The world’s air carriers are preparing their cabins for take-off. After 18 months in which passenger planes were laid up in desert boneyards, converted into makeshift medical-supplies freighters, and even flown on short return hops just to maintain their pilots’ certifications, the machinery of the global aviation industry is gradually creaking back into life. Emirates, the biggest carrier by international traffic, is planning to hire 6,000 people over the coming six months and will have restored 70% of its pre-pandemic capacity by the end of the year. Heathrow Airport Tuesday reported its first quarter of passenger growth since 2019. Sales from General Electric’s business that makes and services jet engines climbed 9.7% in the September quarter. On a tracker of more than 100,000 daily flights maintained by FlightRadar24, a data provider, weekly average flight departures last week briefly moved ahead of the same period in pre-Covid 2019. It’s hard to believe it, but the moment that airlines have been waiting for is finally arriving. The EU largely opened itself up to vaccinated travelers last month, as did Canada and Turkey; India followed Oct. 15, and Thailand will begin a limited reopening Nov. 1. The biggest change was announced Monday: From Nov. 8, the US, the biggest recipient of inbound tourist dollars and the second-biggest spender on outbound tourism, will join the club of nations largely open to vaccinated travelers. This may all seem a little premature at time when half the world’s population has still not been inoculated — but air travel, like vaccines, is a luxury good hogged by richer nations. Story has more.<br/>
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A consortium led by the Hungarian government has announced its intention to acquire Budapest Airport and has submitted a revised non-binding offer to buy the airport, its operator AviAlliance GmbH said on Wednesday. “The shareholders did not initiate the purchase offer. In the interest of our fellow shareholders, we are nevertheless obliged to review the offer,” AviAlliance, which holds a 55.44% stake in the airport, said in a reply to Reuters questions. AviAlliance did not confirm a report by local website 24.hu that said Hungary has offered E4.44b for the airport. The government was not immediately reachable for comment. PM Viktor Orban’s government earlier this year expressed its interest in buying Hungary’s main international airport, and Orban said this month that the government could close the purchase “any minute now.” Orban had said earlier he wants to see the airport in domestic hands, but its owners have expressed no interest in selling it.<br/>
The UK government’s decision to increase air passenger duty on ultra-long-haul flights originating in the country has drawn strong criticism from airline association IATA. “Masquerading this cash grab as a green tax the week before COP26 is the height of political hypocrisy that people are fed up with,” says IATA DG Willie Walsh of the Wednesday announcement by UK chancellor Rishi Sunak. Walsh cites the global airline industry’s recent commitment to achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, saying: “A tax hike does not help.” He further suggests that “placing an even larger APD financial barrier between the UK and the world makes a mockery of the Global Britain ambition by dealing yet another blow to the UK’s competitiveness”.<br/>
Environmental campaigners have criticised the UK government for delivering a “shockingly bad” Budget that failed to set out how it would fund its net zero carbon target and lacked green spending commitments. Green groups reacted with disbelief on Wednesday that Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, announced plans to cut taxes for domestic flights just days before the UK is due to host global leaders at the COP26 UN climate summit in Glasgow. The government will halve domestic air passenger duty to GBP6.50 per flight from April 2023, which it said would leave around 9m passengers paying less to fly between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Sunak said the measure would fix an inconsistency that has seen people pay more tax to fly domestically than abroad, boost struggling regional airports and “bring people together across the United Kingdom”. But Paul Tuohy, CE of green lobby group Campaign for Better Transport, hit out at the move. “In the looming shadow of the climate emergency and with COP26 just days away, the decision to cut air passenger duty on domestic flights is utterly wrong-headed.” Sam Alvis, head of green renewal at Green Alliance said it was an “incredibly bizarre approach from the chancellor to sideline net zero, which is one of the government’s major priorities, ahead of COP26.” Andy Bagnall, director-general of the Rail Delivery Group, which includes state-owned Network Rail along with the operators that were effectively nationalised during the coronavirus pandemic, was also critical of the move. “If the government is serious about the environment, it makes little sense to cut air passenger duty on routes where a journey in Britain can already be made by train in under five hours,” he said, pointing out that the cut in APD would lead to an extra 1,000 flights a year as 220,000 people shifted from rail to air.<br/>
Israel is drafting a bill that if approved would allow the government to collect data from airlines about travelers entering or leaving the country. According to the outline, the airlines would have to share information about the passengers that includes credit card numbers used to pay for the ticket, billing addresses, and the destination to which they are traveling. The proposed bill, which has not yet been submitted to the government for approval, is expected to face serious opposition once it will be up for a vote. Though supporters note that its provisions are consistent with standard passenger information collected in the United States and Europe. The bill was reportedly initiated a few years ago due to terrorist threats, but its development was accelerated because of the COVID-19 pandemic, as Israel sought to track passenger movements to prevent the importation of variants into the country.<br/>
