India has decided to put three airline carriers that have Boeing 737 fleets under “enhanced surveillance” following a plane crash in southern China with 132 people on board. The Indian carriers include SpiceJet, Vistara and Air India Express. “Flight safety is serious business and we are closely studying the situation,” said Arun Kumar, the chief of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in India. “In the interim, we are focusing on enhanced surveillance of our 737 fleets.”<br/>
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Russia offered to compensate owners of jets commandeered by the country, a bid to smooth relations with leasing companies that stand to lose billions of dollars on rented aircraft they can’t get back. Authorities in Moscow are seeking ways to legally get round sanctions requiring international firms to recall the planes, Transport Minister Vitaly Savelyev said Tuesday. Options include payments or an outright purchase of the jets, he said. Lessors have so far been unwilling to negotiate on the matter, according to Savelyev. That’s most likely because any financial accord with Russian airlines would appear to present a clear breach of the sanctions. “We are not losing hope but we are not giving them back, because that would mean to leave oneself without aviation,” Savelyev said. Leasing firms doing business in Russia have demanded the return of hundreds of Airbus and Boeing planes to comply with economic sanctions imposed by the European Union and U.S. in response to the invasion of Ukraine. Under EU rules, they have until March 28 to cancel contracts, but have no way of repossessing the aircraft after Russia moved to keep them within its borders. <br/>
Seventy-eight Russian aircraft have been seized abroad, the Interfax news agency quoted Transport Minister Vitaly Savelyev as saying on Tuesday, as Moscow grapples with the consequences of international sanctions over events in Ukraine. Sanctions have cut off the supply of most aircraft, parts and services to Russia, while Russian airlines have 515 jets leased from abroad. "(We have) lost 78 planes," Savelyev said, adding that these aircraft were seized abroad and would not be returned to Russia. Russia has passed a law allowing the country's airlines to place aircraft leased from foreign companies on Russia's aircraft register, but airlines are hesitant to use it, fearing they may jeopardise ties with international partners. Russia had 1,367 planes when sanctions were imposed, and almost 800 of them have now been placed on the country's aircraft register, Savelyev said, without specifying how many jets on the list were leased from global leasing companies. Almost all Boeing and Airbus aircraft used by Russian airlines were registered in Bermuda and Ireland, but a week ago Bermuda and Ireland's aviation authorities suspended certification of all Russian-operated airplanes. Savelyev said Russia was being guided by Iran's experience of how to service aircraft in a similar situation.<br/>
Air travel has been one of the last holdouts for strict pandemic mask requirements. In the United States, for example, the mask mandate — which was recently extended to April 18, when it comes up for review again — is still enforced. Over the last year, 922 of those who didn’t wear masks received fines from the TSA, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office. But there are hints that the tide may be turning: Within the past few weeks, Danish airports and London’s Heathrow Airport have lifted their mask requirements, as have several major British airlines. Some airline employees in England rejoiced at their reclaimed freedom from enforcing mask rules at 30,000 feet. “First flight done without a mask and it was an absolute dream,” a woman, who identified herself as a flight attendant from Yorkshire, England, on her social media accounts, recently wrote on Twitter, alongside a photo of her fully visible smile. In the United States, the IATA, which represents nearly 300 airlines, and the US Travel Association, an industry group, have been lobbying the White House not to extend the mandate further, saying it’s difficult to rationalize mask rules in the sky, given that authorities have already lifted them in other indoor locations. Republican lawmakers, who recently sued the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to end the mask mandate for air travel, call the rule “arbitrary.” But some travel health experts and passengers say airplane cabins and airports should take a more careful approach. Story takes a look at the confusing state of mask wear in the sky.<br/>
