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    Thanksgiving Holiday Travel Will Test Airlines

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    Widespread flight cancellations. Excruciating waits for customer service. Unruly passengers.And that was all before the holiday travel season.Even in normal times, the days around Thanksgiving are a delicate period for the airlines. But this week is the industry’s biggest test since the pandemic began, as millions more Americans — emboldened by vaccinations and reluctant to spend another holiday alone — are expected to take to the skies than during last year’s holidays.A lot is riding on the carriers’ ability to pull it off smoothly.“For many people, this will be the first time they’ve gotten together with family, maybe in a year, year and a half, maybe longer, so it’s very significant,” said Kathleen Bangs, a former commercial pilot who is a spokeswoman for FlightAware, an aviation data provider. “If it goes poorly, that’s when people might rethink travel plans for Christmas. And that’s what the airlines don’t want.”The Transportation Security Administration said it expected to screen about 20 million passengers at airports in the 10 days that began Friday, a figure approaching prepandemic levels. Two million passed through checkpoints on Saturday alone, about twice as many as on the Saturday before last Thanksgiving.Delta Air Lines and United Airlines both said they expected to fly only about 12 percent fewer passengers than they did in 2019. And United said it expected the Sunday after Thanksgiving to be its busiest day since the pandemic began 20 months ago. Many Thanksgiving travelers seem to be going about their travel routines as usual, with some now-familiar pandemic twists.“Airports are busy right now, and everything seems back to normal,” said Naveen Gunendran, 22, a University of Illinois student who was flying on United from Chicago to San Francisco on Saturday to visit relatives. “But we’re all packed together, and we just have to hope everybody is being safe.”The pent-up travel demand has elevated the cost of tickets. Hopper, an app that predicts flight prices, said that the average domestic flight during Thanksgiving week was on track to be about $293 round-trip this year, $48 more than last year — although $42 cheaper than in 2019.While the industry is projecting optimism about easy traveling, the influx of passengers has injected an element of uncertainty into a fragile system still reeling from the pandemic’s devastation. Some airlines have experienced recent troubles that rippled for days — stymying travel plans for thousands of passengers — as the carriers struggled to get pilots and flight attendants in place for delayed and rescheduled flights, a task complicated by thin staffing.“We’ve said numerous times: The pandemic is unprecedented and extremely complex — it was messy going into it, and it’s messy as we fight to emerge from it,” the president and chief operating officer of Southwest Airlines, Mike Van de Ven, said in a lengthy note to customers last month.His apology came after Southwest canceled nearly 2,500 flights over a four-day stretch — nearly 18 percent of its scheduled flights, according to FlightAware — as a brief bout of bad weather and an equally short-lived air traffic control staffing shortage snowballed.Weeks later, American Airlines suffered a similar collapse, canceling more than 2,300 flights in four days — nearly 23 percent of its schedule — after heavy winds slowed operations at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, its largest hub.American and Southwest have said they are working to address the problems, offering bonuses to encourage employees to work throughout the holiday period, stepping up hiring and pruning ambitious flight plans.Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants, a union representing roughly 50,000 flight attendants at 17 airlines, gave the carriers good marks for their preparations.“First and foremost, we are getting demand back after the biggest crisis aviation has ever faced,” she said.“I think there has been a lot of good planning,” she added. “And barring a major weather event, I think that the airlines are going to be able to handle the demand.”According to FlightAware, just 0.4 percent of flights were canceled on Sunday, which the T.S.A. said was nearly as busy as the Sunday before Thanksgiving in 2019.Thanksgiving travel will be a major test of whether the airline industry is ready to return to normal operations.DeSean McClinton-Holland for The New York TimesTravelers at La Guardia Airport in New York on Sunday. Some got away earlier than usual because of the flexibility of doing jobs or taking classes remotely.DeSean McClinton-Holland for The New York TimesMajor airlines have just started to report profits again, and only after factoring in billions of dollars of federal aid. While the aid allowed carriers to avoid sweeping layoffs during the pandemic, tens of thousands of employees took generous buyouts or early-retirement packages or volunteered to take extended leaves of absence.That has made ramping back up more difficult, and the pandemic has created new challenges. Flight crews have had to contend with overwork and disruptive and belligerent passengers, leaving them drained and afraid for their safety.Helene Albert, 54, a longtime flight attendant for American Airlines, said she took an 18-month leave by choice that was offered because of the pandemic. When she returned to work on Nov. 1 on domestic routes, she said, she saw a difference in passengers from when she began her leave.