First air taxis to fly in Catalan capital and Santiago de Compostela in 2022, says Enaire
When Spain’s much-missed tourists and pilgrims finally return, they may be offered a novel way to rise above the crowds and appreciate some of the country’s most dramatic urban architecture.
Enaire, Spain’s air navigation authority, has announced plans to begin demonstrating flying taxis in Barcelona and Santiago de Compostela in 2022.
Continue reading...CommonPass aims to create common standard proving a traveller is Covid-free or vaccinated
A new digital “health passport” is to be piloted by a small number of passengers flying from the UK to the US for the first time next week under plans for a global framework for Covid-safe air travel.
The CommonPass system, backed by the World Economic Forum (WEF), is designed to create a common international standard for passengers to demonstrate they do not have coronavirus.
Continue reading...Berlin-Brandenburg Willy Brandt Airport, €4bn over budget and nine years late, now has virus to contend with
Almost three decades after the plans were first mooted, over nine years behind schedule and more than €4bn (£3.6bn) over budget, Berlin’s new international airport is finally ready to open its doors.
But the already tortuous birth of Berlin-Brandenburg Willy Brandt Airport (BER) expected to open on 31 October, and once hailed as a celebration of the ambitious German reunification project, has only been compounded by the decision to unveil it in the middle of a pandemic.
Continue reading...Coronavirus has hit few sectors harder than air travel, wiping out tens of thousands of jobs and uncountable billions in revenue. While most fleets were grounded, the industry was forced to reimagine its future
When an airline no longer wants a plane, it is sent away to a boneyard, a storage facility where it sits outdoors on a paved lot, wingtip to wingtip with other unwanted planes. From the air, the planes look like the bleached remains of some long-forgotten skeleton. Europe’s biggest boneyard is built on the site of a late-30s airfield in Teruel, in eastern Spain, where the dry climate is kind to metallic airframes. Many planes are here for short-term storage, biding their time while they change owners or undergo maintenance. If their future is less clear, they enter long-term storage. Sometimes a plane’s limbo ends when it is taken apart, its body rendered efficiently down into spare parts and recycled metal.
In February, Patrick Lecer, the CEO of Tarmac Aerosave, the company that owns the Teruel boneyard and three others in France, had one eye cocked towards China. Lecer has been in aviation long enough to remember flights being grounded during the Sars epidemic in 2003. This year, when the coronavirus spread beyond Asia, he knew what was coming. “We started making space in our sites, playing Tetris with the aircraft to free up two or three or four more spaces in each,” he told me.
Continue reading...UK billionaire praises Emirates for flight as thousands remain stranded by policy to ease pressure on hotel quarantine
A tweet by Lord Sugar about his recent flight into Sydney has angered scores of Australians stranded around the world who themselves are unable to enter the country.
Australia’s federal opposition seized on the tweet on Friday amid accusations a controversial policy to ease pressure on Australia’s mandatory hotel quarantine system was unfairly penalising economy travellers stuck overseas.
Continue reading...Carriers prevented from operating due to coronavirus have turned to offering trays of takeaway to nostalgic flyers
Airlines are not known for their excellent cuisine. A tray of plastic-sealed plane food is, for some travellers, barely tolerable at 30,000 feet. Yet, as the coronavirus pandemic has halted flights around the world, a growing number of airlines are now flogging in-flight meals to grounded customers.
Thai Airways began advertising meal boxes in April, when the pandemic struck, selling anything from stir fried tiger prawn to beef cheek with cumin sauce. In Hong Kong, Cathay Pacific is selling meals to airport staff, while Indonesia’s national airline Garuda is offering its food as takeaway dinners on a tray.
Continue reading...Pair from Kuwait and Italy arrived on flight from Vienna on Sunday
Counter-terrorism police have said they detained two men at Stansted airport.
A 34-year-old from Kuwait and a 48-year-old from Italy were detained by counter-terrorism officers from the Eastern Region Special Operations Unit soon after 7pm on Sunday, the unit said in a statement.
Continue reading...Climate protests including ‘funeral march’ due to take place across UK, with focus on airports
Climate demonstrations are due to take place across the UK this weekend, as the environmental campaign group Extinction Rebellion launches its latest “uprising”.
This weekend’s events will include a “funeral march” in Lewes, East Sussex, to “mark the death and destruction wrought by humans on our natural world”. The march, described as a Procession for the Planet, will include mourners dressed in black and a jazz band.
Continue reading...Travel industry pins hopes for an end to 14-day isolation on new two-stage testing scheme at airport, with results delivered in hours
A new Covid test centre is ready to start rapid testing of inbound passengers arriving at Heathrow airport’s Terminal 2, as soon as the government gives it the go-ahead. Arrivals would find out results within 24 hours of being tested, replacing the need for a 14-day quarantine.
