general

Countries should consider recommending that passengers wear masks on long-haul flights, given the rapid spread of the latest Omicron subvariant of COVID-19 in the United States, World Health Organization (WHO) officials said on Tuesday. In Europe, the XBB.1.5 subvariant was detected in small but growing numbers, WHO and Europe officials said at a press briefing. Passengers should be advised to wear masks in high-risk settings such as long-haul flights, said the WHO's senior emergency officer for Europe, Catherine Smallwood, adding: "this should be a recommendation issued to passengers arriving from anywhere where there is widespread COVID-19 transmission". XBB.1.5 - the most transmissible Omicron subvariant detected so far - accounted for 27.6% of COVID-19 cases in the United States for the week ended Jan. 7, health officials have said. It was unclear if XBB.1.5 would cause its own wave of global infections. Current vaccines continue to protect against severe symptoms, hospitalisation and death, experts say. "Countries need to look at the evidence base for pre-departure testing" and if action is considered, "travel measures should be implemented in a non-discriminatory manner," Smallwood said.<br/>

The FAA Tuesday proposed requiring charter, commuter, air tour operators, and aircraft manufacturers to implement a key safety tool aimed at reducing accidents. The US regulator wants to extend a mandate to adopt so-called Safety Management Systems (SMS), which are a set of policies and procedures to proactively identify and address potential operational hazards early on. US airlines have been required to have SMS since 2018 and some aerospace companies already voluntarily have SMS programs like Boeing, GE , and Raytheon-subsidiary Pratt & Whitney. Congress in 2020 directed the FAA to mandate SMS for aircraft manufacturers as part of a wide-ranging certification reform bill following two fatal Boeing 737 MAX crashes but the FAA's proposed rule goes beyond the requirements from lawmakers. SMS systems require four key components - safety policy, safety risk management, safety assurance, and safety promotion. The National Transportation Safety Board has made one of its top recommendations urging the FAA to require and verify the SMS systems in all revenue passenger-carrying aviation operations. The NTSB said "too many operators either do not have one in place or have an ineffective one.​.. It’s time more got on board. The risk to the flying public is too great not to." The NTSB has cited SMS systems in a number of incidents including the 2020 helicopter crash that killed NBA star Kobe Bryant, his daughter and seven others. The board cited the operator's incomplete implementation of its safety management system" and the benefits of a mandatory SMS in its report.<br/>

Mexico’s largest airport operators will likely see a boost in 2023, propelled by tourist stays at resorts and an increase in nearshoring, or companies moving operations closer to home, analysts said on Tuesday. The country’s top airport operators - Asur, GAP and OMA - had a “historic” year in 2022, with record passenger growth of more than 20% in December, compared to the same month in 2019. “From our perspective, that shows a complete recovery of the sector” following a crash in travel demand from the coronavirus pandemic, analysts at Mexico’s Monex said. Operators Asur and GAP were boosted by tourism out of Cancun and Tijuana, Monex said, while OMA saw business trips climb. All three are expected to post strong earnings in 2023, Monex said. Asur’s revenues are expected to grow 38.4% in 2023, while GAP’s are projected to climb 37.6% and OMA’s 34.6%, Monex said. <br/>

Spanish airport traffic reached 88.5% of pre-pandemic levels last year, aiport operator Aena said on Tuesday, a level which was slightly above its most recent forecast. After a slow start to the year with some pandemic-related restrictions still in place, the number of passengers gradually recovered and was almost back to normal by December, at 98.1% of the same month in 2019, Aena said. The company had said in November it expected passenger traffic at its terminals to reach 87% of pre-pandemic levels in 2022 and to surpass them by 2024. That would be a year earlier than the 2025 pan-European recovery forecast last month by ACI Europe, the body representing European airports. A total of 243m passengers transited through Spanish airports in 2022. The busiest airport was Madrid’s Adolfo Suarez Barajas, though the biggest recoveries were seen at airports in the Canary and Balearic Islands. In terms of cargo, more than one million tonnes were transported throughout the Aena network in 2022, 6.5% less than in 2019.<br/>

