The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) will allow more foreign carriers to fly into mainland China, as it rolls out incentives for airlines based on passengers testing positive for the coronavirus. From 8 June, foreign airlines which were previously not allowed to operate to China will now be able to do so, but can only operate one flight a week to a Chinese city of their choosing. While the CAAC did not explicitly state which carriers will be able to benefit from the new easing of restrictions, it is understood that the move will benefit US carriers, which have so far not been able to operate flights to China. In May, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines applied to the CAAC for authority to resume numerous passenger flights between the countries, after suspending their routes due to the coronavirus outbreak. However, the CAAC denied their requests. China restricted the number of international flights into the country in March, in a bid to stem the number of imported coronavirus cases. Its order in March also also prohibited carriers from adding more capacity than they had in schedules on 12 March – a date on which US airlines had no China flights. The CAAC’s latest move comes a day after the USA barred all Chinese passenger carriers from flying into its airports, citing travel restrictions imposed by Beijing on US carriers. Separately, the CAAC has rolled out an incentive scheme for foreign carriers — airlines will be allowed to increase the number of flights per week to two, if there are no incoming passengers testing positive for the coronavirus for three consecutive weeks. If an airline was found to have carried up to five passengers who test positive, they will have to suspend their operations into China for a week, before being allowed to restart flights. If there are 10 passengers, that carrier will suspend operations for a month.

Source: Cirium

IATA director general Alexandre de Juniac believes the new guidelines developed by an ICAO task force strikes "the right compromise" between airline economic concerns and the safe restart of passenger traffic. An ICAO taskforce has published wide-ranging recommendations on measures to support the return of international air travel following the coronavirus grounding. ICAO stops short of requiring airlines to leave middle seats vacant to enable social distancing on flights, but suggests that carriers "should allow for separated seating arrangements when occupancy allows it". IATA was among a range of bodies ICAO's taskforce consulted with in drawing up the guidelines and has called for governments to rapidly implement the recommendations. "The purpose of the guidelines... is to provide a safe process to minimise the risk of transmission of the virus onboard and the transmission of the virus between country A and country B – the country of departure and the country of arrival," said de Juniac, asked during a joint media conference with ICAO today whether it would be safer to leave seats empty. "And what we say is that implementing this process minimises the risk and it doesn't impose to neutralise seats onboard provided we strictly comply with the process that has been recommended – for instance temperature controls, mandatory wearing of masks, etc," he adds "We have explained that for economic reasons neutralising a seat would lead to either airlines not to fly or for them to increase prices by at least 45% to 100% depending on the configuration of the aircraft. "So this is the reason why we think the right compromise is to have reasonable economic conditions and absolutely safe processes to guarantee the safety of our passengers and of our air workers." He believes the new guidelines should provide "great confidence" the air transport sector will restart responsibly. And he argues they should be implemented quickly. "Countries are ramping up domestic operations and many are preparing to open their borders, so these guidelines need to be in place quickly, so that we can safely meet the demands of those who need to travel when its possible to do so," he says. "The implementation needs to be harmonised. We need to implement the take-off guidelines in the same way. The alternative of an uncoordinated implementation, is simply not thinkable or acceptable." While the task force recommendations are not mandatory, ICAO president Salvatore Sciacchitano believes they will be widely adopted. "The council that adopted the reports is composed of representatives from 36 member states, so in this sense I am very confident that the guidelines will be implemented," he says. The wide-ranging recommendations also include measures to reduce risk at airport, for example targeting physical distancing of "at least" one metre between all individuals. Asked about the potential impact on journey time through airports, Angel Gittens – director general of Airports Council International, which has also backed the guidelines – says much will depend on the volume and layout of each airport. "At a large airport with low volume, there should not be much more time needed for the passenger to come to the airport, to keep the physical distancing and other requirements. At a smaller airport, or an airport that has peaking, I would say it's going to be another hour, even two hours, for the passengers to come to the airport."But she adds: "It's very important that these measures take into account of the changes in volume. Some of these things are not sustainable as volumes increases at a particular airport, and that volume depends on the peaking characteristics and the layout of the airport."

Source: Cirium

New ticket sales for the global airline industry are slowly increasing again after hitting their lowest point on 15 April following the shutdowns to halt the spread of coronavirus data suggests. The slow but steady rise of ticket sales since April coincides with airlines returning aircraft to the skies. Many airlines reduced capacity by 90% or more in response to the crisis, Cirium fleets data shows, but after 16 April global airline capacity began to steadily increase from a low of 12,500 aircraft in service worldwide to 15,125 on 2 June. Since April the global airline industry has started to see a positive turn as "demand is clearly driving some of the supply", said Robyn Grassanovits vice president of travel products & emerging business, at Cirium, during a webinar today. "Globally I think we might have hit rock bottom," Grassanovits said during the discussion hosted by the World Aviation Festival. Refunds sought by travelers have also declined by 50% since 25 March, when new ticket sales were nearing their lowest point of 2020, her research shows. While conditions will differ for each nation, global airline data shows some recovery as people start to travel again, she says. Maintaining demand will depend on airlines' ability to alleviate fears of coronavirus infection. "When I travel it's not just risk to me it’s a risk to my loved ones," Grassanovits said. "As an industry we've got to figure out how do we alleviate some of those fears." The last major airline demand crisis during the terrorist attacks of September 2001 led to changes in how people fly, and Grassanovits expects the airline industry will have to adapt to "a new way of flying" after coronavirus recedes. This adaptation in the years to come, she says, will lead airlines to not only scrub their cabins more thoroughly but also how to do digital contact tracing at airports for possible infection while maintaining medical privacy.

Source: Cirium