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New rules requiring international air travelers arriving in the United States to obtain a negative COVID-19 test within one day of travel will take effect Monday at 12:01 a.m. ET (0501 GMT), according to an order issued late Thursday. Under current rules, vaccinated international air travelers can present a negative test result obtained within three days of their day of departure. Unvaccinated travelers currently must get a negative COVID-19 test within one day of departure. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky’s order says the agency “must take quick and targeted action to help curtail the introduction and spread of the Omicron variant into the United States.” The CDC said beginning Monday “all air travelers, regardless of citizenship or vaccination status, will be required to show a negative pre-departure COVID-19 viral test taken the day before they board their flight to the United States.” The tighter testing timeline “provides an added degree of public health protection as scientists continue to assess the Omicron variant,” the White House said in a factsheet released Thursday. The CDC order noted the Omicron variant has been found in 23 countries. CDC’s order said it “may exercise its enforcement discretion to adjust the scope of accepted pre-departure testing requirements to allow passengers and airline and aircraft operators greater flexibility regarding the requirements.”<br/>

US airlines will take part in a Senate oversight hearing this month on the industry, an aviation trade group said on Friday, with lawmakers expected to quiz executives about how carriers used pandemic-related federal aid, staffing issues and other matters. The Senate Commerce Committee has invited the chief executives of seven major US airlines to testify at the planned Dec. 15 hearing. Airlines for America (A4A), an industry trade group, said in a statement that "the US airlines look forward to participating" but did not specify whether the CEOs would testify, as requested by Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell, the committee's chair. Cantwell has invited the CEOs of American Airlines, Delta, Southwest, United, JetBlue, Alaska Airlines and Spirit Airlines to appear, Reuters reported this week. A4A said the carriers look forward to continuing to work with Cantwell and Senator Roger Wicker, the committee's top Republican, "on the issues facing the US airline industry." "I would encourage them to show up," Cantwell said Wednesday of the CEOs. "I think it is bad faith not to show up. ... The public deserves to know some answers." Cantwell added that "we're going to do our oversight role because this was a lot of money." Many of those CEOs are expected to be in Washington on the day of the hearing to take part in an A4A meeting, officials said.<br/>

The FAA is requiring US airlines to inspect Boeing 787s for potential cracking of some structural joints. The agency proposed the inspections in May and has now finalised them in two airworthiness directives made public on 3 December. The orders were “prompted by reports that shimming requirements were not met during the assembly of certain structural joints, which can result in reduced fatigue thresholds” and cracking of some structural joints, the documents say. “Fatigue cracking… could weaken primary structure so it cannot sustain limit load,” they add. One AD requires airlines to inspect “for cracking of certain areas of the aft wheel well bulkhead body chord and… side-fitting and fail-safe straps, and repair of any cracking found”. The other “requires repetitive inspections for cracking of certain areas of the front spar pickle fork and front spar outer chord, and repair”. The Chicago airframer says it “has determined that these are not immediate safety-of-flight issues”.<br/>

Dutch health authorities said on Friday they were worried that some passengers arriving from South Africa in the past week were testing positive for COVID-19 on arrival despite having been vaccinated and testing negative before their flight departure. "It shows that the virus is spreading easily and that is worrying," said Bert van de Velden, director of the regional health authority for Kennemerland, which includes Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport. "It is of the utmost importance that travellers are properly tested before they fly and that they let themselves be tested after arrival." Hundreds of passengers arrive on flights from South Africa at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport weekly, and health authorities said about 9% of those who agreed to undergo voluntary testing on arrival - only a third of passengers agreed - turned out to have COVID-19. Health authorities began conducting post-flight tests after a complete investigation into two flights from South Africa on Nov. 26. Those flights were mid-air when the Dutch government introduced new travel restrictions in light of worries about the newly detected Omicron variant. The more than 600 passengers on the flights were kept isolated and were carefully tested, and it emerged that 62 had COVID-19, of whom 14 had the Omicron variant. <br/>

The latest travel rule changes are "a case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted," a scientist advising the government has said. Prof Mark Woolhouse said the new rules had come "too late" to make a "material difference" to a potential wave of the Omicron variant in the UK. The changes include pre-departure tests for people arriving in the UK and Nigeria going on the travel red list. No 10 said the changes were due to a rise in travel-linked Omicron cases. From 04:00 GMT on Tuesday travellers aged 12 and over will be required to show proof of a negative PCR or lateral flow test taken no earlier than 48 hours before departure. Health Secretary Sajid Javid said the measures were temporary. Nigeria will also be added to the travel red list of countries from Monday, which means UK or Irish nationals, or UK residents returning from the country must quarantine in a hotel for 10 days. But the latest changes have been described by the travel industry as a "hammer blow", with the Business Travel Association warning livelihoods would be "devastated". Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab accepted the latest measures might "upset or disrupt" some people, but insisted it was right for ministers to take "incremental steps" early to avoid "bigger disruption" to travel and the economy.<br/>