More than 13,000 passenger tests a day can be carried out in the facility, launched by aviation services firm Swissport and the Collinson Group, which runs airport lounges. A second test centre will be ready at Terminal 5 by the end of August, and operators say both centres are scalable according to demand.
Continue reading...Testing people after seven days could also ‘increase compliance from public’, says one researcher
People arriving in Britain should be tested to cut quarantine time, scientists have urged, as speculation mounts that more holiday destinations will be axed from the air bridges list.
A growing number of countries are being added to the UK’s quarantine lists, with many Britons holidaying in France forced to make a frantic dash back before 4am on Saturday morning to avoid a 14-day period of isolation.
Continue reading...Quarantine measures for people travelling from Spain may be applied to other countries
Holidaymakers have been warned the government could impose “handbrake restrictions” on more countries beyond Spain in order to stop the spread of coronavirus – with travellers unlikely to be given much warning if further quarantine measures need to be enforced.
The restrictions on travellers returning from Spain after the measures were announced overnight threw summer holiday plans into disarray for British tourists, and will raise fears among those travelling to other European countries that they could face a similar turnaround at a moment’s notice.
Continue reading...People arriving in Stansted tell of their surprise at having to now self-isolate for two weeks
People flying into Britain from Spain have attacked the government’s decision to impose a 14-day quarantine on people returning from the country, saying they were given no warning and that they felt safer in Spain.
As flights from Jerez, Alicante, Valencia and Palma landed in quick succession on Sunday afternoon at Stansted airport, passengers found themselves faced with the realisation that they were about to enter into an unexpected period of self-isolation.
Continue reading...British travellers in Madrid have expressed their shock and anger at the government's sudden decision to impose a two-week quarantine on those returning from Spain
Continue reading...Architect is ignoring his own environment pledge, say critics
One of Britain’s most famous architects is under fire for agreeing to design an airport and terminal in Saudi Arabia despite signing a climate emergency manifesto that called for an “urgent need for action” on climate change.
Norman Foster’s design firm, Foster and Partners, was one of the founding signatories of the profession’s Architects Declare manifesto last year. However, The Architects’ Journal last week revealed that several new Foster and Partners projects in Saudi Arabia have caused controversy in the profession over their links to the aviation industry.
Continue reading...Tourists slowly returning to Spain’s Balearic Islands after months-long coronavirus lockdown
Sunbathing on a deserted beach in Mallorca, Nicola Brett says she is having the “best holiday ever”.
The 31-year-old gym sales executive from York arrived on the Spanish island on a Ryanair flight on Sunday, hours after the government changed its advice against all but essential foreign travel. She was flying back at midnight on Thursday, just as the rules requiring those arriving in the UK to quarantine for 14 days were lifted.
Continue reading...Ban on air travel between Britain and Greece to continue until June 30, unlike other countries
It was meant to be the moment when Greece “welcomed the world”. But in another about-turn, travellers on flights from the UK will not be accepted when the Mediterranean country reopens to tourism on Monday.
Bowing to new advice from the EU, Athens announced on Friday that the suspension of air links with Britain, in effect since March, will continue to be enforced until 30 June.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Opponents claim exemptions to rules could mean great economic pain for little public health benefit
Tens of thousands of new arrivals to the UK will be able to go food shopping, change accommodation and use public transport from airports during a 14-day quarantine imposed to prevent a second wave of coronavirus, under draft plans to be laid before parliament.
The Guardian understands that about a fifth of people are expected to receive a spot-check to ensure that they are staying at the address or addresses they have provided to the authorities, but enforcement of the quarantine will be limited.
Continue reading...Nine-seater plane should take to skies on Thursday and produce no carbon emissions
The world’s largest all-electric aircraft is about to take to the skies for the first time.
The Cessna Caravan, retrofitted with an electric engine, is expected to fly for 20-30 minutes over Washington State in the US on Thursday.
Continue reading...All incomers – including British citizens – must disclose where they will be staying, Priti Patel says
Business groups have accused the government of pursuing an “isolationist” policy after the home secretary, Priti Patel, confirmed that arrivals in the UK will have to quarantine themselves for a fortnight or face a £1,000 fine.
From 8 June, almost everyone arriving at ports and airports, including UK citizens, will be required to travel directly to an address they provide to the authorities, where they must then self-isolate for a fortnight. The French interior ministry expressed its “regret” that it would not be exempt from the quarantine plan, after assurances this month that the country would be.
Continue reading...From 8 June people arriving in the UK will have to tell the authorities where they will be staying and face spot checks to ensure they self-isolate for 14 days, the home secretary, Priti Patel, has confirmed. Anyone failing to comply could face a fine of £1,000