News

JetBlue Launches Sustainability Program for Corp. Customers

JetBlue has launched a program designed to help corporate customers reduce business travel emissions and meet sustainability targets, the airline announced Wednesday, with Biogen, Deloitte, ICF and Salesforce the first customers to join the initiative. JetBlue's Sustainable Travel Partners program offers participants sustainable aviation fuel certificates. The carrier currently uses SAF on routes from San Francisco International Airport and Los Angeles International Airport, and plans to expand its use to the Northeast. JetBlue also plans to provide emissions data based on travelers' actual flights and the carrier's average fuel burn on those routes. The airline is working to include travel emissions data into Salesforce's Net Zero Cloud tool for those in the Sustainable Travel Partners program, according to the company. The carrier also said it would help customers develop strategies to reduce emissions associated with their business travel, and participants would receive carbon offsetting on domestic flights operated by JetBlue, which the company introduced for all domestic flights in July 2020. Several other airlines have launched sustainability programs for corporate customers, including Air Canada, Southwest Airlines and United Airlines. Further, Deloitte—which also is part of the Air Canada and United programs—announced agreements with both American Airlines and Delta Air Lines to purchase SAF, and Microsoft has agreements with Alaska Airlines and KLM in which it buys sustainable fuel credits to offset travel on its busiest routes.

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Pre-departure travel Covid-19 scrapped in England

Boris Johnson has confirmed that pre-departure travel Covid-19 tests to enter England from overseas will be scrapped from 04:00 on Friday. The prime minister also added the requirement to self-isolate on arrival in England until receiving a negative PCR test result will also be lifted. Instead people can take a lateral flow test on day two - and if it is positive a further PCR test will be needed to identify any new variants, plus isolation as normal. Commenting on the news, Julia Lo Bue-Said, chief executive of Advantage Travel Partnership, said: “The relaxation of travel restrictions is of course a positive for the travel industry. “Scrapping the pre-departure test and replacing subsequent PCR day two test and therefore self-isolation on arrival back into the UK with a cheaper and effective lateral flow test will help to boost confidence at what is traditionally the busiest booking period of the year. “Our members are currently trading on average at about 50 per cent of 2019 levels and are beginning to see that pent up demand come through following 20 months of the toughest of trading conditions.” She added: “Travel will remain ever complex this year, but if the consumer can rely on less confusing government intervention, a continuation of a more flexible approach from travel suppliers, and the expertise of a human travel agent to help guide them through the booking process from take-off to landing, I am hopeful we will see the industry start to finally bounce back.”

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Cyprus mandates more testing to check rapid Covid-19 spread

Cyprus further tightened its pandemic restrictions on Wednesday, reducing the number of people permitted at social gatherings and mandating virus testing for school-teachers and all inbound travellers over 12 amid surging Covid-19 infections. Cypriot Health Minister Michalis Hadjipantela said, after a Cabinet meeting, that teachers, students and staff will need to produce a negative rapid test taken within two days prior to their return from Christmas and New Year holidays on January 10. Moreover, all primary school pupils will need to produce a negative rapid test twice weekly. As of Thursday, all travellers to Cyprus over 12 from anywhere in the world must show a negative PCR test taken two days prior to boarding. Any traveller refusing to undergo a compulsory PCR test on arrival to Cyprus will be placed in a 14-day quarantine but can leave after a week as long as they take the test. Quarantine and testing expenses will be borne by the traveller. As of next week, the maximum number of people at restaurants, bars, nightclubs and other gathering points including churches is reduced to 200, while dancing remains prohibited. Gatherings at home are limited to 10 people, not counting kids under 12. The percentage of people able to work from home is raised to 50 per cent, while anyone staying at hotels must have started their vaccination shots. Some 5,450 people tested positive for the Coronavirus- mainly the Omicron variant- out of the roughly 123,000 rapid tests carried out on Tuesday. Cypriot health authorities said 78 per cent of those requiring hospital treatment for Covid-19 are unvaccinated, but say the health care system can still manage new admissions because of the relatively low cases of serious illness.

