In a statement issued on 27 August, Cornish wrote that there had been "no evidence of any recognition from the government of the need to protect the travel industry and enable it to recover from what is undoubtedly the biggest crisis it has ever faced". Manchester Airports Group owns and operates three UK airports: London Stansted; Manchester; and East Midlands. At London Stansted, passenger numbers over the traditionally busy August bank holiday weekend are expected to be less than a third of the figure recorded last year, something Cornish partially attributes to the government's quarantine strategy. The UK Department for Transport lifted quarantine restrictions on more than 50 countries in early July and opened up "travel corridors" whereby arrivals from those nations would no longer need to self-isolate for 14 days. However, less than three weeks later the government suddenly reintroduced quarantine restrictions for arrivals from Spain, throwing travel plans into disarray during the peak holiday season. A couple of weeks later, France, the Netherlands, Malta, Monaco, Turks & Caicos and Aruba were also swiftly removed from the travel-corridor list. Similar last-minute action was taken two weeks later when Austria, Croatia and Trinidad & Tobago were taken off the safe list and Portugal was added back on. Cornish is calling on the government to take a more targeted, regionalised approach to quarantine based on areas of a country where Covid-19 cases are rising, rather than issuing blanket bans for entire countries. "It seems there is an acceptance within the Department for Transport and by the transport secretary himself that a regionalised approach is needed, but we find ourselves months down the line and no progress has been made," says Cornish. "Meanwhile, we have watched the penny drop with other major nations, such as Germany, which has moved quickly to enable travel to popular resorts in the likes of Spain, while adopting a localised, targeted approach to quarantine that the UK has so far refused to consider."Cirium approached the Department for Transport for comment.

Source: Cirium

Russian analysts have been refining the flight-control system of the Irkut MC-21-300 to establish protection criteria for avoiding unusual attitudes. The twinjet has a limiter subsystem within its integrated control system which is responsible for preventing the aircraft from entering “difficult situations”, says the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute. It says the work to define the various algorithms completes the most recent phase of research into the control system. These are focused on preventing the MC-21 from exceeding critical angles of attack and overload conditions during manoeuvring. The institute adds that computation work has been conducted on airspeed and Mach limitations during emergency descent, averting tail-strike during take-off, and avoiding runway contact with the engine nacelles. All the analysis is being carried out in parallel with the certification campaign – undertaken by the four flight-test aircraft, all of which are fitted with Pratt & Whitney PW1400G engines – and bench-testing of aircraft systems. Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute flight-dynamics chief researcher Yuri Shelyukhin says the limitation function, and the number of parameters it takes into account, “significantly surpasses” the capabilities of previous systems. This will “ensure a high level of flight safety” for MC-21 crews, he adds.

Source: Cirium

Germany is expected to announce this week that it will replace Covid-19 testing at airports for passengers from high-risk countries with a mandatory quarantine period of up to 14 days, prompting dismay from airline representatives. A spokesperson for the German health ministry confirmed to Cirium that federal health minister Jens Spahn had agreed with his counterparts at state level that "long-term" quarantine restrictions should be reintroduced after the summer.
"Testing obligations were necessary to control return traffic and prevent returnees from staying in quarantine for a long time," says the spokesperson. "With the end of the summer holiday season we return to long-term quarantine rules."
German chancellor Angela Merkel is expected to announce a final decision on the matter on 27 August. German aviation industry association BDL has described the plan to discontinue Covid-19 testing at airports as a "bitter setback", and is calling on the government to reconsider. "A blanket quarantine obligation is de facto a travel restriction that brings air traffic to a standstill," argues BDL, adding that the measure will result in 80% of destinations outside Germany being "blocked by blanket, disproportionate quarantine regulations". The association wants politicians to "find ways to use the available testing capacity more efficiently", and says that "dismantling the test infrastructure would be completely the wrong way to go". In a policy brief issued on 25 August, German carrier Lufthansa lamented the "global patchwork of travel bans, testing and quarantine restrictions" and reiterated its call for Europe and the USA to adopt a joint Covid-19 testing programme to enable transatlantic passenger flights to resume. Lufthansa made the request in July alongside American Airlines, IAG and United Airlines. Chief executives of the four carriers wrote a joint letter to US vice-president Mike Pence and European home-affairs commissioner Ylva Johansson, urging them to consider the option. "A transatlantic pilot project offers great opportunities," writes Lufthansa in its policy brief. "In addition to existing health-protection measures, mandatory negative Covid-19 tests that are not older than 48 hours and can be repeated upon arrival could be bilaterally recognised as an exception to the entry ban. "In addition, individual pilot airports can be defined, at which travel restrictions are relaxed in the first phase in order to gain further experience."

Source: Cirium