AirlinesUnited Expecting Daily Cash Burn Of Up To $45 Million Per Day Today, United Airlines announced its financial results for the first quarter of this year. As expected, the coronavirus outbreak has caused massive losses for the Chicago-based carrier. Altogether, the airline reports a net loss of $1.7 billion and an adjusted net loss of $639 million.
LinkInterjet Gets Partial IATA Suspension - What Does It Mean? Yesterday, the International Air Transport Association Clearing House (ICH) suspended the Mexican airline Interjet with immediate effect due to a lack of payment. Additionally, the fleet of the airline continues to shrink, and Mexican authorities point out that Interjet doesn’t give certainty to its passengers. What is going on? Let’s investigate further.
LinkLufthansa Is Losing €1 Million Per Hour The Lufthansa Group is losing around one million euros per hour, according to CEO Carsten Spohr. The German flag carrier’s CEO made the comments in a speech released in advance of the airline’s AGM next week.
LinkUral Airlines Flies 3 Orphaned Black Bears Across Russia At the moment, a Ural Airlines Airbus A319 is transporting 3 brown bears from Yekaterinburg (SVX) to a wildlife center located in Khabarovsk (KHV) in Russia. Certainly a rare form of air freight, the orphaned bears were discovered as young cubs and nursed back to health. At their destination, they will continue their rehabilitation.
LinkAmerican Airlines Refunded $600m In Flight Tickets In 30 Days In an earnings call on April 30th, American Airlines laid out its full financial situation. The airline has lost just over $2 billion in the first quarter, with over $6 billion in liquidity. One of the interesting statistics to come out of the earnings call, however, was the amount in refunds the airline has processed. In April, American Airlines processed around $600 million in refunds. However, by the end of June, the airline expects its refund bills to be around or over $2 billion.
LinkHuge Increase In Chinese Air Travel As Lockdown Eased A recent statistical analysis has revealed that flight bookings across China have surged up by 15 times after the government relaxed quarantine rules. Until yesterday, Chinese capital had put in place strict COVID-19 preventive measures, including a 14-day mandatory quarantine for incoming international passengers. The restrictions have finally been lifted, as China has got a hold on the spread of the pandemic.
LinkLow-Cost Frontier Becomes The Latest Carrier To Mandate Masks Frontier Airlines has announced that passengers must wear face-coverings from next week to protect against the coronavirus. The airline’s flight attendants have been wearing protective facial equipment for a few weeks, but now passengers will also need to wear masks. Frontier becomes the second airline in the US to mandate face masks.
LinkDelta Will Retire The MD Aircraft Family In June It’s been about eight months since American Airlines retired its final MD-80 from its fleet. Now, Delta is planning to do the same with its own McDonnell Douglas aircraft. The US carrier will retire its MD-88 and MD-90 jets earlier than previously planned as a result of the current global situation. In fact, Delta will retire both aircraft types this June.
LinkAmerican Airlines Unveils Its New Boeing 787 Business Class Seat Even though US carrier American Airlines has had to fly its brand new Boeing 787-8 immediately into storage, the aircraft still had something noteworthy onboard: a new business class seat. The new seat looks to be a slight improvement from the current business class seat on the airline’s 787s, giving passengers one additional perk once they are able to return to the skies.
LinkThai Airways Gets $1.8 Billion Government bailout The government in Thailand has announced a $1.8 billion bailout fund for struggling state carrier Thai Airways. In an announcement on Wednesday, the government also confirmed that a committee of aviation and business professionals will oversee the airline as it restructures its debts and raises capital. However, the loan is conditional on the airline’s plans for the future.
LinkBritish Airways May Not Resume Gatwick Operations British Airways may not resume operations from Gatwick once the current crisis has passed. The airline hasn’t operated a scheduled passenger flight from Gatwick for around a month.
LinkBailout Will Stop Air France Operating Short Domestic Flights On 24th April, Air France-KLM managed to secure vital funding to help it through the coronavirus pandemic. Of that funding, Air France will receive €7bn ($7.6bn); however, the terms of that aid are now being discussed. Not only will the airline need to improve its profits, but it will also be bound by environmental constraints, which could see the loss of some short domestic routes.
LinkSWISS To Receive €1.2 Billion In Government Backed Loans It was announced on Wednesday that Switzerland had guaranteed €1.2 billion ($1.31 billion) in state-backed loans to its two domestic subsidiaries, SWISS and Edelweiss, to help them through the liquidity crisis caused by COVID-19. The government estimated that the liquidity needs of SWISS and Edelweiss would total $1.54 billion (CHF 1.5 billion) up to the end of 2020.
LinkSpiceJet Won’t Pay Pilots For April Or May SpiceJet has announced that it will not pay its pilots for April and May due to the current circumstances. Pilots flying cargo flights will be paid per ‘block hours flown’, but will not receive their regular salary. SpiceJet is the first airline to not pay its pilots entirely, as competitors opt for pay cuts and voluntary leave instead.
LinkThis Chinese Airline Will Let You Buy Three Rows For Yourself Social distancing measures on flights has been a hot topic of late. Some airlines have chosen to sell fewer tickets for flights, block out the middle seat, or create an empty buffer zone near crew jump seats. Should a passenger feel like they need a personal buffer, however, Chinese domestic airline Air Changan is happy to oblige. Those traveling with the carrier can now purchase empty adjacent seats for $28 a piece.
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