“People are hostile,” she said. “They don’t know how to wear masks and they act shocked when I tell them we don’t have alcohol on our flights anymore.”The number of such unruly passengers has fallen since the Federal Aviation Administration cracked down on the behavior earlier this year. But the agency has so far begun investigations into 991 episodes involving passenger misbehavior in 2021, more than in the last seven years combined. In some cases, the disruptions have forced flights to be delayed or even diverted — an additional strain on air traffic.Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport on Saturday.Cooper Neill for The New York TimesLayered on top of the industry’s struggles during the holiday season is the perennial threat of inclement weather. Forecasters have cautioned in recent days that gathering storm systems were threatening to deliver gusty winds and rain that could interfere with flights, but for the most part, the weather is not expected to cause major disruptions.“Overall, the news is pretty good in terms of the weather in general across the country cooperating with travel,” said Jon Porter, the chief meteorologist for AccuWeather. “We’re not dealing with any big storms across the country, and in many places the weather will be quite favorable for travel.”Even so, AAA, the travel services organization, recommended that airline passengers arrive two hours ahead of departure for domestic flights and three hours ahead for international destinations during the Thanksgiving travel wave.Some lawmakers warned that a Monday vaccination deadline for all federal employees could disrupt T.S.A. staffing at airports, resulting in long lines at security checkpoints, but the agency said those concerns were unfounded.The influx of passengers has added uncertainty to a system still reeling from the pandemic. Christopher Lee for The New York TimesMajor airlines have just started to report profits again, and only after factoring in billions of dollars of federal aid.Christopher Lee for The New York Times“The compliance rate is very high, and we do not anticipate any disruptions because of the vaccination requirements,” R. Carter Langston, a T.S.A. spokesman, said in a statement on Friday. With many people able to do their jobs or classes remotely, some travelers left town early, front-running what are typically the busiest travel days before the holiday.TripIt, a travel app that organizes itineraries, said 33 percent of holiday travelers booked Thanksgiving flights for last Friday and Saturday, according to its reservation data. (That number was slightly down from last year, when 35 percent of travelers left on the Friday and Saturday before Thanksgiving, and marginally higher than in 2019, when 30 percent of travelers did so, TripIt said.)Among those taking advantage of the flexibility was Emilia Lam, 18, a student at New York University who traveled home to Houston on Saturday. She is doing her classes this week remotely, she said, and planned her early getaway to get ahead of the crush. “The flights are going to be way more crowded,” she said, as Thursday approaches.Robert Chiarito and Maria Jimenez Moya contributed reporting. More

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    Delta’s Extra $200 Insurance Fee Shows Vaccine Dilemma for Employers

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    Charging unvaccinated workers more for health coverage may seem more appealing than a mandate but could be harder to carry out.For weeks, big employers like Citigroup, Google and the Walt Disney Company have been warming to the idea of requiring coronavirus vaccines for employees. Now that one vaccine has received full federal approval, President Biden wants more to follow suit.Delta Air Lines has chosen a very different tack — one that might seem to provide employees more choice but could be much harder to carry out. The company on Wednesday became the first large U.S. employer to embrace an idea that has been widely discussed but is mired in legal uncertainty: charging unvaccinated employees more for health insurance.Starting Nov. 1, Delta employees who have not received the vaccine will have to pay an additional $200 per month to remain on the company’s health plan. It is part of a series of requirements that unvaccinated workers will face in the months to come, the airline’s chief executive, Ed Bastian, said in a memo to staff.