The Brunei-Muara District Scouts Association (PPDBM) handed over a wakaf contribution of 50 telekung (women’s praying cloth) and 50 Surah Al-Kahfi booklets to the Kampong Bukit Ukong Mosque in Tutong District on December 31, 2021 on behalf of Haji Ibrahim bin Bungsu and family.
During a ceremony at the mosque after Friday prayers, Chairman of the PPDBM Council Skip Haji Jailani bin Haji Ibrahim handed over to Mosque Bilal Ramli bin Haji Hidup the telekungs, Surah Al-Kahfi booklets as well as a PPDBM contribution of four LED emergency lights.
PPDBM representatives were also on hand to distribute donated food and drinks to congregants.
Deputy Chairman of PPDBM Skip Haji Saifulrijal bin Haji Hussin, Treasurer Skip Haji Majid bin Haji Tengah, Commissioner Skip Pengiran Supri bin Pengiran Haji Hashim as well as members of the PPDBM Council and Mosque Takmir Committee also attended.
ABOVE & BELOW: Photos show Kampong Bukit Ukong Mosque Bilal Ramli bin Haji Hidup receiving the contribution from PPDBM Council Skip Haji Jailani bin Haji Ibrahim and PPDBM members. PHOTOS: LYNA MOHAMAD
WASHINGTON (AFP) – United States (US) President Joe Biden’s administration announced on Saturday that it had excluded Ethiopia, Mali and Guinea from a US-Africa trade agreement, saying the actions of the three governments violated its principles.
“The United States today terminated Ethiopia, Mali and Guinea from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) trade preference programme due to actions taken by each of their governments in violation of the AGOA Statute,” the US Trade Representative (USTR) said in a statement.
The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) was put in place in 2000 under the administration of former president Bill Clinton to facilitate and regulate trade between the US and Africa.
But the US is “deeply concerned by the unconstitutional change in governments in both Guinea and Mali,” the statement said.
“It also voiced concern about gross violations of internationally recognised human rights being perpetrated by the government of Ethiopia and other parties amid the widening conflict in northern Ethiopia”.
“Each country has clear benchmarks for a pathway toward reinstatement and the administration will work with their governments to achieve that objective,” the USTR said.
Under the AGOA agreement, thousands of African products can benefit from reduced import taxes, subject to conditions being met regarding human rights, good governance and worker protection, as well as not applying a customs ban on American products on their territory.
By 2020, 38 countries were eligible for AGOA, according to the USTR website.
The agreement was modernised in 2015 by the US Congress, which also extended the programme until 2025.
US says it is ‘deeply concerned’ by the gross human rights violations being perpetrated by the government of Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and other parties in northern Ethiopia. FILE PHOTO: AP
CNA – Henny Gunawan and Agung Iswadi could hardly be further from home.
The two Jakartans don winter jackets standing outside the International Centre For Island Technology in Orkney, an archipelago in the far north of Scotland.
The skies are turbulent over this part of the world and the winter comes early. Powerful gales sweep across the island for most of the year, whipping up daunting swells in the surrounding Atlantic Ocean, which pound the western shorelines.
This is a very different island life to what these PhD students know. Both are here to fast track their levels of expertise in the renewable energy sector with the specific ambition of taking that knowledge back home.
They are in the right place then.
Orkney, notwithstanding its small population of around 22,000 and geographic isolation, has become a global centre for clean energy technology, a literal playing ground for experimenting with the next wave of solutions for the world.
ABOVE & BELOW: Henny Gunawan and Agung Iswadi; and Orkney has become a magnet for new renewable technologies. PHOTOS: CNA
With more than 650 wind turbines and about 400 solar panels installed, the islands can generate more than 130 per cent of their energy needs, with the capacity to sell any excess back to the United Kingdom (UK) mainland.
For decades, a spirit of endeavour and a need for resilience has emboldened Orcadians to try and harness the elements around them. The result is the archipelago becoming a magnet for companies, startups and initiatives looking at the skies and into the deep for solutions.
“This is like a living laboratory for us. Maybe like a miniature Indonesia, as an island nation. We can learn many things from here,” Iswadi said.
