Transport and health ministers of the G-7 countries are due to meet virtually on Thursday to discuss ways to restart international travel, according to people familiar with the matter. The meeting is being organized by the UK, which holds the presidency of the Group of Seven nations this year, said the people, who asked not to be identified ahead of any official statement. While the gathering is aimed at moving closer to a consensus on how to ease border restrictions, major decisions on travel have been made at the highest levels of most governments, for example at the White House, not the Transportation Department, in the US. While some countries, notably members of the European Union, have used so-called vaccine passports to successfully resume cross-border travel, others including the U.S. have held back on implementing app-based technology over concerns ranging from politics to privacy or fairness between people who have and haven’t received the shots. Another sticking point has been whether to recognize vaccines in countries where they haven’t been approved. Even as countries start to reopen borders, the easings have been piecemeal, frustrating airlines and travel companies hard-hit by the collapse in tourism brought on by the coronavirus. A high-level consensus by the G-7 could provide a template for common rules across the globe and spur consumer confidence in international travel rules.<br/>
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President Joe Biden's nominee as US representative to a UN aviation body suggested on Wednesday that Belarus should be temporarily barred from voting at the council in response to its May diversion of a Ryanair flight. "More action needs to be taken," C. B. "Sully" Sullenberger told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on his nomination to be the US representative on the Council of the ICAO, the UN air safety body. He noted that under certain conditions ICAO "can temporarily remove the voting rights of a state for violating international norms... We should be pulling every lever necessary to hold accountable those responsible for this act." The Belarus air force intercepted the Ryanair plane flying between Athens and Vilnius on May 23 and forced it to land in Minsk. Belarusian authorities arrested a dissident journalist and his girlfriend who were on the plane. Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat, asked at the hearing what options ICAO has "in order to prevent a repeat of these kind of actions." Sullenberger said the Belarus arrest of journalist Roman Protasevich "showed flagrant disregard for international norms of aviation security and safety." Sullenberger said ICAO "must ensure that those standards are upheld" and he vowed to push for a full chronology of what happened.<br/>
A pyramid of steaming black rock emerged from the Atlantic Ocean off Spain's La Palma on Wednesday as lava from the Cumbre Vieja volcano crashed into the sea, sending up plumes of white steam. Despite fears of toxic gases, authorities said the air inland remained fine to breathe. Lava from the volcano that began erupting 10 days ago reached the ocean just before midnight on Tuesday near the town of Tazacorte and began accumulating at the foot of a cliff until a cone of debris appeared above the waterline. "It is now generating a structure that we call a 'lava delta' that is ... extending the island to the west," said Juan-Tomas Vazquez, a marine geologist aboard the Ramon Margalef research vessel, just offshore from the cliffside. Eugenio Fraile, an oceanographer in charge of the research mission, told a videoconference the steam posed no risk for now but stressed the importance of the monitoring effort. Local airline Binter said flights to and from La Palma had restarted on Wednesday after they were cancelled last week.<br/>
Panama canceled a contract with the Brazilian company CNO S.A. for "non-compliance" in the construction of a terminal at the country's main airport, according to a statement by the general manager of Tocumen International Airport. "Tocumen has terminated the contract with the company CNO S.A. for breach of the obligations agreed in the contract," according to the statement by Raffoul Arab. The cancellation of the contract could mean that CNO would also be barred from bidding for future state-owned projects, the statement said. "The contractor CNO was also disqualified for breach of contract, which prevents their participation in (future) bids and contracts with the Panamanian State," it said, without specifying when the ban would take effect. CNO could not be reached for comment.<br/>
The expansion of Madrid’s Barajas airport will be included in investment plans starting in 2027, Spain’s transport minister said on Wednesday. Funds initially destined to expand Barcelona’s El Prat airport in the 2022-2026 regulatory period will be redirected to sustainability investments, the minister added.<br/>