A small amount of uranium was detected on Dec. 29 in a package that arrived in the UK at London's Heathrow Airport after a routine screening, Sky news reported on Tuesday. The amount of material was extremely small and has been assessed by experts as posing no threat to the public, the report said, citing Commander Richard Smith, head of London police's Counter Terrorism Command. Counter Terrorism Policing could not be immediately reached for comment. Heathrow Airport did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Uranium can be used for civilian power generation and scientific purposes and is a key ingredient in nuclear weapons. Certain isotopes emit radiation that can be harmful to humans, and the metal itself is toxic if ingested or inhaled. It does not appear to be linked to any direct threat, although the investigation remains ongoing, Sky news quoted him as saying.<br/>

China is reopening its borders that have been largely shut for the last three years, scrapping quarantine requirements for inbound travelers and removing restrictions on international flights. But how quickly will cross-border travel return to pre-COVID levels? The answer: It's complicated. In a very optimistic scenario, international flights to and from China will return to frequencies not seen since 2019 by this northern hemisphere summer at the earliest, several civil aviation experts told Caixin. But this prediction comes with some caveats, including how quickly airports can get security staff and protocols back up to full capacity and airlines can bring pilots and cabin crew back up to speed. Not to mention how the rampant COVID outbreak nationwide will temper the recovery in demand. The doors to international travel for people in China, which was the world's largest source of outbound travelers -- and the biggest spenders -- prior to the pandemic, swung open again on Jan. 8, when it restarted issuing passports to citizens and stopped requiring inbound travelers to undergo quarantine. The restrictions on international flights under the "five-one" policy were also removed on that date. The policy, in effect since March 2020, allowed Chinese mainland carriers to operate one flight per week on one route to any country and foreign airlines one flight a week to China. However, from Sunday, the number of imported cases infected with new strains is expected to accelerate, and experts say that the possibility of a new domestic outbreak cannot be ruled out.<br/>

Chinese state media defended on Wednesday the retaliatory measures against South Korea and Japan over their COVID-19 travel curbs as "reasonable", while Chinese tourists decried Seoul's "insulting" treatment on social media. China re-opened its borders on Sunday after three years of isolation under the world's strictest regime of COVID restrictions, which Beijing abruptly began dismantling in early December after historic protests With the virus spreading unchecked among China's 1.4b people after the policy U-turn, some foreign governments have raised concerns about the scale and impact of the outbreak, with the World Health Organization saying deaths are underreported. In a first, China's health authorities - which have been reporting five or fewer deaths a day over the past month, numbers that are inconsistent with the long queues seen at funeral homes - did not report COVID fatalities data on Tuesday. China's Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the country's National Health Commission did not immediately respond to requests for comment. More than a dozen countries, including the United States, Australia and some European Union members, imposed at the start of the year requirements for pre-departure negative test results from visitors from China. Among them, South Korea and Japan have also limited flights and require tests on arrival, with passengers showing up as positive being sent to quarantine.<br/>

Chinese airlines are ramping up flights to Australia as Covid restrictions ease, boosting the prospects for a rapid rebound in travel between the two nations. Airports said the market was dynamic with carriers large and small restarting routes dormant during the pandemic years, with more flights likely to be added as demand picks up. Lengthy quarantine requirements for travellers to China since 2020 saw passenger flights largely stopped between Australian cities and mainland China. Melbourne, for instance, went from about 70 flights a week to just one while routes between Brisbane and China (excluding Hong Kong) ceased. Tourism Australia said China was Australia’s biggest source of visitors in pre-Covid times, with 1.4 million people spending $12.4bn a year. For Sydney airport, three airlines – China Southern, China Eastern and Xiamen Air – maintained one or two weekly passenger flights between Sydney and the mainland during the Covid period. Freight flights continued at the rate of about three a day. With China now ditching most Covid-linked controls, those three carriers have begun flying as many as three daily flights, a Sydney airport spokesperson said.<br/>

The private jet use that surged in the coronavirus pandemic is showing no signs of abating, even as passengers return by the millions to commercial airlines and inflation raises the cost of a charter. Global flights on business aircraft rose by 10% in 2022 from the previous year and were 14% higher than before the pandemic in 2019, according to aviation data company WingX. Richard Koe, WingX’s chief executive, said demand for private jets had been “record-breaking” for the past two years. Bookings for private flights began to accelerate in 2020 as the wealthy and business travellers sought to avoid crowds and Covid-19 restrictions in place at airlines. Pilot shortages and cutbacks to services at smaller airports have also attracted private flyers. US private jet companies continued to report strong bookings last year. Flexjet said last month’s holiday season was the busiest in its history. EvoJets said bookings for the holidays began two months earlier than average, as flyers rushed to secure limited aircraft. “We have individual and corporate members that have fully transitioned to flying private due to reduced or limited commercial service,” said Kenny Dichter, chief executive of private jet charter Wheels Up. The company’s revenue was up 39% year on year, said Dichter. Demand remains strong despite rising costs and concerns about private planes’ far higher rates of carbon emissions per passenger than commercial aircraft or trains.<br/>

