British Airways, Virgin Atlantic Airways and TUI reported surging interest in long-haul travel after Britain last week scaled back coronavirus testing requirements that had acted as a barrier to sales. Package-holiday giant TUI said bookings soared almost immediately on the policy change. British Airways Holidays, meanwhile, saw searches jump nearly 40% compared with the final week of 2021, with New York, Dubai and Barbados the most sought-out locations and beach resorts generally leading the way. At Virgin, searches increased 150% Thursday, the day after the U.K. announcement, from a week earlier, with New York and Barbados again among leading destinations alongside Orlando, Florida. Topping the list was London Heathrow, suggesting pent-up demand for inbound visitors -- some of them likely to be traveling on business. The pickup in activity is a positive sign for sales in coming months, and gives a much needed boost to airlines focused on the long-distance journeys hardest hit by the travel downturn. Flight-search specialist Skyscanner said Britons are also booking further ahead as confidence returns, with a fifth of reservations now coming between one and two months in advance, up from just 9% last year.<br/>
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Airlines from neighbouring countries and former colonial ruler France cancelled flights to Mali on Monday, helping isolate a military junta under regional sanctions for trying to extend its hold on power. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), on Sunday agreed a raft of restrictions against Mali, including the suspension of financial transactions, over the interim authorities' failure to hold democratic elections next month as agreed after a 2020 military coup. Neighbours also said they would close road and air borders. Ivory Coast's national carrier Air Cote d'Ivoire halted flights to the Malian capital Bamako on Monday. Flights from Senegal were also disrupted, according to a Reuters reporter trying to enter Mali. Air France had also cancelled flights, an airline spokesperson said, because of security risks, without providing further detail. The head of Mali's airports, Lassina Togola, said that Air France flights on Monday were cancelled but not suspended long term. Assimi Goita, Mali's current leader and one of several colonels who overthrew President Boubacar Ibrahim Keita in August 2020, called for calm in a statement on Monday, adding that Mali had the means to withstand the latest sanctions.Goita, who staged a second coup in May 2021 when he pushed aside the interim president to take the job for himself, said that his government remains open to further negotiations with the regional bloc. This is the toughest stance ECOWAS has taken on Mali since it implemented similar measures in the immediate aftermath of President Boubacar Ibrahim Keita's ouster in August 2020.<br/>
China’s aviation sector will aim to turn losses into profits this year with an expected recovery to 85% of its pre-COVID volume of domestic passenger trips, the aviation regulator said on Monday. China’s domestic air traffic, once the world’s envy after a fast rebound during the pandemic, is faltering due to a zero-COVID policy of quickly stamping out virus clusters regardless of the economic cost. A growing number of imported cases as the Omicron variant spreads around the world have also led the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) to suspends more international flights recently. The sector has been mired in deep losses since COVID-19 struck in early 2020, with China’s three biggest airlines, Air China, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines, posting a combined loss of 32.5b yuan ($5.10b) in the first three quarters of 2021, after a 42b yuan loss in 2020. The CAAC, in a work meeting for 2022, said air passenger trips would likely exceed 570m this year, compared with about 660m in 2019 before COVID-19. “Barring repeated fluctuations in COVID-19, we will strive to reverse losses and achieve profitability this year,” the CAAC said. China has been banking on the domestic market to drive a recovery in its aviation sector, while heavily curtailing the number of international flights to discourage travel.<br/>
Singapore is committed to steadily reopening its borders and aims to set up more quarantine-free travel agreements, Transport Minister S. Iswaran said in Parliament on Monday as the Asian country looks beyond the rising number of coronavirus cases. Passenger traffic will improve this year at Singapore’s Changi Airport after reaching about 15% of pre-pandemic levels at the end of 2021 from 3% a year ago, though a full recovery will likely “several years,” Iswaran said. “Our goal is to restore quarantine-free travel with more countries and regions as allowed for by the public health assessment,” he said. “We remain confident of the long-term potential of air travel and are resolutely committed to working with Changi Airport Group and airline partners to rebuild and reclaim Singapore’s status as an international air hub.” Changi Airport saw traffic pick up in the latter part of 2021 after Singapore established so-called vaccinated travel lanes with about two dozen countries. They allow fully-vaccinated travelers to enter the city-state without having to quarantine. Ticket sales for the lanes have been on hold since Dec. 23 as Singapore tries to address the local spread of the highly contagious omicron coronavirus variant. <br/>
A COVID-19 spike has disrupted businesses in the Philippines, with banks, malls and airlines reducing operations and some schools suspending online classes due to staff sickness, as authorities announced a third day of record new cases on Monday. The Philippines reported 33,169 new coronavirus infections on Monday, bringing its overall tally close to three million as the Omicron variant takes its toll, with the overpopulated capital Manila and surrounding provinces worst hit. Commercial airlines have cancelled more than a hundred domestic and international flights as cases surge, with airlines reporting infections among staff and lower demand due to uncertainty among travellers. The healthcare system is at risk of being overwhelmed, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire told ANC news channel, calling on symptomatic people to immediately isolate and get tested.<br/>
Airbus kept its crown as the world's largest jetmaker for the third year running as it outstripped Boeing by delivering 611 jets in 2021, up 8% from the year before, company data showed on Monday. The numbers gave Airbus an unassailable lead on revenue-generating deliveries - the industry's main yardstick - after Boeing handed over 302 jets in the first 11 months. After slashing production due mainly to the pandemic, planemakers are seeing more demand for medium-haul passenger jets and freighters, despite global concern over Omicron. Reuters reported last week that Airbus' auditors, who must validate each delivery, were torn between a tally of 605 or 611 jets after last-minute handovers took the total above an official target of 600. The outcome confirms the top end of the range. Airbus said it sold 771 airplanes in 2021, giving a net total of 507 after cancellations, almost twice the 2020 level. CE Guillaume Faury called this the "first fruits of a recovery" and added: "Demand is real". Boeing is rebounding more slowly as it tackles the aftermath of a 737 MAX safety crisis and negotiates snags that suspended deliveries of its wide-body 787 Dreamliner. Recent changes in accounting rules and sharp swings in airline fortunes during the COVID-19 crisis have made it harder to compare the underlying performance of the two plane giants. With Airbus well ahead on deliveries, the winner on new orders depends on which accounting definition for net orders investors prefer when Boeing publishes data on Tuesday. <br/>
Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury raised a note of caution on the planemaker’s outlook for this year, citing the spread of omicron in China, its biggest market for aircraft deliveries. The European jet manufacturer is closely watching the situation in China, the destination for 23% of aircraft handovers in 2021, Faury said. With the Winter Olympics in Beijing just a month away, the country has imposed increasingly strict, though localized, lockdown measures that had already faltered in containing the less-contagious delta variant of the coronavirus. The moves could potentially impede Airbus’s ability to supply its customers in China, as well as to blunt demand for more planes. An outbreak has caused authorities to clamp down on movement in the port city of Tianjin, where the planemaker has a final assembly facility for its A320 family of single-aisle jets. Production hasn’t yet been impacted, Faury said. He’ll be paying close attention to developments there, the Airbus CEO said on a conference call following annual order-and-delivery results. “Omicron has the potential to significantly change the picture in China compared to 2020 or 2021 but for the moment we don’t see disruptions or risks,” Faury said. “We have a strong presence in China so that’s something that’s really close to our business.”<br/>