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BY  Adveith Nair, Bloomberg News

PT Garuda Indonesia aircraft parked at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Cengkareng, Indonesia, on Monday, May 24, 2021. Garuda Indonesia needs to completely restructure its business, potentially reducing the number of planes it operates to less than half its main fleet as the airline seeks to survive the crisis wrought by the pandemic, its president told staff last week. , Photographer: Dimas Ardian/Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) --

The United Arab Emirates will suspend entry for travelers from Indonesia from July 11 as the Southeast Asian country grapples with a surge in infections, driven by the delta variant.

The ban will exclude some travelers, including UAE citizens and essential workers, who will be subject to a 10-day quarantine and PCR tests. Travel from Afghanistan will also be suspended, the country’s National Emergency Crisis and Disaster Management Authority said on Saturday.

The move comes as Indonesia -- Southeast Asia’s largest economy -- battles one of the worst outbreaks in the region. The government has imposed stricter curbs, including a full work-from-home order for non-essential sectors.

Hospitals in many provinces are running out of beds and oxygen. As many as 38,124 people were confirmed to have the coronavirus in the 24 hours through Friday, with 871 dying from the disease. That was the first day in six that Indonesia didn’t mark a record in infections.

(Bloomberg) -- Britain’s world-class nightclubs are preparing to reopen for the first time in 16 months, nursing devastating wounds that many will not survive.

One in eight venues have disappeared since coronavirus struck, and that’s likely to rise, according to CGA and Alix Partners’ Market Recovery Monitor, two consultants that studied the industry. While the government is due on Monday to confirm that large events can restart on July 19, surging infections are clouding the long-term future of clubs

The industry’s woes go far beyond the loss of a good night out. Britain’s Night Time Industries Association estimates its members contribute 66 billion pounds ($91 billion) a year to the economy and employ 1.3 million people in bars, restaurants, theaters, festivals and music concerts. They support an ecosystem of lighting and sound technicians, designers and promoters that also feed the film, television and corporate events industries.

“We cannot underestimate the importance of our nighttime culture, not just as an employer but also its attractiveness to visitors,” said Amy Lamé, the adviser on nightlife to London Mayor Sadiq Khan. “It’s absolutely integral to our success as a city.”

At least a quarter of people in Britain say they’re not comfortable with attending live events including music concerts and festivals, a YouGov survey in July showed.

The damage done by the pandemic risks upending the U.K.’s leading status in the global nightclub business, which has helped underpin the appeal of places like London, Manchester and Glasgow. Britain is home to 12 of the world’s top 100 nightclubs, according to the latest rankings by DJ Magazine. That’s on par with the U.S. and double the number in any other European country except for Spain.

Some members of Parliament have warned that nightlife “extinction” could hobble the wider recovery. Nightclubs have generated only 20% of their pre-Covid revenue since lockdowns started in early 2020 and made more than half of their staff redundant, according to the All-Party Parliamentary Group report on nightlife.

Yousef Zaher, a Liverpool DJ, felt a glimmer of hope in May when thousands of ravers packed into the Circus event he organized. That evaporated in June when the government delayed the reopening by a month.

“Four weeks is a long, long time when the majority in our industry are literally hand to mouth,” Zaher said. “I’m fairly upbeat and positive, but when the news came in, for the first time during this whole Covid episode, I was completely deflated.”

Before the pandemic, the London mayor was attempting to build a 24-hour culture in the capital, noting a third of the city’s workers, or 1.6 million people, work between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. He appointed a Night Time Commission to reverse the drop in pubs, clubs and LGBTQ+ venues, seeing the industry as part of what attracts people to London.

Britain’s nightclubs flourished in the 1990s when tight licensing rules and electronic dance music drew people in their thousands into venues every weekend. Their dominance declined starting in 2005 as the government allowed more bars and pubs to serve alcohol after 11 p.m. and smartphone-dating apps like Tinder and Grindr gained popularity.

While restaurants were allowed to reopen starting in April and for many weeks last year, nightclubs and live music events have remained mostly off limits throughout the pandemic. The industry started selling tickets in anticipation of reopening on June 21 then quickly had to refund those sales and unwind preparations.

With the doors closed and rent payments still due, most nightclubs are struggling under massive debts. Some risk bankruptcy even if government restrictions lift as planned on July 19, said Michael Kill, chief executive officer of the Night Time Industry Association. Others are buckling under the weight of a shrinking pool of staff as workers seek more secure jobs in occupations not hit by the virus. An exodus of workers to the European Union added to that malaise.

