USA opens borders

[kpd]

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/uk-58621759

And airline shares rise

[411A NG]

Will be interesting to see which vaccines are going to be approved - e.g. AstraZeneca is not officially approved in the US...

[CW247]

Long haul pilots can finally relax their sphincters.........we all can! :p

[Consol]

About time! Most of Europe vaccinated to a much higher percentage than the USA. Roll on Canada too (probably have to wait until after the election there).

[chorse]

Any idea how this will apply to as of yet unvaccinated crew? Will they be unable to enter without proof of double vaccination or would a negative PCR suffice?

[oceancrosser]

Consol

Er, follow the news. Already happened. YYZ immigration has been a mess

[Klauss]

Hi,
thought of a vacation in the US - but very hesitant to book. Will the lifting stay in place,
will the US re-test arriving passengers ? My belief and trust in the stability of rules
has been eroded by corona.
Lifting of the travel ban is a good sign - but it could be re-instated with short notice.
Thanks

[ScepticalOptomist]

411A NG

Not true, was an issue with naming conventions - it’s recognised name is Vaxzevria. Just a paperwork issue…

[411A NG]

Hmm, don't really understand your comment. That vaccine is simply not approved by the US FDA so it will be interesting to see if EU citizens will be allowed to enter having been vaccinated with said vaccine.

[sbthomas]

BBC and others are reporting that Anthony Fauci is suggesting it shouldn’t be an issue.

[inOban]

All vaccines approved by the World Health Organisation will be accepted.

[golfyankeesierra]

And what about crew? I guess it will be in line with Canada, no exemption.
That will be a massive problem for airlines from countries where mandatory vaccination is not possible.

[lost_expate]

Canada customs at airports has been a gong show lately. The US airports I’ve been operating to have been packed which is nice to see, flights are filling up.

[keitaidenwa]

golfyankeesierra

Why? Airlines already deal with countries requiring Yellow Fever vaccination. Doesn't require mandatory vaccination. Either you volunteer to take the vaccine or you don't fly to destinations that require the vaccine.

[tdracer]

Flew round trip last week from Seattle to Washington Dulles. Both airports were busy - especially Dulles (although many of the airport shops and restaurants were still closed). SEA to IAD on Sunday the aircraft was packed - few if any empty seats (A319). The return flight on Friday night was just the opposite - maybe 1/3rd full (737-900ER) - although I'm at a complete loss was to what the difference was...

[golfyankeesierra]

keitaidenwa

Agree, and it won’t affect me yet. Only when there are getting more countries requiring mandatory vaccination I get to fly less to the countries that don’t.
So I really am interested how it will turn out.

[Check Airman]

My airline is removing unvaccinated crews from flights to destinations requiring vaccines. They get paid, but must be available to do other flights, or else forfeit the pay.

[fox niner]

So when exactly will Canada mandate mandatory covid-vaccines for airline crew?
And when exactly will the usa mandate mandatory covid vaccines for airline crew?

[WHBM]

tdracer
Very standard in the US business consulting sector to fly out Sunday evening, do Monday to Thursday with the client, return Thursday evening, do Friday in their own office. Washington DC has this sort of trade more than most destinations.

411A NG
It really disappoints me to make this observation, but I believe that AstraZeneca, pioneers with the vaccine, who have a somewhat different corporate business model to other cash-grabbing pharmaceutical companies who followed on, have not greased enough palms (alias campaign contributions) in Washington to achieve this. For fairness, they have had some comparable governmental difficulties across Europe as well, reported in the press at the time.

[Check Airman]

fox niner

I don’t believe a vaccine mandate will come from the government. There seems to be little appetite for that. United has said all employees must be vaccinated however, and Delta has increased the insurance premiums for unvaccinated employees.

[Commander Taco]

fox niner

Already been done.

[WHBM]

Let's get away from vaccination points of view.

It was announced that vaccinated Europeans will be accepted in the USA "from November" (although all the journalists seem to have been allowed over there last week for the summit). When in November, and what procedures apply ? Show vax certificate ? Can we trust some additional regulation not to be snuck in, like "has to be certified". Any lateral flow test required before departure or on arrival ? When are the carriers taking bookings from ?

[Dave Gittins]

I’ve just booked our flights to Denver for Christmas to see the family. Booking accepted, ESTA renewed, we are both double AZ vaccinated, which is apparently fine. Assume we’ll need some sort of test 48 hrs before leaving UK but nothing required to fly home.

is all that going to work OK ? ..,.. at BA’s highly inflated flight price ?

[nomilk]

Not just journalists were eligible for a NIE the past months. So away from vacation points of view, certain people with the right reasons could travel anyway.

