The cost of your next flight is likely to go up.

After two years of pandemic restrictions, travel demand is back, but airlines and airports that slashed jobs during the depths of the COVID-19 crisis are struggling to keep up.

An airline industry group is criticizing the European Union's Parliament for seeking to expand its emissions trading system to long-haul flights.

The airline industry is speeding up its campaign to allow more international travel.

LONDON The parent company of British Airways reeled to a loss of 3.8 billion euros ($4.5 billion) in the first six months of the year as travel restrictions from the COVID-19 pandemic ate into the bottom line. The company announced it plans to raise 2.75 billion euros through a proposed capital increase. Chief Executive Willie Walsh predicted that passenger levels wouldnt return to pre-virus levels until 2023, and that it is restructuring its cost base to reduce each airlines size.The group has already announced 12,000 cuts at British Airways. Walsh says the scale of the challenge eclipses the downturn faced by the industry after the Sept.11, 2001 attacks. Anyone who believes that this is just a temporary downturn and therefore can be fixed with temporary measures, Im afraid seriously misjudges what the industry is going through,'' he said.

FRANKFURT Major airlines are urging the U.S. and the European Union to quickly restore transatlantic air travel by deploying a joint COVID-19 testing program. The CEOs of United, American Airlines, IAG and Lufthansa Group wrote Tuesday that given the unquestioned importance of transatlantic air travel to the global economy as well as to the economic recovery of our businesses, we believe it is critical to find a way to reopen air services between the U.S. and Europe.They said that a testing program for the transatlantic market could be an excellent opportunity for government and industry to work together and safely restore passenger travel between the U.S. and Europe.The letter was addressed with urgency to U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and to Ylva Johansson, the European commissioner for home affairs. The signers were Scott Kirby for United, Carsten Spohr for Lufthansa, Doug Parker for American, and Willie Walsh at IAG, which owns British Airways and Iberia.

Czech Republic's Prime Minister Andrej Babis, front right, welcomes his Slovak counterpart Igor Matovic, front left, in Prague, Czech Republic, Wednesday, June 3, 2020. The Czech Republic and Slovakia are fully opening their common border for travelers, cancelling restrictions that have been adopted to contain the coronavirus pandemic. The company anticipates an approximately $40 million charge related to the job cuts. The company, which is part of Germanys Volkswagen Group, said it is looking to make the initial job cuts under a voluntary scheme but that future job cuts may be on a compulsory basis. Slovak Prime Minister Igor Matovic says the move becomes effective on Friday.