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Federal officials are reporting a spike in firearm seizures at Atlanta’s international airport — part of a record year for the number of guns detected at airport security checkpoints. The TSA says it seized 391 firearms at Hartsfield-Jackson airport in the first nine months of 2021. That’s up from 220 last year when passenger counts were down significantly because of the pandemic. But it’s also a big jump from 2019, when 323 firearms were seized in Atlanta. Across the nation, the TSA said it had stopped 4,495 airline passengers from carrying firearms onto their flights by Oct. 3 of this year, surpassing the previous record of 4,432 firearms caught at checkpoints in all of 2019. The agency announced the 2021 figures earlier this month in a news release and noted the record comes despite a continued dip in passengers because of the pandemic. The release did not offer an explanation or theory about the spike in gun seizures.<br/>

Spain plans more flights this winter than before the pandemic as an incipient recovery buoys hard-hit airlines, although surging fuel prices are a concern, the head of the country's ALA airline association said Friday. "There are currently 1.9% more flights programmed for this winter period - roughly from November to March - compared to 2019," ALA president Javier Gandara told reporters, referring to domestic and international flights. "And for the Canary and Balearic islands, planned flights are over 10% higher than in 2019." But skyrocketing energy prices and fuel shortages could jeopardise that recovery in Spain, the world's second-most visited country before the pandemic struck. As airlines return to the skies, increasingly congested airspace could create traffic jams and delay flights across Europe, Gandara noted, potentially putting off the holidaymakers who are now the market's key customers. One bright spot for aviation, however, is the cargo sector, which transported 28% more freight in September year-on-year to reach nearly 99% of pre-pandemic levels, boosted by a lockdown-induced pivot to e-commerce. Air travel's recovery needs a harmonised system of health passes, bilateral agreements with Spain's main tourism markets and more border control staff to reduce wait times, Gandara said, before renewing calls for the EC to establish a single sky policy. The hope is for Spanish air traffic to reach 2019 levels of passenger numbers by the second half of 2022, said the head of ALA, which represents over 60 airlines that together fly around 80% of Spain's passengers.<br/>

French airport operator ADP reported on Friday a nearly 12% rise in nine-month revenue as more passengers boarded flights, although in far fewer numbers than before the pandemic. The company, which also has stakes in international airports in India, Turkey and Chile among other countries, saw passenger numbers climb 14.5% in January to September from a year earlier. However, passenger volume remained at just 39.1% of levels seen in the same period of 2019 before the outbreak of the pandemic. Analysts at JP Morgan said the group’s sales over the late summer were better-than-expected and deemed its forecasts for 2021 “slightly conservative” in view of a US reopening. ADP reiterated its predictions that passenger numbers for the whole of 2021 would reach between 40% and 50% of their pre-pandemic levels, after cutting this forecast from 45% to 55% in mid-summer. But investors are eyeing a boost in international traffic later in the year, after the United States said last week it would lift travel restrictions for fully vaccinated international visitors from Nov. 8. US allies had heavily lobbied the Biden administration to lift the rules, which kept millions of visitors out of the United States. ADP’s finance chief Philippe Pascal told analysts that though the group would look to moderately raise its tariffs, it would not do so as dramatically as some of its peers, but rather focus on controlling costs.<br/>

Travellers to destinations including Australia, South Africa and Japan can expect to pay more to fly, as Rishi Sunak prepares to overhaul air passenger duty in next week’s budget to reflect the environmental damage wrought by long-haul flights. The chancellor is keen to burnish his green credentials after a week in which he was accused of failing to back Boris Johnson’s net-zero pledges with sufficient resources. It is understood that he will announce that a reform of the tax, mooted earlier this year, will go ahead, with a higher rate levied on the longest journeys. Air passenger duty (APD) is paid by airlines, who tend to pass much of the costs on to their customers. It is currently charged in two bands, to destinations under 2,000 miles and above 2,000 miles, with business class passengers paying more. The maximum levied per passenger is currently due to rise to GBP554 next April. In a consultation document published alongside the March budget, the treasury set out several options for reforming APD. Its favoured approach was a new, three-band structure, with destinations more than 6,000 miles away facing the highest charge. There is also expected to be a new, lower rate for domestic flights. Such a move is likely to be sold as encouraging levelling up and protecting the Union by fostering connectivity between the nations and regions – though it could be controversial where there are viable public transport alternatives such as train routes.<br/>

Incheon International Airport, the main gateway to South Korea, has seen a sharp recovery in the number of inbound and outbound travelers over the past two months amid the country's push for a "Living with COVID-19" plan. According to Incheon International Airport Corp., the state-run operator of the airport, the number of international travelers departing or landing via Incheon jumped 44%, compared with a year earlier, to some 338,000 in August. It was the first monthly figure surpassing the 300,000 threshold in 16 months since the number nosedived to the 100,000 range in April last year with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The number fell to 287,000 in September, and that figure still represented a 46-percent rise from a year earlier. The number totaled 183,000 in the first 19 days of this month, raising expectations it could top the 300,000 mark again. The monthly average number of international flights at the airport in August and September soared to 10,789 from 8,775 recorded during the same two-month period last year, according to the airport operator. The number, however, remains a far cry from 2019 when the monthly average of international flights stood at 33,675. The monthly average of international travelers using the airport came to some 588,000 that year.<br/>

