South Africa’s political opposition is urging the country’s finance minister, Tito Mboweni, to abandon the R10 billion ($680 million) funding plan to restructure South African Airways and plough the capital into a vaccination programme. The Democratic Alliance has written to Mboweni claiming that the government should “divert” the SAA allocation to procuring vaccines against the coronavirus outbreak. According to the Democratic Alliance the R10 billion funding package could acquire some 23 million doses of the vaccine, enough for 40% of the country’s population. It has accused the main governing party, the ANC, of “skewed” fiscal priorities, claiming that the vaccine funding has come from the Solidarity Fund – a rapid-response organisation established to combat the pandemic, funded by donations which have amounted to some R3.2 billion. “Why is the ANC choosing an airline for the elite over a vaccine for the many?” the opposition queries, adding that it has also written to parliament’s appropriations committee asking for public hearings on whether South African citizens want the SAA budget reallocated. South African health minister Zweli Mkhize stated on 28 December, in reference to the effort to combat the pandemic, that “the problem in [South Africa] is that we have constraints in terms of financial resources” – a comment upon which the Democratic Alliance has seized to underline its point about SAA funding. While the government is still intending to press ahead with a restructuring of SAA in 2021, it has been attempting to resolve conflict among unions over unpaid salaries as well as a dispute with cockpit-crew representatives over conditions of employment in the new carrier. The South African department of public enterprises has stated that it cannot accept the “financial burden” of the pilot association’s three-decade-old regulating agreement, because there is a need to reduce cost structures in order to launch a reshaped SAA. It says the regulating agreement served to “preserve undeserved privileges accrued through unjust laws” which restricted aviation careers to a “small minority”, adding that it is “unconstitutional and unlawful and should be terminated”. Discussions over the situation failed to result in an agreement during December, prompting a lockout of the pilots. Pilots union SAAPA – along with the cabin-crew union SACCA and metalworkers’ union NUMSA – declined to accept a recent offer to pay three months’ worth of deferred salaries to SAA workers, which was taken up by a number of other unions at the company.

Southwest Airlines is rescinding its warnings of imminent furloughs to almost 7,000 employees after US president Donald Trump signed a government funding bill that sets aside a second tranche of coronavirus pandemic-relief funds for US airline workers. The Dallas-based low-cost carrier says on 28 December that as a result of the new stimulus legislation, it also does not plan to make any further involuntary cuts to its staff during 2021. “The new law will provide payroll support for all Southwest employees through March 31, 2021,” chief executive Gary Kelly writes in a note to the company’s employees. “Given this, we currently do not anticipate the need to conduct any furloughs or pay cuts next year.” “We are halting all efforts to furlough or reduce employees’ pay, and officially rescinding the WARN notices, furlough notices, notices of potential impact, and notices of pay reduction for non-contract employees that were previously sent,” he says. WARN stands for "Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notifications”, and are a required first step in announcing to large work groups that mass layoffs are imminent. According to US law, employers must give affected employees at least 60 days’ prior notice that their jobs are in danger. Late on 27 December Trump signed the bill, which Congress had approved a week earlier, after spending several days stalling and criticising some of its provisions. The legislation sets aside $15 billion to US airlines for the purpose of paying employee wages and benefits. The funds come on top of the $25 billion in wage-assistance funds afforded to US passenger carriers under the government’s initial pandemic relief law, passed in March. The additional $15 billion will be available within 10 days, the text says. Carriers taking funds must agree not to lay off staff or reduce pay rates until 31 March 2021. Earlier this month, Southwest had said it would be furloughing 6,828 employees or 12% of its workforce. If carried out as planned, this would have been the first large-scale involuntary furlough scheme in the company’s history. American Airlines and United airlines have already said they would be taking back the majority of the more than 32,000 employees they furloughed on 1 October after the first aid package ran out, if and when a new deal is agreed.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has for the first time issued greenhouse gas (GHG) standards for new aircraft which, it argues, will ensure “international consistency” and give US manufacturers a “level playing field” with foreign competitors. The government environmental regulator says on 23 December that the rule will “ensure control of GHG emissions, maintain international uniformity of airplane standards, and allow US manufacturers of covered airplanes to remain competitive in the global marketplace.” The rule mirrors ICAO’s standards and recommended practices for certification of aircraft CO2 emissions, announced in 2017. It limits the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrous oxide (N2O) commercial airliners and business jets can emit beginning in 2028. “We anticipate US manufacturers would be at a significant disadvantage if the US failed to adopt standards that are harmonized with the ICAO standards for CO2 emissions,” the agency adds. The matching standards will “help ensure international consistency and acceptance of U.S. manufactured airplanes worldwide.” Aviation regulator FAA says it welcomes the announcement, adding that US manufacturers can now be sure that they are competing fairly against those in other countries. “Implementation of this standard in the United States will allow the FAA to include the requirements in its regulations for certifying new airplanes, placing US engine and airframe manufacturers on a level playing field with manufacturers in other countries that have adopted the international standard,” the US regulator says. The rule was proposed in July, and has come under fire from environmental groups which say it does not go far enough to ensure commercial airliners contribute to lowering GHG emissions across the board. The aviation industry, which, prior to the coronavirus pandemic, accounted for about 3% of global man-made CO2 emissions, has committed to sustainability goals under an ICAO-led framework called the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA). That effort calls for the airline industry to cap carbon output at 2020 levels and to cut emissions to half of 2005 levels by 2050. Most new aircraft comply with the EPA’s new rules already, but the the agency says that it expects non-compliant aircraft such as the Boeing 767 freighter will ”either be modified and re-certificated as compliant, will likely go out of production before the production compliance date of January 1, 2028, or will seek exemptions from the GHG standard”. Therefore, EPA says, it is not expecting the new rule to result in new greenhouse gas reductions. ”Even if we assume no continuous improvement, the projected GHG emissions reductions for the final standards will still be zero since all the non-compliant airplanes… are projected to be out of production by 2028,” the EPA writes. ”For these reasons, the EPA is not projecting emission reductions associated with these GHG regulations.” With environmental stewardship an increasingly important aspect of airlines’ business models, carriers are investing in newer and more efficient aircraft, carbon offset schemes as well as aviation fuels made from renewable sources.