[annakm]

Yep. Those who were in essential employment/reserved occupations in the entertainment industry had exemptions as the authorities realised that if these celebrities weren’t regularly appearing in the media, we might forget who they were and that would have been appalling. Plus, they also needed to be able to travel freely in order to attend award ceremonies too…

[nomilk]

I was more thinking along the lines of foreign companies that invested heavily in the US (critical infrastructure etc.) that could send their foreign workers to the US. Also people for compassionate reasons, like close relatives dying etc.

[threep]

Any rumours when in November it'll open up? My missus hasn't seen her parents for nearly 2 years so we gambled and bought tickets flights to the US for mid November. Keeping fingers crossed for dates and the AZ vaccine being accepted, just because Dr Fauci says it shouldn't be a problem does not mean that it won't be.

[Havingwings4ever]

Just came back frm a family visit trip US-Netherlands-US, this time not as crew.
Neg covid test b4 dep USA +proof vaccination +health decl, required for dep. At check-in airline needed to check all this in order to issue boarding passes. We travelled non-rev, 40 pax on a 787-9 . All non-revs in bussn ofc.
Most pax seemed not to fall under the exemption rule ( European travel ban )but all entered through immigration (SPL) without issues, at SPL they checked neg covid test and health decl paper for entry, no proof of reason travels required.
Upon dep SPL proof of neg covid test(within 48 hrs of dep) and proof vaccination was required to issue a boarding pass, entry into the US immigration/customs required nothing special(just yr passport eg).
So now great time to fly non rev between USA and Europe because of light loads, from November on that will probably change quickly.
Handling agent told us that most flights are pretty empty(pax) but full bellies earning the revenues.

[BRE]

tdracer

Maybe the travelling public are still spooked and can't tell the difference between a -900 and a MAX? Also, the -900 has more seats so would have a lower occupancy when the same # of pax travel.

[tdracer]

Delta doesn't have any MAX aircraft - and I'd think most people who care would probably know that, so I doubt that was a major part. Seat wise, Delta configures for 132 on an A319 and 180 on a 737-900 - I doubt there were more than 90 people on the return flight so there's more to it than that.
What WHBM wrote is interesting and plausible - it's just not the way we did things when I was working. We avoided flying on Sunday - messes up the weekend and we didn't get paid to fly on weekends (engineering - the machinists did get paid to fly weekends so they didn't mind as much). With laptops, we could still do most of the stuff we could do in the office while on the road, so not much rush to get back to spend Friday in the office (I used to like to stay at places like Embassy Suites that had evening receptions - I'd go down and drink beer while I worked through the day's email - made the email go much easier :E). So we'd typically leave to head home on Friday - with the 3 hour time difference between the east and west coasts, we could fit in nearly a full day on Friday, take an evening flight, and still get back to Seattle at a reasonable hour and have a full weekend.

[Check Airman]

Seems to be the interpretation that a number of large airlines will require crews to be vaccinated now, as they are government contractors.

[Estero]

Just had my BA LGW-TPA 13th Nov cancelled. Not looking good for travel to US. Anyone any ideas what is going on.

[Check Airman]

https://apnews.com/article/4826edefa498139ebd37684e4f64d553

Land borders to reopen for nonessential travel. Visitors must be vaccinated. I assume air travel restrictions will be lifted soon as well, as we go into the holiday season.

Additionally, your trip needn’t be scrapped. You can fly to Miami, then take a ~1hr (block time) flight to Tampa.

[golfyankeesierra]

In that article is still no date, apart from the “early November”.
I know there is a surge in US bound ticketsales and as BA apparently cancelled on nov 13 they either know more or they still don’t and want to avoid last minute cancellations.

So, indeed: when, when when?

[Level bust]

The rumour I heard was that they are not opening up until the end of November.

[threep]

The rumour I heard was that they are not opening up until the end of November.

What's the source?

[Level bust]

I can't reveal my source, but he does work for the Government!

[threep]

I can't reveal my source, but he does work for the Government!

Thanks, I didn't expect a persons name :)
UK govt I assume? There are several agencies who have a say in the US administration, I'm not sure who has the final say on the date.

29th or 30th November would still meet the intent to reopen in November, and from a practical perspective I can understand why you would want to push it back until after Thanksgiving which is traditionally the busiest time of the year for airports. But it would be massively disappointing to the thousands of us who have booked flights in November to go visit family we haven't seen for 2 years.

[WHBM]

But it would be massively disappointing to the thousands of us who have booked flights in November .
I really do wonder why there have been all these bookings made when the date of opening up is still not known.

[Level bust]

Unfortunately it's all down to The US who says when, which leaves everyone else in the dark!

I Have just heard that there is a new rumour going round that it could now be earlier! So I guess it's a case of watch this space!

[nomilk]

Telegraph thinks it will be 8 Nov
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/10/15/us-set-lift-uk-travel-ban-early-next-month/

[oceancrosser]

reuters as well:
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/exclusive-us-partly-lift-international-travel-curbs-nov-8-official-2021-10-15/

So Nov.8 it is!