The world’s airlines are taking a cautious approach to China’s reopening, reluctant to immediately change up schedules and divert planes from other routes despite the internal pent-up demand for international travel. Scheduled flights into China during January, February and March are up no more than 2.9% this week compared to last week, according to aviation data provider Cirium. That’s fewer than 100 more flights each month. Planned inbound services for the remainder of the year are little changed — a sign China’s relaxation of quarantine restrictions from Jan. 8 are yet to convince airlines to make significant changes to their timetables. “I don’t think airlines will shift capacity from what they’re doing now in China,” Subhas Menon, director general of the Association for Asia Pacific Airlines, said. Most will rather wait to assess the situation, with Hong Kong, which also recently did away with many Covid restrictions, being a useful testbed, he said. Carriers’ lukewarm reaction to news China will from early next year no longer subject inbound travelers to quarantine doesn’t chime with the intense desire for overseas travel from people living in Asia’s biggest economy, most of whom have all but been locked in for the past three years. Prior to the pandemic, China had a massive outbound travel market. Mainland residents reacted swiftly to Monday’s news with bookings for outbound flights surging by 254% on Tuesday morning versus the same period the day prior, Trip.com Group Ltd. data show. The top five destinations were Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan and Thailand. Flight bookings to Singapore jumped 600%, while bookings to the remaining four destinations soared around 400%. Airlines in those countries however weren’t rushing to add capacity.<br/>
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As travel springs back and even China dismantles the last remaining COVID-19 curbs, one stark truth is beginning to emerge — the world is running desperately short of planes. With carriers from United Airlines Holdings to Air India placing, or looking to place, jet orders that number in the hundreds, Boeing and Airbus are crowing variously about blockbuster deals. But supply chain constraints mean those planes won’t be delivered until possibly years down the track — Jefferies estimates there’s an order backlog of 12,720 aircraft currently. All that means the sky-high airfares that people have complained bitterly about over the past few months are here to stay, and things could get worse before they get better. “People got used to lower fares during the pandemic and China’s reopening will make it worse,” Ajay Awtaney, the founder of frequent flier website LiveFromALounge.com, said. “It’s not just a shortage of planes but also other factors like oil prices.” While one cashed-up airline in a particular jurisdiction may have the financial wherewithal to bring prices down, that would likely cause other carriers to stumble, “leading to even higher fares in the long run,” Awtaney said. Boeing and Airbus, the plane-making giants that largely enjoy a duopoly supplying passenger jets, are sold out for their most popular single-aisle models through until at least 2029. Compounding the demand from airlines as people once again take to the skies with a vengeance and carriers look to refresh aging fleets are supply chain challenges — everything from getting the necessary components to labor shortages.<br/>
The US announced new COVID-19 testing requirements Wednesday for all travellers from China, joining other nations that have imposed restrictions because of a surge of infections. Beginning Jan. 5, all travellers to the US from China will be required to take a COVID-19 test no more than two days before travel and provide a negative test before boarding their flight. The testing applies to anyone two years and older. Canada has not imposed any new testing requirements for people coming from China. Ellen Kennedy, a spokesperson for Transport Minister Omar Alghabra, said Canada is monitoring COVID-19 case numbers and following the advice of public health officials. "As of now, travellers are not required to provide a COVID-19 test upon arrival in Canada, however we continue to monitor the situation and keep Canadians safe," Kennedy said. In a statement explaining the testing, the US CDC cited the surge in infections and what it said was a lack of adequate and transparent information from China, including genomic sequencing on the viral strains circulating in the country. "These data are critical to monitor the case surge effectively and decrease the chance for entry of a novel variant of concern," the CDC said. Some scientists are worried the COVID-19 surge in China could unleash a new coronavirus variant on the world that may or may not be similar to the ones circulating now. That's because every infection is another chance for the virus to mutate. "What we want to avoid is having a variant enter into the U.S. and spread like we saw with delta or omicron," said Matthew Binnicker, director of clinical virology at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. But the CDC's action may be less about stopping a new variant from crossing US borders and more about increasing pressure on China to share more information, said Dr. David Dowdy, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, adding he hopes the restrictions "aren't kept in place longer than they need to be."<br/>