“I think if Orkney can do it, maybe Indonesia can do it even better. We have much potential in Indonesia, especially from the ocean.”
It was Iswadi who recently greeted a delegation from the Indonesian government visiting Orkney to see firsthand the ways renewable energy was transforming the local economy, around the time of the COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow in November.
That visit was another signal of the interest in Orkney from governments, academics and enterprises in Southeast Asia.
THE POWER OF THE OCEAN
Wave and tidal energy are being developed in the waters around Orkney, two fledgling technologies that could have vast potential in different environments.
Mocean Energy has recently completed a round of testing on its pioneering Blue X device, a 20-metre long, 38-tonne prototype that can generate energy using the power of the ocean swell.
“Marine renewables is a growing field. There’s a lot of uses globally for wave power and it’s estimated that wave power could produce up to 15 per cent of the global energy demand,” said Mocean’s Operations Manager Yan Gunawardena.
In 2022, it is planned for the device to be redeployed and connected to a subsea battery, which will be used to power a remotely operated autonomous underwater vehicle. At this stage, it could help provide energy for offshore oil and gas operators.
“Our technology is still in its infancy. We want to try to scale up from a device we currently have,” Gunawardena said.
“The Blue X is our first device and this scale is really designed for off grid offshore and subsea applications. The same technology can then be scaled up to produce grid scale power.”
“We want to make a device about 40 metres long which weighs 300 tonnes. So it’s the next next step and we need to get investment to do that,” he said.
Meantime, another company, Orbital Energy, has launched an even larger project, which attempts to harness the immense potential of the forceful tides that flow around these northern islands.
Over the next 15 years, Orbital’s 72-metre long O2 tidal turbine is expected to produce capacity for clean and predictable power for 2,000 homes, and is also involved a project to generate green hydrogen using an onshore electrolyser.
As the tides can be easily predicted, unlike wind or solar energy applications, there is great hope in this technology becoming a potentially valuable addition to energy mixes.
With its vast maritime resources, adopting similar technologies could come into play in Southeast Asia in coming years.
LOCAL BENEFITS
For his PhD, Iswadi is looking at the technological challenges of marine energy in tropical waters, while Gunawan is focused on the financing of renewable energy, especially in eastern Indonesia where electricity access is uneven and under-resourced.
Aside from them, Orkney-based operations already have a foothold in Southeast Asia.
Aquatera is a local business providing environmental expertise and operational support for many new clean energy ventures and research.
Its director, Ian Johnstone, said he thinks the knowledge that has been developed for years in this part of Scotland is ready to be applied across the globe, a situation made more urgent by climate change.
“The expertise that we’ve built up and the lessons we’ve learned from deploying devices, installing devices, and then learning how to integrate devices into an energy system is incredibly valuable to be taken to other places,” he said.
“We’ve been all across Indonesia, looking at projects and working with regencies. It’s the same in the Philippines where we’ve got very good connections.
“With thousands upon thousands of islands, I think we see this potential and also the drivers of climate change.”
As well as Aquatera, Johnstone has been involved with a local initiative to try and better manage the excess electricity being generated across Orkney. For now, many local residents are not getting direct benefits from clean electricity and household bills remain high.
Additionally, grid capacity issues – the power cable back to the mainland gets overloaded – mean that sometimes wind turbines need to be switched off, which Johnstone described as a “terrible waste”.
“We can still produce more than we can use, so we need to move the energy around. So when the wind is blowing flat out, then we want to be filling batteries or producing hydrogen.
These are two ways that we saw to store energy,” he said.
Several community-owned wind farms are helping to provide direct funds to local projects, such as public transport, affordable housing and loan repayments.
“All that money can feed back into the community so that they can either look to invest in their own projects, or they can look at different projects to help reduce their energy requirements or invest in more renewable projects on their own scale,” said David Hannon, the strategic project manager for Orkney Islands Council.
Getting buy-in from locals is an area that Orkney has been an area of success, but a hurdle elsewhere where the experience of renewable energy is less mature.
The council is active in promoting electric vehicles and a program to convert excess electricity into hydrogen, which can be used to drive vehicles and provide auxiliary power to ships in dock.
