Truckers blocked roads in Chile’s northern city Iquique on Monday to protest migration from Venezuela and crime, prompting the local airport to suspend all flights. The simmering issues will present Chile’s new president with challenges when he takes office in March. Despite pandemic restrictions, migrants from Venezuela and elsewhere have continued arriving in Chile, one of the wealthiest countries in a region rocked by protests over entrenched inequality. Iquique, a metropolitan area on the Pacific coast of about 215,000 people known as a duty-free zone, has become one of the main destinations for Venezuelan migrants, many of whom cross into Chile by the land border with Bolivia. Iquique’s airport said Monday it was suspending operations until a blockade no longer prevented access by airline and terminal personnel. Protesters marched on Sunday in Iquique here, located over 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) north of capital Santiago. <br/>
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Russian credit rating agency AKRA believes the country’s air transport sector is unlikely to return to pre-crisis profitability levels until at least 2025, despite the trend towards recovery. AKRA, based in Moscow, says the sector – which had been “on the verge” of unprofitable operations even before the pandemic – faces an increase in operating expenditure generated by rising inflation. It adds that fuel costs, in particular, show “even more unfavourable dynamics” for airlines, with the price index for jet fuel at Moscow airports about a third higher than the 2019 average. Russia’s passenger air transport market came close to pre-crisis levels in the second half of last year, with the country’s airlines carrying 11m passengers in October 2021 – just 1% below the figure for October 2019. Even though this recovery trend weakened in November, there is evidence of a pick-up for early 2022. But AKRA stresses: “It is still premature to talk about the full recovery of the industry.” It states that the structure of the market, in terms of domestic and international transport, has changed and there is a “persistence” of low fares, driven by strong competition, which is slowing the pace of revenue recovery.<br/>
Indonesia's holiday island of Bali will start welcoming back travellers from all countries from later this week, officials said on Monday, more than three months after announcing it was open to selected nationalities. Though Bali officially opened to visitors from China, New Zealand, and Japan among other countries in mid October, there has since been no direct flights, Tourism minister Sandiaga Uno told a briefing. The reopening follows similar announcements by Thailand and the Philippines, which put quarantine waivers on hold in December over initial uncertainty about vaccine efficacy against the Omicron variant of COVID-19. The decision comes despite a steady rise in Indonesia's COVID-19 cases this month, despite having brought outbreaks under control in the second half of last year. Health authorities have attributed the increase to Omicron. Singapore Airlines said on Friday it would resume flights to Bali from Singapore starting on Feb. 16. Senior minister, Luhut Pandjaitan, said from Feb. 4 international visitors who were vaccinated against COVID-19 would still be required to do between five and seven days of quarantine.<br/>
Melbourne Airport has revealed its plans to finally open its third runway by 2027, however has warned that new flight paths will be introduced that could see additional noise pollution over some Melbourne suburbs. The new 3,000-metre runway will run north-to-south, and cost an estimated $1.9 billion, according to the airport’s newest masterplan, released on Monday. The new runway will run parallel to the existing north-south runway, and replaces a previously-rejected plan to install a new east-west runway. The plan hopes to ease the high levels of congestion seen at Melbourne prior to the COVID pandemic, by allowing for new simultaneous take-offs and landings. Suburbs that skirt the airport’s north and south are expected to be most impacted by increased flight noise due to the new runway, however a complete re-work of Melbourne’s flight paths could see residential suburbs experiencing more flight noise than previously. Melbourne’s third runway has been in the cards since 2012, initially slated with an east-west orientation, however the airport announced the redirection to a new north-south runway in 2019.<br/>