The UK’s decision to force all travelers entering the country to take a pre-flight Covid-19 test, threatening to upend the peak Christmas season for airlines, reflects a “balanced approach” given the threat of the omicron variant, Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab. The government announced last night that all travelers, regardless of their vaccine status, will have to take a Covid test within 48 hours of their departure for the U.K. The move comes a week after the first omicron cases were confirmed in the UK, which prompted the government to require PCR test within two days of arrival. “The blanket re-introduction of testing to enter the U.K., on top of the current regime of isolation and PCR testing on arrival is completely out of step with the rest of the world,” BA said Saturday. Raab defended the latest test decision from both travel industry complaints that it goes too far and from the opposition Labour Party’s charges that the government moved too slowly given the omicron threat. In the week since the variant was detected in the U.K., case numbers have risen to almost 250. “We will always get the Goldilocks criticism of too much or too little, and I think we’ve taken the right approach,” Raab said on the Trevor Phillips show on Sky News. “We’ve focused on the vaccines and boosters and we’ve got a third of the populations over 12 with a third vaccine injection.” The government’s latest moves, which also include banning flights from southern Africa, is putting more pressure on airlines that were counting on Christmas travel to help ease the losses accumulated during the pandemic. The risk of a second lost winter has already tanked shares, with the Bloomberg EMEA Airline Index losing 18% in November, its worst monthly performance in more than a year. Omicron struck at a time the UK was already struggling with a surge of cases caused by the delta variant. The UK reported almost 44,000 new Covid infections on Sunday, the fifth consecutive day cases topped 40,000. <br/>

A UK-backed research group unveiled a design for a liquid hydrogen-powered airliner theoretically capable of matching the performance of current midsize aircraft without producing carbon emissions. The FlyZero concept envisions a plane carrying 279 passengers non-stop from London to San Francisco at the same speed and comfort as today, the Aerospace Technology Institute said in a statement Monday. The group, a partnership between the U.K. government and industry, is meant to accelerate high-risk projects that will benefit home-grown aerospace firms. Hydrogen propulsion is seen as one of the most promising technologies for achieving carbon-neutral commercial aviation, but it’s expensive, and it will take years to develop the planes and build infrastructure such as airport refueling capacity. The UK, which hosted the COP26 climate summit last month, is funding new technologies to help create aerospace jobs while meeting its climate targets. The government has committed GBP1.95b of funding to ATI since its start in 2013 through 2026, an amount to be matched by industry. “These designs could define the future of aerospace and aviation,” said Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng in the statement. “By working with industry, we are showing that truly carbon free flight could be possible, with hydrogen a frontrunner to replace conventional fossil fuels.” ATI said it expects hydrogen aircraft to be operating from the mid-2030s offering better economics than conventional planes. By early next year, the FlyZero project will publish detailed concepts for regional, narrow-body and midsize aircraft, with technology roadmaps, market and economic reports and a sustainability assessment, the group said. <br/>

The transport ministry has asked each air carrier to submit data every day on bookings for inbound international flights as the country steps up efforts to keep out the omicron coronavirus variant, sources with knowledge of the situation said Saturday. The request for updated information, including the number of reservations for each Japan-bound flight, was made after the government lowered this month its daily cap for people arriving from overseas from 5,000 to 3,500. Until recently, the ministry had asked airlines operating international flights to submit such data once a week. It is now asking them to do so daily until Jan. 31, according to the sources. With the emergence of the new variant, Japan has in principle banned all new entries by foreign nationals from around the world. But Japan has allowed a limited number of Japanese citizens and foreign residents to re-enter the country, using the daily ceiling. The ministry’s recent call for airlines to stop taking reservations for Japan-bound flights by the end of December caused confusion and an outcry from people who were planning to return home for the New Year holiday. The ministry was forced to retract the blanket request on Thursday and said that reservations would be allowed within the government’s daily cap of 3,500.<br/>

Rescuers in Indonesia are searching for survivors in villages buried by hot ash, after Mt Semeru on Java island erupted on Saturday. Fourteen people are known to have died and dozens were injured, emergency authorities said. At least 11 villages in Lumajang, in East Java, were coated in volcanic ash. At least 56 people have been injured, with many suffering burns after they mistook the hot mud flow for flooding. The Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre (VAAC) in Darwin, Australia said the ash cloud from the eruption appeared to have dissipated. The VAAC provides advice to the aviation industry about the location and movement of potentially hazardous volcanic ash. Ash that solidifies on cooler parts of plane engines can disrupt airflow, which can lead to engines stalling or failing completely. It also affects visibility for the pilots and can affect air quality in the cabin - making oxygen masks a necessity. Mt Semeru is in a near permanent state of eruption and regularly spews ash up to about 4,300m, so Saturday's eruption was a "pretty significant increase in intensity", Campbell Biggs, a meteorologist at the VAAC, told the BBC.<br/>

Airlines are moving forward to finalize big commercial aircraft orders despite the newly discovered coronavirus variant and a fresh wave of travel restrictions to contain its spread, Pratt & Whitney’s top sales executive said. “The campaign activity is as high as I’ve seen, maybe ever,” said Rick Deurloo, chief commercial officer of Pratt & Whitney, a unit of Raytheon Technologies Corp. A decision by Air France-KLM for an order of at least 80 new jets, for example, could be “imminent,” Deurloo said in an interview. Airbus SE and Boeing Co. are currently vying for the sale. Qantas Airways may also decide between the US and European jet-making rivals for its own large order this year, Deurloo said. The process is still under way at Air France-KLM, and no order has been placed, the company said. Qantas is in the final stages of selecting an aircraft to replace its domestic fleet of Boeing 737s, a spokesman for the Australian carrier said separately. Airlines delayed orders last year as the pandemic froze global travel, but are now racing to overhaul their fleets with big orders of more fuel-efficient aircraft. Carriers are also under pressure to reduce their carbon emissions as the industry strives to reach carbon neutrality by 2050. According to Deurloo, companies’ plans for plane purchases haven’t been deterred by the omicron coronavirus variant, which was discovered in South Africa and has since appeared in several other countries. The popularity of Airbus’ A320neo family of aircraft -- powered by engines made by Pratt & Whitney or rival CFM International Inc. -- has caused the manufacturer’s backlog to swell and created an incentive for airlines to lock in orders while they still can. <br/>