“We also are looking into other projects where we could have ferries that are running on hydrogen. So we are very much looking at all the different aspects of hydrogen that could be utilised; we have transport, we have storage, and we have heating,” Hannon said.
HYPE FROM HYDROGEN
Hydrogen is also a focus of the European Marine Research Centre (EMEC), which for years has been trialling new technologies and providing a testbed for other companies.
It sees hydrogen as one of the key ways of integrating power that would otherwise be wasted and decarbonising fossil-fuel heavy industries, like shipping and aviation.
“We think, if the wind is always blowing, the waves are always high, the tide is reliable, there’s an immense resource there that we can’t yet take advantage of. So we look at hydrogen as a means of storing power,” said James Walker, EMEC’s hydrogen development manager.
“And then we can use that hydrogen at a later date to tackle some of the key sectors that are otherwise quite difficult to decarbonise.
“Particularly international long distance shipping, it’s difficult to see an electrified alternative that will address that energy need. Similarly, it’s very difficult to look at a battery operated plane crossing the Atlantic or going from here to Singapore, for example. And in that instance, we need to think about alternatives,” Walker said.
Everything in this closed loop “living lab” is designed to be replicated elsewhere on islands and in coastal environments, once the technology is proven.
The prevailing general attitudes from islanders about tackling unique challenges can help them solve this decarbonisation issue, according to director of the International Centre for Island Technology at the Orkney campus of Heriot-Watt University Sandy Kerr.
So while Orkney might seem completely distant and removed from small islands in Southeast Asia, there are plenty of commonalities to draw upon.
“Because we’re small, and it gives us flexibility to change, maybe we can be fleet of foot and move quicker than big metropolitan areas,” Kerr said.
“But also I think islanders themselves, they’re inherently systems thinkers. If you live on a small island, you know where your energy comes from, you understand the transport links, you know where your water comes from, you understand the life support system for the island in a way that if you live in a city, you probably don’t.
“Curiously, we all face similar problems. We’re at the end of long supply chains and we’re over-reliant on diesel. We need to deal with the intermittency of renewables and relatively small electricity systems,” he said.
“And we all have to decarbonise. There’s no one silver bullet. So we can learn from each other.”
VALANDOVO, REPUBLIC OF NORTH MACEDONIA (AFP) – Abandoned shops and mostly empty streets offer few signs of life in North Macedonia’s Valandovo, where young people are fleeing in large numbers hoping to find a better life abroad.
Like much of this impoverished corner of southeastern Europe, this tiny Balkan nation is sitting on a demographic time bomb fuelled by an ageing population, sinking birth rate and mass migration.
North Macedonia has shed 10 per cent of its population in the last 20 years. Around 600,000 Macedonian citizens now live abroad, according to World Bank and government data.
Abysmal economic growth and a lack of investment have clobbered the country, now home to just 1.8 million people, in its 30 years of independence.
“If you have a little over 2.4 million citizens and more than a quarter have left, then you have to seriously be worried about what is happening,” said director of the country’s statistics office Apostol Simovski.
Villages and small towns such as Valandovo, 146 kilometres from the capital, offer few jobs, pushing the ambitious and able to search elsewhere.
“The spirit of young people has been systematically destroyed,” the newly elected 33-year-old mayor Pero Kostadinov told AFP. “The enthusiasm to fight and stay home has been lost.”
In Valandovo alone, nearly 90 per cent of people’s income is linked to agriculture, a common denominator across North Macedonia.
A pedestrian walking in a street of the North Macedonian town of Valandovo. Around 600,000 Macedonian citizens now live abroad, according to World Bank and government data. PHOTO: AFP
“Five of my friends from our class of 20 students have already moved abroad with their families,” said a member of the youth municipal council in Valandovo Bojan Nikolov, 24.
The anecdote offers a stark picture of where the country’s future is headed.
Initial results from North Macedonia’s most recent census conducted in September estimate that the population has declined by more than 200,000 since 2002.
Since independence and the dissolution of Yugoslavia in 1991, many hoped integration into the European Union (EU) would provide a life raft and promises of a brighter future.