New penalties have been issued against some of the passengers who made headlines for their raucous behavior on a chartered flight from Montreal, Canada, to Cancun, Mexico, just before New Year's Eve last year. Omar Alghabra, Canada's minister of transport and MP for Mississauga Centre, announced a new series of penalties to passengers on the December 30 Sunwing Airlines flight for noncompliance with vaccination rules and not wearing a mask. "There are consequences for those who break the rules! We have issued a new series of 6 penalties, up to $5,000, to travellers on the Dec 30 flight to Cancun. 5 penalties for non-compliance w/ vaccination rules & 1 penalty for not wearing a mask. 12 penalties so far. More to come!," Alghabra said in a tweet Monday. On March 8, Alghabra issued penalties against the first six passengers who were not fully vaccinated when they boarded their flight, according to a news release from Transport Canada. The agency said penalties could reach a maximum of $5,000 each (about US $3,970). Members of the rowdy group shown in videos dancing, drinking and vaping maskless aboard the flight to Cancun found themselves stranded in Mexico in early January after their return flight to Canada was scrubbed and other airlines declined to fly them home. <br/>
Uber is working with Mexican authorities to bring service to and from the capital’s newest airport, which formally opened Monday with just a few flights and lacking key transportation to the infamously traffic-plagued megacity. The ride-hailing giant’s Mexican unit said that it hopes to offer service “in the near future” to the Felipe Angeles International Airport, approximately 45 km north of Mexico City’s long-standing international hub. The airport is the first of Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s signature infrastructure projects to be completed, three years after he scrapped a $13b, partially built airport that he argued was riddled with the previous administration’s corruption. The president has said that the new site will ease congestion at the existing airport, though only a handful of daily flights are operating and a promised train connection has yet to be completed. <br/>
Travellers faced flight cancellations across Germany on Tuesday as security staff at several airports staged another one-day strike amid a wage dispute. The walkout comes after airlines, which are reeling from soaring fuel prices and airspace closures due to the war in Ukraine, had to cancel hundreds of flights to and from German airports due to strikes last week Monday and Tuesday. Labour union Verdi called the strike for this Tuesday at Frankfurt, Berlin, Bremen, Hamburg, Hanover, Stuttgart, Duesseldorf and Cologne/Bonn airports. Duesseldorf airport said airlines had cancelled 140 out of a planned roughly 260 flights to and from the western German city for Tuesday. At Cologne/Bonn, 73 out of 123 flights have been cancelled. Verdi is demanding that employers raise the wages of the around 25,000 airport security employees in Germany by at least 1 euro an hour for the next 12 months and that staff in different parts of the country earn the same. BDLS, the association of aviation safety companies, has said that all of Verdi's demands combined amounted to pay increases of up to 40% and were "utopian." A next round of wage talks has been scheduled for Thursday.<br/>
Dubai International Airport, the hub of airline Emirates, will close one of its two runways for 45 days from May 9 for extensive refurbishment work, the operator said on Tuesday. During the closure of the northern runway, some services will be moved to Al Maktoum International, Dubai's second airport which is located in the south of the emirate. The northern runway last underwent extensive maintenance work in 2014, while the southern runway was refurbished in 2019. This will be the first time Al Maktoum will be handling scheduled, commercial passenger services since the COVID-19 pandemic, when flights were consolidated at Dubai airport. The northern runway work will be completed by June 22. Emirati carrier flydubai said flights to 34 of its more than 90 destinations would operate from Al Maktoum over the 45-day period with all flights returning to Dubai airport once the runway work was completed.<br/>
Hong Kong airport will allow transit passengers for the first time in three months, building on the wider relaxation of strict Covid-19 border controls in the Asian financial hub. Airlines were informed that transit passengers from so-called group A “high-risk” countries will be allowed to transfer through Hong Kong airport from next month, according to a letter dated Mar 22. Airport Authority Hong Kong, which runs the city’s airport, confirmed that transits will resume at the start of April. Hong Kong laid out broader changes to travel rules on Monday as part of the city’s wider shift in its approach to Covid. Those include halving hotel quarantine time for travellers to seven days from 14, and ending the flight ban on nine countries including the US, UK, and Australia. Risk profiles for countries, currently from ranked A to C, will also be abolished. The ban had meant people from all countries except China and Taiwan weren’t allowed to transfer through Hong Kong, one of Asia’s premier airport transit hubs in pre-pandemic times. Strict border controls, including up to three weeks’ quarantine, has left Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd dependent on transit travellers to prop up its Covid-ravaged passenger flight operations.<br/>