“We’ve always known that vaccinations are the most effective tool to keep our people safe and healthy in the face of this global health crisis,” he said. “That’s why we’re taking additional, robust actions to increase our vaccination rate.”Every Delta employee who has been hospitalized because of the coronavirus in recent weeks was not yet fully vaccinated, with hospital stays costing the company an average of about $50,000. Like most large employers, Delta insures its own work force, meaning it pays health costs directly and hires an insurance company to administer its plans.Corporate executives have wrestled with how to restore some normalcy to their operations, including by letting workers return to offices. They are trying to achieve several goals that can at times come into conflict: keeping employees safe, retaining staff opposed to vaccines at a time of tremendous turnover, and showing customers that they are taking the pandemic seriously while not alienating others put off by masks and other restrictions.Several companies, particularly those in health care, have made vaccination a condition of employment. Under a recent Biden administration policy, any nursing home that receives federal funds will be required to mandate vaccines for workers.Nearly 14 percent of U.S. employers now require, or plan to require, staff to be vaccinated in order to work at a company site, according to a survey this month from Mercer, a benefits consulting firm. In a May survey, just 3 percent of employers planned to require vaccinations.Insurance surcharges may appeal to companies that are seeking a less coercive means to increase vaccination rates, said Wade Symons, a partner at Mercer. He has had conversations with about 50 large companies that are considering imposing such fees, he added.“They still want to have the appearance of a choice,” Mr. Symons said.The businesses, he said, tend to be in industries that involve a lot of in-person work: manufacturing, hospitality, financial services, retail and transportation. Many have already tried incentives like cash bonuses or raffles for large prizes but still have vaccine holdouts.Delta said 75 percent of its staff and more than 80 percent of its pilots and flight attendants were vaccinated. But when CNN asked Mr. Bastian on Wednesday why the airline hadn’t simply mandated vaccines, he framed the issue as one of corporate culture.“Every company has to make its own decision for its culture, its people, what works according to its values,” he said. “I think these added voluntary steps, short of mandating a vaccine, are going to get us as close to 100 percent as we can.”Legally speaking, insurance surcharges are more complicated than simple employment mandates, which are widely considered legally sound. Federal law bars employers and insurers from charging higher prices to people with pre-existing health conditions. But the vaccine surcharges are being structured as employer “wellness” incentive programs, which are permitted under the Affordable Care Act. Such programs must be voluntary but can involve rewards or penalties as large as 30 percent of an employee’s health insurance premium.(Insurance plans bought on the marketplaces created by the Affordable Care Act and government programs like Medicaid and Medicare are forbidden to impose such surcharges.)Starting Nov. 1, unvaccinated Delta Air Lines employees will be charged more to stay on the company health plan.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesUnder federal law, employers must provide accommodations for workers who cannot receive a vaccine for health reasons or sincerely held religious beliefs. A recent lawsuit successfully challenged wellness programs with large financial penalties, arguing that the provision violated the Americans With Disabilities Act.“This is not rocket science, but it is not easy,” said Rob Duston, a lawyer with Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr in Washington, D.C., whose focus includes employment and disability issues.“You are dealing with the overlap of at least three different laws,” he added, referring to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, the Affordable Care Act, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s wellness plan and Covid-19 guidelines. The companies will have to abide by the Americans With Disabilities Act and health privacy laws, too.Wellness programs have become widespread in large corporations even though studies show that they have very little impact on employee health. In some cases, they have tended to nudge workers who are facing penalties to drop their workplace coverage.“It seems like a more complicated way to do it,” said Karen Pollitz, a senior fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation, who has studied such plans extensively and recently wrote a paper on vaccine mandate options. “In the middle of a pandemic, you want people to have health insurance. Why are you making it more likely they’re going to drop their health insurance?”But vaccination may prove different from other health behaviors that employers are seeking to change. Unlike weight loss or smoking cessation, vaccination does not require a long-term behavior change..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Jeff Levin-Scherz, a population health leader at the consulting firm Willis Towers Watson, said he had his doubts.“Premium surcharges might make intuitive sense, but based on their structure they are unlikely to lead to a large increase in vaccination rates,” Mr. Levin-Scherz said. “The surcharge approach has no impact on employees who waive coverage, and the penalties will be disproportionately imposed on lower-wage workers.”At Delta, the surcharge is one of several new requirements for unvaccinated workers. Starting immediately, those employees will have to wear masks indoors. In about two weeks, they will be subjected to weekly coronavirus tests. Then, on Sept. 30, unvaccinated employees will lose protections intended to cover pay for work missed while having to quarantine.The airline, which is based in Atlanta, its biggest hub, has a lot of employees in a state with a relatively low vaccination rate. Just over half of Georgia’s adult population is fully vaccinated, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Delta’s decision not to require the vaccine may also help it to avoid criticism from Georgia’s conservative lawmakers, who have punished it in the past. In 2018, the state legislature voted to repeal a tax break on jet fuel after Delta ended a discount for members of the National Rifle Association, but the governor later ordered state officials to stop collecting the tax, effectively restoring the break. Lawmakers threatened to start collecting it again this year after Delta opposed new voting restrictions in the state.