But North Macedonia’s path to EU membership has been repeatedly blocked, first by Greece and later Bulgaria, ushering in fresh doubts that the country will ever join and pushing many to jump ship.
For those who stay, monthly salaries average EUR470 (USD530).
“It is better to be a slave for EUR2,000 in some foreign country, than to be a slave with EUR300 at home,” goes a popular refrain in North Macedonia.
It is a picture replicated across the Balkans.
In Albania, about 1.7 million people, or roughly 37 per cent of the population, have left the country in the past three decades, according to government figures.
Hundreds of thousands left Serbia to resettle abroad after wars in the 1990s that pummelled the economy, with estimates suggesting up to 10,000 doctors left in the last 20 years.
“All the countries of the Western Balkans are affected to varying degrees by emigration,” said a professor of economics based in Albanian capital Tirana Ilir Gedeshi.
“The main reasons are economic, but apart from that, social reasons occupy an increasingly important place.”
But for Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia – all hoping that EU membership will reverse their fortunes – Croatia provides a stern warning.
Since joining the bloc in 2013, its population of just over four million has shrunk nearly 10 per cent in a decade, according to preliminary census findings.
The United Nations projects that Croatia will have just 2.5 million people by the end of the century.
Demographers warn that the country’s tiny population may lack the resilience to weather further losses. In December, Zagreb sought to reverse some of the brain drain by promising Croatian expatriates in the EU up to EUR26,000 (USD29,000) to return and start a business.
But for some areas, it may already be too late.
“For sale” signs litter the eastern region of Pozega, one of those hardest-hit by war in the 1990s. More than 16 per cent of the area’s population of nearly 80,000 have left in the past decade, official figures show.
“In my street one-third of the houses are empty,” said Igor Cancar, 39, from nearby Brestovac.
They include his sister who moved to Austria with her husband and two children, along with most of his close friends.
“If we want young people to stay, we need a kindergarten and help them build a house,” Cancar added.
“The last train is leaving, and we are doing nothing but standing on the platform and waving.”
Students are heading back to school starting today after a four-month hiatus following the second COVID-19 outbreak in the Sultanate last August.
In a recent statement, the Ministry of Education (MoE) announced that the learning and teaching session for the first phase of the Endemic Stage would begin on January 3 for Years 10-13 students, with physical classes to be held five times a week. Meanwhile, Years 7 – 9 students will commence in-person classes on January 17, in the second phase of the Endemic Stage.
For both stages, only fully vaccinated students will be allowed to attend physical classes. For unvaccinated 12- to 17-year-old students and Year 7 students under 12 years, lessons will continue online or via the home learning pack (HLP).
The Bulletin learnt that teachers had informed parents and guardians on the new school term through circulars and letters. Years 7-9 students will have online classes with links to various platforms to be shared with the students. Attendance will also be recorded.
Year 6 students waiting for the School Assessed Marks (SAM) can commence their Year 7 education tomorrow, after registering at a new secondary school in their catchment area.
The MoE said the provision of antigen rapid test (ART) kits, rooms for ART testing and isolation, as well as a sick bay are in place for the re-opening of the new school term.
A working parent of three told the Bulletin, “It has been a tough few months and difficult period for students as they have had to cope with zero physical classes. Some families faced difficulties in monitoring their children’s online learning, and some students became demotivated or lost interest with distant supervision.
“For children below 12 who are yet to resume face-to-face classes, there is not much we can do as they are unvaccinated. Hopefully, the rolling out of vaccine for this category in the coming months will bring a sigh of relief,” he said.
SYDNEY (AP) – The United States (US) beat Canada and defending champion Russia defeated France at the ATP Cup yesterday, with the the Americans taking a much easier route.
John Isner and Taylor Fritz beat their Canadian singles opponents and then clinched the match in doubles for a 3-0 win.
Isner beat Brayden Schnur 6-1, 6-4 in 66 minutes to give the Americans the early lead.
Schnur was a late replacement for Denis Shapovalov, who withdrew from the opening singles match yesterday due to fatigue. The Canadian is recovering from having contracted COVID-19 at a recent tournament in the Middle East.
