Reuters: Ryanair could survive without revenue for ‘maybe even 12 months’, CEO tells FT

From Reuters:

“Ryanair has the cash to survive for “maybe even 12 months” with no flights or revenue as the coronavirus shuts the air travel industry down, CEO Michael O’Leary said in an interview with the Financial Times on Friday.

O’Leary said that he and the rest of the airline’s employees will take a 50% pay cut for the months of April and May, the newspaper reported.

He said he was working on a best-case scenario of two-three months in which flights would be grounded and revenues would vanish, but said “honestly none of us have any idea.”

“The priority here for us as a company is how do we preserve as much cash so that if we have to operate for three, six, nine, maybe even 12 months, with no flights and no revenues how do we survive that, do we have the cash to survive that and we believe we do,” O’Leary was quoted as saying.”

Read the full article.

Ryanair also released this statement:

Ryanair aircraft photo gallery:

Avianca suspends international operations, reduces domestic operations, grounds 132 aircraft

Avianca (Colombia) made this announcement:

As is public knowledge, most countries around the world have closed their borders, limiting mobility for domestic and foreign passengers in the region. This situation directly affects Avianca’s capacity to maintain its operation.

Therefore, starting at 00:00 hours on March 23, all international operations will be suspended and domestic operations in Colombia will be reduced by 84%. These decisions are complicated and painful for Avianca and its employees whose main purpose is to connect passengers to and from Latin America. Below are details of the actions that will be implemented:

1. Complete suspension of the international operation and reduction of domestic operation in Colombia by 84%:

As of March 23 at 00:00 hours and until April 30, Avianca will fully suspend its international operation. The domestic operation will include service from Bogota to capital cities and some regions. The above will be subject to the evolution of the situation, availability and willingness of clients to travel and additional measures that may be taken by local and national governments that affect the operation.

Therefore, flight scheduling may change on a daily basis and passengers will be informed when this happens. Avianca will inform changes through the Covid-19 website and other channels: Avianca Escucha @AviancaEscucha, email, Whatsapp for clients of the Diamond and Gold loyalty program and Avianca News Center.

The company will also be forced to ground 132 aircraft: 22 wide-body, 100 narrow-body and 10 ATRs. Avianca will use 5 Airbus A320s and 5 ATRs for its domestic operation.

2. Labor Measures

This unprecedented global situation for the airline industry requires difficult and immediate decisions as a result of the reduction of its operation. The following measures will be implemented starting today:

Hiring freeze.
Implementation of voluntary unpaid leave.
Negotiation of payment conditions with suppliers and partners.
Extension of non-essential costs and capital expenses.

3. Financial measures: cost control, savings and suspension of investments:

All investments, expenses or projects not tightly linked with maintenance and the domestic operation, as well as travel and events, will be suspended. Additionally, Avianca is negotiating with various partners to decide upon next steps.

“This is, without a doubt, the greatest crisis for the airline industry in history. The decisions we are taking not only hurt us, they are extremely difficult, but we must be flexible and face the situation. The full suspension of our international operation and the strong contraction of domestic demand, forces us to send most of our employees home. It is time for regional governments to take exceptional measures that mitigate the social and economic impact affecting hundreds of industries. If we want to reconnect Latin America and preserve the more than 20.000 jobs we create, we will need joint cooperation and collaboration of industry stakeholders and above all, the support and cooperation of governments”, said Anko van der Werff, President and CEO of Avianca Holdings.

During this situation, Avianca has cooperated with governments and embassies for foreign nationals in Colombia and other countries to return to leave the country and return home.

Avianca aircraft photo gallery:

Southwest Airlines further reduces its schedule

Southwest Airlines made this announcement:

Recently, Southwest implemented a plan to reduce capacity by at least 20 percent for the time period from April 14 through June 5, 2020. That difficult decision was driven by the drop in travel demand in the wake of the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.

On Friday, Southwest made the tough decision to further revise our schedule by cancelling approximately 1,000 of our almost 4,000 daily flights from Sunday, March 22, 2020 until the previously revised schedule begins on April 14, 2020. We sincerely regret any inconvenience to our Customers and our Employees.

During this unprecedented time, we will continually assess the real-time, market demand for Southwest’s service with the goal of cancelling flights that have alternate flight or route options and that affect the fewest number of Customers. Additionally, we’ll implement the cancellations on a rolling, multiple-day basis to provide Customers with advance notice of changes and alternate flight options.

International Service Changes

These cancellations also capture our decision to suspend service to all of our international destinations at the end of the operating day on Sunday, March 22, 2020. We’ve made this decision due to the number of governments restricting air travel across their borders, as well as guidance from the United States government, and we hope to resume normal operations to our international destinations on Monday, May 4, subject to change.

Southwest Airlines aircraft photo gallery:

South African Airways suspends all international and regional flights

South African Airways made this announcement:

South African Airways (SAA) has announced that it will immediately suspend all international operations until May 31, 2020 in response to a government travel ban aimed at stopping the transmission of the Coronavirus (Covid-19).

