IATA's new director general Willie Walsh has attacked government covid testing mandates as being expensive, slow and in some cases open to profiteering, amid concerns that the cost and complexity of the system will delay a restart of the industry. "It's unacceptable," he said during the Aviation Festival online event in response to a question about the cost of testing. "We are clearly seeing evidence of profiteering – companies who have jumped on the testing bandwagon, and we have governments mandating testing and then charging VAT on top of it." Although several governments in Europe have removed VAT from the cost of Covid-19 tests required for travel, other are yet to do so. Meanwhile the cost of many tests remains higher than the average airfare, a factor that IATA warns could greatly depress passenger demand. Walsh repeats the association's recent call for authorities to allow lateral flow and antigen tests to enable travel, instead of PCR versions, arguing that lateral flow and antigen tests are not only cheaper but also faster to administer. "The research that has been done, you can see that a lot of the testing, lateral flow, antigen, are just as effective [as PCR]. As part of a process, is something that is 88% effective at detecting Covid-19 acceptable against [a different test] that is 92% effective – I would argue that it is." The case against the lateral flow and antigen tests is that they are not as accurate as PCR versions. Walsh counters this by saying that the process should be designed to manage risk, not eliminate it, adding that testing is just one of many measures designed to minimise the risk of Covid-19 transmission. In other areas, he says, guidelines need to be updated to simply make more sense. Citing the UK's inbound regulations, he gives the example of the requirement to pre-buy tests to be taken on days three and eight after arrival, even if you will have already departed by day eight. "It's a scam," he complains. "Let's call it what it is." IATA has pushed governments on several of these issues. Walsh notes that authorities are aware of the problems and are acting to improve them when pushed. Closely related is the need for greater co-ordination and digitalisation of the health certificate process. Walsh warns of "chaos" at airports if information about vaccine and testing statuses are not able to be stored and communicated electronically. He cites the hassle of "people standing at a check-in counter looking for their paper PCR tests", as the regulations require travellers to provide documentation proving their permission to travel. "Airports won't be able to function without a digital function," he says. "We've got to make sure we don't have these bottlenecks on arrival." Turning to the state of the current aviation market, Walsh says that "clearly we've missed the second quarter" as an opportunity for a large-scale restart of air travel, but he remains confident that airlines will be able to resume operations later in the year. "I think for the second half of 2021 we should be optimistic," he adds, although for that to happen "we need governments to set out a plan over when they are likely to remove travel restrictions". He cites evidence of pent-up demand such as the rebound in domestic leisure travel in large countries such as the USA or China, which have largely returned to their pre-pandemic levels. While business travel will take longer to recover than leisure, he believes its replacement with video conferencing remains somewhat of an aberration. "I hate it," he says of the technology that has largely replaced face-to-face meetings over the past year. "It has enabled us to continue to function, but it's nowhere near as good as being able to sit down and talk to people."

Members of European parliament have approved an updated EU-US air transport agreement which removes the time limit for aircraft-with-crew wet-lease agreements. The parliamentary committee on transport and tourism backed an amendment to a 2007 treaty which had stated that authorisation for the provision of an entire aircraft with crew would be issued for a limited term, for example six to nine months, or on an "exceptional" basis. MEPs on the committee cast 48 votes in favour of the amendment. There were no votes against, and no abstentions. The updated agreement was signed in August 2019 and covers Iceland and Norway, which joined the EU-US aviation agreement in 2011. "It confirms the establishment of clear and non-restrictive wet-lease arrangements between the parties and states that no party shall impose time limitations on the operation of any wet lease," says parliament in its statement. The amendments have been provisionally applied by the EU and USA since the signing of the agreement. The full house of the European parliament is now set to vote on the wet-lease agreement "in one of the next plenary sessions".

UK regulators have cleared JetBlue Airways to launch flights to London from New York and Boston, a further step in the carrier's plans to begin transatlantic services this year. In a short statement the UK Civil Aviation Authority says it has today provided regulatory approval to the US carrier for the transatlantic services. "This approval marks the first scheduled foreign carrier permit that has been issued to a new operator since the UK's exit from the European Union," the CAA notes. It was in 2019 that JetBlue first announced its intent to operate to London from the US East Coast using its fleet of Airbus A321LRs and, later, A321XLRs. These plans were pushed back because of the coronavirus pandemic. The carrier has most recently been targeting the launch of flights between the USA and the UK for the third quarter of this year. The carrier is still to formally state which airports in London it will serve, though in late March it appeared to secure slots at London Heathrow for the services, after information released by UK slot co-ordinator ACL showed slots were allocated to JetBlue from the start of August. JetBlue's website shows no flights currently bookable to London.