“It’s not an idle threat,” said Charles Bullock III, a professor of political science at the University of Georgia. “Doing this is probably more in keeping with where the Republican leadership would be,” he said of Delta’s approach on vaccination.American Airlines and Southwest Airlines, both based in Texas, have also not required vaccines. But United Airlines, which is based in Chicago, said this month that it would require vaccines, starting on Sept. 27.United’s chief executive, Scott Kirby, has lamented the dozens of letters he has had to write to families of employees who died from the virus. “We’re determined to do everything we can to try to keep another United family from receiving that letter,” he and Brett Hart, United’s president, told employees this month.One industry that has achieved high employee vaccination rates is Nevada’s casinos. State regulators allowed casinos to operate at full capacity once at least 80 percent of employees had received at least one shot of a coronavirus vaccination, a threshold some big properties achieved. Last week, MGM Resorts went further and said Covid vaccination would be a condition of employment for all salaried employees and new hires.“Vaccination is clearly the most effective tool in battling the pandemic, and it is one of our top priorities,” said Brian Ahern, a spokesman for MGM.Culinary Workers Union Local 226, which represents many casino workers, supports the mandate. “We would support stricter mandates, as the vaccine is the only way we can get through this pandemic,” Bethany Khan, director of communications and digital strategy for the union, said in an email.Peter Eavis More

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    Airlines See a Surge in Domestic Flights, Beating Forecasts

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    U.S. carriers are reaping the rewards as a surge in domestic air travel has exceeded forecasts.The aviation recovery is gaining momentum.A summer travel bonanza is exceeding expectations, helping airlines earn profits again and brightening the outlook for the rest of the year. It’s a welcome relief for a battered industry and a sign that the rebound that began this spring appears to be here to stay.The economic upturn, aggressive cost-cutting and an enormous federal stimulus that paid many salaries have helped to improve the finances of the largest carriers, which took on vast amounts of debt and lost billions of dollars during the pandemic.This month, consumer spending on airlines briefly exceeded 2019 levels on a weekly basis for the first time since the pandemic began, according to Facteus, a research firm that monitors millions of online payments. Ticket prices have rebounded, too: In June, fares were down only 1 percent from the same month in 2019, according to the Adobe Digital Economy Index, which is similarly based on website visits and transactions.And on Sunday, the Transportation Security Administration screened more than 2.2 million travelers at its airport checkpoints, the most in one day since the start of the pandemic.“As people have gotten vaccinated and things have reopened, the demand is just very, very strong — and I think, in general, it’s stronger than people thought it would be,” said Helane Becker, an airline analyst at the investment bank Cowen. “People have money and time, and they’re using it to travel.”A full recovery rests on the return of two pillars of the business, corporate and international travel, but executives said they expected both to improve meaningfully over the coming months. And while the Delta variant of the coronavirus could still threaten the travel rebound, customers are so far undeterred.“We haven’t seen any impact at all on bookings,” Scott Kirby, the chief executive of United Airlines, said this week on a call to discuss quarterly financial results with analysts and reporters. “The most likely outcome is that the recovery in demand continues largely unabated.”His comments aligned with those of executives at American Airlines and Delta Air Lines, who said on similar calls that they had seen no drop in demand because of the variant. Both Delta and United added that a vast majority of employees and regular customers had received coronavirus vaccines, which appear to provide protection against the variant.The rising demand has prompted hiring across the industry. American said Wednesday that it planned to hire 1,350 pilots by the end of next year, a 50 percent increase over previous plans. Last week, the company announced that it planned to hire hundreds of flight attendants and bring back thousands who volunteered for extended leaves during the pandemic.Southwest Airlines said in June that it would increase its minimum wage to $15 an hour to retain and attract workers, while Delta is in the middle of hiring thousands