Fritz then came from a set down to beat No. 11-ranked Felix Auger-Aliassime 6-7 (6), 6-4, 6-4 and clinch the match before the Americans won the doubles 6-4, 6-4 over Auger-Aliassime and Shapovalov.
Taylor Fritz. PHOTO: AP
Russia, meanwhile, needed the deciding doubles match to clinch victory over France.
Roman Safiullin beat Arthur Rinderknech of France 2-6, 7-5, 6-3 before number 35-ranked Ugo Humbert evened the match with an upset 6-7 (5), 7-5, 7-6 (2) win over number two Daniil Medvedev.
But Medvedev and Safiullin came back to beat two fresh opponents in the doubles – Fabrice Martin and Edouard Roger-Vasselin – 6-4, 6-4.
Both night matches went to the deciding doubles after Britain and Italy took early leads.
Daniel Evans beat Germany’s Jan-Lennard Struff 6-1, 6-2 while Italy’s Jannik Sinner defeated Australia’s Max Purcell 6-1, 6-3.
But world number 3 Alexander Zverev of Germany beat Cameron Norris 7-6 (2), 6-1 and Australia’s Alex de Minaur defeated Italy’s Matteo Berrettini 6-3, 7-6 (4) to send both matches to a doubles decider.
Isner saved the only break point he faced against his Canadian opponent. “I surprised myself with how well I played out here,” Isner said in his on-court interview. “You always work hard in the offseason, but you never really know what could happen in that first match of the year.”
Isner broke twice in the first set and used his strong serve to capitalize on the advantage. The American hit 10 aces and won 46 per cent of his return points.
“I actually really like this court. It’s not too fast, which I prefer. It gives me a little time to swing out on my shots being so big. That helps me out a lot,” Isner said.
On the opening day on Saturday, Argentina and Spain both cruised to 3-0 victories over Georgia and Chile, respectively. Serbia, despite playing without number one Novak Djokovic, beat Norway 2-1 and Poland took advantage of Stefanos Tsitsipas’ injury-enforced absence in singles to beat Greece 2-1.
The 16 teams are divided into four groups, with the winners of each group advancing to the semifinals on January 7 and 8. The final is scheduled for January 9.
SUPERIOR (AFP) – Three people are missing after a wildfire tore through several Colorado towns, quickly destroying nearly 1,000 homes as part of the latest in a string of United States (US) natural disasters.
“We’re very fortunate that we don’t have a list of 100 missing. But unfortunately we do have three confirmed missing people,” Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle told a press conference.
At least 991 homes are thought to have been destroyed as the blaze raced through the towns of Superior and Louisville on Thursday, just outside the state’s biggest city Denver, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee with little notice.
Shocking aerial footage showed whole streets as little more than piles of smoking ash, destruction that appeared almost total but somehow left a few homes oddly untouched.
Pelle said the search for the missing had been hampered by the destruction and snow.
“The structures where these folks would be are completely destroyed and covered with about 20 centimetres of snow right now.”
Viliam Klein picks through the ashes on his property in Superior, Colorado. PHOTO: AP
Investigators found no credible evidence to back earlier reports that downed power lines may have caused the fire, with Pelle stating that some residents may have been confused by downed telecom lines.
However, investigators have “executed a search warrant in one particular location” as part of an ongoing investigation that Pelle described as “very active” and comprising federal and state partners.
The fire, which was sparked in a tinder-dry landscape, was then fanned by winds gusting at more than 160 kilometres an hour on Thursday.
“This was a disaster in fast motion… over the course of half a day. Many families having minutes to get whatever they could – their pets, their kids – into the car and leave,” Governor Jared Polis said, “just as in the blink of an eye.”
At least 33,000 people in Superior and Louisville were told to flee, many doing so with little more than the clothes on their backs.
Pelle said he spoke to the granddaughter of one of the missing on Saturday morning. “They’re trying to find grandma. And we’re trying to find grandma for her,” he said. “But the conditions right now don’t make that possible to do quickly.”
While snowfall had helped extinguish the fire, it was a “hard thing for crime scenes, and recovery efforts and damage assessments,” Pelle said.
The fire, which occurred just before the New Year’s holiday, follows mid-December tornadoes in the state of Kentucky that left dozens dead and thousands of families in crisis mode ahead of December 25, 2021.
