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A sharp rise in the price of fuel is threatening the airline industry’s slow recovery from the coronavirus crisis. Oil prices climbed to their highest levels in seven years this week, triggering new concerns over carriers’ costs as patchy passenger demand persists after 18 months of travel restrictions. The price of jet fuel has doubled to almost $750 per metric tonne over the past year, according to data from the IATA and Platts. Delta last week singled out fuel costs as it forecast a swing back to a loss in the final three months of the year, after only its second profitable quarter since the crisis began. “Fuel prices continue to rise, which will pressure our ability to remain profitable,” the airline’s CE Ed Bastian said in a results call. Airlines would typically try to pass rising costs on to passengers by raising ticket prices but the industry is still operating in a highly uncertain environment, with passenger numbers well below normal levels and some carriers trying to stimulate the market through low fares. To make the situation worse, many airlines gave up on hedging their future fuel requirements when chaos ripped through the oil market last year, leaving them more exposed than usual to the subsequent sharp rise in crude prices. “Most airlines suffered huge losses from fuel hedges last year as demand imploded in the face of the Covid pandemic and they were left holding contracts for delivery at prices well above spot,” said Mark Simpson, an aviation analyst at Goodbody.<br/>

International travelers fully vaccinated against the coronavirus who have been barred from entering the United States during the pandemic will be able to enter the country on Nov. 8, according to a White House official, marking an end to restrictions that had walled off tourists and relatives seeking to visit their families. The specific date for when the Biden administration would lift travel restrictions for those traveling by air or hoping to cross the land border was previously unclear. The administration last month said it would be implementing a new system in which fully vaccinated foreigners who show proof of a negative coronavirus test would be able to fly to the United States in early November. Earlier this week, administration officials said people hoping to enter from Mexico or Canada who are fully vaccinated would be able to cross at the same time. But thousands around the world eager to organize their travel plans were still left wondering what specific date they would be able to enter. The CDC considers people fully inoculated two weeks after receiving the second dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, or two weeks after receiving the single dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Those who have received vaccines listed for emergency use by the World Health Organization, such as the AstraZeneca vaccine, would also be considered fully vaccinated, according to the CDC. The CDC. also updated its guidelines on vaccine mixing, which is particularly relevant to Canada. At least 3.88m Canadians have received mixed vaccine doses, according to media reports — and that number does not account for mixed doses administered in Quebec. The agency now considers full vaccination possible with mixed doses, so long as they are approved either by the FDA or the WHO. The new travel system also comes with stringent requirements. Story has more.<br/>

There is no immediate end in sight to the volcanic eruption that has caused chaos on the Spanish isle of La Palma since it began about a month ago, the president of the Canary Islands said on Sunday. "There are no signs that an end of the eruption is imminent even though this is the greatest desire of everyone," President Angel Víctor Torres said, citing the view of scientists. All of the 38 flights which were scheduled to arrive or take off from La Palma airport on Sunday were cancelled because of ash from the volcano, state airport operator Aena said, but the airport there remains open.<br/>

Border restrictions that are part of the pandemic response in Japan have deterred most tourists from visiting the country. So one airline is taking an unusual approach to generate revenue by offering extreme discounts on domestic flights. Peach Aviation said this week that it would sell 150 unlimited passes to passengers 12 and older with valid photo identification giving a month of access to the budget carrier’s 33 domestic flights. It said it was catering especially to digital nomads in Japan who are working remotely and looking for “workcations” in places they haven’t been after months of coronavirus restrictions on travel. On Tuesday, the first 30 buyers would be able to buy a pass for as little as $173. (In comparison, a 21-day Japan Rail Pass costs $583.) For $87 more, they would get to reserve their seats and bring along a checked bag. Fares for the remaining 120 passes would cost $87 more. The airline is hoping to tap into a demand for domestic flights after the restrictions grounded most airplanes. “There have been signs of recovery in passenger demand, a trend that is expected to increase going forward as vaccinations progress,” the airline said in August. Budget airlines in South Korea, which are also trying to drum up demand for domestic flights, have offered similarly steep discounted tickets. At least one airline there is selling something other than a seat on a plane. T’way Air, a South Korean budget carrier, has sought new streams of revenue by selling its bacon tomato spaghetti, hamburger steak over rice and other in-flight meals to customers on the ground. The travel industry in both countries is still far from returning to its prepandemic levels of business. <br/>