Azerbaijan has completed the construction of a new airport, Fuzuli International Airport, in the region of Karabakh that was recently liberated from the Armenian occupation. Completed in a span of eight months, this is the first airport to be constructed by Azerbaijan in the region of Karabakh and will function as Karabakh’s gateway to the world. Fuzuli International Airport is located nearly 100km from Shusha and 300km from the capital Baku. The foundation stone for the airport was laid in January this year while the initial test flight to the airport was conducted in August. All wide-body aircraft, including large cargo aeroplanes, will be able to operate from this airport. The airport’s runway is 3000m long and 60m wide and its terminal has the capacity to handle 200 passengers in an hour. In addition, the airport features automatic systems and a control tower in line with international civil aviation and transportation standards.<br/>
Thailand held a dry-run on Wednesday for its long-awaited, quarantine-free reopening to vaccinated travellers, as the country rushes to reboot an industry battered by an 18-month hiatus in international tourism. At Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi airport, Thailand's main gateway, airport staff and health and immigration officials ran a simulation of the arrival of a plane full of visitors, to test out electronic screening measures. "All the passengers will get their QR code checked by the Department of Disease Control," said Kittipong Kittikachorn, the airport's general manager. "It will include all the details about insurance, vaccine certificate, or hotel booking." Among the Asia-Pacific's most visited countries, Thailand has lost about 3m tourism-dependent jobs and an estimated $50b a year in revenue due to COVID-19. From Nov. 1, vaccinated visitors from eligible countries, including Britain, the United States, Germany, France, Australia, China, Japan and Singapore, will be allowed to skip quarantine, providing they have negative COVID-19 tests.<br/>
Boeing said Wednesday that delays in making and delivering its troubled 787 Dreamliner jet will cost the company about $1b, weighing the company down even as it benefits from a broad travel resurgence. The company provided the estimate as part of its Q3 earnings report, which showed that Boeing lost $132m in the three months ending in September, a loss of 19 cents per share. Boeing earned $15.3b in revenue in the quarter, up about 8% from the same period last year and just below analyst expectations. “Our commercial market is showing improved signs of recovery with vaccine distribution and border protocols beginning to open,” David Calhoun, Boeing’s CE, said in a letter to employees. Quality concerns have dogged the Dreamliner for more than a year. Boeing had paused deliveries of the plane briefly last year and again in May. In July, it said that it was slowing production of the plane and, this month, Boeing suffered another setback when a supplier told the company that certain parts it provided were made with the wrong titanium alloy. The company said it was continuing to carry out inspections and work on the plane in collaboration with the FAA and that it had cut production to about two Dreamliners per month. After deliveries start up again, Boeing expects to increase production to five per month. “Although this effort lowered revenue in the quarter and drives increased expenses, these actions are essential to bolstering the long-term health of the program and are preparing us for sustained growth and success as market demand returns,” Calhoun said in his letter.<br/>
China still hasn’t signed off on the return of Boeing Co.’s 737 Max. But the planemaker isn’t backing off its target for an aggressive step-up in production starting in early 2022. Does the company know something the rest of us don’t, or is it just foolhardy? The Max returned to service late last year in the U.S., but China — which was the first country to ground the plane after its two fatal crashes — has given little official indication of when it might allow the embattled jet to fly again. With Chinese airlines still barred from accepting deliveries, Boeing handed over just 62 of the jets in the third quarter, slightly short of projections. It has cleared out only about a third of the 450 planes that piled up in its parking lots during the nearly two-year global grounding and the pandemic. But when the company reported its latest results on Wednesday, it reiterated a plan to start churning out 31 Max jets a month by early 2022, up from a pace of 19 now. Boeing is also “evaluating the timing of further rate increases.” That’s slightly more optimistic and definitive language than what Boeing used in the second quarter when it said “the company will continue to assess the production rate plan as it monitors the market environment and engages in customer discussions,” with “further gradual increases” expected to correspond with market demand. Boeing CEO David Calhoun had previously said a lack of measurable progress on China recertification by the end of this year would force the company to “consider real actions with respect to what the future rate ramp looks like” for Max production. On a call with investors Wednesday, he expressed optimism that China approval would still come before the end of the year, with deliveries then resuming in the beginning of 2022. But Calhoun also appeared willing to extend his patience, saying that if China still hadn’t signed off on the Max by the middle of next year, that’s the point where the company would reevaluate. “We wouldn’t cut rates, but we would not increase rates at the pace we would otherwise,” Calhoun said. “I think we have plenty of time.”<br/>
Plans to operate commercial hydrogen-electric flights between London and Rotterdam have been announced, with those behind the project hoping it will take to the skies in 2024. In a statement Wednesday, aviation firm ZeroAvia said it was developing a 19-seater aircraft that would “fly entirely on hydrogen.” A partnership between ZeroAvia, airport company Royal Schiphol Group, Rotterdam The Hague Innovation Airport Foundation and Rotterdam the Hague Airport has been established to work on the initiative. “The deal sets a solid timeline for the launch of the first zero emission commercial passenger flights between the UK and the Netherlands, and potentially the first international commercial operation in the world,” ZeroAvia said. The company added that both itself and Royal Schiphol Group were in what it described as “advanced partnership talks with airlines to agree on an operator for the planned route.” According to the International Energy Agency, carbon dioxide emissions from aviation “have risen rapidly over the past two decades,” hitting almost 1 metric gigaton in 2019. This, it notes, equates to “about 2.8% of global CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion.”<br/>