Although fires are a natural part of the climate cycle and help to clear dead brush, their scale and intensity are increasing.
MATARÓ, SPAIN (AFP) – For Neil Harbisson, a self-described “cyborg” artist living near Barcelona, colour is quite literally music to his ears thanks to an antenna he designed to overcome colour blindness.
Well-known in Spain and with an international following that enabled him to meet the likes of Leonardo di Caprio and Tom Cruise, Harbisson is now testing out a new device designed to feel physically the passing of time. Where once the term cyborg conjured up images of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator, technology today is expanding human capacities through prostheses and implants.
Born in Northern Ireland with achromatopsia, a rare condition meaning he can only see in greyscale, Harbisson moved to Barcelona as a child and grew up obsessed with colour and things he couldn’t sense.
It was an obsession that saw the now 39-year-old Briton eventually go under the surgeon’s knife to transform his identity and his life.
While at music college in England, he developed the slim metal rod that arches over his head and vibrates according to colours it detects.
At first glance it looks like wearable technology, but it’s as much a part of his body as his nose or his ears, giving him the ability to “hear” the colour his eyes cannot see.
Spanish-born British-Irish cyborg artist and activist Neil Harbisson in Mataro near Barcelona. PHOTO: AFP
“Being a cyborg means technology is part of your identity,” he told AFP.
“It allows me to sense colours from infrared to ultra-violet through vibrations in my head that then become sound, so I can actually hear colour.”
In 2004, he managed to persuade a surgeon – who remains anonymous – to drill it into his skull, the technology becoming part of his body as the bone grew around it.
The sensor picks up the frequency of colours and translates them into sounds that he perceives through bone conduction.
Humans normally hear using air conduction with sound waves passing through the outer and middle ears and causing the inner eardrum to vibrate.
But with bone conduction, the vibrations are transmitted through the skull or jawbone directly to the inner ear.
The colour-sound association also means he senses colours when listening to music or even speeches, with every syllable having a frequency that relates to colour.
“At the beginning, everything was chaotic because the antenna was not telling me: blue, yellow, pink, it was giving me vibrations and I had no idea what colour I had in front of me,” Harbisson said.
“But after some time, my brain got used to it and it slowly became part of my perception and became normal,” he added.
Although it cannot be switched off, Harbisson’s antenna falls silent in darkness.
His “eureka moment” came after dreaming “in colour” and realising the colours “had been created by my brain and not by the chip”.
Although he may be the first person to “hear” colour frequencies as notes, bone conduction helped Beethoven as he started going deaf. The German composer realised he could still hear by resting a wooden stick on the piano while biting the other end as he played.
Some 200 years later, bone-anchored hearing aids work in the same way via a metal implant inserted into the skull.
In the home where Harbisson grew up and where his mother still lives, a riot of coloured canvases line the walls, the staircase lined with curious-looking “facial scores” of celebrities like di Caprio and Cruise.
These Hollywood stars let Harbisson detect the “sound” of their skin tone and lip colour, which are rendered in enigmatic charcoal lines.
But Harbisson is now turning his attention to a new project.
He’s created a device shaped like a chunky metal collar, designed to sense the passing of time, and is kicking off a year-long trial to see how it works.
“There’s a point of heat that takes 24 hours to go around my neck and allows you to feel the rotation of the planet,” he told AFP.
“Once the brain gets used to it, you can use an app to make subtle changes to the speed of the point of heat which should alter your perception of time,” he added.
“You could potentially stretch time or make it feel like time is going faster.”
For now, it’s a permanent wearable rather than an implant. A previous incarnation had to be scrapped because he was “getting burnt” at 6pm.
“This is an art that does carry some kind of risk but it’s an unknown risk because we don’t have much history of bodies and technology being merged,” he said.
The forces that have scrambled thousands of flights since December 24, 2021 could ease in January, but that’s cold comfort to the millions of flyers with New Year’s plans.
And if 2021 has taught us anything, it’s that 2022 will likely be just as unpredictable.
Here’s a look at what has mucked up flights for thousands of people this holiday season, and what could happen over the next few weeks.