Boeing delivered 480 airplanes and won 774 net new orders after allowing for cancellations in 2022 after a strong December performance, the US planemaker said Tuesday. Last month, Boeing delivered 69 airplanes, including 53 737 MAX planes and 15 widebody airplanes and booked 203 new orders net of cancellations. Airbus had delivered 563 airplanes by the end of November, meaning the European group remains the world’s largest planemaker for the fourth year running. Boeing in all of 2021 delivered 340 planes and reported 479 net new orders. Boeing said its official backlog as of Dec. 31 rose to 4,578 airplanes including 3,628 737 MAX airplanes. About 80% of its deliveries in 2022 were for 737s. Boeing’s 2022 deliveries included 31 787 Dreamliners, including 10 handed over in December. The FAA in August approved the first 787 for delivery since 2021. Boeing halted deliveries in May 2021 after the FAA raised concerns about its proposed inspection method. Last month, President Joe Biden signed legislation that lifted a Dec. 27 deadline imposing a new safety standard for modern cockpit alerts for the MAX 7 and MAX 10 - two new versions of the US planemaker’s best-selling 737 MAX. Without action by Congress, the two new MAX variants would need modern cockpit alerting systems to be certified by the FAA, which Boeing had warned could jeopardize the futures of the airplanes. Boeing has more than 1,000 orders for the two MAX variants.<br/>

Airbus delivered 661 commercial aircraft last year, falling nearly 40 short of a conservatively-revised target as the airframer grappled with supply-chain issues. The deliveries comprised 60 A350s – after accounting for a pair whose delivery to Russian carrier Aeroflot was cancelled – plus 32 A330s, 516 A320-family jets and 53 A220s. Airbus originally aimed to deliver 720 aircraft at the beginning of last year – a modest figure given that it had already demonstrated the ability, pre-pandemic, to reach more than 800 deliveries. But it was forced to revise this down to 700 in July 2022 as the airframer faced with ramp-up and supply-chain snags. Airbus subsequently acknowledged in December that it was likely to fall short of this lower target, despite having successfully coped with heavy back-loading in previous years which often left it with a disproportionate number of final-quarter deliveries. The airframer handed over 98 aircraft in December. The airframer has been striving to increase output on its A320neo-family line, with the intention of reaching a monthly rate of 65 aircraft in early 2024 and 75 in 2025. CE Guillaume Faury acknowledges that the deliveries figure is “obviously less than we were targeting”, but highlights the “complexity of the operating environment”. Airbus gross orders for last year reached four figures, standing at 1,078 aircraft, although cancellations left it with a net total of 820 – including an overall negative net figure for its widebody lines.<br/>

Britain’s attempt to get into the space launch business on Monday night came up short when a 70-foot rocket stuffed with satellites failed to reach orbit, Virgin Orbit, the company providing the launch service, said. An hour after takeoff from an airstrip in Cornwall, in southwest England, a modified Boeing 747 released the rocket, which fired away as planned. It was supposed to take nine satellites up into low orbital positions 300 or more miles above the Earth. But Virgin Orbit said in a statement on Tuesday that the system had experienced an “anomaly” while the rocket’s second-stage engine was being fired. It had been traveling at more than 11,000 miles per hour when the mission ended prematurely. Dan Hart, the CE of Virgin Orbit, said in the statement that “the first-time nature” of the mission had added layers of complexities, and that a “technical failure” appeared to have occurred. “We will work tirelessly to understand the nature of the failure, make corrective actions and return to orbit as soon as we have completed a full investigation and mission assurance process,” he said. People in Britain’s space industry said the goal — launching satellites from British soil for the first time — would have huge importance even though Virgin Orbit, which was founded by the British entrepreneur Richard Branson, is a California company. The ability to put satellites in space “will complete the picture for the UK,” said Doug Liddle, the CE of In-Space Missions, a British satellite maker. Liddle spoke on Monday afternoon from a highway service area on his way to Cornwall, where two surveillance satellites made by his company, with funding from agencies of the British and US militaries, would be loaded onto the Virgin Orbit rocket.<br/>