Airline bosses voiced concern on Tuesday that travel restrictions linked to the emergence of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus risked blowing an industry recovery off course. The strongest warning came from Emirates airline President Tim Clark who said a major hit to the peak December travel season would cause "significant traumas" in the global aviation business. EasyJet also spoke of a softening in demand in recent weeks as the resurgence of the virus in parts of continental Europe prompted customers to rethink city break plans. The discovery of the Omicron variant, first reported in southern African last week, dealt a blow to the industry just as it had recovery in its sights, especially following the easing of US-bound travel earlier in November. Multiple countries including Japan, the United States, Britain and Israel have imposed travel curbs in order to slow the spread of the new variant which it is feared could prove more resistant to vaccines. Clark said the next few weeks, the run-up to the Christmas and New Year holiday season, would prove critical for the airline industry as scientists assess the risks. "I would say probably by the end of December, we'll have a much clearer position," Clark said. "But in that time, December is a very important month for the air travel business," he added. "If that is lost, or the winter is lost to a lot of carriers, there will be significant traumas in the business, certainly the aviation business and the periphery."<br/>
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The US CDC is expanding surveillance at four major international airports to keep an eye out for the Omicron variant of coronavirus in travelers, the agency's director said Tuesday. Dr. Rochelle Walensky told a White House Covid-19 briefing that the CDC is expanding surveillance with XpresCheck, a testing service at airport terminals, to: Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport; John F. Kennedy International Airport; Newark Liberty International Airport and San Francisco International Airport. She noted they are four of the busiest international airports in the country. The Biden administration imposed new restrictions on travel from eight southern African countries, including South Africa, late last week. Omicron was first reported by South African health authorities. But Delta, with headquarters and major operations in Atlanta, said it plans to continue its Atlanta-Johannesburg flights. United Airlines also said it does not plan to scale back service between Newark and Johannesburg and will restart its route to Cape Town, also in South Africa, next week as planned. This new effort is actually an expansion of a biosurveillance program first launched in September that provided testing for travelers arriving from India at JFK, Newark and San Francisco, according to XpresSpa Group, the parent company of XpresCheck. "CDC is evaluating how to make international travel as safe as possible," Walensky said. That includes "critical partner testing closer to the time of flights and considerations around additional post-arrival testing and self-quarantine," she said.<br/>
The Biden administration plans to tighten travel rules to combat the omicron variant of the coronavirus, by requiring all air travelers to the US to be tested within a day of their departure regardless of vaccination status, according to a person familiar with the matter. President Joe Biden plans to announce the new requirements on Thursday in a speech detailing his plan to contain the pandemic through the winter. Currently, vaccinated travelers must get tested within three days of boarding their flight to the US; under the change, that would be cut to one day. The US last week imposed travel restrictions that bar arrivals from foreign nationals who have been in any of eight southern African nations in the past 14 days. The administration hasn’t said how long those measures will be in place. The administration isn’t considering tightening rules on what type of test is required for entry to the US. The administration has only imposed requirements for rapid antigen tests, which may be less effective at detecting cases of the omicron variant. Earlier Tuesday, the CDC director, Rochelle Walensky, said the agency was looking into measures such as narrowing the testing window for travelers into the country and adding quarantine requirements in certain cases. The CDC, she added in a call with reporters, was also expanding surveillance programs at four major airports to test for Covid from specific international arrivals. “As we have done throughout the pandemic, CDC is evaluating how to make international travel as safe as possible,” she said on the call. <br/>