Any further delay in reopening or additional lockdowns will “see the decimation of an industry,” Kill said.

The government remains worried that nightclubs can spread the virus quickly, as happened in South Korea when it allowed venues to reopen. A U.K. study released in June suggested that the risk of catching the coronavirus at large events could be reduced by using face coverings, improving ventilation and controlling pinch-points where people congregate. It found 28 infections after pilot events involving 58,000 people at venues across the country in April and May.

Nightclub and events promoters are pressing for assurances that lockdowns won’t return. They’re joining figures like Andrew Lloyd Webber, the the composer behind hit musicals including “Phantom of the Opera” and “Evita,” in warning about the permanent damage being done to Britain’s cultural offering.

There’s signs that people will flock back to big events when they’re allowed:

• Advance ticket sales suggest a pent-up demand for “euphoric” experiences that can’t be replicated at home, said Cameron Leslie, co-founder of Fabric nightclub in central London
• Parklife, a music festival that usually takes three weeks to book its 80,000 capacity, sold out in 78 minutes this year
• Tickets for six Warehouse Project shows in Manchester, with a capacity 10,000 tickets per show, went in less than a day

“The demand for people to go out is phenomenal,” said Sacha Lord, nightlife adviser to Manchester and co-founder of the Warehouse Project club and Parklife. “People want to go to a nightclub, go to a live gig, just feel like they’ve got their freedoms back.”

For now, many venues on the cusp of reopening are splashing out their last cash reserves to prepare. Fabric had to make most of its staff redundant in October. Even with a government grant, it’s hemorrhaging at least 80,000 pounds a month, according to Leslie.

London’s iconic LGBTQ nightclub Heaven racked up 1.4 million pounds of bills since March and now operates as a cabaret with a reduced capacity of 255, down from the usual 1,625.

“All we are currently doing is reducing our losses, we’re not making our money,” said Jeremy Joseph, owner of Heaven and G-A-Y Bar. “Last year, we closed Heaven because we knew it needed to be done -- it wasn’t safe. We acted before the government did. Now we’re paying the mistakes that this government keep making.”

(Bloomberg) --

Hospital waiting lists in England could more than double to 13 million people in the coming months due to the impact of coronavirus restrictions, Britain’s new health secretary warned.

Sajid Javid told the Sunday Telegraph that some people who needed treatment, including for cancer checks and mental health problems, hadn’t turned up for fear of catching the virus or a “very British” attitude of not wanting to overburden health-care workers.

He said he was “confident” that virtually all of England’s remaining restrictions would be lifted as planned on July 19, despite concerns from some scientists over rising infection rates.

The number of patients waiting for NHS treatment reached a record 5.3 million at the end of May; Javid said he was “shocked” to be told by scientists it could go as high as 13 million.

“It’s going to be one of my top priorities to deal with because we can’t have that,” he told the newspaper in his first newspaper interview since being appointed as health secretary in June.

The skies are getting friendlier once again.

Americans, en masse, are traveling once again, thanks to widespread vaccine availability and the easing of COVID-19 restrictions. So far, though, the majority of travel has been leisure, not business.

The ease and convenience of teleconferencing (not to mention the tremendous savings of a Zoom call vs. a real-world trip) have slowed the return of corporate road warriors. And it could be a while before things get back to normal.

"Global business travel is unlikely to make a full recovery before 2024," says Martin Hallmark, senior vice president at Moody's Investors Service. "Around 20%-25% of business travel involves meeting people from within a company's own organization - these trips are most at risk of being replaced."

The Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) is even more pessimistic, saying it doesn’t expect full recovery until 2025. Business travel fell 60% in North America last year and 79% from April 1 through the end of the year. And the impact on the travel industry can’t be ignored. The GBTA estimates losses will be 10 times larger than the impact of 9/11 or the 2008 recession.

There is some good news, though.

Business travel spending is expected to increase 21% this year. And an SAP Concur study found that 96% of global business travelers are once again willing to travel for business. There are some conditions, though.

(Adds quotes, details)

VENICE, July 10 (Reuters) - Italy’s economy minister Daniele Franco said on Saturday virus variants were a major source of concern for the global economy but the world should avoid imposing new restrictions on people’s lives to combat the pandemic.

“The only answer is vaccination,” said Franco, speaking at the end of a meeting of finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of 20 rich countries meeting in Venice under the Italian presidency.

“The major source of (economic) uncertainty is related to the pandemic and the new variants,” Franco told reporters, but added that “we all agree we should avoid introducing again new restrictions on the movement of citizens and their way of life.”

