The number of passengers travelling by air in Africa will not return to 2019 levels until at least the start of 2024 because of the lengthy rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine, the leader of airline association AFRAA has warned. During the first of a series of AFRAA webinars, secretary general Abderahmane Berthe noted that with only 20% of the continent's population to be vaccinated by the end of 2021, herd immunity – which occurs when at least 60% of the population have been inoculated – will not be reached until at least two or three years' time. This means it is unlikely that air traffic levels will return to 2019 levels "until the end of 2023", and possibly longer, says Berthe. He argues that governments "need to accelerate the vaccination of African citizens in order to remove travel restrictions and allow air travel to come back as soon as possible". The rollout of the vaccine risks being delayed in the continent by a lack of cold storage facilities at airports, he notes. AFRAA's director of government, legal and industry affairs Rafael Kuuchi asserts that the crisis has demonstrated the need for Africa to develop its own airlines instead of relying on foreign carriers for connectivity, as non-African airlines largely disappeared from the continent at the start of the pandemic. Berthe agrees: "All of us, we remember that at the beginning of Covid it was airline cargo operations which were transporting medical supplier… Today we are talking about airlines transporting vaccines." He adds: "We have realised that air transport is very very key in Africa for connectivity because land means of transport are very weak." Even before Covid-19, many local carriers were struggling as a result of high fuel prices, lack of infrastructure, fragmented air traffic markets, and a proliferation of airlines which was hindering profitability. "Airlines need to be agile, adapt, rethink their business models, put in place some cost management, and develop new business like cargo operations. Airlines can really adapt to this situation." says Berthe. "It's a kind of revolution." He adds that pan-African initiatives are being undertaken to liberalise markets (including the Single African Air Transport Market and the African Continental Free Trade Area), pool airline resources and enhance co-operation, while huge safety-performance gains made in recent years have been maintained.

Ryanair is launching a Covid-19 travel wallet to enable customers to store their test and vaccine data in the carrier's smartphone app. The wallet will be able to upload PCR test results, vaccination certificates and any other Covid-related documents that may be required to travel. "Ryanair is confident that the EU’s vaccine rollout programme will see the removal of current EU travel restrictions in time for the school holidays (June to September), and in the interim, customers can avail of Ryanair’s C-19 Wallet, which will house all Covid travel documents in the one location making it easy to present at airports on the day of travel," the airline says. It expects that once the high-risk/elderly population of Europe is vaccinated, by the end of May or June, "travel restrictions will be relaxed and air travel will experience a bounceback from pent-up customer demand that will see European families travelling again for well-earned summer holidays to the beaches of Spain, Italy, Portugal and Greece this summer". Several programmes are under way to allow passengers to access, store and communicate health information in order to smooth the return to flying. IATA is developing a travel pass app that will be trialled later this month by Singapore Airlines, and the association expects a wider rollout later in the year. Ultimately, it believes the technology will be seamlessly integrated into airlines' own apps. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization, ICAO and the OECD are working on standards for a "smart vaccine card", and the EU has proposed a "digital green pass" to get passengers flying again.

Following the lifting of the 737 Max's grounding, Icelandair has resumed commercial flights using the Boeing narrowbody after a nearly two-year break. Icelandair says the airline carried out its first flight with a Max aircraft since March 2019 on a route from Reykjavik to the Danish capital Copenhagen. European authorities cleared the Max for a return to service in late January. Icelandair joins TUIfly Belgium and Czech carrier Smartwings among European carriers to so far restore flights with the aircraft, while Polish carrier LOT carried out a repositioning flight for the first of its Max jets on 4 March ahead of planned return to service. The Icelandic carrier was operating a fleet of four Max aircraft at the time of the grounding.