[Closed] International Flights

Presumably people are travelling then quarantine as necessary.

Cargo goes in the hold of passenger flights too.

I'm in Crete at the moment, fly back tomorrow. Weathers lovely.

For the us, its a big country with lots of citizens. If you purely took their government workers who needed to go to different countries you're probably up to a couple of flights a day, let alone foreign workers in other jobs.

There used to be close to 20 daily flights London to New York alone, a fraction of that is still a fair few flights

There is so much we could do to maintain international flights. A mixture of testing/temp checks/masks/quarantine should be possible. Our government have done what they do best.......... nothing.

Load factors are right down but still some people traveling internationally. Some work colleagues of mine have resumed business flying but extremely infrequently due to quarantine measures. You can buy tickets if you want and prepared to do the time in quarantine or whatever the arrival countries rules are. Repatriation flights still going on as some people still stranded since March and of course alot of people have family in other countries and their businesses split internationally. There is no money in it...airlines are making huge losses. the aviation industry had lost something like $5Bn in the first half of this year..many time more than any significant downturn in the aftermath of 9/11 or the 2008 global crises. They are mere blips in comparison. Millions of people laid off, trainee pilots who had invested hundreds of thousands of pounds of their own money to train up in anticipation of a career in aviation made redundant with their huge debts to pay off. Millions of people globally lost their jobs. It's been absolutely devastating with no sign of an end to it.

Though planes are flying carrying freight and Airbus are converting some passenger aircraft to be temporary freighters as there is a massive shortfall in global freight capacity as the majority of the worlds freight goes via underbelly freight on passenger planes. Also demand for stuff is still there as we're all buying off the internet. They fly and take as many passengers as they can. But even if the planes were full with only about 40%-50% of their aircraft active, the rest grounded then there is no chance of making an money. They still pay the lease or finance charges for the aircraft, hangarage, maintenance costs, they can't just sit there and do nothing so anything that can be done to minimise losses is being done.

Edit: not $5bn losses, about three times that by June and expected to be knocking on the door of $100bn by year end in the most pessimistic forecasts...

There's still passengers flying out on holidays. Quite a few of the bucket and spade brigade are on flights out if Heathrow.

They're averaging about 35000 passengers a day at the moment, both arriving and departing.

because if I tried to fly to the US I’d be refused entry? W

We send folk international for work.

We have alot of quarantine restrictions , we have alot of chartered planes into certain regions and we have to get alot of special permissions.

Not all plane travel is for recreation and not all work can be done by computers. Some things need very specialist boots on the ground to make the wheels turn

Who is on them? How do they get access to foreign countries, because if I tried to fly to the US I’d be refused entry?

It's freight mostly. You can get into the USA if you have an appropriate visa. Other countries have no such restrictions.

Whether there are any airlines left flying this time next year is another matter.

You can still fly from the USA to the UK if you do the 2 week quarantine - and eventually you have to go home to the USA again. US citizens aren't subject to the ban getting into the USA, they just have to quarantine on their return. My partner did the round trip here and back in the summer. Flying here the flight was busier than flying back - only about 25 people on the Trans Atlantic flight back to the USA. Flying out in early July US airports were quiet, by the time he returned in September US airports seemed almost normal. In both directions flights were cancelled - presumably some sort of timetable amalgamation. Wouldn't be worth the quarantine time and travel uncertainty if it was for a short trip or holiday, but for us there's no other option if we want to be together. Hoping there's still some sort of Trans Atlantic service still running early next year - and that whichever airlines are left don't have to put their prices up too much.

I flew back to work last week, flight from Heathrow to Istanbul was about half full, flight from Istanbul to Almaty was rammed. Istanbul airport was quieter than normal but not by much, Heathrow was a lot quieter than normal.