The COVID-19 pandemic and attendant travel restrictions, resulted in substantial decline in demand for air travel. The situation caused many airlines across the world to ground aircraft, release their employees, and to cancel flights. In the case of SAA, this decision means that SAA will only render services on its regional and domestic routes.

Following the declaration of the State of Disaster after the outbreak of COVID-19 in South Africa, the government announced a travel ban and issued regulations, which introduced certain measures aimed at combatting the spread or transmission of the virus.

Amongst other things, the regulations, issued on Thursday state that: “Disembarkation of foreign nationals from the high-risk countries is suspended on airports upon arrival. Embarkation and disembarkation is permissible under the following circumstances: Disembarkation of returning South African citizens and permanent residents; embarkation of departing foreign nationals, disembarkation of a declared medical emergency; foreign nationals must be approved by port health services; upon landing, crew from high risk countries shall be subject to medical screening and quarantined for 21 days”.

SAA operates in three markets that form part of countries listed in the travel ban as high-risk areas. These are the United States (Washington DC and New York, JFK), the United Kingdom (London, Heathrow) and Germany (Frankfurt and Munich). In addition, SAA operates flights to Australia (Perth) and Brazil (São Paulo) which have not been declared high-risk. All of which are now cancelled.

The airline also made this announcement:

South African Airways (SAA) announced that it is suspending all international flights with immediate effect until May 31, 2020, to support the government travel ban aimed at stopping the transmission of the Coronavirus (Covid-19).

As a direct consequence of this suspension, there was an immediate drastic reduction of demand for the African regional flights. SAA is a network carrier, which means that a significant part of the regional bookings demand is fed by the passengers that travel to or from the international destinations.

Therefore, the suspension of the international flights has resulted in the airline not being able to operate its normal network. This resulted in operation of regional flights not being commercially viable anymore.

Flights to the following destinations have been suspended as of March 20, 2020 until May 31, 2020: Accra (Ghana), Lusaka (Zambia), Harare (Zimbabwe), Victoria Falls (Zimbabwe), Windhoek (Namibia), Lagos (Nigeria), Entebbe (Uganda).

Mauritius will operate until Saturday, March 21, 2020.

This decision means that SAA will only continue to render services on its domestic route between Johannesburg and Cape Town.

South African Airways aircraft photo gallery:

Farnborough Airshow 2020 is cancelled

Farnborough Airshow made this announcement:

It is with great regret that we announce the Farnborough International Airshow 2020, due to take place in July, is cancelled.

After very careful consideration, the unprecedented impact of the global Coronavirus pandemic has forced this decision in the interests of the health and safety of our exhibitors, visitors, contractors and staff.

This decision was reached taking into consideration several major factors surrounding the outbreak of COVID-19, all of which we have concluded, make it is impossible for us to create and host the Airshow this July.

We understand this news will be an incredible disappointment to all across the international aerospace industry, not to mention our important exhibitors, suppliers and visitors. We at Farnborough International share your disappointment that we are unable to present the Airshow as planned , but rest assured, we are determined to continue to work together and will ensure the Farnborough International Airshow returns in 2022 better than ever.

It’s important to us that we speak directly to anyone who may have concerns about the Airshow’s cancellation; however, we are a small team and it may take a few days for us to make contact. We appreciate your patience, these are incredibly difficult times but we are absolutely committed to maintaining strong relationships.

easyJet to ground majority of fleet from March 24

easyJet has made this announcement:

Following the country lockdowns, travel restrictions and changes to travel advice across its network, easyJet has taken the decision to ground the majority of its fleet of aircraft from Tuesday, March 24 onwards.

We will continue to operate rescue flights as required to repatriate customers and anticipate most of our rescue operations to be completed by Monday, March 23.

Details of the rescue flights we are operating to repatriate customers can be found here: https://www.easyjet.com/en/policy/coronavirus-rescue-flights. If you are currently abroad, we urge you to rebook yourself onto a rescue flight prior to Monday.

In addition, we anticipate operating a minimal schedule of essential services on some routes. This will be a maximum of 10% of our usual capacity during this time of year and mainly routes to, from and within the UK.

We will continue to review our flight schedule on a weekly basis to ensure that it matches current demand. With recent guidance, we recognize many customers with existing reservations do not intend to travel, and so we would encourage them to change their tickets for free now, as this will allow us to best match our remaining flying to the demand. easyJet continues to waive all change fees for customers who want to move their flight to a later date and they can now change up until February 28, 2021. Customers will be contacted directly if their flight is cancelled and will be provided with their options.

