The Biden administration said late Friday that it would reimpose economic sanctions on certain state-owned companies in Belarus, the latest diplomatic pushback from a Western government after the country’s authoritarian leader forced down a European passenger jet last weekend. The plane, a Ryanair Boeing 737 headed from Greece to Lithuania, was traveling through Belarusian airspace on Sunday when it was diverted and forced to land in Minsk, the capital, with an escort from a fighter jet. Roman Protasevich, a Belarusian opposition journalist who had been living in exile abroad, was detained along with his girlfriend after the plane landed. Belarus’s president, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, has claimed that he rerouted the plane because of an emailed bomb threat. But a Swiss email provider has said that the email cited by the Belarusian authorities was sent after the plane had already been diverted. Leaders of European Union countries, outraged by what some called a state hijacking, have pledged to impose new economic sanctions against Lukashenko’s government and have begun severing direct air links to Belarus. President Biden this week directed his team “to develop appropriate options to hold accountable those responsible” for the forced landing, in coordination with the European Union and other partners.<br/>
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The head of Belarusian national airline Belavia on Saturday condemned as "despicable" the decision by numerous EU countries to impose airspace restrictions on the carrier following the forced landing of a passenger jet in Minsk. Most of Belarus's neighbours and many other European nations have banned Belavia flights amid outrage over Sunday's forced landing of a Ryanair jet. The EU has proposed closing its airspace to state-owned Belavia and stopping it from landing at EU airports. In a post on his Facebook page on Saturday, Belavia director Igor Tcherginets said such steps amounted to sanctions on the carrier, which he described as innocent. "It is evident that these governments planned not only to close their countries for landing by our airplanes, but also, with an especially fascist perversity, they are closing air corridors one by one. They are mocking us," Tcherginets wrote. He criticised European governments for imposing the restrictions before the International Civil Aviation Organization had investigated the incident. "All this is happening before an investigation of the incident, for which there may be some guilty parties, but Belavia is definitely not among them," he added.<br/>
In the week since Ryanair flight FR4978 from Athens to Vilnius was forcibly diverted to Minsk, travel in Europe already looks very different. Three days after the incident -- in which Belarusian fighter jets escorted the airplane to land in the capital citing security concerns, before arresting opposition activist Roman Protasevich and his Russian companion Sofia Sapega -- European airlines were formally stopped from flying over Belarusian airspace. The directive, issued Wednesday by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) under the form of a Safety Information Bulletin (SIB), called on all airlines "with their principle place of business in one of the EASA member states" to avoid Belarusian airspace. They advised that all other airlines should do the same, wherever they are based. The directive came a day after EC President Ursula von der Leyen announced that the bloc was "closing our airspace to planes from Belarus," calling on EU airlines not to fly over the country after the "outrageous behavior" shown on Sunday. It's not just the EU. Other major carriers including Singapore Airlines have also vowed to bypass Belarusian airspace. There were other implications, with Russia -- an ally of Belarus -- taking several days to grant Air France and Austrian Airlines flights to Moscow the clearance to use Russian airspace to divert around Belarus, prompting cancelations. So how big a deal is this? Huge, say industry insiders -- big enough to have already shaken the aviation map of Europe, and big enough to have knock-on effects beyond the continent -- particularly if the situation escalates further. Story has more.<br/>
Eleven US airlines issued $12.84b in cash refunds to customers in 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic upended the travel industry, the head of industry trade group Airlines for America (A4A) said in a letter to lawmakers on Friday. Airlines have faced a backlash from passengers and some lawmakers over their handling of redemptions for flights canceled during the pandemic. Earlier this month, Senators Edward Markey and Richard Blumenthal called on carriers to issue cash refunds whether flights were canceled by the airline or traveler. Nicholas Calio, A4A CE, acknowledged that many carriers encouraged customers to accept vouchers for future travel instead of cash, but said it was not done with “ill intent” but rather to prevent potential bankruptcy declarations. “The facts clearly show that US airlines have maintained a steadfast commitment to the traveling public over the course of the pandemic and routinely issued refunds in accordance with all federal laws and regulations,” Calio wrote in a letter to the two senators. Calio said the cash refunds, which accounted for about 20% of airline revenues last year, came on top of billions of dollars of travel credits that are now being used “at a rapid clip” to book fresh flights.<br/>
