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The aviation industry has been in disarray since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Now, a perfect storm of strikes and staff shortages is forcing airlines to shore up their battle plans to offset a summer of travel chaos. Around 90,000 jobs were cut across US airlines as worldwide mobility was brought to a standstill in 2020, while easyJet and Airbus were among the European companies shedding staff. Passenger numbers for leisure and business flights have since rebounded to exceed pre-pandemic numbers. However, those money-saving cuts have turned into havoc-causing shortages. British Airways on Tuesday suspended short-haul flight sales from London’s Heathrow after the airport asked airlines to cut down passenger numbers. So, what are other airlines doing this summer? KLM will limit the sale of tickets flying from Amsterdam in September and October after Schiphol Airport put a cap on the number of departing passengers. The airline “does not expect cancellations to be necessary” to meet the limits imposed by the airport, but warns that “fewer seats than usual will be available in the Dutch market.” Qantas hasn’t canceled flights, but it has capped sales on its Australia to London services until mid-September. Lufthansa made adjustments to its schedule at the start of summer and canceled 3,000 flights from Frankfurt and Munich. The early changes were made with the aim to “relieve the overall system and offer a stable flight schedule,” according to the airline. The airline also canceled over 1,000 flights due to a ground staff walkout in July. There is currently no capacity restriction on passenger numbers. EasyJet made changes to its schedule in June after Amsterdam’s Schiphol and London’s Gatwick Airport announced passenger capacity caps. Since then “operations have normalised”, according to easyJet, and performance is “now at 2019 levels.” Story has more.<br/>

Airports need to address their unpopularity as a workplace if they’re to resolve a labor crunch that’s spawned a summer of travel chaos, the world’s biggest ground-handling firm said. While pay hikes may narrow the staffing gap, they won’t resolve deep-seated issues in attracting new recruits, Tarek Sultan, vice chairman of Agility Public Warehousing Co., said Friday after the Gulf firm completed the purchase of John Menzies, which provides handling at hubs including London Heathrow. “It’s really hard to hire people in this day and age after Covid and we’re really trying to figure out why,” Sultan said on Bloomberg Television. “Nobody has a 100% clear answer. We have to be competitive with our wages, but we also have to look at other ways to improve retention and make this industry a more attractive place to work.” Heathrow last week blamed airlines and their ground handlers for the turmoil that’s been afflicting European travel for months as demand rebounds from the pandemic. Chief Executive Officer John Holland-Kaye said they’ve been too slow to recruit and that handlers including Menzies are in some cases not paying enough to compete with firms like Amazon.com Inc. as they seek staff. Sultan said that while Kuwait-based Agility understands that it must invest to beef up the workforce, costs would need to be passed on and the airline industry right now is “not the ideal place to be looking to increase prices to customers.” Expenses would have to be offset “in a very measured way.” He said the travel situation should improve over the next couple of quarters, and that in future the aviation industry as a whole needs to do better in anticipating demand and coordinating step changes in operations.<br/>

Demand for air travel hit pandemic highs — and in some places historic highs — during the second quarter. Airlines reported record revenues and full planes as issues from staffing to weather and an elevated number of employees out sick with Covid kept capacity constrained. Sounds like a recipe for financial success, right? Well, there’s the matter of fuel. The average price per gallon for U.S. Gulf Coast jet fuel reached a record $4.12 in March, up from $1.86 per gallon a year earlier — a more than two-fold increase — according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Some airlines, though, had a secret weapon: fuel hedges. Southwest Airlines is one example. It paid just $3.36 per gallon for its fuel last quarter, a big reason why it produced the best second quarter operating margin — 17% — of any airline worldwide that’s reported thus far. Hedges behave like insurance contracts. In Southwest’s case, it expects to pay what’s essentially a two-cent per gallon insurance premium this quarter. But at current spot prices, it expects to collect a cash settlement of 46c per gallon. As of July 28, Southwest had 59% of its Q3 fuel needs hedged, with contracts currently holding a market value of about $235m, far above the $13m in premiums the airline paid. Alaska Airlines was not quite as well hedged but had enough protection to also pay below $4 per gallon for fuel last quarter. The same was true for Delta Air Lines, which benefited from its ownership of an oil refinery near Philadelphia. Most other US airlines, burned by fuel hedges in years past, largely refrain from hedging today. <br/>

Staff shortages, airport chaos and higher fuel costs have caused earnings at US airlines like JetBlue Airways to land below analysts' expectations while hotel chains including Marriott International are reporting double-digit profit growth. Despite cutbacks in other categories due to recession worries, consumers eager to travel after the pandemic continue to book flights and hotels. Hotels have been able to turn this demand into increased profitability far more effectively than airlines. David Tarsh, spokesperson for travel data analytics company Forward Keys, said the problems faced by airlines and airports are harder to resolve than those in the lodging industry. "In the case of labor in hospitality, your shortage is probably more with less-skilled workers than in the case of the aviation industry," he said. "If you're short of cabin crew and you're short of security people in the airport, you can't just increase wages and suddenly fill these roles. People also need to be trained." US carriers are struggling to offset higher costs such as fuel even as booming travel demand has given them strong pricing power. JetBlue Tuesday reported a quarterly adjusted loss of 47 cents per share compared to analysts’ predictions of an 11-cent loss. United, American Airlines and Delta last month reported quarterly profits below analysts' expectations. Meanwhile, hotel bookings are surging. <br/>

