The Biden administration’s new vaccine-based travel rules are forecast to boost jet fuel consumption as they bring the US more in line with the European Union, helping revive flights across the Atlantic. The increased transatlantic travel will probably add at least 250,000 barrels a day of crude demand, according to a senior trader at a top oil-trading firm. Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Fernando Valle also expects more than a quarter million barrels of daily crude consumption coming back, thanks to less restrictions on global vaccinated travelers in the US and Europe. “We’ve picked up a lot on domestic travel and should pick up more than 250,000 barrels a day with easing restrictions on vaccinated travelers,” Valle said. Air travel remains a weak spot in the oil market’s recovery from an unprecedented crash triggered by the pandemic last year, after flights were grounded worldwide and commuters everywhere started working from home. Air routes between the US and Europe have historically been the world’s most profitable for business travel. Under the new rules taking effect Nov. 8, travelers from countries with low supplies of vaccines who aren’t traveling on tourist visas, and those under 18, will be exempt from the vaccine requirement. <br/>
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US authorities are stressing the importance of proper instrument cross-checks on Boeing 757s and 767s to prevent escalation of incidents caused by inadvertent activation of go-around mode on the types. The warning follows the fatal accident involving an Atlas Air 767 freighter on approach to Houston in February 2019, the inquiry into which concluded that the first officer inadvertently nudged a go-around switch, and then over-reacted to the aircraft’s increase in thrust by pitching it sharply nose-down. “With an effective instrument scan the [pilots] could have recognised the mode change associated with the go-around mode activation,” says the US FAA in a newly-issued safety bulletin to operators. Despite cues from the flight-mode annunciator and other indications, neither pilot was aware of the change in the aircraft’s automated mode and flightpath. The crew did not recover the 767 from the dive and it crashed in Trinity Bay. On the 757 and 767 the go-around mode is armed when the aircraft’s flaps or slats are extended, or when the glideslope is in the active pitch mode. This allows either pilot to activate go-around by pushing a switch located on either thrust lever. Story has more.<br/>
Argentina, one of the last countries in Latin America to relax Covid-dependent entry restrictions, re-opens its borders to vaccinated foreign tourists on 1 November. The country’s transportation ministry writes on Twitter on 29 October: “After releasing the entry quotas and eliminating the quarantine for residents, authourised [travellers] and tourists from neighbouring countries…the entry of tourists from non-bordering countries that meet these requirements is enabled.” The requirements include full vaccination, or a negative PCR test result within 72h prior to entry. Argentina is one Latin America’s most-important markets for US carriers, and the industry hopes the opening will boost region’s growth ahead of the busy end-of-year travel season – the summer season in the Southern Hemisphere. “What we have seen is that as soon as travel restrictions are eased, travel rebounds – we have seen this across the globe,” says IATA Latin America chief Peter Cerda. “Latin America and the Caribbean [are] essentially open for business now, demand is bound to pick up, especially as the Southern Hemisphere heads into high season.”<br/>
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will fly from a climate summit in Glasgow back to London on Tuesday, his spokesman said, anticipating any criticism by extolling the virtues of the plane's sustainable fuel. Johnson, who is hosting the United Nations COP26 climate summit in the Scottish city, has hoped to spur other countries into tackling emissions by unveiling a raft of new policies that he says shows Britain is leading the charge. But flying home to London after the leaders' meeting on Tuesday rather than taking the train is bound to attract criticism. "Obviously both the fuel used for this flight is sustainable and the emissions are offset as well ... It's important that the prime minister is able to move around the country and obviously he faces significant time constraints," the spokesman told reporters on Monday when asked about Johnson's travel plans. Asked further about how the leader could justify travelling by plane when he could use a train, the spokesman said he was flying in "one of the most carbon efficient planes of its size in the world". "It produces 15 percent less CO2 emissions for example than the larger Voyager plane," he said, referring to the RAF Voyager which is used by Britain's royal family and its prime minister. "We use a specific type of fuel which is a blend of 35% sustainable aviation fuel and 65% normal fuel which is the maximum amount allowed and obviously the emissions will be offset."<br/>
Dubai International Airport reclaimed the top spot as the Busiest International Airport in the World this month as capacity through the Middle East hub returned in earnest, said OAG, a global travel data provider. Amsterdam Schiphol, which occupied the top position for some time, moved into second place and Europe’s other big hubs are also catching up with Frankfurt moving into 3rd place and London Heathrow into 4th, it said. There are eight European airports in the Top 10 Busiest International Airports this month. Antalya in 9th place is up from 32nd in October 2019, and Vienna is 10th from 22nd two years ago. Meanwhile, Dubai International Airport handled 13m passengers in the first seven months of 2021. Senior Dubai officials project passenger traffic to see significant growth in the next six months on the back of Expo 2020. “Government took strategic decisions and offered the right incentives to enable the country to overcome the effects of the pandemic and put us in the right position to lead the world’s economic recovery, and build bridges across the world to accelerate the recovery process, especially in aviation and tourism sectors,” said Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, president of the Dubai Civil Aviation Authority, chairman of Dubai Airports and chairman and CEO of Emirates Group.<br/>