As millions of Americans gear up for a summer of vacation flights, Ben Wallander is hitting the books and the simulator. The 27-year-old is one of hundreds of pilots Delta and American Airlines are rushing to train after a surge in travel bookings spurred by COVID-19 vaccinations. Thousands of pilots at Delta and American have lost their active status, which lapses after 90 days of not flying, at some point over the past year as the coronavirus pandemic slammed the brakes on air travel and brought airlines to their knees. But a long US Memorial Day weekend from Friday is expected to usher in a forecast surge in summer leisure travel that will test the ability of airlines to manage a long-awaited comeback. While the airlines have already retrained many of their pilots, the travel revival has forced Delta and American to seek more simulators and flight instructors to expedite training and unblock a logjam, people with knowledge of the matter said. Both airlines are beneficiaries of three COVID-19 relief packages worth $54b mostly in free money the industry argued was necessary to keep workers like pilots with costly training requirements ready. Analysts warn that failing to ensure a smooth travel recovery could lead to flight cancellations and delays in generating cash needed to repay pandemic debt. "It's quite the puzzle," McKinsey aviation consultant Vik Krishnan said of the pilot training logistics, likening them to a game of Tetris. Delta and American must train pilots who flew on fleets retired due to the pandemic as well as those filling vacancies on different aircraft types after colleagues took buyouts, in addition to annual recurrent training requirements. "Our pilot training has remained on track with our scheduled operational plans and continues to be," Delta spokesman Anthony Black said. Story has more.<br/>
A sharp rise in the cost of polluting in Europe risks undermining airlines’ efforts to repair their balance sheets following the damage caused by Covid-19. The cost of purchasing carbon allowances under the EU’s emissions trading system, ETS, has been on a record breaking rally, with prices more than doubling to above E50 a tonne compared with pre-pandemic levels. That presents a problem for airlines in the region, which like other carbon intensive sectors must buy the tradable credits to cover the amount they pollute under parallel emissions systems in both the UK and the EU. The nascent UK system, which launched this month, started trading at higher prices, of above GBP50 a tonne. Low-cost carriers including Ryanair, easyJet and Wizz Air have been hit particularly hard as the schemes only cover emissions on flights in Europe and the UK where they do nearly all their flying. “There’s no getting away from the fact that the carbon price is going through the roof and these guys are exposed to that,” said Deutsche Bank analyst Jaime Rowbotham. Disclosure around emissions trading and hedging strategies are patchy, but Rowbotham estimates Ryanair, easyJet and Wizz will between them pay more than E600m in carbon costs in their 2023 financial years, up from about E330m before the crisis hit. Story has much more detail.<br/>
Ireland will adopt the European Union's COVID-19 certificate to help citizens to move more freely across the bloc from July 19 and broadly apply the same approach to arrivals from elsewhere, including the United States and Britain, it said on Friday. PMMicheal Martin also confirmed that a gradual exit from one of the EU's longest and toughest lockdowns will continue, with bars and restaurants able to serve guests indoors from July 5 when arts and sports events can also resume both indoors and outside but with heavy restrictions on attendance. Ireland currently has the strictest travel curbs in the EU. It advises citizens against non-essential travel, imposes fines on people heading to airports to go on holiday and enforces a two-week mandatory hotel quarantine for arrivals from 50 countries. The EU certification scheme will allow people who received a vaccine, had a negative test or are immune after recovering from COVID-19 to travel freely around the bloc. Under Ireland's plan, unvaccinated children aged between 7 and 18 must have a negative coronavirus test before coming to the country, regardless of departure point. Passengers with valid proof of vaccination from outside the bloc can also travel freely, so long as the countries they are arriving from are not deemed to be at high risk of spreading COVID-19 variants.<br/>
China on Monday reported a sudden surge in COVID-19 infections in the country's south, with 18 new local cases on May 30 in the city of Guangzhou, causing a flurry of flight cancellation. Of the 27 new coronavirus cases reported by the national health authority in its daily updates, only 7 infections were imported, with the remainder originating in Guangdong province. Out of the 20 new locally confirmed patients on May 30, 18 were found in Guangzhou city and two in Foshan city, health authorities in Guangdong province said on Monday. As of 11:40 am, a total of 519 flights at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport were cancelled, accounting for 37% of total flights on Monday, according to aviation data provider Variflight. Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, which carried 43.8m passengers last year, was the world's busiest airport in the midst of a global pandemic. People leaving the city from airports, train stations and shuttle bus stations need to show proof of a negative COVID-19 test within three days, unless they were transiting, the city said late on Sunday.<br/>
