Federal authorities have slapped 10 violent airline passengers with nearly a quarter-million dollars in new fines for shouting, spitting, screaming, shoving and throwing punches onboard commercial flights. The FAA fines total $225,287, the second biggest announcement of fines for unruly passengers since the agency enacted a no-tolerance policy earlier this year. Officials have now proposed more than $1.45 million in fines against passengers accused of acting out. The FAA fined a Southwest passenger more than $26,000 for allegedly punching a flight attendant on a May 5 flight who later "required medical attention." The FAA says earlier, the passenger attempted to enter the cockpit, causing the flight crew to seat the passenger on the floor as the plane landed. Flight crews have reported 5,114 unruly passenger incidents since the start of this year. FAA data shows more than 70% of incidents are over masks. Last week, the FAA announced that 37 of the most serious cases have been referred to federal prosecutors. In a rare joint statement, the FAA and the Department of Justice said they remained committed to sharing information about violent passengers. That announcement came after months of pressure from airline worker unions for the federal government to get tougher on violence on commercial flights. "Where the evidence supports criminal review, the FAA refers the cases to the FBI," the joint statement said. The FAA does not have the power to prosecute criminal cases, only to assess civil fines up to $37,000.<br/>
general
Cuba opens its borders next week signaling new opportunity for pandemic-weary travelers and the island's tourism industry, but for US citizens getting there requires jumping through hoops like never before, according to the heads of eight US tour agencies. US President Donald Trump ended cruise ship dockings, reduced flights to Havana and eliminated them altogether to the outlying provinces. His administration declared most hotels, bus and other Cuban tour services off limits because they were owned by the military, and made financial transactions more difficult in general, measures that remain in place under President Joe Biden. "US obstacles are the most significant in our more than 22 years of doing business in Cuba," said Michael Zuccato, head of Cuba Travel Services. Tensions between Washington and Havana are on the rise ahead of protests planned by dissidents on the island for Nov. 15, the same day Cuba reopens its borders to international visitors. "The challenges seem endless right now. Between Trump, the pandemic and now Biden," said Mayra Alonso, president of Marazul Tours. She said walking the tightrope between US and Cuban regulations "keeps it interesting." Zuccato, like the others, said booking hotels and transferring funds to the Caribbean island in particular had become major headaches for those planning trips to Cuba from the United States. Many tour operators had hoped that Biden would make good on campaign promises and reduce hurdles to visiting the Caribbean island, a popular destination that boasts a rich culture, white sand beaches and historic buildings. "US sanctions increased by Trump and maintained by the Biden administration are a great disappointment," Collin Laverty, head of Cuban Educational Travel, said. Rising political tensions between the long-term rivals ahead of next week's planned protests do not help, the tour operators said. Despite the escalating rhetoric, Cuba, which depends on tourism, continues to welcome all US citizens to vacation on the island, Transportation Minister Eduardo Rodriguez told reporters last week. "Today the United States has four weekly flights to Havana, and we have increased this to 147 per week, including 77 to Havana," he said. US airlines have announced more flights to Havana beginning next week, with an eye toward Cuban-Americans traveling home over the holidays.<br/>
The European Union is considering imposing sanctions on Belarus' main airport in a bid to make it more difficult for airlines to bring in migrants and exacerbate a crisis on the bloc's borders, two diplomats said on Thursday. The EU has accused Belarus of encouraging migrants to come to its territory then pushing thousands of them to cross into Poland and other neighbouring EU states in retaliation for sanctions imposed on Minsk. As more migrants massed on the Belarus-Poland border on Thursday, the EU was finalising a new, fifth round of sanctions on top Belarus officials and state-owned airline Belavia that could be approved next week, one diplomat said. The bloc is also considering a sixth package of asset freezes and travel bans, which could include orders to stop EU firms supplying Minsk National airport, two other diplomats said. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, already under international sanctions for cracking down on protests, has threatened to retaliate against any new measures, including by shutting down the transit of natural gas via Belarus. An extraordinary EU summit of the bloc's 27 leaders is under consideration, while the bloc is also debating whether to use its common funding mechanisms to build border fencing, according to one of the diplomats who was briefed on a closed-door EU meeting that took place on Wednesday. One senior diplomat said the sanctions on Minsk airport could choke off EU financing, supplies and equipment. Germany's Lufthansa Cargo is a ground and cargo handler at Minsk National, according to its website. No more details on the plan were immediately available.<br/>
The number of flights from Frankfurt airport rose back above 2019 levels earlier this week, after the US eased restrictions on international visitors. Frankfurt handled more flights on Nov. 7 and Nov. 8 than on the same days in 2019, before then falling back below pre-Covid levels, according to FlightRadar24. Flight traffic at London’s Heathrow and other airports is still well below the 2019 level. <br/>
Heathrow’s passenger numbers have improved for six consecutive months, according to new figures. Some 3.0m passengers travelled through the west London airport last month, compared with 1.2m during October 2020. Relaxation of travel rules ahead of half-term “unleashed pent up demand”, Heathrow said. But it urged ministers to “reassess” the testing requirements for fully vaccinated travellers arriving in the UK. Currently those people are required to pay for a lateral flow test taken on or before the second day after their arrival. Heathrow noted that its passenger levels remain 56% down on pre-pandemic levels, and air travel is recovering quicker at its European rivals. Meanwhile the airport also called on the government to support investment in sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). It suggested this should be done by ensuring price stability and requiring airlines to use SAF for 10% of their fuel by the end of the decade. John Holland-Kaye Heathrow CE, said: “As the journey to recovery accelerates, aviation’s ambitions to decarbonise must keep pace. We need to keep our foot to the pedal, working to make air travel guilt-free and Government must act with a mandate for 10% sustainable aviation fuel by 2030 and a price stability mechanism to upscale SAF usage, if we are to tackle the industry’s biggest challenge – carbon.”<br/>