of employees. United last month announced plans to buy 270 new planes in the coming years, the largest airplane order in its history and one that would create thousands of jobs nationwide.Southwest on Thursday reported a profit of $348 million for the quarter that ended in June, its second profitable quarter since the pandemic began. American reported a $19 million profit over the same period, while Delta last week reported a $652 million profit, a pandemic first for each airline. United this week reported a loss, but projected a return to profitability in the third quarter as its business improved faster than forecast.The financial turnaround has been buoyed by an infusion of $54 billion of federal aid to pay employee salaries over the past year and a half. Without those payments, none of the major airlines would have been able to report profits for the quarter that ended in June. The aid precludes the companies from paying dividends through September 2022.Each airline offered a hopeful outlook for the current quarter. American projected that passenger capacity would be down only 15 to 20 percent from the third quarter of 2019, while United projected a 26 percent decline and Delta forecast a 28 to 30 percent drop. Southwest, which differs from the other three large carriers in that it operates few international flights, said it expected capacity to be comparable to the third quarter of 2019.“We are just really excited about the momentum we’re seeing in the numbers,” Doug Parker, American’s chief executive, told analysts after the company delivered its earnings report.The financial results and forecasts for the rest of the summer are the latest sign of strength in a comeback that has been building for months. But the airlines have vast amounts of debt to repay — American, the most indebted carrier, announced a plan on Thursday to pay down $15 billion by the end of 2025 — and the rebound hasn’t been free of setbacks.Passenger volumes are still down nearly 20 percent from prepandemic levels, and airlines suffered widespread delays and cancellations as passengers returned in droves last month, according to data from FlightAware, a flight tracking company. About 17 percent of Delta’s flights were delayed at least 15 minutes in June, along with more than 20 percent for United, more than 30 percent for American and 40 percent for Southwest.Travelers at Miami International Airport last month. Airlines had many delays and cancellations as passengers returned in droves last month.Saul Martinez for The New York Times“While the rapid ramp-up in June travel demand provided stability to our financial position, it has impacted our operations following a prolonged period of depressed demand,” Southwest’s chief executive, Gary Kelly, acknowledged in a statement on Thursday. “Therefore, we are intensely focused on improving our operations as we restore our network to meet demand.”Carriers have also struggled to get workers in place to meet that demand. American suffered shortages of catering and wheelchair operators last month, while it also accelerated pilot training to bring more than 3,000 back from extended leaves. Last week, Ed Bastian, chief executive of Delta, said the airline had struggled to train new or long-sidelined employees.“It takes a few months, and the demand has come back at such a fast clip,” he said. “It’s taken us all a little bit of time to catch our breath. But we’ll be fully back over the next couple of months.”One form of travel, trips to visit friends or family within the United States, has generally recovered to 2019 levels, with Southwest saying such leisure travel exceeded 2019 levels in June.Surveys show that corporate travelers are increasingly eager to get back on the road this fall, when business travel typically picks up. Nearly two-thirds of companies that suspended business travel in the pandemic expect to bring it back over the next one to three months, according to a recent poll from the Global Business Travel Association, an industry association. If other companies follow Apple’s lead in delaying a return to the office, though, the corporate travel recovery could be held back.Delta said it expected domestic business trips to recover to about 60 percent of 2019 levels by September, up from 40 percent in June. Those figures roughly align with estimates from United.“The demand is recovering even faster than we had hoped domestically,” Mr. Kirby of United said on Wednesday.International travel has slowly started to recover, too, as more countries, particularly in Europe, open up to American travelers who can provide proof of vaccination or a negative coronavirus test. But airlines are lobbying the Biden administration to loosen restrictions in kind, which, they say, will allow the recovery to accelerate.“I think the surge is coming, and just as we’ve seen it on the consumer side, we’re getting ready for it on the business side,” Mr. Bastian of Delta said last week. “Once you open businesses, offices, and you get international markets opened, I think it’s going to be a very good run over the next 12 to 24 months.” More

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    United Airlines Wants to Bring Back Supersonic Air Travel

