Travel restrictions in many parts of the world caused by new outbreaks triggered by virus mutations and differing paces of vaccination threaten recovery prospects for the aviation industry, which is suffering its worst crisis. The lack of standards and coordination as well as the manner in which Covid-related restrictions are enforced is making recovery less predictable or sustainable, said Jeffrey Goh, CE of Star Alliance. Travel is vital to being human and travel policies should support this movement through responsible and risk-based assessments, using testing and controls to protect populations and prevent further spread of the virus, said Goh. He said inoculations are key to restarting international air travel as well as avoiding quarantine, which is a threat to the recovery of the aviation industry. However, robust testing protocols remain important while the world waits for people to be vaccinated. "The role of government is to support the industry and prepare for recovery. This is critical," Goh said. "Beyond financial support, recovery of air travel is dependent on travel restrictions that governments adopt. These measures should be based on medical evidence."<br/>
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Lufthansa’s subsidiary Swiss International Air Lines expects to be profitable by the middle of the year as it restructures its operations, its CE told a Swiss newspaper in an interview. Swiss said this month it would cut its fleet by 15% and its workforce by up to 780 on top of a reductions already announced as it responds to the collapse in passenger numbers caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Swiss is trying to optimise operations so that every flight is profitable, which could entail combining two flights with low bookings or using smaller aircraft at short notice, CE Dieter Vranckx told the SonntagsZeitung. “In this way, we improve the profitability of our flights. However, this does not mean that we are currently profitable as a company. For that, we would need 50% of the capacity of 2019. We assume that we will achieve that in the summer,” he said. <br/>
South African Airways aims to resume flights in July or August, but the restart date will depend on how the COVID-19 pandemic progresses and whether the airline can resolve a pilot dispute, its CE said Friday. State-owned SAA, which was put into administration in December 2019, has not flown commercially since September, when its administrators mothballed all operations pending funding for a restructuring. The airline exited administration in late April after receiving 7.8b rand ($550m) from the government, but at the time it did not say when it would take to the skies again. "As a draft or as a proposal we are looking at July-August 2021," SAA's CE Thomas Kgokolo said during a presentation to a parliamentary committee. "However these dates come with some complexities, the issue of the COVID-19 is something that we still need to consider ... and there is a complex matter that we are dealing with of pilots as well," he added. Kgokolo said SAA would meet again with its pilots on Friday to try to find a solution to a disagreement over outstanding salaries and layoff terms.<br/>
China’s three largest carriers — Air China, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines — continued their impressive domestic traffic growth in April, reporting threefold increases in passenger numbers. Each of the ‘Big Three’ also saw domestic capacity, measured in ASKs, double year on year, amid a return to relative normalcy in the country after battling the coronavirus outbreak. The tail-end of April also saw a surge in traffic, as China entered the ‘Golden Week’ holiday which began on 1 May. Ticket booking data from several Chinese travel sites show that forward bookings for the week-long holiday were hit record highs, including flights departing at the end of April. The Civil Aviation Administration of China had previously disclosed that for the northern summer season this year — which began on 31 March — Chinese carriers were expected to add more than 300 new routes, with the average number of domestic flights a day hitting 13,000, a 6.6% increase year on year. In April, Air China carried 8.3m domestic passengers, slightly more than thrice the number flown year on year. The number is also an 11% increase compared to March. Domestic traffic — measured in RPKs — also trebled year on year, while capacity saw a near-threefold increase. Story has details of other two carriers.<br/>
Cairn Energy has sued India’s flagship carrier Air India to enforce a $1.2b arbitration award that it won in a tax dispute against India, according to a US District Court filing. The move ratchets up pressure on India’s government to pay the sum of $1.2b plus interest and costs that the British firm Cairn was awarded by an arbitration tribunal in December. The body ruled India breached an investment treaty with Britain and said New Delhi was liable to pay. Cairn filed the lawsuit on Friday in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, seeking to make Air India liable for the judgment that was awarded to Cairn. The lawsuit argued that the carrier as a state-owned company, is "legally indistinct from the state itself". "The nominal distinction between India and Air India is illusory and serves only to aid India in improperly shielding its assets from creditors like (Cairn)," the filing said. Air India did not immediately respond to requests seeking comment. However, a senior government official, who asked not to be named, said the government and Air India had not received any formal notice of such a suit.<br/>
A travel bubble between Hong Kong and Singapore set to open on May 26 has a "high chance" of being postponed, a Hong Kong official said on Friday, which would be the second time the plan to allow visits between the cities has been called off. The bubble between two of Asia's main financial hubs, which have both imposed strict border controls for the past year to keep out the coronavirus, had been slated to begin in November but was suspended after a spike in cases in Hong Kong. This time it is Singapore that is seeing an increase in cases. "The Singapore minister told me that there may be a high chance that the bubble arrangement may not be able to resume under the agreed mechanism," Hong Kong Commerce Secretary Edward Yau told reporters after talks with a Singapore government official. "But we will review the situation in the next couple of days." The arrangement would allow passengers to travel between the two cities without having to spend time in quarantine, provided they test negative for the virus before departure and upon arrival. Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines would be the carriers for the initial flights. But under the agreement, the bubble would be suspended if the seven-day moving average of the daily number of COVID-19 cases in the community is more than five for either Singapore or Hong Kong.<br/>