general

Three dozen Democratic lawmakers on Friday urged President Joe Biden to require domestic airline passengers to be vaccinated against Covid-19 or show a negative test result. “This is a necessary and long overdue step toward ensuring all Americans feel safe and confident while traveling and reduce the chances of yet another devastating winter surge,” said the letter from members of Congress led by Representatives Don Beyer and Ritchie Torres and Senator Dianne Feinstein. On Monday, the US imposed new requirements for nearly all foreign nationals flying to the country to show proof of vaccination as well as proof of a negative Covid-19 test. The Biden administration also lifted travel restrictions that barred most foreign nationals from the US who had recently been in China, Brazil, South Africa, Iran and much of Europe. Asked why the administration was not imposing any requirements on domestic air travel, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Monday, “Everything is on the table. We just don’t have any announcement to preview right now on this.” The letter, signed by senior Democrats including Representatives Jerrold Nadler, Adam Schiff, David Cicilline, Barbara Lee and Eleanor Holmes Norton, praised the administration’s adoption of international air vaccine requirements. “Applying similar strategies to domestic air travel would ensure Americans can travel safely to see their loved ones during the holidays while also limiting household introduction and spread of Covid-19 from visiting family and friends,” the letter said.<br/>

Dubai on Sunday began banning travelers from Iraq from passing through the emirate on their way to Belarus, cutting off the last major air route from the Middle East to Minsk in an effort to halt a humanitarian crisis that has left thousands of people stranded at Belarus’s border with Poland. Along with the Iraqis, Syrians also appeared to be blocked from boarding airlines in Dubai, despite holding Belarusian visas, according to travel agents and passengers. Some had leveraged their life savings to make the journey. The flight ban followed an intense diplomatic campaign by European Union members alarmed by a tide of thousands of mostly Iraqi migrants lured to Belarus when it loosened its visa rules in August. Hoping for a path into the European Union, they instead found themselves in freezing forest camps on the border of Poland, Latvia and Lithuania. The EU has called the moves by Belarus an attempt to “weaponize” migrants and force a crisis in order to punish the EU for its criticism of its strongman leader, Alexander Lukashenko. Over the course of the weekend, several airlines in the region put in effect bans similar to that imposed in Dubai. But the effect was more immediate in Dubai, where airline employees prevented some travelers from boarding planes, effectively stranding them. Some Kurds in Dubai, fleeing Iraq primarily for economic reasons, said they had been prevented from boarding flights operated by Belavia, Belarus’s state-owned airline.<br/>

Turkey banned Syrian, Yemeni and Iraqi citizens from flights to Minsk on Friday, potentially closing off one of the main routes that the EU says Belarus has used to fly in migrants by the thousand to engineer a humanitarian crisis on its frontier. Thousands of migrants from the Middle East are sheltering in freezing conditions in the woods on the border between Belarus and EU states Poland and Lithuania, which are refusing to let them cross. Some have already died and there are fears for the safety of the rest as bitter winter conditions settle in. The European Union accuses Minsk of creating the crisis as part of a "hybrid attack" on the bloc - distributing Belarusian visas in the Middle East, flying in the migrants and pushing them to cross the border illegally. Brussels may impose new sanctions as early as Monday on Belarus and airlines it blames for ferrying the migrants. EU officials welcomed Friday's announcement by Turkey's Civil Aviation General Directorate that Syrians, Yemenis and Iraqis would not be permitted to buy tickets to Belarus or board flights there from Turkish territory. Turkey has denied playing a direct role by allowing its territory to be used to ferry in migrants. But Minsk airport's website listed six commercial flights arriving from Istanbul on Friday, the most from any city outside the former Soviet Union.<br/>

Cham Wings Airlines, a private Syrian airline, has suspended flights to Belarus’ Minsk airport due to tensions on the Belarusian-Polish border, the company said Saturday. “Since the majority of Cham Wings passengers flying to Minsk are of Syrian nationality ... Cham Wings Airlines has taken the decision to suspend its flights to Minsk National Airport effective today Saturday 13 November,” the company added. <br/>