Japan is considering easing its Covid-era entry restrictions for visitors on short business trips, foreign students and technical trainee workers, the Nikkei reported without citing how it obtained the information. The changes would shorten quarantine restrictions from 10 days to three days for those in Japan for short business trips or Japanese nationals returning from business trips, and could be announced as early as this week to take effect this month, the Nikkei said late on Monday. The policy changes would also allow new entrants such as foreign students and foreign workers in Japan’s technical trainee program. Japanese officials didn’t give concrete comments on Tuesday on whether the country is set to ease restrictions. Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said Japan was looking at easing its border controls in stages while evaluating the infection and vaccination situation globally. The government’s top spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno, said meanwhile it was under active consideration. The island nation enacted one of the strictest border policies among developed nations during the coronavirus pandemic, effectively banning most foreigners from entering the country unless they already held a visa. <br/>
Aviation doesn’t sound like one of global warming’s most pressing headaches. At just over 900m tonnes of carbon dioxide, flying contributed only 2.5% of the world’s carbon emissions in 2019. Yet getting these down could prove fiendishly difficult. Last month the IATA, the airline industry body, said it wanted aviation’s net carbon footprint to fall to zero by 2050. That’s as it should be. Its own forecasts assume emissions grow 3% every year, meaning roughly 2b tonnes by 2050. Because other sectors are decarbonising rapidly as they move to zero-carbon technologies, aviation’s relative proportion of global emissions will increase. The catch is that cutting from 2b tonnes requires solutions that right now are expensive, futuristic, or both. Historically, improvements in jet-engine design have delivered efficiency gains of 1.5%-2% a year. Eking out future technological savings will get harder. But swapping old planes for fuel-efficient ones like Boeing’s 737 MAX or Airbus’s A320neo will make the global jet fleet up to 25% leaner by 2050, the ICAO reckons. This cuts projected CO2 output to 1.5b tonnes with minimal additional outlay. Thankfully, the world has moved on from the Cold War, when airspace over countries like the Soviet Union was off limits, forcing passenger jets into long detours. That said, there’s still scope for more point-to-point flying, especially in crowded regions like Europe. ICAO reckons such improvements can shave another 10% – or 200m tonnes – off 2050’s CO2 output. That brings emissions down to 1.3b tonnes, again for minimal cost. Still, that’s 1.5 times what Germany belched out in 2019. It’s also where the quick fixes end. Story has more.<br/>
Despite the promise of two-hour flights from New York to Los Angeles, the supersonic airline industry never really got off the ground. That is largely because of physics: specifically, the sonic boom, the thunderclap noise made when an aircraft breaks the sound barrier, which essentially doomed supersonic aviation as a viable business. In 1960s-era tests, booms reportedly broke windows, cracked plaster and knocked knickknacks from shelves; in 1973, the Federal Aviation Administration forbade civilian supersonic aircraft from flying over land. Planes could go supersonic only over the ocean — most famously, the Concorde, the sleek British-French passenger plane that flew a handful of routes in less than half the average time. But potentially lucrative overland routes were off limits, restricting supersonic travel’s business prospects. NASA and aviation entrepreneurs, however, are working to change that, with new aircraft designed to turn the boom into a “sonic thump” that is no louder than a car door that is being slammed 20 feet away. That may induce the F.A.A. to lift the ban, which could allow for two-hour coast-to-coast supersonic flights. “The main reason NASA is working on this is to enable regulation for supersonic flight,” said Craig Nickol, NASA’s low-boom flight demonstration project manager. “The main objective is to open up new markets.”<br/>
Free drinks, beds and even the luxury of travelling alongside fewer people in a pandemic has not been enough to tempt passengers back into airlines’ most expensive seats as flights resume. The number of journeys made in first or business class, the so-called premium cabins, has recovered more slowly than in economy over the past year, according to data from the IATA. Premium-class passenger journeys were 56% lower this summer compared with the same period in 2019, while economy-class journeys were down 46%, a trend that has remained consistent over the past year. The slow return of high-spending passengers is worrying for large network carriers such as British Airways or Lufthansa, whose business models are geared around the business and first-class cabins that generate a significant portion of their revenues. The figures reflect that pent-up demand for leisure travel has been far stronger than for business trips, where big corporates used to be relied on for buying the most expensive flexible tickets on important routes, such as between London and New York. Business travel can generate as much as 75% of airlines’ revenue on some international flights, according to PwC. The booming market for private jets also shows that some travellers have switched from commercial aircraft altogether during the pandemic. Private jet use is forecast to rise 5% this year compared with 2019, according to data from US industrial group Honeywell. The aviation industry on both sides of the Atlantic has long hoped that the full reopening of US borders, scheduled for November 8, will be the catalyst to spur executives to return to the air and many airlines have reported signs of corporate travel beginning to return.<br/>