The FAA said Friday that Boeing had temporarily halted deliveries of 787 Dreamliners as the agency waits for more data to determine if the planemaker’s planned inspection method meets federal requirements. “Boeing still needs to show that its proposed inspection method would meet FAA’s federal safety regulations. The FAA is waiting for additional data from Boeing before determining whether the company’s solution meets safety regulations,” the FAA said. “Since the FAA has not approved Boeing’s proposal, Boeing chose to temporarily stop deliveries to its customers.” Boeing said earlier it was providing the FAA with more information on its undelivered 787 Dreamliners but that there was no impact on planes already in service. The FAA noted it had issued two airworthiness directives to address production issues for in-service airplanes. The US planemaker’s 737 Max and 787 have been afflicted by electrical and other issues since late last year, and it only resumed deliveries of the 787s in March after a five-month hiatus. “We are working to provide the FAA with additional information concerning the analysis and documentation associated with the verification work on undelivered 787s,” a Boeing spokesperson said. “We continue to work closely with the FAA in a transparent and timely manner. There is no impact on the in-service fleet.”<br/>
The airline industry's most senior representative on Friday cast doubt on plans by Europe's Airbus for sharp increases in jetliner production, saying they appeared overly optimistic. Willie Walsh, DG of the IATA, voiced scepticism a day after Airbus published proposals to almost double single-aisle production to as high as 75 jets a month by 2025. read more "Let's wait and see, because obviously there is a huge disconnect between what the manufacturers say they're going to produce and what the airlines decide to buy," he said. "So, you know that they're in the business of selling. I don't see that there's going to be the requirement for whatever it is they're producing," he added. Geneva-based IATA has no day-to-day role in aircraft negotiations, but Walsh was for years among the most influential buyers as the former head of BA and then its parent group IAG. Airbus CE Guillaume Faury defended the increases on Thursday, saying that pent-up demand for flights on medium-haul jets was "very strong". Leasing company executives and some suppliers have responded more cautiously, amid what industry sources described as a standoff between Airbus and some suppliers over who should pay for investments needed to get output to pre-crisis levels. Faury sought to allay suppliers' concerns, saying the detailed new roadmap provided by Airbus would allow them to plan and raise any necessary funding from markets.<br/>
The increasingly effective green backlash against oil majors by activists and shareholders is a welcome development for the aviation industry as it prepares to raise its own environmental goals, the head of global airline body IATA said Friday. Willie Walsh, DG of the IATA, said that challenges of the kind encountered by Exxon, Chevron and Shell this week could boost investment in the lower-emission fuels so desperately needed by airlines. "I think it's great that the oil industry has been criticised. Anything that accelerates the production of sustainable fuels is a positive," Walsh said. Oil majors suffered a trio of defeats on Wednesday as 61% of Chevron shareholders demanded end-use emissions cuts and Exxon Mobil saw a pair of activist candidates elected to its board to push climate demands. A Dutch court also ordered drastic emissions cuts by Royal Dutch Shell. The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the focus and pressure on climate emissions, said Walsh, the former boss of BA and its owner IAG. Global airlines that have so far pledged to halve net emissions by 2050 will be asked to go further at IATA's annual meeting in October, Walsh said, confirming indications given by his departing predecessor, Alexandre de Juniac. Walsh said the previous 2009 goal had been overtaken by the Paris Agreement and resulting pledges from governments and companies - including many airlines - to eliminate net emissions by mid-century. "Anything less than net-zero by 2050 will be disappointing for the industry and will leave us open to criticism that we're not doing enough," he said while acknowledging that some states including China still consider the target too ambitious.<br/>
The worst of the pandemic may be over for airlines, but the industry faces another looming crisis: an accounting over its contribution to climate change. The industry is under increasing pressure to do something to reduce and eventually eliminate emissions from travel, but it won’t be easy. Some solutions, like hydrogen fuel cells, are promising, but it’s unclear when they will be available, if ever. That leaves companies with few options: They can make tweaks to squeeze out efficiencies, wait for technology to improve or invest today to help make viable options for the future. “It’s a big crisis, it’s a pressing crisis — a lot needs to be done soon,” said Jagoda Egeland, an aviation policy expert at the International Transport Forum, a unit of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. “It’s a hard-to-abate sector. It will always emit some carbon.” Experts say commercial air travel accounts for about 3 to 4% of total US greenhouse gas emissions. And while planes become more efficient with each new model, growing demand for flights is outpacing those advancements. The UN expects airplane emissions of carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas, to triple by 2050. Researchers at the International Council on Clean Transportation say emissions may grow even faster. Before the pandemic, a “flying shame” movement, which aims to discourage air travel in favor of greener options like rail, was gaining ground globally thanks to Greta Thunberg. There were early signs that it may have reduced air travel in Germany and Sweden. Now French lawmakers are considering a ban on short flights that can be replaced by train travel. Story has more.<br/>