Source: RAA Following today’s markup by the House Financial Services Committee of S. Con. Res 5, Regional Airline Association (RAA) President and CEO Faye Malarkey Black offered this statement: “RAA applauds the advancement of critical legislation helping American businesses, workers and families cope with harm from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Our members and their workforce are grateful the package includes $15 billion to airline employees and contractors to extend the Payroll Support Program (PSP). We thank House Transportation & Infrastructure Chairman Peter DeFazio (D-OR) and House Financial Service Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) for their leadership in passing this extension out of committee. Every dollar of the PSP3 program will help support non-executive payroll, avoiding dramatic furloughs upon the expiration [...]

Source: ICAO Speaking at a World Economic Forum (WEF) Policy Session on “Building a Path to Net-Zero Aviation” yesterday, ICAO Secretary General Dr. Fang Liu highlighted opportunities now at hand to enhance the sustainability and resilience of the global civil aviation sector. Dr. Liu’s remarks were part of the lively series of exchanges with other invited panelists including the Hon. Grant Shapps, Secretary of State for Transport for the United Kingdom, Dick Benschop, Chief Executive Officer, Royal Schiphol Group, and Grazia Vittadini, Chief. Technology Officer, Airbus. The goal of the sessions was to gather perspectives across the aviation value-chain on key challenges and priorities, review the commitment to cross-sector collaboration and calls to action to drive quick, deliberate, strategic, and equitable [...]

Source: ACI   Forecasts reveal potential recovery path but without assistance uncertainty persists New forecasts from Airports Council International (ACI) World show the path to recovery in 2021 will be slow and uncertain and, without government policy support and assistance, the industry continues to face collapse. ACI World's most recent COVID-19 impact analysis revealed the global airport industry experienced a reduction of more than 6 billion passengers by the end of 2020, representing a decline of -64.2% of global passenger traffic, with a reduction in revenue of $111.8 billion. ACI’s newly published World Airport Traffic Forecasts reveal, over the next five years, global passenger traffic worldwide is expected to grow at an annualized rate of +2.4%, affected negatively in the [...]

Source: ICAO Speaking  to the 8th Virtual Meeting of the UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) Global Tourism Crisis Committee this week, ICAO Secretary General Dr. Fang Liu acknowledged that the latest measures to confront the most recent waves of COVID-19 transmission are weighing heavily on global travel and tourism.   She emphasized that there were few signs of near-term relief ahead for travel and tourism markets, given that the world is still faced with limited supplies of vaccines, and insufficient data on the transmission of the virus by persons that have been vaccinated.   Dr. Liu underscored that ICAO is collaborating with States, partner agencies and industry on the global vaccine distribution challenge, and to develop further guidance applicable to [...]

Source: ICAO With its latest economic impact analysis of COVID-19 now completed, the UN agency for civil aviation has confirmed that international passenger traffic suffered a dramatic 60 per cent drop over 2020, bringing air travel totals back to 2003 levels. ICAO reports that as seat capacity fell by 50 per cent last year, passenger totals dropped by 60 per cent with just 1.8 billion passengers taking to the air during the first year of the pandemic, compared to 4.5 billion in 2019. Its numbers also point to airline financial losses of 370 billion dollars resulting from the COVID-19 impacts, with airports and air navigation services providers (ANSPs) losing a further 115 billion and 13 billion, respectively. The pandemic plunge [...]

Source: ICAO ICAO Secretary General Dr. Fang Liu addressed the members of the Women in Aviation International’s India Chapter on 8 January 2021, providing introductory remarks to its virtual meeting on “Connecting the dots – Recovery for aviation, tourism and hospitality”.   The Secretary General’s comments focused mainly on the significant gender equality challenges still facing the air transport sector, and the opportunity to address current imbalances as the sector pivots and recovers from COVID-19.   “While it is becoming more common to see women in positions of power and prominence, in both the public and private sectors, we still remain under-represented in most professional, leadership, and decision-making categories,” Dr. Liu noted. “In the aviation sector more specifically, which is [...]

Source: IATA The International Air Transport Association (IATA), the Latin American and Caribbean Air Transport Association (ALTA), Airports Council International Latin America and the Caribbean (ACI-LAC) and the Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation (CANSO), are jointly expressing their deep concerns about the new measures and restrictions imposed on air travel across Latin America and the Caribbean. In a call to governments they are asking for the implementation and adherence to internationally agreed measures which permit safe air travel during the COVID-19 pandemic. Rolling back the progress made on restoring air connectivity in 2020 will have an adverse effect on the socio-economic recovery in the region, placing millions of jobs at risk. 2021 began as a promising and hopeful year with [...]

Source: U.S. Department of Justice The Boeing Company (Boeing) has entered into an agreement with the Department of Justice to resolve a criminal charge related to a conspiracy to defraud the Federal Aviation Administration’s Aircraft Evaluation Group (FAA AEG) in connection with the FAA AEG’s evaluation of Boeing’s 737 MAX airplane. Boeing, a U.S.-based multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells commercial airplanes to airlines worldwide, entered into a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) in connection with a criminal information filed today in the Northern District of Texas. The criminal information charges the company with one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States. Under the terms of the DPA, Boeing will pay a total criminal monetary amount of over $2.5 billion, [...]