Asia's airlines are struggling to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, with the biggest operators reporting significant losses -- again -- for the July-September quarter, reflecting the region's prolonged travel curbs. Nearly two years since the onset of the pandemic, Western countries now lead the world's recovery from the crisis, with major US airlines logging net profits in the quarter. But in Asia, strict safety measures to limit the spread of the delta variant continued to curtail demand for domestic and international travel in core markets, from China to Japan to Southeast Asia. Airlines are streamlining their operations, hoping to speed the return to profit if recent reopening moves by local governments unleash pent-up demand. On Thursday, Singapore Airlines reported a net loss of 428m Singapore dollars ($316m) for the three months through September, marking the seventh consecutive quarterly loss. Its operational passenger capacity was 32% of pre-pandemic levels as of September. The city-state's flagship carrier does not have domestic routes so its earnings most heavily reflect the weak cross-border travel in Asia, which is generally seen as more risk-averse than the West. Meanwhile, domestic flights in China suffered from the government's zero-tolerance strategy for COVID outbreaks, which sparked strict community lockdown and travel curbs. Despite schools' summer break and mid-Autumn festival holidays, outbreaks in several provinces in southern and eastern China dampened travel demand. China's three big airlines, which each earned about 70% of revenue from domestic routes before the pandemic, all recorded net losses during the July-September quarter. China Eastern and China Southern logged net losses of 2.95b yuan ($460m) and 1.43b yuan, respectively. Air China reported a net loss of 3.5b yuan. The losses were "mainly due to the combined effects of the sporadic outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the rising aviation fuel price and the fluctuation in [the] exchange rate," Air China noted in its filing. In comparison, the three airlines all marked net profits in the same quarter in 2019. Story has more.<br/>
Environmentally minded investors praised carbon-cutting pledges by major transportation companies and governments announced at the UN climate summit on Wednesday but said the goals could be pipe dreams without big advances in technologies like vehicle batteries and aviation fuel. "It is an important commitment but it has to be accompanied by the commitment of resources to fund the transition and create products," said Anthony Sassine, senior investment strategist for KraneShares. Its funds include the Electric Vehicles & Future Mobility ETF focused on electric vehicles. For instance, Sassine noted major US carmakers Ford and General Motors do not yet have electric versions of their best-selling pickup trucks on the market. Still, both companies were among those signing on to a raft of pledges at summit in Glasgow, Scotland to slash greenhouse gas emissions from global transportation. Companies agreed to work toward making all new cars and vans zero-emission by 2035 or sooner in leading markets, and to promote the development and use of sustainable aviation fuels, among other things. Marcela Pinilla, director of sustainable investing for Zevin Asset Management, said both areas will require more development. For instance Zevin owns shares of shipper United Parcel Service, whose aircraft would need more access to sustainable fuel currently in limited supply. Rivals like Fedex Corp face similar restrictions, she said, as do airlines. "Packaged transit companies are in the same sustainability conundrum that passenger airlines are in," she said.<br/>
A US federal judge has delayed until February 2022 the start of a criminal trial against Mark Forkner, the former Boeing technical pilot indicted on charges related to the 737 Max. Judge Reed O’Connor of US District Court for the Northern District of Texas has now scheduled the trial to begin on 7 February 2022, citing the need for Forkner’s legal team to review information related to the case. The trial had previously been scheduled to start on 15 December. Continuing with that timeline “would deny counsel the reasonable time necessary for effective preparation, taking into account the exercise of due diligence,” O’Connor says in an order filed on 10 November. The order responds to a request from Forkner’s attorneys for more time. In court papers filed on 5 November, those attorneys asked the judge to delay the trial’s start until the week of 28 March 2022, saying they needed ample time to review tens of millions of pages of case-related documents. In October, the US Department of Justice charged Forkner with fraud, saying he deceived the FAA about the 737 Max’s Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS).<br/>
A whitepaper sponsored by Inmarsat Aviation contends that Australia was particularly hard hit by coronavirus related travel restrictions, and that the country needs a unified approach for air travel to recover. The whitepaper, penned by independent aviation analyst Brendan Sobie, acknowledges that Covid-19 has impacted all markets, but makes the case that Australian air travel has been particularly damaged. “Australia has already been the most impacted of the major domestic air transport markets in the world, dragged down by internal border closures that have prevented most interstate travel during most of the pandemic,” says the whitepaper. “In the first 19 months of the pandemic (April 2020 to October 2021), scheduled domestic passenger traffic in Australia declined by about 73%.” The whitepaper estimates that Australian airlines have surrendered about A$16 billion ($11.7b) in domestic revenues during the first 19 months of the pandemic, owing to the loss of 71m passengers. One table highlights that in 2020, Australia was the worst performer in domestic passenger numbers among global peers. The year saw Australian traffic drop 68% from 2019 levels, compared with a 67% drop in Canada and a 59% drop in the USA. The average drop was 49%. As for the international market, the whitepaper forecasts only a modest improvement, as it will be limited to a few states and mainly excludes anyone apart from Australians and their immediate families.<br/>