Mexico’s newest airport has the capacity and infrastructure to become the capital’s main international hub, according to the head of one of the country’s largest carriers. Despite offering just a handful of flights each day, Felipe Angeles International Airport is “undoubtedly” capable of supplanting Mexico City’s main airport known as Benito Juarez in the coming years, Grupo Viva Aerobus SAB CEO Juan Carlos Zuazua said in an interview. “They built a good airport. It has infinitely larger capacity -- the terminal is one kilometer long,” he said. “It’s just a matter of how users are going to become familiarized with this airport. It’s not going to happen overnight, it takes time.” Since opening in March to relieve traffic at the main hub, Felipe Angeles hasn’t won many supporters. Critics say the airport’s location -- about 50 kilometers north of the city’s center -- is far from ideal and that the converted military base is not a good place for a commercial airport, given the area’s unique geography. Others point to the unfinished roads surrounding the airport, saying the project was rushed along on a shoestring budget. The airport was the first of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s large infrastructure projects to be completed, and if it’s going to overtake Benito Juarez, Felipe Angeles has a long way to go. The new airport handled fewer than 1,200 flights from its March inauguration until June, the latest available data show. By comparison, Benito Juarez handles more than 900 operations per day, on average. <br/>
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Finland will slash the number of visas issued to Russians from Sept. 1, the Finnish foreign ministry said in a statement on Tuesday, amid a rush of Russian tourists bound for Europe. Finnish land border crossings have remained among the few entry points into Europe for Russians after a string of Western countries closed their airspace to Russian planes in response to Russia's attack on Ukraine. The Finnish government agreed on Tuesday to curtail their numbers, after Russian tourists begun using Finland's Helsinki-Vantaa airport as a gateway to European holiday destinations following Russia's lifting of pandemic-related border restrictions a month ago. "And this maybe is not very appropriate if we, for example, think of the airspace restrictions put in place for Russia," Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto told reporters after government talks. Finland would cut daily visa application appointments in Russia from 1,000 to 500 per day, with just 100 allocated to tourists, the ministry said. The number of visas granted was already much lower than before the pandemic and the war. In July, Finland granted just 16,000 visas to Russians, compared with 92,100 during the same month in 2019, foreign ministry statistics showed.<br/>
Estonia this week will close its border to more than 50,000 Russians with previously issued visas, the first country in the European Union to do so, making it harder for ordinary Russians to enter EU. Like many of the hundreds of Russians crossing the border each day at the Estonian town Narva, Anna is worried she will not be able to keep coming to Estonia, where she visits the graves of relatives. "We hope that countries will come up with some solution. Maybe they can agree on something. I keep myself away from politics but since my relatives are buried here I would like to keep coming," she said. "But what can you do. For us, regular people we can't solve this. This has to be negotiated and I hope our countries at some point will reach agreement and find compromise". The ban comes just four days after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy issued a fresh call for EU states to ban visas for Russian nationals to keep the bloc from becoming a "supermarket" open to anyone with the means to enter. Zelenskiy said his proposal did not apply to Russians who needed help for risking their freedom or their lives by resisting Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin's policies. With European airspace shut to Russians, many have been traveling through bordering Baltic countries and Finland in order to fly to other parts of Europe on Schengen visas. The visas allow 90 days of travel within the 26-country, border-free Schengen Area.<br/>
Around 150 airport workers from Turkey will be deployed at German airports, according to an industry association, far fewer than initially expected despite staffing shortages that had caused travel chaos during the busy summer holiday season. In late June, the German government announced plans to fast-track work permits and visas for several thousand foreign airport workers, mainly from Turkey, to help to ease the summer travel chaos that has frustrated holidaymakers. However, only Munich and Nuremberg airports ended up hiring workers from Turkey, the head of the aviation ground services employers’ association ABL, Thomas Richter, told Reuters. They will help with baggage handling under temporary contracts that will run through early November. Industry associations had cited a shortage of around 2,000 workers at Germany’s airports. But foreign workers have to undergo the same security checks as domestic airport workers before being allowed to work, which makes the hiring process lengthy. Richter said that most airports did not end up hiring foreign workers because the process of bringing them to Germany would take too long and the summer holidays are nearly over already. Frankfurt airport operator Fraport found that most of the workers available did not have qualifications it requires from airport staff, which include speaking German, Richter said.<br/>