Almost 200 Thai airport security workers who say they were denied breaks to eat or use the bathroom are filing a complaint against their employer, highlighting a jump in labour rights violations during the pandemic, union leaders said. The workers are demanding compensation of about $60,000 from AOT Aviation Security (AOT AVSEC), a joint venture including the country’s state-run airports operator - which has been involved in several other disputes with workers over the last year. Ampai Wivatthanasathapat, president of the airport workers’ union that plans to file the complaint at the Labour Ministry next week, said the case reflected a slide in working conditions in Thailand since the COVID-19 crisis struck in early 2020. “There has been a massive increase in labour rights violations across the country, with many employers using COVID-19 as an excuse to lay off workers without severance pay,” she said. Labour rights activists globally have voiced concerns about companies capitalising on the pandemic as an opportunity to cut costs by coercing workers to accept worse terms and conditions. Four security workers involved in the new case said they had not been allowed to leave their posts to eat or sometimes even to use the bathroom since they started working for the company in May 2020. They said the situation got worse last year when the company stopped hiring additional staff - with those left behind regularly reprimanded for stepping away to eat packed lunches, buy a snack or use the toilet. Some female staff had to use men’s toilets because the women’s restrooms were further away, the workers added. Story has more.<br/>
Boeing 737 Max test flight for China’s aviation regulator last month was successful and the planemaker hopes a two-year grounding will be lifted this year, the head of Boeing’s China business said on Wednesday. “It went off without a hitch,” Boeing China President Sherry Carbary said of the test flight. Boeing working with the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) as it sifts through data and finalises reports before deciding whether the plane can be returned to service, Carbary said. The ban, which has been lifted in the West and several Asian countries, could be eased in China around November, people close to the matter have said. “We are hopeful it will happen by the end of the year,” Carbary said, declining to be more specific. “It is up to CAAC. But I can tell you we are doing all we can to support them and we’re encouraged about how closely they are working with us.” Before the 737 Max was grounded in March 2019 after two fatal crashes, Boeing was selling one quarter of the planes it built annually to Chinese buyers. The company’s China sales have also been hobbled by US-China trade tensions. US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said on Tuesday the Chinese government was preventing its domestic airlines from buying “tens of billions of dollars” of Boeing planes. Carbary declined to comment directly on the remarks but she said free and fair trade was important to enable Boeing to deliver its planes around the world.<br/>
Western aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul providers (MROs) signed a flurry of new contracts with Chinese customers and joint-venture partners at the country’s biggest air show this week to strengthen their foothold in the lucrative market. The quick rebound in traffic in China’s domestic aviation market to pre-COVID levels, coupled with large declines in other parts of the world, has made China even more important to providers trying to minimise pandemic-driven revenue hits. “China is key to the future of aerospace because the centre of gravity of passenger traffic is moving east,” Kailash Krishnaswamy, general manager at Spirit AeroSystems China, said on the sidelines of Airshow China in Zhuhai after signing a 10-year repair contract with cargo carrier SF Airlines. Spirit was attending the show for the first time. Consulting firm Oliver Wyman estimates China’s MRO market will be 8% larger this year than in 2019, making it one of two regions to surpass pre-pandemic levels, alongside eastern Europe. By 2031, it forecasts the MRO market in China will more than double its pre-COVID size to nearly $20b annually. Honeywell International is a major supplier to Commercial Aircraft Corp of China’s (COMAC) C919 narrowbody programme and is bidding for work on the Sino-Russian CR929 widebody, said its China president, Steve Lien.<br/>
The global airline industry has again warned that Australia is underprepared for the restart of international travel, and risks being a non-commercially viable market for airlines if the issues hindering the industry remain unresolved. It comes after Tourism Minister Dan Tehan confirmed that the country’s international borders are expected to re-open by Christmas “at the latest”, and follows a number of industry bodies repeatedly suggesting that there is still a lot of work to be done before Australians return to the skies. According to the Board of Airlines Representatives of Australia (BARA), which represents a number of international airlines including Emirates and Etihad, the Australian government must provide certainty on key “immediate issues” as soon as possible if it wishes to see Australians flying by December. Firstly, BARA outlined that international passenger caps need to be revised and confirmed, so airlines can plan flight schedules accordingly. Current understanding suggests that the Australian government may introduce different caps for the entry of vaccinated and unvaccinated passengers, however BARA said that this method will be difficult for airlines to implement. Story has more.<br/>