Airbus has secured a multibillion-dollar order for 255 single-aisle jets from veteran airline investor Bill Franke, a deal that underlines the plane-maker’s forecast that the industry is poised to rebound strongly from the pandemic. The deal sealed at the Dubai Airshow on Sunday packages together A321neo aircraft for delivery across a stable of ultra-low-cost airlines backed by Franke’s Indigo Partners, including Europe’s Wizz Air and Frontier in the US.  The order is a sign that low-cost, short-haul airlines are rapidly rebounding from the impact of the pandemic, and comes as Franke is positioning his airlines to capitalise on the industry-wide disruption. “This order reaffirms our portfolio airlines’ commitment to consistent growth through the next decade,” he said. The US private equity executive is considered to be one of the most successful aviation investors in history. He has bought stakes in a clutch of low-cost airlines and spurred growth by cutting costs and focusing on expanding markets such as eastern Europe. Wizz Air, which will receive 102 aircraft, has promised to use the pandemic to expand across Europe and beyond. It made an unsuccessful bid for British rival easyJet this year. Rival low-cost carrier Ryanair signalled its own ambitions with an order from Boeing during the depths of the aviation crisis last December, and is expecting delivery of more than 200 aircraft in the coming years. The Wizz order includes 27 A321XLR, longer-range aircraft capable of reaching the Middle East from western Europe, following Wizz’s launch of an Abu Dhabi-based joint venture earlier this year. Frontier will receive 91 new aircraft, while Latin American carriers Volaris and JetSmart will get 39 and 23 planes respectively.<br/>

Airbus is in talks with Air Lease on a significant aircraft order involving a mix of narrow- and wide-body jets, which could include the European planemaker’s coming A350 freighter, according to people familiar with the matter. The talks are ongoing and it’s not clear whether an agreement will be reached at this week’s Dubai Airshow, said the people, who asked not to be named with negotiations in flux. Discussions could still fall apart, the people said. An Airbus representative declined to comment on order chatter at the airshow. A top-up deal on narrow-bodies would hand Air Lease firepower to accelerate growth coming out of the Covid-19 downturn. CEO John Plueger said on Nov. 4 that the Los Angeles-based firm has found operators for all its aircraft on order through 2023, and that current talks with customers are focused on jet leases starting from 2026. Air Lease, one of the world’s biggest aircraft leasing firms, is up against a larger competitor after Ireland’s Aercap Holdings acquired General Electric’s leasing arm. Airlines have become more reliant on financial intermediaries to secure aircraft during the pandemic, after the downturn in air travel weakened their balance sheets. Airbus, meanwhile, would score a coup on two fronts, in a year when order activity is expected to be quiet at the show. The planemaker, based in Toulouse, France, is trying to show that demand is strong enough to ramp up production of its A320 family of single-aisle jets to pre-pandemic levels and beyond. <br/>

The coronavirus pandemic that’s stunted aircraft sales represents only a temporary setback, Airbus SE said, with replacement planes tied to reducing carbon emissions driving demand over the next two decades. Airlines, leasing firms and cargo carriers will purchase more than 39,000 new passenger and freighter aircraft by 2040, the European planemaker said Saturday, unveiling its first long-term market outlook in two years ahead of the Dubai Airshow. The numbers are little changed from the 39,200 jets Airbus forecast for 2019-2038, when the European planemaker last issued the forecast. Still, the assessment suggests manufacturers lost two years of growth with Covid-19, given the out-years in the long-range outlook generally contain higher figures than the ones they replace. “It would be premature to claim we’re out of the woods,” said Christian Scherer, CCO and head of Airbus International. “There are still some questions, like is society going to want to accelerate the drive to sustainable aviation and to what extent is business travel going to come back.” Airbus and Boeing will rely on accelerated retirement of older, less fuel-efficient aircraft to stoke uptake as airlines seek to improve their climate credentials. Airbus, based in Toulouse, France, paused its annual update of the figures last year, because the long-term impact of the pandemic wasn’t clear. “As economies and air transport mature, we see demand increasingly driven by replacement rather than growth,” Scherer said. “Replacement being today’s most significant driver for decarbonization.”<br/>