The G20 did not pledge any extra funds at the meeting for financing vaccines to poor countries at risk of COVID variants, where inoculation rates are low, but Franco said the group would review the question in October.

Franco hailed the G20’s endorsement of a “historic” deal on where and how much large corporations should be taxed, saying it would produce a “fairer and more coordinated system,” though details remained to be hammered out. (Reporting by Francesco Guarascio and Gavin Jones@fraguarascio;)

BY  Chinedu Eze 

Stakeholders in Nigeria’s aviation industry have drawn attention to the comparatively low charges by ground handling services, saying it could compromise safety and operational standards.

Industry insiders said the massive drop of ground handling charges from $1,139 to only $400 on a Boeing 737 aircraft (narrow body airplane) or its equivalent on both local and domestic services would drastically affect the companies’ revenue and operational standards.

They noted that the ground handling service rates are the lowest in Africa. THISDAY learnt that the three ground handling companies; Skyway Aviation Handling Company (SAHCO) Plc, Nigerian Aviation Handling Company (NAHCO) Plc and AHS Aviation Handling Services charge the lowest on the continent, despite having better Ground Support Equipment (GSE) than most of their counterparts in Africa.

THISDAY also learnt that ground handling charges in Guinea, Senegal, Cameroon, Sierra Leone and Ghana for narrow body and wide body aircraft are way ahead of Nigeria.

The narrow body aircraft include B737, Airbus A320, ER 135 and ATR aircraft, while the wide body aircraft are categorised as B767, A330, B777, B747 and A380 aircraft. For instance, investigation revealed that in Guinea, foreign airlines are charged $1,673 (narrow body); $4,715 (wide body), Senegal; $2,250 and $5,259, Cameroon; $1,400 and $4,500, Sierra Leone; $2,250 and $5,250 and Ghana with $1,500 and $4,150 for passenger flight.

Cargo flight attracts $2,300, $1,750, $2,300, and $2,500 in Senegal, Cameroon, Sierra Leone, Ghana, respectively for narrow body aircraft, while for wide body aircraft, the ground handling in those countries charge between $4,450 and $5,250 per flight.

A source told THISDAY that while the above named countries charge the airlines appropriate rates, a narrow body aircraft attracts about $1,000 ground handling charges in Nigeria, while a wide body aircraft goes as low as $3,000 for passenger flight. At times, it was gathered that the $1,000 ground handling rates could be as low as $400, depending on the negotiating power by such a foreign airline.

For cargo flight, airlines pay as low as $1,300 and $3,850 for narrow and wide body aircraft, respectively. It was further learnt that the current rates by the ground handling companies in Nigeria had been stagnant since 1986, despite the drop of the value of naira against major currencies and the skyrocketed rates of acquisition of state-of-the-art equipment and training of personnel by the handlers.

Chairman, Board of Trustees, Aviation Ground Handlers Association of Nigeria (AGHAN), Sam Oluwole, regretted that the ground handling companies in 2021, currently charge far less what they were charging airlines in 1986, 35 years later.

According to him, in 1986, ground handlers were charging $1,139 for handling of a B737 aircraft, but lamented that despite the free fall of naira and increase in the price of acquisition of GSE, the handlers go as low as $300 for the same service in 2021. “There are three aspects that concern us at the moment; economic, safety and security of the industry. As far back as 1986, grand handlers were charging about $1,139 to handle a narrow body aircraft for instance, but regrettably today, despite the crash of naira against the dollars and other currencies, some of the handlers charge as low as $300. “Then a dollar was equal to 90,000, but today, the same dollar is about N500, yet we are charging low,” he said.

NAHCON Warns of Fake Hajj Fare Intending pilgrims are advised to take this caution alert seriously. It has come to the attention of the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON) that some travel agencies are collecting Hajj fares from intending pilgrims with the assurance of securing Hajj slots for them under the entry visa category. It is alleged that such agents attribute their claims to NAHCON’s permission.

In a warning first issued on Friday, May 28th 2021 (28/05/2021), NAHCON had dissociated itself from any agent claiming to transport pilgrims to 2021 Hajj without Saudi Arabia’s clearance. Thereafter the Kingdom had categorically stated that only the 60,000 selected to perform Hajj from within Saudi Arabia shall be allowed access into the holy sites where the Hajj rites take place. 

Anyone caught at the vicinity without legal permit shall be fined 10,000 Saudi Riyals equivalent to over a million Naira. Saudi Press Agency has already informed of arrests due to violation of this restriction. NAHCON is reiterating the warning to general public to be cautious of falling victims to fraudsters in the name of Hajj travel agents. 