WHAT HAPPENED?
Airlines weren’t spared from the spread of the Omicron variant, which knocked out flight crews at airlines that had already reduced the size of their workforces following the collapse of air travel in 2020.
The wave of Omicron infections arrived at the same time that crowds began to pack airports for holiday travel. Then the Pacific Northwest and other areas were slammed with cold and heavy snowstorms.
The convergence of all three forced airlines to cancel thousands of flights starting on December 24, 2021. As of Thursday afternoon, about 7,800 flights departing from, going to, or within the United States (US) have been scratched, according to flight-tracking firm FlightAware. More than 1,100 of those were on Thursday.
Passengers line up at the TSA security checkpoint at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia. PHOTOS: APA screen shows cancelled flightsA passenger rests her head on her luggage as she awaits the results of her COVID-19 test
The US was not alone. There have been thousands of cancellations abroad. European and Australian airlines report the same logistical issues dealing with COVID-19 and flight crews. Chinese airlines have made up a large percentage of cancellations.
To put that in perspective, most flights were okay. There are nearly 70,000 flights a day, globally, said aviation data provider Cirium.
WHEN MIGHT THINGS IMPROVE?
US health officials this week halved guidance to five days of quarantine for asymptomatic Americans who catch the coronavirus. Airline industry experts say that will alleviate the staffing issues that have forced airlines to scratch flights – but the flight attendants unions say they’re wary of the change and its effect on worker health. Yet cases of Omicron, the fast-spreading variant of the COVID-19 virus, continue to rise. And that isn’t the only problem.
It could take up to a week for airlines to fully recover from lingering bad weather, said expert on airline operations at Cirium Jim Hetzel.
Getting past the holiday rush will also help. January and February are the year’s slowest travel months after the New Year’s rush, said senior flight expert at Scott’s Cheap Flights Willis Orlando. “There should be a lot more room for airline to cut routes, reassign pilots and have staff in reserve.”
Some airlines have also recognised that the confluence of the holiday rush, Omicron and bad weather make it impossible to continue with current schedules.
JetBlue said on Wednesday that it was reducing its schedule through mid-January in hopes of giving customers more time to make alternate plans rather than suffer last-minute cancellations – although still more cancellations remain likely.
“We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience that these schedule changes bring,” said spokesperson Derek Dombrowski. He said crew members are volunteering to work extra hours and managers are pitching in where they’re trained to do so.
Alaska Airlines urged flyers who could to reschedule for after the weekend, as it was reducing Seattle departures and more cancellations and delays were expected this week.
Delta and United spokespeople said they could not predict when operations would normalise.
WAS THIS SPATE OF CANCELLATIONS UNUSUAL?
Inclement weather is a sporadic but constant threat to travel in winter. A 2021 rebound in travel, when airlines didn’t have enough staff to keep up with demand, led to heavy cancellations and delays earlier this year.
Southwest Airlines struggled in summer and fall because of delays and cancellations, which it blamed on computer problems, staffing shortages and bad weather. American cancelled over 1,000 flights over Halloween weekend because of staffing shortages. Delta cancelled dozens of flights around Easter this year because of staffing problems.
COULD THE AIRLINES HAVE DONE ANYTHING TO PREVENT THIS?
Omicron was a shock to the system and its speed broadsided just about everyone, airlines included.
“This is kind of an extreme circumstance,” said operations expert at Cirium Hetzel.
Some airlines were hit harder than others simply because of where they tend to operate.
Southwest and American had lower geographic exposure to the areas of the US where weather was awful, and less of its staff is based in areas where COVID-19 cases are surging, said Raymond James analyst Savanthi Syth.
Labour groups, however, say more could have been done, like offering extra pay to flight attendants during the holiday earlier on. The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, which represents 50,000 workers at 17 airlines including United, Alaska, Frontier and Spirit, said Delta started offering on December 24, 2021 but should have done it sooner. The union that represents American’s flight attendants said it probably helped that the airline recalled staffers who were on leave. In a November memo, the chief operating officer at American noted that nearly 1,800 flight attendants returned from leave in November, and 800 would return in December, along with 600 new hires.
