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The spread of the new coronavirus variant, Omicron, will slow the recovery for the airline industry, but it has not dented overall demand for tickets during the busy winter travel season, according to Emirates airline president, Tim Clark. "Omicron slowed our momentum somewhat, but we are still seeing positive demand recovery overall," Clark tells the BBC. For people travelling internationally, the spread of the new Covid-19 variant is ushering in new testing rules, border closures and the rapid reintroduction of quarantine measures. This shift raised concerns for many airlines just ahead of their significant Christmas and New Year travel season which generates big revenues due to higher ticket sales. This holiday period is crucial for the industry, with flights operating at high capacity as millions across the globe travel for holidays and to visit families. Story has more details about Middle East carriers. While airline industry bosses in the Middle East say they're not perturbed by the spread of Omicron, executives in other regions are feeling jittery. Apart from travel restrictions, navigating new testing rules as more details about the new variant emerge, is also proving to be a big challenge. Top European airlines such as British Airways, Ryanair, and easyJet pushed back against the introduction of new testing rules for vaccinated travellers brought in by the UK government, and have asked for immediate financial support to sustain the sector through this latest crisis.<br/>

A US appeals court on Friday reinstated a nationwide vaccine-or-testing COVID-19 mandate for large businesses, which covers 80m American workers, prompting opponents to rush to the Supreme Court to ask it to intervene. The ruling by the 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati lifted a November injunction that had blocked the rule from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which applies to businesses with at least 100 workers. "It is difficult to imagine what more OSHA could do or rely on to justify its finding that workers face a grave danger in the workplace," said the opinion. "It is not appropriate to second-guess that agency determination considering the substantial evidence, including many peer-reviewed scientific studies, on which it relied." President Joe Biden unveiled in September regulations to increase the adult vaccination rate as a way of fighting the pandemic, which has killed more than 750,000 Americans and weighed on the economy. The ruling coincides with public health officials bracing for a "tidal wave" of coronavirus infections in the United States as the more transmissible Omicron variant spreads rapidly worldwide. "While we are disappointed in the Court’s decision, we will continue to fight the illegal mandate in the Supreme Court," South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson said on Twitter. "We are confident the mandate can be stopped."<br/>

Across the nation, Covid-19 cases are surging and the Omicron variant is spreading, throwing the scheduling of schools, concerts and sports leagues into question. Just days away from a holiday weekend, Americans are also grappling with whether to change their traveling or gathering plans. Millions are forging ahead, but, for many, a sense of unease has crept in. More than 109m Americans are expected to travel between Dec. 23 and Jan. 2, a 34% increase from last year, according to AAA. The number of airline passengers alone is projected to rise 184% from last year. On Sunday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said that it was OK for Americans to travel and gather, but he strongly emphasized that people take precautions. “If you’re vaccinated and you’re boosted, and you take care when you go into congregate settings like airports to make sure you continually wear your mask, you should be OK,” Dr. Fauci said on “Meet the Press” on NBC. He urged air travelers to remain masked during flights. For those planning to attend large gatherings, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is still recommending that everyone get vaccinated before getting together with multiple generations of the same family. For indoor gatherings, the C.D.C. is asking people to consider taking an at-home rapid test beforehand.<br/>

Boeing said on Friday that it had suspended a vaccination requirement for employees after a court blocked enforcement of an executive order by President Biden instructing federal contractors to impose such mandates. The announcement came after several other companies, including Amtrak, General Electric, Union Pacific and BNSF Railway, recently dropped their vaccine mandates, citing the court order. Some employers have said that the vaccine mandate has made it harder to hire people at a time when workers are in short supply. Boeing said that about 92% of its more than 110,000 US employees were fully vaccinated or had received exemptions from the mandate. Overall, about 72% of all adult Americans have received the one or two shots of coronavirus vaccines regulators have determined provide protection from the virus. Some companies that required employees to be vaccinated months ago, like United Airlines, a Boeing customer, have said that close to 100% of their employees have been vaccinated. “After careful review, Boeing has suspended its vaccination requirement in line with a federal court’s decision prohibiting enforcement of the federal contractor executive order and a number of state laws,” the company said. But in a note to employees, Boeing also strongly encouraged all workers to get a vaccine and booster shots, highlighting how companies are struggling to strike a balance on coronavirus vaccines, an issue that has become freighted with politics as many conservatives rail against mandates. Managers are contending with two contradictory pressures: from workers who do not want to be required to get the vaccine and from employees worried about getting sick or infecting vulnerable family members and friends.<br/>

