Amid a slow recovery throughout 2021, global air travel demand last year was still 58.4% lower than the pre-pandemic level, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said on Tuesday.

The figure is an improvement compared to 2020 when demand was down 65.8% from 2019, the group said in a statement.

Air travel demand is measured in revenue passenger kilometers (RPKs).

International passenger demand fell 75.5% compared with 2019, while load factor, or seat occupancy, dropped 24 percentage points to 58%.

Domestic demand declined 28.2% and load factor slipped by 9.3 percentage points to 74.3%.

According to IATA data, demand for air cargo swelled above the pre-pandemic level last year, registering a 6.9% jump compared to 2019./agencies

Turkiye's mega-Istanbul Airport has partially reopened to flights after a one-day hiatus due to heavy snowfall in the city, the country's civilian aviation authority announced.

"After having received parking space approval, Istanbul Airport runway 18/36 was opened to traffic on Tuesday at 12 (noon) local time (09.00 GMT), with priority for divert flights," said a tweet by the Civil Aviation Directorate General.

Istanbul Airport was shut to flights as of Monday after snowfall hit Istanbul, also shuttering shopping malls and disrupting traffic.

National flag carrier Turkish Airlines announced earlier that it had suspended flights to and from Istanbul Airport until Wednesday midnight (GMT2100).

A man who hid in the wheel section of a cargo plane traveling from Johannesburg with a stop in Nairobi was found alive Sunday at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport after enduring an 11-hour flight, Dutch authorities said. 

Dutch military police, also known as the Marechaussee, confirmed in a statement posted on Twitter that a “stowaway was found in the nose wheel of a cargo plane from South Africa at Schiphol.”

The statement added that “the man is doing well under the circumstances and has been transported to the hospital. The Marechaussee is investigating."

Authorities are expected to reveal more details about the victim including his nationality, travel route and whether there was any question of human smuggling involved.

Experts say it is rare for stowaways to survive on long distance flights due to the cold at such a height and the lack of oxygen./aa

OUAGADOUGOU: Burkina Faso’s army said on Monday it had ousted President Roch Kabore, suspended the constitution, dissolved the government and the national assembly, and closed the country’s borders.

The announcement cited the deterioration of the security situation and what the army described as Kabore’s inability to unite the West African nation and effectively respond to challenges, which include insurgency.

Signed by Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba and read by another officer on state television, the announcement said the takeover had been carried out without violence and that those detained were at a secure location.

Unmute

The statement was made in the name of a previously unheard-of entity, the Patriotic Movement for Safeguard and Restoration, or MPSR, its French-language acronym.

“MPSR, which includes all sections of the army, has decided to end President Kabore’s post today,” it said.

Kabore’s whereabouts were unknown on Monday, with conflicting accounts of his situation.

Army putsches have toppled governments over the past 18 months in Mali and Guinea. The military also took over in Chad last year after President Idriss Deby died fighting rebels on the battlefield in the country’s north.

Landlocked Burkina Faso, one of West Africa’s poorest countries despite being a gold producer, has experienced numerous coups since independence from France in 1960.

The MPSR said it would propose a calendar for a return to constitutional order “within a reasonable time frame, after consultations with various sections of the nation.”

The U.S. State Department on Monday said it was aware of reports that Kabore had been detained by the military and called for his release. It added that it was “too soon” to officially characterize developments in the West African country, when asked if Washington was undertaking a coup assessment.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “strongly condemns any attempted takeover of government by the force of arms” in Burkina Faso and calls on the coup leaders to lay down their weapons, a U.N. spokesman said after the army statement./agencies

Roughly 1,000 tents used by the UN to shelter internally-displaced persons in northwest Syria have collapsed or been badly damaged by snow, an official said on Monday.

Roughly 100,000 people have been affected by the inclement weather, Mark Cutts, the UN's deputy humanitarian coordinator for Syria, told reporters at press conference.

"Many of these people do not have shovels or other equipment to clear the snow so they've been clearing snow from the tents with their bare hands," he said.

"You see pictures of children walking in the snow and on the eyes and their sandals it's really, uh, you know, particularly bad for the elderly people and people with disabilities who are living in these torn and ripped and flimsy tents in these sub-zero temperatures," he added.

Images from the region captured by Anadolu Agency depict makeshift tent camps badly damaged by snow amid frigid temperatures as civilians attempt to brave the harsh winter conditions.

Many camps in Idlib along the frontier between Turkiye and Syria have been flooded, further compounding hardships for hundreds of families.

Syria has been ravaged by conflict since early 2011 when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protesters./aa

Major US stock indexes closed higher Monday, reversing course after starting the day with a strong selloff. 

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 99.13 points, or 0.29%, to close at 34,364.

The S&P 500 increased 12.9 points, or 0.36%, to close at 4,410.13

The Nasdaq went up 86.2 points, or 0.63%, to 13,855.

The VIX volatility index, known as the fear index, jumped 4.12% to 30.04.

The dollar index climbed 0.26% to 95.880, while the yield on 10-year US Treasury notes gained nearly 2 basis points to 1.76%.

Precious metals were mixed, with gold gaining 0.63% to $1,843 per ounce and silver slipping 1.17% to $24.03.

Crude oil prices declined 1.34%, with Brent crude trading at $86.16 per barrel and US benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude at $84.05.

Bitcoin erased its declines over the last day, rising 4.84% to $37,013./aa

Ethiopia announced Monday that it has decided to airlift medical and food supplies to its northern Tigray region as deliveries via the town of Abala are blocked due to renewed fighting between Tigray rebels and security forces.

Abala is a small town in the country’s Afar region serving as a land route to Tigray through which humanitarian supplies to the region had passed since the year-long conflict.