Airlines in Asia are bringing back international capacity as the region gradually follows North America and Europe in reopening borders, led by the city-state of Singapore, whose economy depends on open access. By January, Singapore is poised to reach 84% of the weekly flights to Europe as it had in March last year, before the clampdown on travel. And there’ll be 1,519 flights from the financial hub to elsewhere in Asia, compared with only 194 in May 2020, data from aviation analytics firm Cirium show. Australia, Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia are among others ditching Covid-Zero policies and announcing plans to allow fully-vaccinated visitors from certain places to enter without having to quarantine. That’s inevitably resulted in a significant shift in airline schedules in the coming months. “Singapore is leading the way here,” said Gary Bowerman, director of travel and tourism research firm Check-in Asia. “Countries in the region have to open up because almost two years without travel of all forms, economically it’s just not viable to stay closed.” Compared with air travel in the US and Europe, international traffic volume is still thin in the Asia-Pacific region, given that mainland China and Hong Kong remain closed off as they stick rigidly to a strategy of keeping Covid out. <br/>

Not a single international flight carrying tourists has landed in Bali, one of the world’s most popular destinations, and none are scheduled, even though Indonesia announced more than a week ago that the popular island was finally open again for tourists. Arriving foreign tourists must spend their first five days in quarantine, but so far, hotels offering quarantine on the island report that no one has booked a room. “We have been waiting every day for a week,” said Fransiska Handoko, vice chair of the Bali Hotels Association. “Where are they?” Before the pandemic, tourism accounted for more than half of Bali’s economy but the island has been closed to foreign tourists since April 2020, leaving many workers desperate for income. The Indonesian government abruptly reopened Bali on Oct. 14 to tourists from 19 countries who are fully vaccinated and test negative for the coronavirus. But it gave hotels and airlines little time to prepare and included numerous restrictions that make a Bali holiday unappealing. Hotel operators say they have received many inquiries from abroad, but once they explain the rules, the callers lose interest. One factor is the required five days of quarantine. Most Bali tourists come for a week, travel operators said, and don’t want to spend most of their visit confined to a hotel room. Tourists arriving from the 19 nations, including China, India and Japan, must arrive on flights directly from their countries of origin. But most countries on the list, especially those in Western Europe, do not offer such flights. The regulations also are not easy on airlines. Indonesians traveling to Bali from overseas must fly first to Jakarta, leaving only non-Indonesian travelers to fill the Bali flights. So far, no airline has scheduled a flight to bring tourists to Bali from abroad, according to a Bali airport spokesman, Taufan Yudhistira.<br/>

Malaysia is eyeing a trial border reopening for international tourists next month after a nearly two-year closure, Tourism Minister Nancy Shukri said. Nancy said her ministry has proposed launching travel bubbles by mid-November that would allow visitors access to holiday haven Langkawi and pockets of the southern tip of Johor, which borders Singapore. She said the ministry has also finalized a list of 10 countries whose fully vaccinated citizens would be allowed to participate, as the government aims to nurse the coronavirus-hit economy back to health. The final say on the border reopening, however, will be up to the National Security Council chaired by Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob. "We have proposed to open the borders for international tourists to Langkawi as a pilot for tourists from 10 countries [including] some ASEAN countries and a few others," Nancy said. "Personally, I target to have it by the middle of next month because we have to give the stakeholders like airlines and hotels enough time to be ready," she added.<br/>

Two of the world’s largest aircraft leasing companies have warned Airbus that its bold plans to speed up production are unjustified given still subdued demand from airlines after the coronavirus pandemic. The European jet manufacturer surprised the market in May when it set out aggressive plans for a steep increase in the production of its A320 family of jets, the world’s most popular narrow-body passenger aircraft. The CEs of Avolon and AerCap, wrote to Guillaume Faury, Airbus CE, in recent weeks to express their concerns that the aircraft market would not support the most aggressive increases in output rates, according to four people familiar with the situation. A surge in supply of new aircraft, potentially flooding the market, could push down the value of the lessors’ existing fleets. They make their money by renting to airlines. There is also wider concern that suppliers, many of which were forced to reduce their workforces during the pandemic and are facing rising raw material prices, would be unable to cope at this point in the recovery. Two people confirmed that one of the letters had been copied to the CEs of aero-engine makers, including Safran and General Electric. Airbus has emerged from the pandemic as the world’s number one aeroplane maker. Some executives said they believed the company’s aggressive rates were, in part, driven by a desire to capitalise on that position. The success of its A320 jets has given it a 60% share in the single-aisle market and the upper hand over its US rival Boeing. Story has more.<br/>