Such persons are preying on the desperation of some intending pilgrims to perform Hajj at all costs which in itself violates the Islamic principle of pilgrimage for the sake of Allah. Of course with entry visa, an individual can travel only as far as into Saudi Arabia but not near the holy sites without the Hajj  permit whose issuance has long been closed. 

No foreign pilgrim was allowed to access the application website talk little of registering. It is also alleged that the so called Hajj agents connive with some Saudi legal residents through whose residential licenses (igama) they would secure the Hajj permit for their clients. The warning here is that the system is biometrical with the original owners’ data fully computed. 

Therefore the mismatch would be automatically detected once subjected to screening. No one should fall victim of detention and embarrassment for the sake of performing Hajj 2021. NAHCON urges all intending pilgrims to bear the Hajj restriction with patience until the situation is reversed. This patience will itself earn one handsome reward. Anyone who does contrary does so at his own peril. The general public is kindly invited to report to the Commission, any person collecting money and giving assurance of securing 2021 Hajj slot under the entry visa. Fatima Sanda Usara, Head, Public Affairs, NAHCON

Read more at: https://prnigeria.com/2021/07/...

BY  Simon Neville, PA City Editor

Heathrow passenger numbers remain almost 90% down on pre-pandemic levels and significantly lower than EU rival airports, new figures show.

Airport bosses revealed just 957,000 passengers passed through its terminals in June compared with 7,246,157 who used the west London airport in June 2019.

The number of passengers travelling through the airport covers the month where Portugal was moved from the green list of countries to amber and led to widespread fury in the travel sector over the speed of rule changes for travellers.

Following the latest data, Heathrow bosses urged the Government to do more to support the sector.

They pointed out that Schiphol and Frankfurt airports in the Netherlands and Germany respectively have surpassed their 2019 cargo volumes, growing by 14% and 9% respectively compared to 2019.

Meanwhile, cargo tonnage at Heathrow, the UK’s biggest port, is still down 16%.

Bosses added that the continued closure of the transatlantic links between the UK and US is costing the country’s economy at least £23 million a day.

Passenger traffic from Heathrow to the US is down by around 80%, whereas the EU, which has reopened unilaterally with the US, has seen traffic recover to only around 40% down.

Heathrow chief executive John Holland-Kaye said: “While it’s fantastic news that some double-vaccinated passengers will no longer need to quarantine from amber countries, ministers need to extend this policy to US and EU nationals if they want to kickstart the economy.

“These changes will be critical for exporters who are losing out to EU rivals and families who have been separated from loved ones.”

The airport announced last week it has resumed using both its runways and plans to reopen Terminal 3 this week.

The decision comes as the Government is expected to ease travel rules for people who have had two doses of a coronavirus vaccine.

The airport began only using one of its two runways for standard operations to cut costs when demand for travel collapsed in May last year.

Terminals 3 and 4 were also closed to regular passengers at around that time.

A facility to process arrivals from red list countries was opened in Terminal 3 last month, but that has been switched to Terminal 4, which is not expected to reopen this year.

PARIS/AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Air France-KLM has launched a tender to "renew and extend" the medium-haul fleets of Dutch unit KLM and the French and Dutch arms of low-cost subsidiary Transavia, a spokesperson for the Franco-Dutch airlines group said on Monday.

The company confirmed the tender after Chief Executive Officer Ben Smith was quoted as saying Air France-KLM had approached Airbus and Boeing about 160 jets.

"We've done a little bit in this area, it's been on the agenda since 2004, but it's never been put in place as it is now. I am very pleased to be able to put together this order, the largest in the group's history," he told the daily Het Financieele Dagblad in an interview.

A competition for medium-haul jets would typically pit the Airbus A321neo family against the Boeing 737 MAX, although Air France has also ordered the smaller Canadian-designed A220 jet for its French operation.

Smith said in the interview that the Air France-KLM combination had slipped behind competitors Lufthansa of Germany and Anglo-Spanish IAG, which owns British Airways, Iberia and Aer Lingus.

Air France-KLM should strengthen cooperation to be able to respond more quickly to market developments, he said, without specifying which business segments.

"In 2004, Air France-KLM was the largest group in Europe, now we are number three. They have worked more effectively. Obviously we can do that too, but we need to move forward a little faster."

(Reporting by Tim Hepher, Anthony Deutsch; Editing by Louise Heavens and Mark Potter)

By Fergal Smith

4 MIN READ