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Air Canada is reinstating numerous international routes as the government of Canada begins to tentatively relax coronavirus-driven rules for inbound travellers. The Montreal-based airline will resume 17 routes to 11 destinations in the coming weeks and is “considering additional routes as restrictions continue to loosen”, it says on 6 July. “As travel restrictions ease across the globe, we are committed to rebuild our international network and continue as a global carrier to connect Canada to the world, while also developing additional markets and targeting new opportunities,” the airline’s senior vice-president of network planning and revenue management Mark Galardo says. The carrier will bring back four-times weekly flights between the western Canadian city of Calgary and Frankfurt from 1 August, in addition to direct flights to Geneva, Tel Aviv and London from Montreal, and to Vienna, Dublin, Paris and Zurich from Toronto. Those routes will begin to return from 21 July. “Air Canada has already resumed flights to Greece, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Italy, Spain, United Kingdom and Morocco, and will increase frequencies in some of these destinations as of August,” the carrier adds. It recently launched a flight connecting Montreal to Cairo.<br/>

Aegean Airlines has received a E120m grant from the Greek government, after completing a required E60m share capital increase. The carrier says the grant was disbursed on 2 July “with the aim of compensating the company for the losses directly caused by the coronavirus outbreak”. In May, Aegean’s board agreed the terms of the E60m capital increase, which was a pre-requisite for receiving the state aid. Having received its government grant, the airline says it will now issue and deliver warrants to the Greek state. Just over 10 million warrants will be issued, each providing the right to purchase one new common registered share with a nominal value of E0.65, at an exercise price of E3.20 per share. <br/>

Air New Zealand is dipping its toe back into the pond of international travel, announcing its return to destinations not serviced since Aotearoa's borders were closed amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The airline's updated schedule begins on October 31 and sees the return of services to Tokyo and Taipei, along with 12 per week to North America. Air NZ has also announced a service between Christchurch and Singapore operating five times a week from November 30, which may be an indication of where the airline believes future travel bubbles may open. However, the airline is playing down any speculation of a return to relative normality. "As much as we wish the addition of the long haul flights to our schedule meant the reopening of the borders, unfortunately, it does not," said Air NZ's general manager networks Scott Carr. Story has route details.<br/>

Air New Zealand is preparing for what it says is its busiest ever July school holiday period, with more than half a million Kiwis set to fly on 7500 services. The airline said 670,000 seats had been booked across its domestic network this July. Chief customer and sales officer Leanne Geraghty said the number of seats booked for this winter break was 52% higher than last year’s. “Domestic sales are so strong for July school holidays that we are intending to operate 56% more domestic flights than the July 2020 school holidays.” Auckland Airport is also expecting a hectic month, saying it will have its busiest day at the domestic terminal since March 2020 when borders closed. More than 700,000 passengers are forecast to fly in or out of the airport on 4000 domestic flights in July, the airport said. The number of flights is 44% higher than in July 2020. This Friday is expected to be the busiest day at the airport, with some 28,000 people set to use the domestic terminal – the highest number since the pandemic struck. Auckland Airport general manager operations, Anna Cassels-Brown, said the airport was expecting domestic traveller numbers to reach about 90% of pre-Covid levels this month. “Our staff have been working steadily through the recovery of the aviation and travel sector – now we’re ready, and excited, about our biggest day since the outbreak of the pandemic.”<br/>