Some Asia-Pacific countries will require inbound Chinese passengers to test negative for Covid-19, while others are taking a wait-and-see approach. Countries such as Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan will all impose a requirement for arriving passengers with a recent travel history to China, while India is requiring testing for passengers from several countries. Australia and Singapore, historically major destinations for Chinese travellers, are taking a wait-and-see approach. From 5 January, the USA will also require a negative Covid-19 test or proof of recovery from international travellers from China. The scramble to impose – or not impose – testing requirements comes following China’s abrupt abandonment of leader Xi Jinping’s signature ‘zero-Covid’ policy, and Beijing’s subsequent decision to lift all international travel restrictions from 8 January. Governments have expressed concern about new variants emerging as the Omicron variant of Covid-19 tears through China’s population, which is poorly vaccinated and lacks natural immunity to the disease. There is also great scepticism about Chinese Covid-19 statistics, which greatly downplay the country’s health situation. According to Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, passengers with travel history to China within the last seven days will need to take a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test upon arrival. Taiwan has taken a particularly tough line, imposing PCR tests as well as seven days of self-quarantine. Taiwan’s suspension of Chinese tourism remains in place. India has gone even further, imposing testing requirements on passengers from China, as well as on arrivals from Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Thailand. Local media reports indicate that Singapore will not impose special tests for arriving Chinese passengers. Australia is also staying away from imposing tests for Chinese passengers. <br/>
China will remove certain COVID-19 restrictions on international passenger flights from Jan. 8, 2023, to prudently resume the operation of the flights, the Civil Aviation Administration of China said on Wednesday. From Jan. 8, domestic and foreign airlines will operate scheduled passenger flights in accordance with bilateral transport agreements, with limits on numbers of flights no longer applicable, per a circular released by the administration. The country will no longer identify high-risk inbound flights, nor will it limit the passenger load factor for inbound flights at 75%. China will gradually resume accepting applications for international passenger charter flights from domestic and foreign airlines, and fully restore pre-pandemic processes and requirements in the summer and autumn of 2023. Closed management, nucleic acid testing and quarantine measures for inbound flight crews and related airport personnel will be removed, and efforts will be made to increase publicity, strengthen guidance and supervise the use of face masks by passengers.<br/>
Chinese hospitals and funeral homes were under intense pressure on Wednesday as a surging COVID-19 wave drained resources, while the scale of the outbreak and doubts over official data prompted some countries to enact new travel rules on Chinese visitors. In an abrupt change of policy, China this month began dismantling the world's strictest COVID regime of lockdowns and extensive testing, putting its battered economy on course for a complete re-opening next year. The lifting of restrictions, following widespread protests against them, means COVID is spreading largely unchecked and likely infecting millions of people a day, according to some international health experts. Late on Wednesday, the United States became the fifth country after India, Italy, Japan and Taiwan to say it would require COVID tests for travellers from China. The speed at which China, the last major country in the world moving towards treating the virus as endemic, has scrapped COVID rules has left its fragile health system overwhelmed. China's overall vaccination rate is above 90% but the rate for adults who have had booster shots drops to 57.9%, and to 42.3% for people aged 80 and older, according to government data last week. The country has nine domestically-developed COVID vaccines approved for use, but none has been updated to target the highly infectious Omicron variant. China reported three new COVID-related deaths for Tuesday, up from one for Monday - numbers that are inconsistent with what funeral parlours are reporting, as well as with the experience of much less populous countries after they re-opened. China has said it only counts deaths of COVID patients caused by pneumonia and respiratory failure as COVID-related.<br/>
China will gradually resume accepting applications for international passenger charter flights from Chinese and foreign airlines, China’s civil aviation authority said on Wednesday. China will also fully restore pre-pandemic flight procedures and requirements by the summer and autumn season in 2023, it added.<br/>
Hong Kong’s government has asked Japan to withdraw a COVID-19 restriction that requires passenger flights from the financial hub to land at only four designated Japanese airports, saying the decision will impact around 60,000 passengers. Japan, which is a top travel destination for Hong Kong people, said it would limit flights from Hong Kong, Macau and mainland China to Tokyo’s two airports, plus Osaka and Nagoya from Friday. The decision comes during a peak travel season and ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday which begins Jan. 22. “It is understood that around 250 outbound flights of Hong Kong airlines will be affected between December 30, 2022 and the end of January 2023, affecting around 60,000 passengers,” the government said in a statement late on Wednesday. City leader John Lee said the government had indicated to the Japanese government it was disappointed. “We think that Hong Kong people should be allowed to use not just these four airports,” Lee said. Flights of Hong Kong airlines can still carry passengers back to Hong Kong from various airports in Japan, the government said, to “ensure the smooth return of Hong Kong people from Japan and to minimise the impact to Hong Kong travellers caused by the incident.” Hong Kong Airlines and Peach Aviation announced they would cancel some flight routes because of the rules. The United States, India, Italy and Taiwan now require mandatory COVID-19 tests on travellers from China after Beijing’s decision to lift stringent zero-COVID policies.<br/>