Australia’s outbound travel ban will be lifted from 1 November in a move triggered by New South Wales announcing an end to quarantine for fully vaccinated arrivals. On Friday, PM Scott Morrison told reporters in Sydney that from November “we will be allowing Australians, permanent residents and citizens and their families, to leave Australia from wherever they live in Australia and return”. Although vaccinated travellers will be able to arrive in New South Wales without quarantine, Morrison noted arrivals will still be capped in other states “because of the vaccination levels in those places”. In response, Qantas has moved forward the resumption of international travel by two weeks, announcing it will operate up to five return flights a week from Sydney to London and up to four a week from Sydney to Los Angeles from 1 November. The end of the outbound ban will encourage airlines such as Singapore Airlines to fly passengers out of other Australian capital cities which have maintained inbound flights for cargo only. Singapore already runs 17 flights into Sydney a week but only seven – one a day – have passengers. The airline will now be able to sell inbound tickets for all flights to returning permanent residents, citizens and their families, and outbound flights too.<br/>

Sydney Airport Holding Pty Ltd maintained intention to recommend securityholders to vote in favour of an A$23.6b ($17.50b) takeover offer from an infrastructure investor group, as the four-week due diligence period has now ended. In September, the sale of Australia’s biggest airport moved closer after the bidding consortium, Sydney Aviation Alliance (SAA), won permission to conduct due diligence on Sydney Airport Holdings, after sweetening its takeover offer to A$23.6b ($17.4b). Sydney Airport added here on Monday that it continued to negotiate the relevant transaction documents with a view to the parties seeking their respective internal approvals over the coming weeks. SAA is comprised of Australian investors IFM Investors, QSuper and AustralianSuper and US-based Global Infrastructure Partners. The deal will require an independent expert’s report, approval from 75% of shareholders and a green light from the competition regulator and the Foreign Investment Review Board to go through, in a process that typically takes months to complete.<br/>

A former Boeing chief technical pilot, accused of deceiving federal regulators evaluating the company's 737 MAX jet, was charged with fraud on Friday, pleaded not guilty and was released, the US Attorney's Office in northern Texas said. Mark Forkner, 49, was indicted by a grand jury in Texas on six counts of scheming to defraud Boeing's US-based airline customers to obtain tens of millions of dollars for the plane maker. According to the indictment, Forkner provided the US FAA Aircraft Evaluation Group with "materially false, inaccurate, and incomplete information" about a new part of the flight controls for the Boeing 737 MAX, called the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS). The MCAS, a software feature designed to automatically push the airplane’s nose down in certain conditions, was tied to two fatal crashes of the 737 MAX over a five-month period that killed 346 people. The FAA grounded the plane for 19 months, an action which was lifted in November 2020. A lawyer for Forkner said he should not have been charged and was not responsible for the two fatal Boeing crashes. "If the government takes this case to trial, the truth will show that Mark did not cause this tragedy, he did not lie, and he should not be charged," Forkner lawyer David Gerger said.<br/>

Waving signs like "coercion is not consent," and "stop the mandate," some 200 Boeing employees and others staged a protest on Friday over the planemaker's COVID-19 vaccine requirement for US workers. Boeing said on Tuesday it will require its 125,000 US employees to be vaccinated by Dec. 8 under an executive order issued by President Joe Biden for federal contractors. "It's my choice and it's my body," one avionics engineer said, his voice nearly drowned out by anti-Biden chants and trucks honking to show support along the busy street outside Boeing's factory in Everett, north of Seattle. Another worker, an assembly mechanic, said: "This is America. We don't just do what we're told because one person says to." Earlier this week, Boeing said employees must either show proof of vaccination or have an approved reasonable accommodation based on a disability or sincerely held religious belief by Dec. 8. "Boeing is committed to maintaining a safe working environment for our employees," a spokesperson said. "Advancing the health and safety of our global workforce is fundamental to our values and a core priority every day."<br/>