The chair of the US Senate Commerce Committee, concerned about worker shortages at airlines that received billions of dollars in government assistance, has invited CEOs of seven major US carriers to testify at a Dec. 8 hearing, airlines and a committee official said. Senator Maria Cantwell, a Democrat who chairs the panel, is inviting the CEs of American Airlines, Delta, Southwest, United, JetBlue, Alaska Airlines and Spirit to testify, the official added. The airlines declined to comment or did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Starting in March 2020, Congress approved three separate rounds of taxpayer bailouts totaling $54b to cover much of US airlines' payroll costs through Sept. 30 as a result of COVID-19. The heavy US Thanksgiving travel week would not have been possible without the government payroll assistance program and union-negotiated incentives, Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, representing workers at 17 airlines, said Tuesday. "We made sure aviation workers were in place to meet the return demand for air travel after access to vaccination," Nelson added. Last month, Nelsonnoted that the airline industry "created a COVID-19 relief plan that no other industry got." Airlines that received government assistance were not allowed to issue involuntary layoffs or cut worker pay. They also had to limit executive compensation and halt share buybacks and dividend payments. Staffing shortages in recent months have prompted some airlines to cancel hundreds of flights at times even as they worked to boost staffing.<br/>
Unvaccinated travellers over the age of 12 won't be able to board a plane or passenger train in Canada beginning today, and a negative COVID-19 test will no longer serve as a substitute for most people. The policy came into effect on Oct. 30, but the federal government allowed a short transition period for unvaccinated travellers who could board as long as they provided a negative molecular COVID-19 test taken within 72 hours before their trip. The stringent new requirement comes into effect as Canada reacts to the emergence of the new, highly mutated Omicron variant of COVID-19. The discovery of the new variant has prompted border closures and heavier screening in Canada and abroad over fears it could prove more transmissible. The risk related to the Omicron variant is very high, according to the WHO, but there is still a lot public health officials and scientists do not know about it. While anyone coming into Canada or boarding a plane or train inside the country must be vaccinated, there are currently no quarantine measures in place except for people who have recently transited through southern Africa. While many airlines have so far been doing random spot checks to ensure travellers are vaccinated, Air Canada and WestJet have confirmed they will ask for proof from everyone boarding in Canada as of today. Other measures, like masks and health screenings, will still be mandatory.<br/>
SpaceX’s Starlink unit is testing its space-based internet service with several aircraft and wants to offer in-flight connection to airlines “as soon as possible,” a company vice president said. Starlink is in talks with several airlines about offering in-flight broadband connections, Jonathan Hofeller, vice president of commercial sales, said Tuesday on a panel at the Airline Passenger Experience Association gathering in Long Beach, California. That would put the company in direct competition with Viasat Inc., Intelsat SA, Telesat Corp. and others. Starlink is producing six satellites a week at its assembly site near Seattle, Hofeller said. It is also moving to a more sophisticated version. He didn’t disclose details of the testing or how advanced the company’s discussions with airlines are. The Space Explored blog reported Monday that SpaceX founder Elon Musk raised the potential of a bankruptcy filing in an internal memo if the company is unable to fix production issues on its Raptor engines, which power the company’s newest and largest rocket, Starship. The vehicle is needed to launch the next iteration of Starlink’s satellites, Musk wrote. Space Exploration Technologies Corp., as SpaceX is formally known, is working toward a constellation of more than 30,000 satellites to provide high-speed internet coverage around the world.<br/>
The Australian government has extended a domestic tourism support scheme for another three months, as it pauses reopening international borders amid the discovery of the new Omicron variant of the coronavirus. Known as the Tourism Aviation Network Support scheme, the initiative — first announced in March this year — will continue until end-February 2022. It was originally to have ended on 30 November. A joint statement on 30 November from deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce and trade, tourism and investment minister Dan Tehan says the extension was to “ensure travellers impacted by [domestic] lockdowns or border closures can access these tickets and visit key tourism regions over [Australian] summer”. Under the support scheme, Australians can purchase half-priced flight tickets to a number of tourist-dependent regions — including Gold Coast in Queensland state and Broome in Western Australia. The government will subsidise part of the ticket costs. Joyce, who is also minister for infrastructure, transport and regional development, says: “Half-price airfares give Australians even greater incentive to take to the skies and enjoy a well-earned break these holidays. This will continue to boost our aviation and tourism sectors, protect the jobs and livelihoods these industries support and help restart our economy on the other side of the pandemic.” The scheme extension comes amid border reopening uncertainty. Just a day earlier, Canberra announced it would “pause the next step” in opening its borders to foreign skilled workers and students from 1 to 15 December. Plans to reopen to travellers from Japan and South Korea have also been postponed to 15 December. <br/>