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    The airline, which plans to buy planes from Boom Supersonic, a start-up, could become the first to offer ultrafast commercial flights since the Concorde stopped flying in 2003.The era of supersonic commercial flights came to an end when the Concorde completed its last trip between New York and London in 2003, but the allure of ultrafast air travel never quite died out. More

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    British Tourists Return to Portugal, Unleashed but (Mostly) Masked

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    Sorely in need of sun and a change of scene, British travelers returned to the newly “green-listed” country and were met by relief, exasperation — and hardly anyone.After enduring a winter of strict lockdown, and a spring that saw a gradual reopening but lousy weather to spend it in, the first British tourists to Portugal since the country was “green-listed” for quarantine-free travel were elated by the thrill of escape, even if their trips were not quite as carefree as in past summers. “We just wanted to go anywhere that wasn’t London, basically,” said the singer and songwriter Celeste Waite, 27, as she climbed a hilly street in Lisbon’s Alfama district last Saturday with Sonny Hall, 22, a model and poet.“It’s been nice finally getting back to normal,” said Karen Kaur, 35, of Kent, England, after she and Jay Singh, 38, downed shots of ginjinha, a cherry liqueur, from a street vendor in Praça da Figueira, a large square in the city’s center. But British travelers expecting a kind of pre-pandemic travel experience found something different in Lisbon during the first weekend it reopened to them. Though the Portuguese capital still offered its signature food, museums, picturesque vistas and attractions, stringent mask rules and curfews reminded visitors this would not be an unfettered escape. The opening weekend for Britons offered a preview of what a broader return to international travel may look like for others, including vaccinated Americans when they are welcomed to Europe this summer: A mixture of joy, relief, and at times awkward interactions as cultures converge after a year of disparate pandemic experiences. Tourists soak up the sun in Cascais, a coastal resort town near Portugal’s capital of Lisbon. Before the pandemic, Britons were one of the town’s top tourist markets.Daniel Rodrigues for The New York TimesPortugal has long been among Britain’s favorite tourist destinations, with scenic city escapes in Lisbon and Porto, and beachside restaurants and hotels catering to British tourists in the coastal resort town of Cascais and the Algarve, known for its alluring beaches, all within a three-hour flight. More than 2.1 million people visited from Britain in 2019, the most from any country except Spain, according to Turismo de Portugal, the national tourist board.Now, Portugal is one of Britain’s only tourist destinations. Earlier in May, Britain included Portugal on its “green list” of 12 countries and territories that residents could travel to from May 17 without quarantining for up to 10 days upon return. Most other green-listed places are either not accepting tourists or are not major destinations.A tourist passing the Casa de Santa Maria in Cascais. Britain added Portugal to its “green list,” which allowed its residents to travel there without quarantining from May 17.Daniel Rodrigues for The New York TimesPrices for flights to Portugal spiked after the announcement. But flying now means accepting expensive, and, at times, confusing extra steps, highlighting the tentative nature of international travel’s reopening. Tourists need to fill out multiple forms and submit a negative PCR test taken less than 72 hours before the flight. Before returning to Britain, they must take another test within 72 hours of their flight, and prove they have booked a third test to be taken on their second day back in Britain. The tests add up to hundreds of dollars per person, for many people exceeding the cost of the flight. Some tourists on a British Airways flight from London last Saturday said the extra steps were a pain, but they needed to get out of Britain after a difficult winter. From December to late March, the country experienced one of the world’s strictest and longest nationwide lockdowns, with socializing permitted only through walks in the cold with one other person. Pubs and restaurants didn’t open for outdoor dining until mid-April, and overnight travel within the country wasn’t permitted until last week.“No one else is going, so I’ve been rubbing it in with my friends,” said Anna De Pascalis, 23, before boarding a flight to Lisbon with her mother, Julie De Pascalis. “Everyone’s pretty jealous.” After a winter of rising coronavirus cases, Portugal has been down to a few hundred cases and single-digit deaths per day since late March. But there is a disparity in inoculations against Covid-19: About 36 percent of Portuguese people have received at least one dose of a vaccine, compared to about 57 percent of those from the United Kingdom.Tourists enjoying the view from São Jorge Castle, a popular attraction in Lisbon. A mere trickle of tourists have returned to Portugal so far compared to the hordes before the pandemic.Ana Brigida for The New York TimesSilvia Olivença, the owner of the food tour company Oh! My Cod in Lisbon, said being indoors with unmasked tourists while eating does not worry her, though she’s heard concerns from other Portuguese people that the return of foreigners could threaten Portugal’s low case numbers, despite tourists testing negative before they can fly.