Edward Russell

U.S. airlines support a CDC recommendation to mandate negative Covid-19 tests for all arriving international travelers. It's a bet many think will allow the industry to restart grounded flights and boost their moribund businesses.

Airlines face a myriad of challenges in 2021. But above them all is the question: when will travelers return in significant numbers? Once flyers do, the industry can exit crisis mode and look forward again.

Airlines promised that more payroll assistance would allow them to avoid dramatic staffing reductions. That relief is now here to the tune of $15 billion but it looks like the furloughs, while temporarily rolled back, are still coming.

The CommonTrust Network signed Aruba this week as its first member country, a win in the race to develop a digital health passport. But competition remains fierce as airlines await a single standard that can safely restart travel.

Unprecedented losses forced airlines to focus on cash burn as the metric to watch early on during the coronavirus pandemic. The recent surge in new infections has delayed breakeven goals but, with billions of dollars on hand, most are looking ahead and getting ready for when travelers return in droves.

Airlines shed jobs at the fastest rate since 1990 this fall as they slashed costs to weather the coronavirus pandemic. With prospect of additional federal relief still mired in politics, very real questions remain about the industry's ability to ramp up flights once travelers — and the economy — return.

United Airlines plans to stay ahead of the pack with a new effort to go "100 percent green." But it's unclear whether the decision to invest in something called direct carbon sequestration plants is any better than the industry norm of buying offsets for the nearly billion tons of greenhouse gases planes pump into the atmosphere every year.

Gol is set to be the first global airline to resume Boeing 737 Max flights on Wednesday, returning the jet at the beginning of Brazil's busy summer travel season. But questions remain over whether travelers have confidence in the aircraft after a 20-month grounding with no less than the future of Boeing hanging in the balance.