Europe's use it or lose it airport slot rule has not created issues for airlines during the COVID-19 pandemic nor is there any evidence of carriers operating ghost flights because of the rule, a senior EC official said on Thursday. "From our perspective, it is an unnecessary fuss. We actually have no evidence from any airline including Lufthansa on any amount of empty flights being operated," the official told reporters. "Travel has been relatively unrestricted. Net bookings is still quite stable," the official said. "For the current winter scheduling season, the Eurocontrol air traffic has been so far in the range of 73-78% of 2019 and the annual 2022 air traffic is forecast to be at 88% of 2019 levels," Commission spokesperson Stefan De Keersmaecker told reporters. The EU executive's comments came a day after a spat between Lufthansa and Ryanair over the rule, which the Commission has relaxed to allow major carriers to preserve airport access during the crisis despite a sharp drop in traffic. Budget rivals, keen to expand into once-congested airports, have criticised the move. Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr told a newspaper last month that the airline still had to operate tens of thousands of additional flights in the winter to comply with the slot rule, resulting in surplus emissions. For this winter season, the EU says airlines will only have to use 50% of their slot rights. The figure will go up to 64% for the summer season from March to October.<br/>
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The first tourists are set to fly to Rarotonga from New Zealand on Friday morning as quarantine-free travel between the nations resumes. More than 200 passengers are booked onto Air New Zealand’s NZ946 flight at 8.45am from Auckland, five months after travel was halted because of the Delta outbreak in August. Before then, the Cook Islands and New Zealand travel bubble had been in place for three months, following a 15-month border closure due to the coronavirus pandemic. Air New Zealand operational integrity and safety officer David Morgan said the airline was excited about the resumption of the travel bubble. “Lots of Kiwis are keen to head to Rarotonga, and we are seeing high demand for our quarantine-free Cook Islands flights and currently have one service per day scheduled,” she said. “Given there is some availability on services from late January onwards, we are not planning to schedule additional services at this time."<br/>
An Air New Zealand Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner bound for Auckland had to return to Sydney for an emergency landing after one of its engines went idle mid-flight in late December. The aircraft, operating as flight NZ1104, departed Sydney about 12.40pm on December 21 and climbed to 12,000 feet when it experienced a technical problem with its left engine. An audio recording of the pilots’ communication with Sydney air traffic controllers posted to YouTube shows the problem was initially suspected to be an engine overheat, and that one of the aircraft’s engines was running idle. “Sydney, New Zealand 1104, pan-pan-pan, we have an overheat engine running on idle, left engine, we'd like to return for landing,” an Air New Zealand pilot says. Pan pan is an international urgency signal used by boats and aircraft to indicate a situation that is urgent, but for the time being, does not pose an immediate danger to anyone's life or to the vessel itself. Air New Zealand group general manager engineering and maintenance Brett Daley said, on inspection, the airline’s engineering team confirmed it was not an engine overheat, rather a minor issue with an ancillary system pipe fitted to the engine. Shortly after take off an engine caution indication illuminated in the flight deck, he said. In the air, the crew followed standard procedures and the message cleared however, they made the decision to return to Sydney, he said. “We have discussed this particular issue with Rolls-Royce and there is no immediate action required.”<br/>