general

International arrivals at Canadian airports are so backed up, people are being kept on planes for over an hour after they land because there isn't physically enough space to hold the lineups of travellers, says the Canadian Airports Council. The council blames COVID-19 protocols and has called on the federal government to do away with random tests and public health questions at customs to ease the serious delays passengers face when they arrive in Canada. The extra steps mean it takes four times longer to process people as they arrive than it did before the pandemic, said the council's interim president Monette Pasher. That was fine when people weren't travelling, but now it's become a serious problem. "We're seeing that we clearly cannot have these public health requirements and testing at our borders as we get back to regular travel," she said. The situation is particularly bad at Canada's largest airport, Toronto Pearson International, where passengers on 120 flights were held in their planes Sunday waiting for their turn to get in line for customs. Sometimes the wait is 20 minutes, other times it's over an hour, Pasher said. Airports are simply not designed for customs to be such a lengthy process, she said, and the space is not available to accommodate people. The airport is also not the right place for COVID-19 tests, she said, especially since tests are rarely required in the community.<br/>

Lawmakers in the European Parliament’s environment committee voted on a raft of climate change policies on Tuesday, including tougher rules to ensure each country cuts greenhouse gas emissions. The EU is overhauling its climate policies as it seeks to cut net emissions 55% by 2030 from 1990 levels, with a dozen laws to do this now passing through its lawmaking process. In a vote on proposals to upgrade the national targets Brussels sets countries to cut emissions in sectors like transport and buildings, the lawmakers backed measures to avoid countries dodging emissions cuts and relying on others to pick up the slack. “With higher targets for all states there will be no more free riding,” said Jessica Polfjärd, lead EU lawmaker on the proposal. Countries that overachieve on their targets can “sell” part of their extra CO2 cuts - equivalent to 5% of their annual emissions limit - to another country each year until 2030, the lawmakers said. The European Commission, which drafts EU laws, had suggested allowing 10% from 2026-30. To push all countries to reduce emissions, the committee also scrapped a plan to allocate more spare CO2 cuts from overachieving states to countries that miss their targets. Each country’s target is based largely on its GDP, meaning richer states face tougher goals than poorer ones. The lawmakers did not change the proposed shareout between countries, but tweaked the baseline for calculating emissions limits to reduce them faster. The lawmakers also voted for a faster end to the free permits airlines receive under the EU carbon market - a move that would hike pollution costs for flights within Europe.<br/>

Japan is to allow foreign travellers from four countries this month, as part of a “test tourism” pilot ahead of plans for a broader reopening. The move, announced by the Japan Tourism Agency, marks the first – albeit small – step taken by the country to crack open its borders, which remain largely shut out to general travellers. Under the pilot programme, travellers from the USA, Australia, Thailand and Singapore can enter the country, provided they have received three doses of the coronavirus vaccine. “In this trial, we will verify how to comply with infection control … and emergency response [measures], formulate ‘guidelines’ that…travel agencies and accommodation operators should be aware of, and disseminate them to all concerned parties,” the agency says in a brief note on its website. According to Japanese media reports, around 50 travellers are expected from the four countries at the onset of the trial, with 10-15 tour groups expected. The Japan Tourism Agency adds that the trial programme was to have been rolled out in late-2021, but that the surge in infections caused by the Omicron variant had put pause on the pilot. <br/>

Global aircraft leasing faces a new shake-up this week after SMBC Aviation Capital’s deal to buy smaller rival Goshawk Aviation for $6.7b. The move comes as firms report a stronger than expected US-led recovery -- but one increasingly overshadowed by inflation, rising borrowing costs and the effects of the conflict in Ukraine. SMBC’s deal puts it in the no.2 industry spot globally, leapfrogging Dublin-based rival Avolon, behind AerCap. The long-awaited agreed takeover of Goshawk, which was confirmed by the company on Monday after a Reuters report last week, could increase pressure on smaller rivals to follow suit as funding costs rise with higher interest rates, analysts said. “It means only the biggest and strongest lessors can compete at the levels you need to compete at to win,” said consultant Paul O’Driscoll of advisory firm Ishka. Leasing companies now control more than half the world’s fleet of aircraft and bankers say private equity firms are also hovering over at least one lessor as the industry matures. SMBC CE Peter Barrett, among the crop of leaders that emerged to run the Dublin-led aircraft leasing industry from the roller-coaster empire of Irish tycoon Tony Ryan, has said he expects the industry’s growth to continue.<br/>

Hong Kong tycoons Li Ka-shing and Henry Cheng are both retreating from aircraft leasing, a business into which they had steered their wide-ranging conglomerates over the past decade to diversify risk and revenues globally. The COVID pandemic hit the sector hard, as airlines with few passengers struggled to keep up with lease payments or went out of business. The Ukraine war has added to lessors' woes, with Western sanctions compelling many of the finance companies to ask for their planes back from Russian clients while Moscow restricts them from leaving. Against this backdrop, the sector is seeing a new wave of consolidation. The Cheng family is the latest to exit, agreeing late Monday to sell its Goshawk Aviation business, which has 222 jets, to Japan's SMBC Aviation Capital for $1.57b. The deal will make the Japanese group, part of Sumitomo Mitsui Finance and Leasing, the second-largest lessor globally by fleet size, with 709 owned or managed planes. SMBC and Goshawk together have about 300 jets on order. The deal comes a month after Li and his son Victor exited the sector by selling the two holding companies under their AMCK Aviation unit, which together owned a fleet of about 140 aircraft, to an investment vehicle managed by Carlyle Group for $4.28 billion. The U.S. private equity group last year bought lessor Fly Leasing from investors including Malaysia's AirAsia Group for $520m. The Cheng and Li families originally entered jet leasing together, joining Anglo-South African finance group Investec as co-owners of Goshawk in 2013. But within three years, the Chengs had bought out both Investec and the Lis, dividing ownership of Goshawk evenly between NWS Holdings, their Hong Kong-listed infrastructure company, and Chow Tai Fook Enterprises, the family's private holding company.<br/>