19 detection team, guides an excited-looking black and white Border Collie through the exercises, getting it right every time. “The training was a bit of a challenge, learning a new skill at an international standard, and then training the dog in that,” she said.<br/>

Finance Minister Arkhom Termpittayapaisith has instructed the Fiscal Policy Office and the Bank of Thailand to jointly seek ways to relax some of the criteria for state banks to lend to domestic airlines to improve their liquidity. He said both offices should speed up their decisions to help the airlines improve their liquidity during the prolonged Covid-19 outbreak. Arkhom said some government rules might make it difficult for state banks to provide financial assistance to airlines. For example, if airline operators have already secured loans from commercial banks, then state banks were later to provide loans to the same airlines, the state banks would have to hold talks with the commercial banks regarding the details of how the state banks should proceed, he said. Easing these kinds of rules would make it easier for financial institutions to lend to airlines, said Arkhom. He believes once the country eases lockdown measures, people will travel more, generating revenue for airlines. The minister expects the government to ease lockdown measures in the third and fourth quarters this year to revive economic activities, which will benefit airlines.<br/>

Visitors flocked to the Malaysian island of Langkawi Thursday as it became the country's first holiday hotspot to reopen after a coronavirus lockdown that has hammered the vital tourism industry. Restrictions on local travel had been in place for months and international borders remain largely closed as Malaysia battles its worst Covid-19 wave. But with the outbreak gradually easing, Langkawi, one of tropical Malaysia's premier holiday destinations, has been chosen for a pilot project to reopen the sector to domestic tourists. The island began welcoming visitors Thursday, with water cannons firing over the first plane to land at its airport. Under the initiative, hotels and businesses have been allowed to reopen while activities on the island's palm-fringed beaches are resuming. Tourists must be fully vaccinated to visit and have to take a virus test before departure. The island off Malaysia's northwest coast has long been popular with domestic and overseas visitors, although for now foreign tourists are still barred from the country.<br/>