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IndiGo secures 6th spot in Cirium’s on-time performance review, Chennai Airports gets 8th position in airport category

Aviation analytics firm Cirium has released its annual On-Time Performance Review 2021 report which features the global standard parameters for airline and airport performance. The data revealed that Tokyo’s Haneda Airport has emerged as the world’s most on-time airport while Delta Air Lines has been named as the world’s best-performing airline of 2021 for operational excellence and All Nippon Airways (ANA) as the most on-time airline globally. Spanish IAG carriers, Vueling, Iberia Express, and Iberia, take three of the top five spots in Europe. It also revealed that airlines globally operated nearly 25 million flights in 2021, which was a 10 per cent increase from 2020, but still down 36 per cent compared to 2019. From India’s perspective, the country’s largest airline in terms of fleet size and market share, IndiGo secured the sixth position in the Asia Pacific Airlines – Mainline and Network category, which was topped by ANA. IndiGo achieved an average on time arrival of 87.30 per cent on 232,226 flights it operated in 2021. “IndiGo makes an impressive appearance in this category coming in sixth with nearly 89 per cent of its flights arriving on time, having found the means to navigate through a very complex regulatory environment where each Indian state could impose its own restrictions,” stated Cirium. In the airports, the Chennai International Airport grabbed the eighth position in the list of the most on-time large airports, a category which was topped by Osaka International (Itami) Airport in Japan. The Chennai airport clocked 89.32 per cent on-time departure out of a total of 49,923 flights in 2021. In the medium airport category, Kansai International Airport in Osaka came first, while Matsuyama airport in Ehime, Japan topped the spot in the most on-time small airport category. Commenting on the report, Jeremy Bowen, CEO, Cirium said, “It was another challenging year for the aviation industry, however, 2021 was certainly better than 2020, marking the start of the recovery.”

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Gadkari inaugurates, lays foundation stones of national highways worth INR 26,778 crore in UP

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Wednesday inaugurated and laid the foundation stones of 821-km national highway (NH) projects worth INR 26,778 crore in Uttar Pradesh. Road Transport and Highways Minister Gadkari inaugurated and laid the foundation stones in Kanpur for eight national highway projects worth INR 14,199 crore; in Lucknow for 16 NH projects worth INR 7,409 crore; and in Shringverpur Dham, Prayagraj for four national highway projects worth INR 5,169 crore, the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways said in a statement. He inaugurated and laid the foundation stone in the presence of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath, among others. With the construction of Lucknow Ring Road, travelling will become convenient and with the construction of Lucknow-Kanpur Greenfield Expressway; reaching Lucknow airport from Kanpur will take less time. It will also be connected to Lucknow-Agra Expressway, which will reduce the distance to Delhi. With the construction of this expressway, one and a half hours will be saved in travelling from Lucknow to Kanpur. With the construction of the Agra-Etawah bypass, the travel time from Agra to Etawah will be reduced by one hour. The construction of ROB at Kanpur's Jhakarkati bus station will give relief from traffic jams coming from Prayagraj, Delhi side. With these projects, important pilgrimage sites like Prayagraj Chitrakoot and Shrangverpur Dham will be connected with the construction of Shri Ram Van Gaman Marg. There will be convenience in the movement of devotees and tourists in the Magh Kumbh Mahakumbh to be held in the Sangam area. These projects will also help in the development of the leather, glass and bangle industry in Kanpur and surrounding areas. The projects will facilitate investment and industrial development in Uttar Pradesh.

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Hong Kong bans flights from India and 7 more countries

Hong Kong announced strict new anti-coronavirus controls on Wednesday, banning flights from eight nations, including India. Flights from Australia, Canada, France, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, UK and US will be banned from midnight on January 7, for the next two weeks. Hong Kong will be shuttering bars, gyms and cancelling evening restaurant dining after the Omicron variant was detected within the city. The restrictions are the latest economic blow to an international business hub pursuing a zero-Covid strategy that has kept cases low but left residents cut off from the rest of the world. Like mainland China, Hong Kong has maintained some of the world's harshest measures throughout the pandemic - including virtually closed borders, weeks-long quarantines, targeted lockdowns and mass testing. The city has recorded 114 Omicron cases as of Tuesday evening, with the vast majority identified at the airport or during the 21-day hotel quarantine that But a small community outbreak traced to Cathay Pacific airline staff in recent days has sparked the imposition of tough new measures. Chief executive Carrie Lam said health officials now fear the contagious Omicron variant was silently spreading within the community. "We have cases that have their sources identified but not the route of transmission," she told reporters. "Passenger flights from these countries will not be allowed to land in Hong Kong and individuals who have stayed in those countries are not allowed to board flights to Hong Kong, including transit flights," Lam said. All large scale public events would be cancelled while over a dozen types of businesses, including bars, nightclubs, gyms, and beauty parlours, would have to close. Dining inside restaurants will be banned after 6:00 pm, Lam added, although they can continue to serve takeout. Hong Kong has bounced between heavy and light restrictions throughout the pandemic including compulsory mask-wearing, limits on more than four people gathering in public and restaurant dining quotas even during periods when no local cases were detected for weeks at a time.

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