“You have people thinking about it, of course,” she said. But, she added: “I think people in general are quite happy to see the tourism come back.”One month ago, she would run maybe one tour per week. Now it’s up to 10 per week, with about 70 percent of her bookings from Britain, she said. In addition to British tourists, Portugal has also welcomed back visitors from the European Union. For Sara Guerreiro, who owns a ceramics shop in the Feira da Ladra flea market in the winding Alfama district, last Saturday was more of a tease of normality. Looking outside her shop, she saw maybe 10 percent of the pre-pandemic foot traffic through the twice-weekly market, which sells miscellaneous items to locals alongside artwork and trinkets to tourists.A tourist photographs the famous 28 tram in Lisbon’s historic heart, Baixa.Ana Brigida for The New York TimesBut she said Lisbon could use a better balance in how many tourists it welcomes, because “how it was before was also too much.” Overall, a mere trickle of tourists have returned to Portugal so far compared to the pre-virus hordes. Those who made the trip were able to enjoy the city as few have: without swarms of other tourists to jostle with. At the ornate Praça do Comércio, a historic square typically packed with visitors, just a few dozen lingered. You could easily take a wide-angle photo outside Belém Tower, a popular landmark, at noon on Sunday with no other people in it. The line for custard tarts at nearby Pastéis de Belém, typically an out-the-door affair, passed in a few brief minutes Sunday morning. At Tasco do Chico, renowned for its live fado music, a spot at the bar was available one minute before Saturday night’s first performance began. Belém Tower, one of the most famous monuments in Lisbon, has few tourists still. Ana Brigida for The New York TimesIn one lively scene reminiscent of pre-pandemic freedom, tourists and locals alike converged Saturday night in Bairro Alto, with bars and restaurants packed with revelers until the 10:30 p.m. curfew. Nicci Howson, 65, said she was surrounded by Portuguese people dancing in Cervejaria do Bairro, a restaurant in that neighborhood, the first time she had danced outside her home in a year.“You could see the elation on people’s faces to just let loose,” she said.At 10:30 p.m., when some Portuguese might just be sitting down to dinner in normal times, the bars closed and sent packs of people dancing and singing tightly together in the narrow streets, until they were shooed away by police on motorcycles about five minutes later. The revelers lingered in the nearby Luís de Camões Square until 11:30 p.m., when officers dispersed the group. But during the day, there were no such crowds to contend with.Mark Boulle, 38, from Oxford, England, said he typically tries to avoid crowds while traveling, so the trip was in that respect a dream. When he took a day trip to Sintra, a nearby town with postcard-ready palaces and castles, on Monday, “for the first half of the day I virtually had the whole place to myself,” he said. But he was dismayed by the widespread use of masks outdoors in Lisbon — a sharp departure from behaviors in Britain, where the government has never suggested wearing masks outside and most people do not. It was a source of tension for both visitors and the Portuguese.British tourists in Lisbon did not have competition for a prime view at the ancient São Jorge Castle. Ana Brigida for The New York TimesUsing masks outdoors is mandatory in Portugal, with violators in some locations, including beaches, facing fines. At the Castelo de São Jorge, an 11th century castle with sweeping views of the city, a security guard roamed the grounds outside, instructing the few tourists there to put masks on while standing far away from others. A bookseller at an open-air market in Baixa grumbled that the tourists ought to comply with local attitudes and customs about masks, instead of bringing their own ideas abroad.But Mr. Boulle said he wanted the sun on his face. As he went to buy his ticket at the Jerónimos Monastery, a popular tourist attraction, he recalled, a security guard stopped him before he could buy his ticket, asking him to put a mask on. Mr. Boulle replied that he has asthma, and he couldn’t wear one because he’d have trouble breathing. “That isn’t true, but I just wanted to see,” he said. “In England you can always say that.” No such luck, as the security guard insisted. Frederico Almeida, the general manager of the Albatroz Hotel in the nearby beach town of Cascais, said he and his staff has had to remind visitors from Britain of the requirements.Despite these issues, he’s happy to see British tourists again. They are the top market for the area, he said, and their return has been swift. The 42-room hotel was at about 20 percent occupancy two weeks ago; now it’s up to about 80 percent. “All of a sudden, in the last two weeks, it’s as if we’ve turned back to normality,” he said. “It’s wonderful.”THE WORLD IS REOPENING. LET’S GO, SAFELY. Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. And sign up for our Travel Dispatch newsletter: Each week you’ll receive tips on traveling smarter, stories on hot destinations and access to photos from all over the world. More

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    Flight paths over Belarus should be assessed, the transportation secretary says.