Syth, of Raymond James, did an analysis of which airlines she thought were more at risk of operational problems during the holiday season, which drives most of the fourth quarter’s profitability for airlines. She found that airlines that were conservative with scheduling were hit as well as those that were aggressive.
“This leads me to believe that this has more to do with the uniqueness of Omicron-variant and the greater impact it is having in the Northeast currently than a failure on the part of airlines to prepare,” Syth said.
The airlines were more prepared for the holidays than they were for hail and thunderstorms that snarled travel earlier this year, said president and founder of the consumer advocacy group Travelers United Charles Leocha.
“It’s a far cry from the episodes we were facing in the summer and autumn when we had airlines that were out of whack for two or three days,” Loecha said. “It’s been a really good effort. The airlines have paid more money to keep people on reserve and they’re paying more money to keep people flying.’’
Airlines have been hiring. The US Department of Transportation says that as of October, US passenger airlines employed more than 400,000 full-time workers, but that’s about nine per cent fewer than they employed two years ago.
Even critics say airlines this year were at the mercy of the pandemic.
“Airlines should have planned better and the (Transportation Department) should have monitored airline capacity and required ready reserves of equipment and personnel given the large federal subsidies since 2020,” said president of the advocacy group FlyersRights.org Paul Hudson. “But the Omicron variant high infection rate is primarily to blame in the holiday season disruptions.”
WHAT SHOULD TRAVELERS DO IF AIRLINES CANCEL THEIR FLIGHTS?
If your flight is cancelled, most airlines will put you on the next available plane to your destination free of charge. “They will figure a way to get you there. You don’t have to pay anything extra,” Leocha said.
If you cancel your trip instead of taking an alternative flight, you are entitled to your money back, even if you had non-refundable tickets. When they cancel flights, airlines tend to push customers toward vouchers for future flights instead of offering a full refund. Orlando, of Scott’s Cheap Flights, urged travellers to remember their right to get their money back.
“Airlines make it very easy to allow them to keep your money,” he said.
You also can ask the airline to transfer your ticket to another airline, but it is not obligated to do so. Likewise, airlines are not required to reimburse you for hotel rooms, cabs or other expenses.
AP – New Mexico search and rescue crews used ropes and helicopters on Saturday to rescue 21 people who were stranded overnight in two tram cars after an iced-over cable caused the cars to get stuck high up in the Sandia Mountains overlooking Albuquerque.
Lieutenant Robert Arguellas a Bernalillo County Fire Department spokesperson, said early Saturday afternoon that crews first rescued 20 people stranded in one car and several hours later rescued a 21st person stranded by themselves in a second car.
All the people on the two cars were employees of the Sandia Peak Aerial Tramway or a mountaintop restaurant, and the 20 in one car were being ferried down to the base of the mountains at the end of their workdays, Arguellas said.
The other employee had been heading up the mountain to provide overnight security when the tram system shut down on Friday night due to icing, Arguellas said.
There were no reported injuries among those stranded, Arguellas said. “More just pretty frustrated.”
A rescue helicopter works to help passengers who were stuck overnight on a Sandia Peak Tramway in Albuquerque, New Mexico. PHOTO: AP
To rescue the 20 people in the one car, operators were able to move it to a nearby support tower more than halfway up the mountain, and search and rescue personnel early on Saturday morning hiked to the area and climbed the tower to deliver blankets and other supplies to those inside the heated car, Arguellas said.
Search and rescue personnel over several hours used ropes and other equipment to lower the stranded employees about 26 metres to the ground before escorting them to a nearby landing zone in the steep and rocky terrain where the tower was located, Arguellas
said.
The 20 people were then ferried by helicopter several at a time to the base of the mountains, he said.
Arguellas said the second car with the one employee aboard was higher up the mountain and at location where the car was too high above the ground to lower people by ropes.
But the tram system was able to inch the second car down the cable to the rescue site at the support tower, and rescuers then used ropes to lower the 21st person as was done with the others, Arguellas said.
Tramway system manager Brian Coon said there was an unusually fast accumulation of ice on one of the cables that made it droop below the tram, making it dangerous to keep going, KOB-TV reported.
