Airlines have loudly insisted that it’s safe to fly during the coronavirus pandemic, and US travel is surging before the Thanksgiving holiday despite a nationwide spike in virus cases. Yet top US infectious disease experts say the findings underpinning the carriers’ safety claims aren’t that conclusive. Concerned about the “misinterpretation” of their findings, researchers on a Defense Department study that has been widely cited by the industry added a cautionary revision. A senior expert in travel-health issues declined to participate in an airline trade group’s press conference, citing what he called their “bad math.” “The airline industry got a little ahead of itself trying to say the risk is zero,” said David Freedman, a University of Alabama at Birmingham professor emeritus who balked at appearing with an IATA event that cited his work. US airlines, hit with an unprecedented drop in demand since the virus began spreading widely in March, are enjoying their strongest week since then. Even as health officials warn against travel during the Thanksgiving holiday because of a surge in Covid-19 cases, more than 4 million people traversed airports between Friday and Monday. The risk of being infected with the novel coronavirus on planes -- which have highly effective filters that remove virus from the air and where mask usage is required -- is probably fairly low, scientists say. But the research is far from clear and some recent cases have documented transmission on flights even when passengers wore masks and sat far apart, according to a review of recent cases and interviews with academics and disease specialists. “I definitely can say it’s premature to say that air travel is very safe,” said Qingyan Chen, an engineering professor at Purdue University in Indiana who’s written extensively on disease transmission on planes. Story looks at various studies.<br/>
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More huge losses are looming for the airline industry as carriers brace for the Covid-19 crisis to extend well into 2021. The IATA forecast Tuesday that the sector will lose $157b this year and next due to the pandemic. That's much worse than previous estimates. "This crisis is devastating and unrelenting," IATA DG Alexandre de Juniac said in a statement.<br/>De Juniac said that Covid-19 made 2020 the worst financial year on record "bar none." The industry group expects net losses to total $118.5b, worse than the $84.3b forecast in June. IATA now thinks the airline industry will lose $38.7b in 2021, deeper than its previous $15.8b forecast. "We need to get borders safely reopened without quarantine so that people will fly again," said de Juniac. "With airlines expected to bleed cash at least until the fourth quarter of 2021 there is no time to lose."<br/>
European regulators on Tuesday began the timetable for a return of the Boeing 737 MAX to Europe’s skies early next year after an almost two-year flight ban caused by fatal crashes. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) set out conditions for putting the grounded jets back into service, including new training and updating MCAS software implicated in the crashes that killed a total of 346 people in 2018 and 2019. Tuesday’s publication marks the start of a 28-day comment period, which EASA said would lead to a formal ungrounding from mid-January, once public and industry feedback had been studied. How long it takes for flights to resume in Europe depends on pilot training and the amount of time airlines need to upgrade MCAS software and carry out other actions mandated by EASA. US flights are due to resume on Dec. 29, some six weeks after Boeing’s main regulator, the US FAA, lifted its own ban on Nov. 18.<br/>
The aviation industry might not reach pre-crisis levels until 2025, Airbus’ CEO said on Tuesday. A uniform approach to open borders and testing passengers was overdue in Europe, Guillaume Faury told an online aviation summit. Airlines are on course to lose a total $157b this year and next, their main global body warned earlier on Tuesday, further downgrading its industry outlook in response to a second wave of coronavirus infections and shutdowns afflicting major markets.<br/>
Former IAG chief Willie Walsh has promised a “different style” of leadership when he takes over from Alexandre de Juniac as the director general of IATA in April 2021 – particularly when it comes to working with governments. “My style will be different to what has gone before me,” Walsh says during a speech today to the airline industry body’s AGM, at which his appointment was rubber-stamped. “I am even more unhappy and more critical of how [governments] get things done,” he states, referring to the approach taken by previous heads of IATA. “But more importantly, in many cases, how [governments] have failed to get things done.” Highlighting his “passion for this industry and a passion for IATA”, Walsh adds that “we need now, more than ever, an effective industry body to serve and respond to our interests”. Indeed, he complains that passengers have not been “denied the freedom” to travel by Covid-19. Rather, he believes they have been stopped “by a disjointed response and by the restrictions that have been put in place by certain governments”. Walsh notes, however, that “IATA cannot lead if no one follows”, adding: “We must be relevant and we must add value to [IATA member airlines]. This will only happen if we serve and represent [the industry] with passion, with energy, with determination and with action.”<br/>