China's aviation regulator has told airlines it is satisfied that design changes Boeing proposed for its 737 MAX plane could resolve safety problems, in a sign it is closer to lifting a more than two-year flight ban in Chinese skies. The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) invited airlines to give feedback on a proposed airworthiness directive for the 737 MAX by Nov. 26, according to an undated notice seen by Reuters. The directive outlines specific procedures for pilots to perform in case of problems similar to those that emerged in two deadly crashes before the plane's grounding in March 2019. It also lists all the systems that must be functioning in order for the plane to be dispatched. A return to the skies in China, the world's biggest aircraft market, would be a major boon to Boeing. Broker Jefferies said in September an announcement would be worth a 5% boost to the stock price.<br/>

Boeing is on the verge of surmounting issues that have held back deliveries of its two most important aircraft, the 787 and the 737 Max, an executive said. The planemaker is “getting close” to restarting deliveries of the 787, Ihssane Mounir, senior VP of commercial sales and marketing, said in Dubai ahead of an air show that starts in the city on Sunday. The 787, known as the Dreamliner, is Boeing’s most advanced wide-body built with composite materials. Restarting Dreamliner deliveries, which have been halted for most of this year, is key to a financial turnaround at Boeing. But the planemaker must first address quality defects and win approval from regulators. “We continue doing meticulous work every step of the way,” Mounir said. “This is a case of Boeing being tough on Boeing. This is a case of us looking at every single aspect of the design and manufacture of the airplane making sure we’re complying.” Boeing is also in discussions with Chinese regulators on re-certifying the single-aisle 737 Max workhorse, Mounir said. Following a successful test flight in August, Boeing expects to restart Max handovers during Q1, CEO Dave Calhoun said last month. <br/>

Boeing may partner with specialists including Israel Aerospace Industries and Mammoth Freighters to convert its passenger jets for cargo use to keep up with soaring demand for those planes. The planemaker plans to follow an asset-light model for freighter conversion programs and doesn’t plan to do the program on its own, Ted Colbert, president and chief executive of Boeing Global Services, said on the sidelines of a press conference in Dubai. Air freight has been a rare bright spot for global aviation as online purchases soar and shipping rates rise. With airlines looking to retire older aircraft and replace them with newer, more fuel efficient models, freighter conversions could give older aircraft a new lease of life. Boeing has forecast demand for 2,610 wide-body freighters by 2040, with 1,720 of them being conversions from older passenger aircraft, and the rest new production. While the company currently builds a freighter version of the 777 from new, that model is based on the smaller 777-200 model. <br/>

The Dubai Airshow, the largest aviation trade event to be held since the pandemic, will kick off in Dubai on Sunday. Two major European shows - the Paris Airshow in Le Bourget in 2021 and Britain's Farnborough International Airshow in 2020 - were cancelled, making this an opportunity for the aerospace industry to get together after two challenging years. The biennial Dubai Airshow is famous for record-breaking, multi-billion-dollar commercial aircraft deals signed between airlines and manufacturers but this year's edition is expected to be different. The IATA is not expecting "much in terms of large aircraft orders" at the upcoming Dubai Airshow. "I'm not aware of any major announcements that are likely to be made and certainly the CEOs that I've spoken to have taken a cautious approach," Willie Walsh, DG of IATA said during a media briefing last week. The event comes at a time when the financially battered airline industry is starting to emerge from the pandemic, looking to rebuild flight networks and review fleet plans - as they phase out older, less fuel-efficient aircraft. The show will also see a significant attendance of defence firms with 20 countries, including Brazil, Russia, France and Israel, setting up their own country pavilions. According to organisers, the event will feature 1,200 exhibitors, and at least 160 commercial and military aircraft will be on display on the tarmac.<br/>