A fuel tax should be imposed on domestic flights to fund a freeze in train fares, a pressure group has said. Campaign for Better Transport said taxing jet fuel at the same rate as petrol and diesel for motorists would help cut carbon emissions from aviation and raise GBP1.53b per year. That money would be enough to scrap the next annual increase in the cost of rail travel, the group said. It’s absurd that the Government chooses to place no tax on aviation fuel, yet heavily taxes petrol and diesel for drivers Campaign for Better Transport listed more than 40 countries that tax kerosene on domestic flights, such as Australia, Canada, India, Japan, Norway, South Africa, Switzerland and the US. The group’s chief executive Paul Tuohy said: “It’s absurd that the Government chooses to place no tax on aviation fuel, yet heavily taxes petrol and diesel for drivers. “Taxing kerosene would help reduce domestic flights and save carbon, and the money raised could pay for a rail fare freeze next year to make the trains cheaper and encourage more people to use them.” Increases in regulated train fares such as season tickets are traditionally implemented on the first working day of the year, based on the previous July’s retail price index (RPI) measure of inflation, which will be announced on Wednesday. Road fuel is taxed at a rate of nearly 53p per litre, after a 5p per litre cut was implemented in March. Airlines pay no tax on fuel in the UK, but must pay air passenger duty (APD). APD is a per passenger charge based on the class of the cabin they travel in and the distance of the flight. For domestic flights in standard class, the fee is GBP13 each way. A spokesman for trade body Airlines UK, which represents carriers, said: “Domestic air travel accounts for only 4% of UK emissions from aviation, but is critical for connecting communities and regions across the UK, in particular for journeys across water and where rail connections are either non-existent or have prohibitively long journey times. “The Government has set a target of 2040 for domestic aviation to be net zero and has challenged the sector to have zero emission routes connecting different parts of the UK by 2030. “Technology enhancements rather than constraining demand is rightly seen as the best way to reduce aviation emissions.”<br/>
The travel industry is in chaos right now as the effects of the pandemic continue to be felt. Most long-haul flights are operating short of crew, while a shortage of airport workers and cleaners is leading to cancelled flights, hours-long check-in queues and delays in getting passengers and crew off the plane. The disruption is because of the thousands of aviation jobs that were lost during the Covid pandemic, as many businesses struggled to recruit enough new staff in time to deal with the sudden demand in travel once Covid rules were eased. Pilots, along with the rest of the sector, report exhaustion and frustration at the increased demand put on them. Some have been forced to leave the industry as their company let them go during the pandemic, while others decided to leave the profession in favour of a new career. Martin Chalk is the general secretary of British Airline Pilots' Association (BALPA). Chalk became a British Airways captain in 1988, but retired in March 2020 and took voluntary redundancy, just before the worst of the pandemic hit the aviation industry. “I knew there was a strong possibility of some compulsory redundancies [due to the pandemic],” he says. “And so if I didn't retire, then somebody else further down the list would have to be forced out at another point in their lives where they were probably much less capable of dealing with it financially.” He was soon asked to help out with BALPA and ran for and won the position of general secretary. He explains that nowadays most pilots train in two ways - either by going to a training school, which is full-time, takes two years and costs upwards of GBP120,000, or by undertaking training themselves, often known as the ‘modular route’ where you learn in stages. The latter allows people to hold down a job while they pursue becoming a pilot, but this still costs around GBB70,000-80,000. Sometimes, airlines would sponsor trainees to undertake the first type of training and pay for all their fees with the caveat they would have to work with them for a certain number of years.<br/>
PAL, Cebu Pacific, and AirAsia Philippines said on Tuesday that they will lower their fuel surcharges next month. The three airlines issued statements following a Civil Aeronautics Board’s (CAB) announcement that it is altering the applicable passenger and cargo fuel surcharge for domestic and international flights to Level 9 from Level 12 in September. The CAB cited the lower average price of jet fuel (P46.73 per liter) between July 10 and Aug. 9, against the P54.73 average between June 10 and July 9. Level 9 on the CAB matrix permits a fuel surcharge per passenger of between P287 and P839 for domestic flights and between P947.39 and P7,044.27 for international flights. “Airlines wishing to impose or collect fuel surcharge (next month) must file their application with this office on or before the effectivity period, with fuel surcharge rates not exceeding (Level 9),” CAB Executive Director Carmelo C. Arcilla said in an advisory issued on Aug. 15. Currently, the fuel surcharge per passenger runs between P389 and P1,137 for domestic flights and P1,284.40 and P9,550.13 for international flights. “We welcome this positive development, and we will carry out the corresponding adjustments in our fuel surcharges,” PAL Spokesperson Cielo C. Villaluna said. “The new fuel surcharge rate will be applicable to tickets that will be purchased in September.” <br/>