Italian prosecutors on Saturday ordered the seizure of components intended for the production of Boeing 787 aircraft that they said failed to meet the technical specifications sought by the customer. The titanium and aluminium parts were seized by finance police at a plant of Italian aerospace and defence group Leonardo in Grottaglie, southern Italy. The components were produced by two small firms, Processi Speciali and Manufacturing Process Specification (MPS), which were previously sub-suppliers to Leonardo. Both these sub-suppliers are under investigation, said the prosecutors from the southeastern city of Brindisi who ordered the seizure. Eight unnamed individuals are also under investigation for fraud and for actions threatening the safety of air transport. The prosecutors said their investigations suggested the parts “were produced using titanium and aluminium of different quality and origin from those prescribed by the customer and in breach of the relevant technical specifications”. The prosecutors said the parts were intended “for the production of sections 44 and 46 of the Boeing 787 fuselages”. Leonardo, which filed a lawsuit on Dec. 7, is the injured party in the criminal and administrative investigations, the statement said. In October Boeing said that some 787 Dreamliner parts supplied by MPS were improperly manufactured over the past three years. At that time, the US aircraft manufacturer said the quality issue did not affect the immediate safety of flights, adding it had notified the FAA. Undelivered planes will be reworked, and planes already carrying passengers will go through a review process with Boeing and receive FAA confirmation, Boeing said.<br/>

In Boeing's factory of the future, immersive 3-D engineering designs will be twinned with robots that speak to each other, while mechanics around the world will be linked by $3,500 HoloLens headsets made by Microsoft Corp. It is a snapshot of an ambitious new Boeing strategy to unify sprawling design, production and airline services operations under a single digital ecosystem - in as little as two years. Critics say Boeing has repeatedly made similar bold pledges on a digital revolution, with mixed results. But insiders say the overarching goals of improving quality and safety have taken on greater urgency and significance as the company tackles multiple threats. The planemaker is entering 2022 fighting to reassert its engineering dominance after the 737 MAX crisis, while laying the foundation for a future aircraft program over the next decade - a $15b gamble. It also aims to prevent future manufacturing problems like the structural flaws that have waylaid its 787 Dreamliner over the past year. "It's about strengthening engineering," Boeing's chief engineer, Greg Hyslop, said. "We are talking about changing the way we work across the entire company." After years of wild market competition, the need to deliver on bulging order books has opened up a new front in Boeing's war with Airbus, this time on the factory floor. Airbus Guillaume Faury, a former automobile research boss, has pledged to "invent new production systems and leverage the power of data" to optimize its industrial system. Boeing's approach so far has been marked by incremental advances within specific jet programs or tooling, rather than the systemic overhaul that characterizes Hyslop's push today. Story has more.<br/>

European airlines are walking an increasingly fine line to meet both foreign inoculation and local privacy requirements, as more countries require flight crews to be vaccinated against COVID-19, carriers say. Canada is slated on Jan. 15 to end an exemption that allowed entry of unvaccinated foreign flight crews, joining others that have vaccine mandates for pilots and passengers alike. That's creating a logistical headache for European carriers, who are unable to ask for their employees' vaccination status since they are bound to strict data protection laws in Europe, a spokesperson for the trade group Airlines For Europe (A4E) said. "Carriers will need to find workarounds in order to comply with the Canadian entry requirement," A4E spokesperson Jennifer Janzen said. US carriers like United require their cabin crew to be fully vaccinated, while rivals like American Airlines and Southwest have delayed the effective date of vaccine mandates until 2022 for employees. Airlines, which have suffered steep losses due to COVID-19 travel restrictions and bans, are blaming a patchwork of shifting rules for increased red-tape and depressed demand for international travel. read more Airlines expect to see more inoculation mandates for crew as the fast-spreading Omicron variant forces governments to tighten border restrictions. "We now see that more and more countries are mandating or considering immunization of flight crews," said KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. The carrier identified intercontinental flights to about 10 destinations where crew are currently not exempt from vaccine requirements. As more countries demand proof of inoculation from everyone on planes, international flights will no longer be practical without vaccinated crews, said a spokesperson for Lufthansa which can't obligate its personnel to be vaccinated against COVID-19.<br/>