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    The transportation secretary said Monday that the safety of flights operated by U.S. airlines over Belarus should be reviewed after the Eastern European country forced a commercial flight to land in order to seize a dissident on board.“That’s exactly what needs to be assessed right now,” the secretary, Pete Buttigieg, told CNN. “We, in terms of the international bodies we’re part of and as an administration with the F.A.A., are looking at that because the main reason my department exists is safety.”The comments came after the authoritarian leader of Belarus dispatched a fighter jet on Sunday to intercept a Ryanair plane carrying the journalist Roman Protasevich. The plane was forced to land in Minsk, the Belarusian capital, where Mr. Protasevich was arrested.The secretary of state, Antony J. Blinken, condemned the forced diversion, saying it was a “shocking act” that “endangered the lives of more than 120 passengers, including U.S. citizens.” And Michael O’Leary, the chief executive of Ryanair, an Irish-based low-cost carrier, called the operation a “state -sponsored hijacking.”The International Air Transport Association, a global industry group, said Saturday on Twitter, “We strongly condemn any interference or requirement for landing of civil aviation operations that is inconsistent with the rules of international law.” The group called for “a full investigation by competent international authorities.”Officials in the region also criticized the action. Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, called the re-routing to Minsk “utterly unacceptable,” adding that “any violation of international air transport rules must bear consequences.”Though not a major European hub, Minsk is served by multiple international airlines, including Lufthansa, KLM, Turkish Airlines and Air France. Delta Air Lines and United Airlines offer flights to Minsk through their partnerships with those European airlines as well as through Belavia, the Belarusian national carrier.Belarus sits between Poland and Russia and also has borders with Ukraine, Lithuania and Latvia, putting it in the path of some flights to and from major European airports. More

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    Belarus’s forced landing of airliner sends shock waves through industry.

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    Some airlines in Eastern Europe began diverting their planes to avoid Belarus airspace on Monday, a day after that country’s leader sent a fighter jet to force down a Ryanair flight, allowing authorities to seize an opposition journalist on board.The shocking move has unleashed a storm of criticism against Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, the Belarus president who has clung to power despite huge protests last year. The European Union is considering penalties against the country. At least two airlines said that they were diverting flights away from Belarus airspace as a precaution, but most carriers seem to be waiting to be told what to do by the European authorities.In an interview on Monday with an Irish radio broadcaster, Ryanair’s chief executive, Michael O’Leary, condemned the actions of the Belarus authorities, who ordered the plane, flying from Athens to Vilnius, Lithuania, to land in the Belarus capital of Minsk and then arrested a dissident journalist on board, Roman Protasevich, and his companion.“This was a case of state-sponsored hijacking, state-sponsored piracy,” Mr. O’Leary told interviewers on Newstalk.Mr. O’Leary, however, said he was waiting for instructions from European Union authorities in Brussels about whether to steer other flights away from Belarus.“We, like all the European airlines, are looking for guidance today from the European authorities and from NATO,” he said.He added that it would be an easy matter for his flights to avoid Belarus. “We don’t fly over Belarus much,” he said. “It would be a very minor adjustment to fly over” Poland instead, he added. Ryanair, a discount airline based in Ireland, describes itself as Europe’s largest airline group.Other airlines are already making changes.AirBaltic, the Latvian national airline, said that its flights would avoid entering Belarus airspace “until the situation becomes clearer or a decision is issued by the authorities.” The rerouted flights include ones from Riga, the airline’s home base, to Odessa in Ukraine and Tbilisi in Georgia.Another airline that flies in the area, Wizz Air, said that it would alter the path of a flight from Kyiv in Ukraine to Tallinn in Estonia so as to skirt Belarus.“We are continuously monitoring and evaluating the situation,” a spokesman for Wizz Air, which is based in Hungary, said. More