The US TSA said Wednesday it expects to screen about 20m air passengers during the busy Thanksgiving travel period. The TSA said airport security checkpoints nationwide will be busy in the period that starts Friday and runs through Nov. 28, and that passenger volumes "may be very close to pre-pandemic levels this holiday" Delta said it expects to fly up to 5.6m passengers from Friday through Nov. 30, nearly 300% over 2020's 2.2m Delta passengers for the period but still below the 6.3m passengers during the same period in 2019. United Airlines said it anticipates more than 4.5m passengers during the Thanksgiving travel period - about 88% of 2019 volume. United said it was adding about 700 domestic flights for Thanksgiving week, and would fly 87% of its 2019 domestic schedule in November.<br/>
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US airlines carried 58.4m passengers in September, which remains down 20% over pre-pandemic levels, the US DoT said Wednesday. The figures were more than twice the 25.1m passengers carried in September 2020 but still down from the 72.6m in September 2019. The figures cover the 20 largest US airlines.<br/>
As many as 40% of US airport security screeners haven’t been vaccinated for Covid-19 as an immunization deadline for federal employees and the busy holiday travel season converge. Many TSA workers are resisting the requirement as the Nov. 22 deadline approaches, said Hydrick Thomas, president of the American Federation of Government Employees’ division representing front-line airport security officers. While neither Thomas nor the agency foresee any travel disruptions occurring around Thanksgiving, which at Nov. 25 is just three days later, the union chief said there could be staffing shortages during the December holidays if the agency takes a hard line on unvaccinated workers. “They are not going to be ready for Christmas if they get rid of everybody who chooses not to get vaccinated,” Thomas said. “If they don’t accommodate employees during these holidays coming upon us, we are going to have an issue with the screening process.” He estimated those who are hesitant represent about four in 10, though acknowledged he didn’t have hard numbers. <br/>
A slew of plane orders at this week's Dubai Airshow has added weight to Airbus' hopes of raising output, but the jetmaker is not yet ready to pull the trigger, its top executive said. Airbus bagged 265 firm orders at the Middle East event, closing a gap with Boeing which had been leading this year as sales of its 737 MAX rebound from a safety crisis. A further 139 provisional orders lifted Airbus' Dubai tally above 400 jets, while Boeing won a firm order for 72 MAX. CEO Guillaume Faury said Airbus had definitively agreed to increase production to 65 single-aisle jets a month by summer 2025, from a planned average of 45 this quarter. Beyond that, Airbus has asked suppliers to explore rates of 70 in early 2024 and 75 by 2025, but has not made a decision. Some suppliers have criticised the plans, worried the pandemic recovery will remain patchy. "We are in the phase of assessing demand," Faury said this week. "What happened (in Dubai) is important, because together with other prospects or deals to come, it gives substance and ... evidence that the demand we see for rate 70, 75 will be sustained for many years." That "inside-out" view of demand - based on orders Airbus is receiving and its own assumptions based on talks with airlines - matches the "outside-in" or top-down picture provided by new Airbus market forecasts published at the show, he said. The forecasts cover 20 years and straddle categories, so cannot easily be used to gauge near-term output of a specific model. But Faury said the latest report was consistent with demand for "maybe 70, 75" A320-family jets a month this decade. "So if those simulation tools and those sensors continue to be as robust as they have demonstrated in the past, we think 70, 75 is reasonable, but we're not yet there," Faury said.<br/>
Business travel spending worldwide will likely jump more than 37% next year to over $1t but the normally lucrative industry won’t fully recover until 2024, according to a new industry forecast released Wednesday. Surges in Covid cases and new variants, uneven vaccination rates and supply chain problems hurt this year’s recovery, according to the Global Business Travel Association’s new forecast. Business travel spending this year will likely rise 14% from 2020 to $754b, slower than the 21% year-over-year increase it forecast in February. The pace of recovery is crucial for large global airlines that are struggling to return to profitability as well as for hotel chains and restaurants that rely heavily on business travelers. Those customers are often more willing to pay higher prices compared with vacationers. Global business travel spending fell 54% to $661b in 2020 from $1.4t 2019. China and the U.S. are expected to lead business travel spending this year with growth of about 30% apiece, according to the report.<br/>
Air travel in the Philippines is seeing signs of recovery as local restrictions on movement are relaxed, even as the country remain shut off to foreign tourists. Cebu Air, which has resumed hiring cabin crew, is now flying at nearly 40% of its domestic capacity and targets to hit more than half in December, President Lance Gokongwei said in a mobile-phone message. In September, he told a business forum that the nation’s largest budget carrier was operating at 15% capacity, without elaborating whether it was just for local or total. Philippine Airlines said it’s now operating about 120 local and international flights a day, or 40% of its pre-pandemic regular flight frequencies. The carrier, owned by tycoon Lucio Tan, is building up its network in anticipation of a surge in travel as the nation’s health situation improves, it said on Tuesday. The Southeast Asian nation on Tuesday reported 849 new cases, its lowest daily tally this year. With over a third of the adult population fully vaccinated, movement curbs in the capital have been loosened, and the government is banking on locals to jump-start the recovery of its tourism sector. Still, it lags neighbors in reopening to foreign tourists.<br/>
FedEx Corp. is shutting its crew base in Hong Kong, the world’s busiest international cargo hub, and relocating its pilots as the city considers stricter measures on flight crew to curb the spread of Covid. While the crew base will close, FedEx will continue to operate in Hong Kong because the city is a vital part of its Asia Pacific and global network, the US company said Wednesday. The company said it’s providing support for the relocation process of crew members, without providing further details. FedEx’s move comes after Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam said Tuesday that authorities will consider tougher rules after three Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. cargo pilots were confirmed to have Covid-19 after returning from Frankfurt. The city is prioritizing its Covid-Zero policy in a bid to reopening the border with mainland China. The freight and parcel delivery giant will continue to serve Hong Kong with pilots based in Oakland, California, the South China Morning Post reported, citing a memo by Robin Sebasco, Fedex’s system chief pilot. The company at the start of the year relocated 180 pilots and their families from Hong Kong to California in response to tough aircrew quarantine measures, the Post said. <br/>