Tens of thousands of flyers had their travel plans upended Friday after airlines canceled about 1,400 U.S. flights as thunderstorms hit the East Coast. Another 6,300 flights had been delayed by early evening, according to tracking service FlightAware. It was the second straight day of major disruptions and the worst day for cancellations since mid-June. The three major airports in the New York City area and Reagan National Airport outside Washington, D.C., recorded the most cancellations. American Airlines scrubbed about 250 flights, or 7% of its schedule. Republic Airways, which operates smaller planes for American Eagle, Delta Connection and United Express, canceled a similar number, about 25% of its flights. Thunderstorms were stopping or delaying early-evening flights in New York, Boston, the Washington, D.C., area, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Denver, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. About 1,200 US flights were canceled Thursday, 4.6% of all those scheduled. Travelers have been hit with widespread cancellations and delays this summer. Travel bounced back faster than expected — to about 88% of pre-pandemic levels in July — and airlines weren’t able to increase staffing fast enough. They have been cutting back on schedules in an attempt to make remaining flights more reliable.<br/>

Canada’s busiest airport is seeing less luggage being held-up and fewer arriving passengers being held on planes, but continues to wrestle with delayed flights, an executive said Friday. Toronto’s Pearson International Airport recorded 44% of flights as being on time last week, compared with 35% of flights on average being on time during the four preceding weeks, according to a press release. Pearson had among the most flight delays in the world, according to FlightAware data. Deborah Flint, CE of the Greater Toronto Airport Authority acknowledged that hitting the 40s is not a number that the airport would strive for. “But it is certainly better than some of the 25% or sub 20% that we’ve been seeing particularly in the early part of summer,” Flint told reporters. “Certainly I look forward to the days when we’re back above 50 and well into the 70s and 80%,” she said of flights completed without delays. Airport managers particularly in Europe and Canada have been struggling to quickly recruit and process new hires, even as the rebound in air travel from a pandemic-induced slump leads to canceled flights and hours-long lines.<br/>

Continuing Russian government violation of civil aviation safety procedures threatens the broader credibility of ICAO, the European Commission has warned. Russia is an ICAO Council member but the Commission states that it is “actively working against” principles laid down to ensure air transport safety. Such actions put ICAO’s overall credibility “at risk”, it adds. ICAO is set to bring the issue of Russia’s behaviour to its 41st Assembly which is scheduled to begin in late September. The ICAO Council, through a majority decision at its session in June, highlighted concerns over the airworthiness of Russian-operated leased aircraft which have been dual-registered, as well as the validity of radio station licences and certificates of airworthiness issued to them. It pointed out that all ICAO members had pledged a commitment to uphold the aims of the Chicago Convention. As such, the Council called on Russia to “immediately cease” its “infractions” of the Convention, with a view to preserving civil aviation safety, and “urgently remedy” violations. The EC has welcomed ICAO’s stance and says the “deliberate” violation of safety requirements is simply a bid by the Russian government to “circumvent” sanctions imposed by the European Union in the wake of the Ukrainian conflict. <br/>

China has shortened the suspension time for inbound international flights on routes found to have COVID-19 cases starting on Aug. 7. The country's aviation regulator said in a statement on Sunday that flights on a route with an identified coronavirus case will be suspended for one week if 4% of passengers test positive, and two weeks if 8% of passengers test positive. Previously, the aviation regulator's policy was that if five passengers tested positive, the airline's flights for that route would be suspended for two weeks. The suspension will last for four weeks if 10 or more passengers test positive.<br/>

Hong Kong is reducing the amount of time travelers will need to serve hotel quarantine, from seven days down to three starting Friday. “The seven-day quarantine hotel arrangement will be changed to three days in a quarantine hotel, plus four days of home medical surveillance,” CE John Lee said Monday. After completing the hotel quarantine, travelers can stay at home or in a hotel for the four days of surveillance. During this period people will be able to leave their place of residence, but cannot enter “places where there is active checking of vaccine passes,” Lee said in Cantonese. That includes bars, pubs, gyms and beauty parlors. People are also not allowed to visit nursing homes, schools and specified medical premises during the surveillance period. “They cannot participate in any activities where masks are to be taken off,” Lee added. If they test negative on a rapid antigen test, they can take public transportation, go to work and enter shopping malls, he said. “We have to strike a balance between risk level as well as our economic activity. Where risks could be controlled, we want to preserve maximum movement of people and to maintain Hong Kong’s competitiveness,” Lee said.<br/>

Chile's Easter Island received its first group of tourists on Thursday after closing its borders for more than two years due to the coronavirus pandemic. Easter Island, over 2,000 miles (3,219 km) from the coast of Chile, has over a thousand stone statues -- giant heads that were carved centuries ago by the island's inhabitants -- which have brought it fame and UNESCO World Heritage Site status. "(Easter Island) is the biggest open air museum in the world," said Pedro Edmunds, the mayor of Easter Island, adding that it was time to open the island after it shut its borders 868 days ago. "We've learned what the pandemic is about and know how to take care of ourselves," Edmunds said, adding that the focus was on keeping guests safe. Visitors must be fully vaccinated and present a negative PCR test taken no more than 24 hours before boarding a domestic flight to the island. Tourists aboard international flights to the island must take an antigen test once they arrive. LATAM airlines said it reopened the route from Santiago to Easter Island with flights on Thursdays and Saturdays and hopes to add more. "LATAM will gradually increase frequency as health measures allow," said Constanza Pizarro, LATAM's communications manager. "We're coordinating with authorities."<br/>