Dubai will restrict imports of cargo into its international airport for six days from Tuesday to clear a backlog caused by “extraordinarily high” volumes of inbound shipments.Dnata, the cargo handling arm of government-owned airline group Emirates, said the restrictions would also include transit cargo en route to other destinations in the United Arab Emirates. Certain categories of essential freight would be exempted. “We are currently working around the clock to clear the backlog of unprocessed cargo at Dubai International Airport, caused by extraordinarily high volumes of inbound cargo to Dubai, and will endeavour to resume normal operations at the earliest,” a dnata spokesperson said. “We apologise for any inconvenience caused to our customers during this unprecedented time.” Dubai, a regional trade, tourism and financial hub, has been dragged into global supply chain chaos two weeks after the opening of the delayed Expo 2020 world fair, where 192 nations are participating in a massive event that runs until the end of March. The Gulf emirate, which kept its economy more open than its peers during the coronavirus pandemic, has witnessed a sharp recovery in recent months with an influx of wealthy investors snapping up luxury property. Logistics executives blamed the cargo logjam on labour shortages, saying newly trained staff are being brought in to deal with the surging volumes.<br/>

Almost two decades since Concorde retired, interest around supersonic travel has been picking up pace, and several super-fast planes are under development. Airlines seem interested: United has already committed itself to offering supersonic routes as early as 2029. But what about hypersonic travel, which happens at speeds of Mach 5 -- five times the speed of sound -- and above? That would get an aircraft from New York to London in just 90 minutes, compared to about three hours for Concorde, and between six to seven hours for a regular passenger jet. Is it even possible? Hermeus, an Atlanta-based startup whose goal is to develop hypersonic aircraft, believes so. It's already testing a new type of engine it says will eventually be capable of reaching Mach 5 (over 3,000 mph). The engine is designed for a small, unmanned hypersonic aircraft Hermeus is currently creating for the US Air Force, but scaled to a bigger size, it will be able to power a passenger plane. That passenger plane is a long way away -- Hermeus hopes to get it in the air for the first test flight before the decade is out, in 2029 -- but because its technology has to be built almost entirely from the ground up, the company is already planning it out. For a start, it will be much smaller than current airliners and even Concorde, which had a capacity of around 100 passengers. "To help us size the aircraft, we basically built a business model for an airline," says AJ Piplica, CEO of Hermeus. "We focused on the business class and first class travelers, and then played around with some parameters such as speed and operating costs. What came out of that was an aircraft with a 20-passenger cabin," he adds. That's not far from the capacity of a large business jet, which means there will be just one class.<br/>

For many people of a certain age, the idea of flying taxis, ferrying people around cities, brings to mind the once popular animated TV series The Jetsons. The 1960s show depicted a family living in a futuristic metropolis where commuters headed to work in cars that soared through the air. Two decades into the 21st Century, and the science fiction dreams of the creators of The Jetsons are closer than ever to becoming a reality. With the likes of Uber and Boeing developing eVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing) flying taxis, one report predicts that by 2040 there will be 430,000 such vehicles in operation around the world. This comes as delivery drones are also being increasingly developed and tested, with the global market for these tipped to be worth $5.6bn (£4bn) by 2028, according to one estimate. To handle the demands of a future, in which drones and flying taxis (think large, multi-propeller drones) share airspace over busy conurbations, proponents of the technologies say cities will need to build lots of mini-airports, dubbed "skyports". These mini airports will be needed so that the taxis can land in the spots where people want to go. California-based firm, Joby Aviation, is at the forefront of developing flying taxis, having now carried out more than 1,000 test flights of its eVTOL craft. It hopes to get approval from the FAA, to begin commercial operations in 2024.<br/>