The Philippines is preparing to reopen international borders to fully vaccinated tourists from low-risk countries "soon". The country's Inter-Agency Task Force on the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) has "approved in principle the entry of fully vaccinated tourists from Green List countries, territories and jurisdictions", according to a 19 November statement by the Department of Tourism (DOT). The IATF in its 18 November directive greenlit the move "in support of the thrust of the Department of Tourism to boost Philippine tourism". DOT secretary Berna Romulo-Puyat states: "Allowing tourists from green countries or territories that have the majority of its population vaccinated and with low infection rate, will greatly help in our recovery efforts--increasing tourist arrivals and receipts among others." “Our ASEAN neighbours like Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia also did the same. We believe that it is also time for us to reopen our borders for inbound tourism as a way towards full recovery,” she states. Romulo-Puyat says the in-principle approval is subject to the IATF's finalised and approved guidelines. The department has formed a technical working group to prepare the guidelines for the IATF's final approval. Entry "will be based on strict conditions", she says, and will be extended only to those vaccinated with vaccines authorised by the Philippines' Food and Drug Administration for emergency use or by the World Health Organization. The Philippines governs its border restrictions according to a three-tier traffic light system. Currently, fully vaccinated travellers from low-risk "green list" countries and territories are allowed to enter the country with a negative pre-departure PCR Covid-19 test result in lieu of quarantines. Until 30 November, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia and Japan are among the 44 countries and territories listed as low-risk, while most countries are classified under its "yellow list". Only The Netherlands and Faroe Islands placed under its high-risk "red list". The tourism department is also working on a separate tourism scheme for vaccinated tourists arriving from countries under its "yellow list", who "may be able to enter the country under certain restrictions and strict conditions". A wider tourism reopening could boost Philippines' already improving air traffic recovery in the last quarter, after activity hit an all-year low in mid-August. Data shows that daily tracked flights have risen sharply since hitting its lowest levels this year on 15 August, when only 80 flights flew that day. This has since increased to above 200 flights per day from 27 October. The daily number of aircraft tracked, which so far in 2021 averaged about 35% of 2019 levels, has risen to about 45% since October.

Ryanair Group chief executive Michael O'Leary has accepted the need for "some form of carbon taxation system" for European airlines, and admitted that the Irish carrier might not be able to meet its target to power 12.5% of its flights with sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) by 2030. Addressing the Eurocontrol Aviation Sustainability Summit on 22 November, O'Leary criticised the European Union emissions trading system (ETS) for exempting what he describes as "the worst offenders" – long-haul network carriers – and called for a "much fairer distribution" of environmental taxes. "We are going to have to have some sort of environmental taxation. I think that's the only way," says O'Leary. "I have no doubt that we, as an industry and also our customers, are going to have to have some sort of fair contribution towards our carbon footprint." Whether this takes the form of a new carbon tax system or a "fuel uplift tax around Europe", O'Leary says he wants to see the money raised being used to increase the availability of SAF. "One of the key things governments should be doing with that money is actually putting it into the production and creating much greater availability of SAFs at Europe's airports," he asserts. Ryanair pledged in April to power 12.5% of its flights with SAF by 2030, but O'Leary casts doubt on this being achieved. "We've committed ourselves to 12.5% SAF usage by 2030 and that's a very ambitious target. I'm not sure we're going to get there but I think we need to set out ambitious targets first and then see how we go about reaching that. The challenge will be lack of availability of SAFs," he says. "We can all do one flight on SAFs. What we can't do at the moment, and it's not clear we'll get there by 2030 but we have to start, is whether we're going to have any reasonable availability of SAFs in reasonable volumes at the 230 airports that Ryanair is flying to." While SAF and new technology will play important roles in reducing aviation's carbon footprint in the medium to longer term, O'Leary suggests that emissions from Europe's airlines could be cut by as much as 20% within five years through air traffic control reform. "If Europe is really serious about reducing the environmental footprint of aviation, do something about the failed Single European Sky and reforming air traffic control. I've given up on the Single European Sky. It's never going to happen. It's a mess," he says. "My view would be to deregulate it and allow air traffic control providers to compete against each other in the same way the airlines do across Europe. That could be delivered before 2030…and would significantly reduce the environmental footprint of European air travel."

Airline capacity in Austria and Germany is once again moving away from pre-pandemic performance levels, as Covid-19 cases surge in the countries. Through most of the summer and autumn the gap between performance in 2019 and 2021 was closing; even when capacity levels declined, it was generally at a slower rate than normally happens into the winter season, a sign that travel markets were returning to trend. However, since around 10 November this dynamic has changed. In 2019 there was a rise in capacity as measured by number of flights and hours around this period, yet this bounce has tallies with higher Covid-19 rates.
German chancellor Angela Merkel said on 18 November that a fourth wave of the disease was "hitting us with full force". In Austria, the government has announced a return to a general lockdown from 22 November as cases in the country spike. There have been reports that Germany could follow suit in the coming days. Airlines have noted the strong link between customer bookings and Covid-19 cases and regulations. Higher incidence of the disease hits sales sharply.
In its interim report for the first nine months of the year, Lufthansa Group, which includes Austrian Airlines, warned that there was "still a large number of political risks in connection with the coronavirus pandemic that could impact the company's finances". It highlighted that "variants of the virus continue to drive tighter measures and travel restrictions imposed at short notice (for example border closures, bans on transportation, quarantine regulations)", adding: "There is a risk that states will seal themselves off (again) due to the spread of the coronavirus and reduce agreed international air traffic." With cases surging and fresh lockdowns being imposed, it appears these risks may be turning into reality. Airline stocks have reacted to fresh lockdowns in Austria and surging cases more broadly with sharp selloffs. IAG and EasyJet share prices were both down 4% on the day in late-afternoon trading on 19 November. Smaller falls were recorded across the remainder of the continent's carriers. Instead, capacity levels have sunk and the gap with two years earlier has begun to widen again.