Airlines ordering single-aisle jets from Airbus SE may have to wait as long as 2025 for deliveries due to supply constraints, the FT reported. Current delivery slots for larger orders are “by and large” around 2024 to 2025, Christian Scherer, the company’s chief commercial officer, told the newspaper. “There is a supply constraint for the most desirable assets out there,” Scherer said, pointing to the company’s A320, A321 and A220 models in particular. Demand is being driven by a need for more fuel-efficient aircraft, he added.<br/>

One of the world’s largest aircraft leasing company filed for Chapter 11 as it seeks to restructure its finances for the second time since the beginning of the pandemic. Denmark-based Nordic Aviation Capital A/S sought bankruptcy protection to overhaul about $6b of debt. On Sept. 24, the company reached an agreement in principle with creditors to fix its balance sheet. The company listed both assets and debt of between $1b and $10b, according to court papers filed in US Bankruptcy Court in Richmond, Virginia. The restructuring framework includes the conversion of “a substantial amount of the group’s debt into equity,” a $300m equity rights offering and a $200m revolving credit facility, the company said.<br/>

Uzbekistan has sent technicians to the city of Mazar-i-Sharif in northern Afghanistan to repair its airport equipment and help it restart operations, the Tashkent government said on Friday. The move reflects the readiness among Afghanistan’s northern neighbours to build ties with the new Taliban-backed government after the Islamist movement’s rapid takeover of the country as US and allied forces withdrew this year. The Uzbek presidential special envoy on Afghanistan, Ismatilla Ergashev, who visited the northern Afghan province of Balkh last month, said on Friday that the technicians planned to complete their work on the airport by early next year. Uzbekistan has also helped the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees set up a humanitarian aid hub in a logistics centre in the southern Uzbek border city of Termez. <br/>

Japan will extend a curb on foreigners entering the country beyond year-end to prevent the spread of the Omicron variant, the Yomiuri newspaper reported on Saturday citing anonymous government sources. Japan reversed an easing of controls late last month as Omicron spread around the world and has one of the world's strictest border policies. Although COVID-19 cases have fallen dramatically since a deadly wave in August, there is growing concern about the Omicron variant, which has been found more than 30 times in Japan, mostly during airport screening and quarantine.<br/>

As the flying taxi market takes off, the race is on to decide where the future vehicles will be built with one of the backers of newly listed Vertical Aerospace - Irish leasing boss Domhnal Slattery - pushing for a manufacturing base in Ireland. Shares in the electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft (eVTOL) maker, backed by investors such as Slattery's Avolon aircraft leasing company and American Airlines, rose sharply at their market debut on Friday after a blank-check merger valued at $2.2b. Unlike many other entrants in the increasingly busy eVTOL market, Vertical Aerospace is focusing only on design, manufacture and services rather than ride-sharing operations, sparking a bidding race to secure high-tech production work - and the highly skilled jobs that go with it. It has reported pre-orders for up to 1,350 aircraft worth $5b from customers including American and Virgin Atlantic. "We have been speaking to a number of different governments about where we might build the production facility. Domhnal is very keen on us taking it to Ireland," founder and CE Stephen Fitzpatrick said after ringing the opening bell in New York. While the Republic of Ireland is a global hub for aviation finance, it does not host any major aerospace manufacturing. A plant would help the government achieve two of its objectives: boosting its green technology sector and diversifying away from investment dependent on the country's low corporate tax rate. "I would love to see it in Ireland. I think it would be a fantastic location. The UK is equally attractive and indeed other jurisdictions," Slattery said. Bristol in the UK, where Vertical Aerospace is based, has thousands of aerospace engineers and discussion of where to place the plant is for now "hypothetical," Fitzpatrick said.<br/>