The nuts and bolts of post-pandemic trade loomed over the first major aerospace event since the coronavirus crisis on Sunday, as planemakers touted new freighters plans at the Dubai Airshow. Airbus and Boeing are hoping to launch the West’s first all-new flying juggernauts in 25 years as e-commerce gets a boost from the global pandemic. Airbus, without a buyer after launching a freighter version of its A350 jet in the summer, was knocking on the door of one the industry’s go-to patrons for new plane launches, Steven Udvar-Hazy’s Air Lease Corp, industry sources said. And for best-selling small passenger planes, the founder of Hungarian low-cost carrier Wizz Air was also seen ready to hand Airbus an order in Dubai, four years after taking part in a group of airlines striking a record deal at the same event. Reuters reported in September that Wizz was in negotiations with Airbus over the purchase of at least 100 more jets. Air Lease is expected to be among early customers for a long-haul A350 freighter alongside an unspecified cargo firm, industry publication The Air Current reported.<br/>

Dubai World Central is set to reopen to passengers in May 2022, two years after the coronavirus pandemic forced the city to suspend operations at its second airport. “We’ve got to do some work on the runway at Dubai International Airport and with the reduction in capacity we’ll start to move operations back to DWC,” Chief Executive Officer Paul Griffiths said at the airshow on Sunday. “But it’s really determined by the recovery of traffic overall.” Dubai World Central will see airlines including Wizz Air, some FlyDubai operations and a few Russian airlines return, though Emirates will operate passenger flights solely out of the main Dubai International Airport for the foreseeable future. Griffiths said he is optimistic the airline industry will recover by the start of 2025. “I’m hoping that might be a fairly conservative estimate,” he said. “We may well see a rather rapid recovery if the last few weeks are anything to go by.” To prepare for higher tourist arrivals, concourse A at Dubai International is set to reopen on Nov. 24, bringing the airport to full operation. <br/>

Morocco will conduct rapid COVID-19 tests to passengers arriving in its airports and ports, and will deny access to any visitor with a positive result, the government said on Saturday. The measure, which strengthens an existing requirement of a negative PCR test 48 hours before departure, aims to protect the country amid a surge of cases in Europe, the government said . Travelers with positive test must be returned at the cost of the airline that brought them into the country, unless they have a permanent residency document, it said. Passengers visiting Morocco should also have proof of vaccination. The country made the vaccine pass mandatory to access public places after it vaccinated more than 50% of its population. Morocco has administered more coronavirus vaccine doses than any other African country, inoculating 24.3m people out of a population of 36m. It has also started administering booster jabs. Last Wednesday, the country ended a night curfew aimed at combating COVID-19 that it introduced in March 2020 after a fall in cases from the summer peak.<br/>

Major airlines have committed to eliminating their net carbon emissions by 2050 even as they expect a fivefold increase in annual global passengers over the same period. To meet that ambitious goal, they’ve touted the potential of sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF, a product that is chemically identical to kerosene but more environmentally friendly. Until technologies such as batteries or clean-burning hydrogen are commercially viable for powering large aircraft, which could take decades, SAF is the industry’s best option for getting greener. Yet, for now, the alternative fuel is used only rarely in commercial flights. Its limited adoption is a result of two interconnected challenges: SAF is expensive for airlines to purchase, and production volumes remain constrained. SAF makes up only about 0.1% of the global aviation fuel supply. Some carriers are blending small amounts of it with jet fuel on certain flights. Yet the largest carriers are keen to demonstrate how eager they’ll be as customers if production increases. By year’s end, United plans to fly what it calls the first 100% SAF passenger flight from Chicago to Washington D.C. using a Boeing 737 Max 8. Federal regulators have approved the voyage -- a technical demonstration without paying customers -- to show that the current limit of 50% SAF for a flight can be raised without problems. On Nov. 8, to mark the reopening of the US to vaccinated Europeans, British Airways flew an Airbus A350-1000 from London to New York City on 35% SAF. The carrier said that was the largest amount blended to date on a commercial flight. Widespread use of SAF could represent about 65% of the total cuts needed to meet the airlines’ 2050 emissions targets. But alternate fuels cost about four times more than standard kerosene-based fuel, a gap referred to as the “green premium.” <br/>