On Monday, the Afar regional government accused Tigray rebels of launching attacks against the region on multiple fronts, adding fighting was still raging.

Getachew Reda, the spokesman for the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), admitted that fighting was going on in Abala but denied that the TPLF had launched it.

“The most farcical part of the story is that the so-called #Abaala conflict was launched by the #Afarforces & their #Eritrean partners,” Reda tweeted.

According to a statement by the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, over the last six months, the Ethiopian government and its partners had joined hands and delivered humanitarian assistance worth 1.48 billion birr ($29.8 million).

“Since July 2021, through access facilitated by the Government of Ethiopia, 658 metric tons of medicines and medical supplies were delivered by 18 trucks through seven organizations: UNFPA, WHO, MSF, IOM, UNICEF, FH and CST,” it added.

The statement added that land delivery of the supplies organized in cooperation with global aid agencies hit a snag since last month.

“However, those approved to deliver medicines and supplies since last month could not pass Abala due to the TPLF’s renewed aggression,’’ it said, adding that due to the problem, additional flights were prepared to deliver medical aid other essential supplies.

However, Reda in a Twitter message said that “a 27-truck #WFPConvoy apparently left #Semera on its way to #Tigray. The convoy was expected to break the logjam on humanitarian access to #Tigray or so we were told. It turned out, while the Government in #Addis had ostensibly given the green light, the regional gov’t of #Afar thought the better of it” and turned down the passage of the trucks on the pretext of the Abala conflict.

On Friday, the UN said humanitarian aid to the Tigray region is at its lowest since last March due to the ongoing conflict.

“We are told that still no humanitarian supplies have entered Tigray though the Semera-Abala-Mekelle corridor since Dec. 14 of last year due to continued clashes in Abala, in the Afar province,” Stephane Dujarric, the spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said in a noon briefing.

The war in Ethiopia between Tigrayan and government forces has been dragging on for more than a year.

Since November 2020, the bloody war between the two sides has left the economy battered, devastated infrastructure, and left thousands dead and many displaced.

A joint report by the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights accuses Tigray Special Forces, the Eritrean Defense Forces and the Ethiopian National Defense Force of destroying infrastructure./aa

Two years into the COVID-19 crisis, the World Health Organization’s top official for Europe on Monday said he is hopeful the pandemic’s emergency phase will end in 2022.

“The pandemic is far from over, but I am hopeful we can end the emergency phase in 2022 and address other health threats that urgently require our attention,” Hans Kluge, WHO regional director for Europe, said in a statement.

However, he stressed that “it is far too early to relax” as the pandemic enters a new phase driven by the highly transmissible omicron variant.

“Omicron is displacing delta with unprecedented speed. Less than two months since it was first discovered in South Africa, it now accounts for 31.8% of cases across the European Region, up from 15% the previous week and 6.3% the week before that,” he said.

2 years since onset in Europe

“On this day two years ago, France reported the first confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the region,” said Kluge, adding that much has been learned since then during “this once-in-a-generation crisis.”

“But that did not come without the unacceptable human cost we know: every single hour since the pandemic’s onset, 99 people in the region have lost their lives to COVID-19. We mourn the more than 1.7 million people in the European Region who are no longer with us.”

Gains in poverty reduction have been reversed, with more than 4 million people in the region now pushed under the $5.50 a day poverty line, he added.

“Children’s education and mental well-being have suffered immensely,” he said.

Kluge paid tribute to health workers who have borne the brunt of the crisis and continue to put themselves in harm’s way.

“We cannot say that they have come out intact,” he said.

“Research shows that as many as 43% of frontline health workers are experiencing significant levels of anxiety, and a large proportion of clinical staff working in intensive care now meet the clinical threshold for post-traumatic stress disorder.”

The WHO regional head said more than 1.4 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in the European region, saving hundreds of thousands of lives.

“Huge advances in medical science and cross-border collaboration have led to no less than 10 different approved vaccines currently rolled out, with more in the pipeline,” said Kluge.

“This is one of the greatest scientific achievements in decades.”

However, he stressed that there are still “huge disparities in access to vaccines,” as “too many people who need the vaccine remain unvaccinated.”/aa

A gunman killed one person and wounded three others before committing suicide at a university in Heidelberg, southwestern Germany, authorities said on Monday.

“The gunman wounded four people in a lecture hall and then fled the scene. He later killed himself, according to our initial investigation,” police spokesman Patrick Knapp told local media.

A young woman who was seriously wounded during the shooting later died in a hospital, German news agency DPA reported.

Police said the gunman apparently acted alone, and there is no further threat to the public.

He was a student, authorities confirmed, but his motive was not immediately clear.

The incident occurred in Neuenheimer Feld, one of the three campuses at Heidelberg University, which includes a medical school and natural sciences faculty.

The university said in a statement that there were no international students among the victims, and it is making preparations to provide psychological support for all those affected./aa

The European Commission proposed on Monday a €1.2 billion ($1.35 billion) financial assistance package for Ukraine.

“The (European) Commission proposes a new emergency macro-financial assistance package of €1.2 billion. This package will help Ukraine now to address its financing needs due to the conflict,” President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen said in a video statement.

If approved by the European Parliament and EU member states, the bloc will immediately disburse half of the amount, she explained.

“Let me be clear once more: Ukraine is a free and sovereign country. It makes its own choices. The EU will continue to stand by its side,” she added.

Last week, von der Leyen warned Russia of “massive economic and financial sanctions” if it attacks Ukraine.

The US, with its European allies, has been warning that Russia is setting the stage for an invasion of Ukraine and has pre-positioned over 100,000 troops on its border with the former Soviet republic alongside significant artillery and tank deployments.

Moscow has denied preparing for a military offensive, saying its troops are there for regular exercises.

NATO began to increase its presence in eastern Europe following Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014./aa