Canada, Sweden, Ukraine and the United Kingdom have formally triggered a process to hold Iran legally accountable for shooting down Flight PS752, nearly three years after 176 people died on board the downed passenger plane. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) shot down the Ukraine International Airlines flight shortly after takeoff in Tehran on Jan. 8, 2020. Two surface-to-air missiles hit the plane, killing all on board — including 55 Canadian citizens, 30 permanent residents and others with ties to Canada. On Wednesday, the International Coordination and Response Group, which was formed to coordinate efforts to seek accountability and reparations over the plane's downing, announced that ministers from Canada, Sweden, Ukraine and the U.K. had requested Iran's regime submit to binding arbitration under an international dispute resolution process governed by the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Civil Aviation. The convention requires parties to prohibit, prevent and punish certain offences involving aircraft, including the unlawful and intentional destruction of an aircraft in service. Canada, Sweden, Ukraine, the UK and Iran are all parties to the convention, which was signed in Montreal in 1971. If the countries can't agree to terms for arbitration within six months, the case can be taken to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Previous efforts to get Iran to participate in negotiations over reparations for Flight PS752 have failed.<br/>
Border Force staff will launch a second round of strikes at UK airports on Wednesday, with the trade union organising the industrial action claiming it would cause disruption. The PCS union, which represents Border Force staff, highlighted how the government was being forced to bring in military personnel and other civil servants to cover for striking workers at six airports: Heathrow and Gatwick in London, plus Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff and Glasgow. These arrangements helped avoid long queues at passport control for passengers flying into the airports during the industrial action by officials that began on December 23 and lasted for four days. The UK is experiencing a wave of strikes in the public and private sectors as workers respond to the cost of living crisis by demanding higher pay. The PCS has strongly criticised the government’s 2% pay rise for civil servants including Border Force staff this year, and is demanding 10%. The second round of strikes by officials starting on Wednesday will also run for four days, and the PCS said the full extent of the disruption was hard to predict, partly because military personnel were not authorised to detain suspected criminals at passport control. “We don’t know how much disruption will be caused because the military standing in for our Border Force officers are not allowed to stop people,” it added. The Home Office said its robust contingency plans at the UK border were designed to prioritise security and safety. “Non-striking Border Force staff, with the full range of appropriate powers, are continuing to complete their vital roles and we have spread our resources flexibly to ensure there is sufficient cover to fulfil our key priorities,” it added.<br/>
Russian airlines’ passenger traffic was down 15.7% in November year-on-year to 6.94m passengers, data from the Rosstat federal statistics service showed on Wednesday, as the industry feels the effects of Western sanctions. Western countries banned Russian airlines from using their airspace in response to Moscow sending its armed forces into Ukraine in February, cutting the airlines off from lucrative routes to Europe and the United States. Traffic for the first 11 months of the year was down 14.4% to 88m passengers, Rosstat said.<br/>
A glitch in OR Tambo International Airport’s fuel-supply system resulted in major flight delays at South Africa’s busiest airport. The airport in Johannesburg has been “experiencing challenges with fuel supply from its fuel storage facility to the main hydrant system,” Airports Company South Africa said in a post on Twitter on Wednesday. “Technicians are onsite and have resolved the issue.” Both international and local flights were delayed because of the technical fault, according to the statement. The airport handles 21m passengers a year and facilitates 53 aircraft movements every hour, according to data on the company’s website.<br/>
The word summing up aviation in Singapore in 2022 is, without a doubt, recovery, with Changi Airport finishing the year top of the Asia-Pacific. As at mid-December, its weekly passenger numbers had reached 75 per cent of those pre-Covid-19, a day-and-night comparison with March’s 18 per cent when borders here and in the region had yet to open. All four of Changi Airport’s terminals are now also reopened and processing steady streams of passengers. The high-profile reopening of Terminal 4 in September and the southern wing of Terminal 2 in October has returned the airport’s handling capacity to 70m people a year, in time for the year-end holidays. Adding to the positive indicators is Changi’s connectivity, now at 82% of pre-pandemic levels. As at December, 95 airlines were scheduling flights from Changi Airport to 140 cities, including four new places that passengers three years ago could not book flights to – Noumea in New Caledonia, Jeju in South Korea, Pune in India and Sibu in Malaysia. Amid a tentative recovery, eight new airlines have also been added to the airport’s roster, including Aircalin, Cambodia Airways and Thai Vietjet Air. These various indices of passenger numbers, operating capacity and connectivity all point towards Changi Airport’s restoration of its position as Asia’s airhub, exceeding the 50 per cent year-end passenger traffic that at one point seemed a stretch.<br/>