American Airlines plans to introduce quarantine-free flights from New York’s John F Kennedy International airport to Milan and Rome in Italy. The carrier says the move will allow travellers to skip Italy's post-travel quarantine requirements and maximise their time while in that nation. Passengers will have to show negative Covid-19 tests results before boarding the flight in New York and upon arriving in Milan or Rome. The airline will restart daily flights to Milan on 4 April and thrice-weekly service to Rome on 8 May after having suspended those routes for a year. Both flights will operate on Boeing 777-200 aircraft. The Dallas-Fort Worth-based carrier says customers near its hub in Charlotte, North Carolina, and in other markets, will soon be able to access GoHealth Urgent Care’s rapid PCR test capabilities, which will give customers PCR test results in approximately 30 minutes instead of waiting a days for the sample to be processed at a lab. American’s customers now have access to in-person testing at more than 150 local urgent care facilities or hospitals through GoHealth Urgent Care.

British Airways and a group of investors have invested $24.3 million in zero-emission aviation specialist ZeroAvia to accelerate the development of 50-plus-seater aircraft capable of running on zero-emissions hydrogen-electric power.
The group of investors includes Horizons Ventures, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Ecosystem Integrity Fund, Summa Equity, Shell Ventures and Systemiq. ZeroAvia says it could achieve commercialisation for its hydrogen-electric power as early as 2024, with flights of up to 500 miles (434nm) in up to 20-seater aircraft. With this new investment, ZeroAvia expects to have 50-plus seat commercial aircraft in operation in five years' time. The company has ambitions to power a 100-seat single-aisle aircraft by 2030. BA chief executive Sean Doyle states: "Innovative zero-emissions technology is advancing fast and we support the development of hydrogen as an alternative fuel source because we believe it has the potential to enable us to reach true zero emissions on short-haul routes by 2050." The new development comes just weeks after BA announced a partnership with ZeroAvia through parent company IAG's Hangar 51 accelerator programme to explore how hydrogen-powered aircraft can play a leading role in the future of sustainable flying. In September 2020, ZeroAvia achieved the world's first hydrogen-electric flight of a commercial-grade aircraft.

Delta Air Lines is terminating its policy not to sell reservations for middle seats, citing improving vaccination efforts in the USA that have increased the perception of the safety of air travel during the pandemic. One hundred percent of the seats on Delta aircraft will be available for purchase beginning on 1 May. The Atlanta-based airline in early February had extended through the end of April its ban on selling middle seats to give customers the additional "peace of mind" that comes with fewer passengers and the perceived lower risk of getting infected with the coronavirus. "The relationships we’ve built, together with the knowledge that nearly 65% of those who flew Delta in 2019 anticipate having at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine by May 1, are what’s giving us the assurance to offer customers the ability to choose any seat on our aircraft," the carrier's chief executive Ed Bastian states.