Hundreds of flights at one of China’s busiest airports were cancelled on Tuesday as Shanghai raced to bring a local coronavirus outbreak under control. Health officials have tested thousands of staff at Pudong International Airport since a small cluster of Covid-19 cases in the city was linked to several cargo handlers. China has largely brought the pandemic under control through travel restrictions and lockdowns but it is now battling a number of domestic outbreaks in different cities. Shanghai has reported seven local infections linked to the airport this month, with most cases found in the past few days. The outbreak has sparked plans to give high-risk workers at the travel hub an experimental vaccine that China has already been giving state employees, international students and essential workers heading abroad since July. On Tuesday, figures from data services firm VariFlight showed that more than 500 flights out of Pudong airport had been called off – nearly half the day’s scheduled flights. Almost half of the scheduled inbound flights were also cancelled. More than 17,700 people had been swabbed by Monday morning as part of a drive to test airport cargo staff, state news agency Xinhua reported, with those infected including employees at logistics firms FedEx and UPS.<br/>
Airlines are rescheduling or canceling flights to, from and within Greece this week as air traffic controllers join a nationwide public sector strike scheduled for Thursday. The strike is set to disrupt public transport, including ferry services between the islands and the mainland. The civil servants’ union called the strike on a variety of demands, including the increase of coronavirus-related protective measures in workplaces and in schools, mass hirings for the health and public transport sectors, and salary increases for civil servants. Public transport workers are also calling for workers to be allowed to undergo tests for COVID-19 at their companies’ expense. Aegean Airways and Olympic Air announced Tuesday they were canceling all Thursday flights. Another two dozen international and domestic flights were being rescheduled on Wednesday, when air traffic controllers will be holding a six-hour work stoppage.<br/>
The two-week quarantine period for international arrivals to England is to be cut to as little as five days next month, with travellers allowed to leave self-isolation after a negative Covid-19 test. The government said the new “test to release” regime would be in place from 15 December. Airlines said it was “light at the end of the tunnel” for the struggling travel industry, but said most travel would only return when a pre-departure testing regime was in place. Passengers who choose to use the scheme must book a test before travel – and pay for it privately – from a list of government-approved suppliers, which has yet to be published. The cost is likely to be between GBP65 and GBP120. Anyone arriving in England by plane, ferry or train will still need to complete a passenger locator form and self-isolate for five full days before taking a test. The transport secretary, Grant Shapps, said the plan would “ensure that our route out of this pandemic is careful and balanced, allowing us to focus on what we can now do to bolster international travel while keeping the public safe. “Our new testing strategy will allow us to travel more freely, see loved ones and drive international business. By giving people the choice to test on day five, we are also supporting the travel industry as it continues to rebuild out of the pandemic.”<br/>
Norway has further extended the terms of a state-backed loan guarantee scheme it has granted its carriers. While Norway’s government earlier this month rejected Norwegian’s request for more state aid – a move the struggling carrier cited as a factor when two of its Irish units filed for financial protection in Ireland – it has today extended by a year the repayment date for loans taken under its aviation guarantee scheme. The term of the loan guarantees now runs for three years, rather than two. Access to the loan guarantees has also been extended by six months until the end of June 2021. The government had in September extended the scheme until 31 December 2020. Norwegian trade and industry minister Iselin Nybo says that as the crisis has become more protracted than expected when the scheme was created, it is “reasonable” to give airlines more time to recover before they have to repay the loans. ”Extended maturity will help ease the financial pressure on the companies,” Nybo says. The Norwegian government says the state’s extraordinary contribution to aviation in Norway so far this year totals NKr14.8b ($2b). That includes the guarantee scheme of up to NKr6b – half of which was directed at struggling Norwegian.<br/>
Scotland’s highest court began hearing a posthumous appeal on Tuesday for a Libyan man convicted in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jetliner that killed 270 people over the town of Lockerbie, the deadliest terrorist attack in Britain. The appeal, lodged by the family of Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, the only person found guilty in the midair blast, is the latest turn in a decades-long case that left many details unresolved. Al-Megrahi insisted on his innocence until his death in 2012. “We are in possession of much evidence that we have not revealed publicly,” said Aamer Anwar, a lawyer for al-Megrahi’s family, adding that in his dying breath al-Megrahi had wanted to clear his name. “The Megrahis regard their father as the 271st victim of Lockerbie.” A spokesman for Crown prosecutors declined to comment, citing the continuing appeal. The prosecutors have said that they would “rigorously defend” the conviction. The flight, Pan Am 103, had been traveling to New York from London on Dec. 21, 1988, when a bomb aboard detonated as it flew over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, killing 259 passengers and crew members and 11 people on the ground. Al-Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence officer who was working undercover at Libya’s state airline, was convicted of organizing the bombing in an unusual 2001 trial in the Netherlands under Scottish law and sentenced to life in prison, with a 27-year minimum term.<br/>