Johan Lundgren, easyJet CEO, said:

“These are unprecedented times for the airline industry. We know how important it is for customers to get home and so are continuing to operate rescue flights over the coming days to repatriate them. Significantly reducing our flying program is the right thing to do when many countries have issued advice to their citizens not to travel unless it is essential and the aircraft groundings will also remove significant levels of variable costs at a time when this remains crucial.”

easyJet aircraft photo gallery:

Alitalia continues to operate special repatriation flights

Alitalia made this announcement (translated from Italian):

New Alitalia special flights, in collaboration with the Crisis Unit of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and more scheduled connections to facilitate the return to Italy of thousands of compatriots, including many students.

In line with the mission of ensuring an essential public service, Alitalia has increased the number of scheduled flights to five a day from London Heathrow to meet the needs of those who want to return from the United Kingdom. From Brussels, Alitalia flights have become two a day to meet the needs of those in Holland, after the blockade of services on Amsterdam. Also the connections from Paris increased to two a day.

The organization of special flights continues to facilitate the repatriation of thousands of compatriots from those countries to which normal scheduled services can no longer be operated, due to the restrictions imposed on air traffic to and from Italy.

In the next few hours other special flights will be organized from Spain (Madrid and Malaga) between March 21 and 26, from Moldova (Chişinău) for March 22, from Greece (Athens) and from Poland (Warsaw) to March 23, from Ukraine (Kiev) for March 25 and Serbia (Belgrade) for March 26.

Since the beginning of the emergency, Alitalia has already made special connections from the Maldives, Pointe-à-Pitre (Guadeloupe), Warsaw, Sofia, Kiev, Madrid, Malaga, Bucharest, Algiers and Tunis, bringing over three thousand compatriots to Italy.

At the moment there is no outstanding request for special flights, however the Company remains in constant contact with the Crisis Unit of the Farnesina to prepare new ones for both passengers and freight.

Alitalia aircraft photo gallery:

United Airlines continues to draw down on its international schedule

United Airlines made this announcement:

United continues to aggressively manage the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak on our employees, our customers and our business. Due to government mandates or restrictions in place prohibiting travel, the airline is reducing its international schedule by 95% for April. The revised international schedule will be viewable on united.com on Sunday, March 22:

Atlantic

United is drawing down its remaining trans-Atlantic operation. The final westbound departures will take place on March 25, with the exception of its Cape Town–Newark service which will operate as previously scheduled with the last flight departing Cape Town on March 28.

Pacific

United will reduce its remaining trans-Pacific operation starting March 22, with final eastbound departures on March 25, with the exception of service between San Francisco and Tahiti and San Francisco and Sydney which will have final returns to San Francisco on March 28.
United will maintain some Guam flights as well as a portion of its Island Hopper service.

Latin America

United will reduce its Mexico operation over the next five days. After March 24, it will only maintain a small number of daytime flights to certain destinations in Mexico.
United will draw down its remaining Central and South America operations. The last southbound departures will take place March 24.

Canada

United will temporarily suspend all flying to Canada effective April 1.

In destinations where government actions have barred us from flying, we are actively looking for ways to bring customers who have been impacted by travel restrictions back to the United States. This includes working with the U.S. State Department and the local governments to gain permission to operate service.

United Airlines aircraft photo gallery:

Air Canada to operate special flight from Morocco to bring Canadians home

Air Canada announced today that the airline, in collaboration with the Government of Canada, will operate a special flight March 21 from Morocco to bring Canadians home.

“We understand it’s a challenging time for all Canadians who are still abroad and anxious to come back home. Our teams are working around the clock with the Canadian Government and offering our global reach to do everything we can to repatriate as many Canadians as possible, recognizing that we will not be able to assist all,” said Calin Rovinescu, President and Chief Executive Officer of Air Canada.

Air Canada will operate a wide body aircraft, with 450 seats, from, Casablanca, Morocco to Montreal. Global Affairs Canada is coordinating local arrangements for Canadians wishing to return home.

Canadians abroad should contact local embassies and consulates for more information.

“We are doing everything possible to assist Canadians abroad to return home and we appreciate the support of Air Canada, which is providing its technical and operational expertise to help us. It is an excellent example of the type of cooperation and support the Government of Canada is encouraging in the face of this unprecedented public health crisis,” said the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Foreign Affairs.

The Canadian Government has also announced that it will provide financial assistance for Canadians abroad directly impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak to help secure their return.

It is important for those travelling to be reminded that only Canadian citizens, permanent residents and members of their immediate family holding a valid travel document will be permitted to board these flights to Canada. All passengers will undergo a health screening before boarding the aircraft. Any passenger presenting symptoms consistent with COVID-19 will be denied boarding unless they can present a medical certificate confirming any symptoms are not related to COVID-19. Upon arrival in Canada, all passengers will be requested to self-isolate for a period of 14 days.

Delta obtains $2.6 billion credit facility

Delta Air Lines today announced it has entered into a $2.6 billion secured credit facility, enhancing the company’s liquidity as it manages through an unprecedented decline in air travel demand due to the COVID-19 outbreak. The company is also drawing $3 billion under its existing revolving credit facilities.

In order to preserve liquidity, Delta has suspended its capital return program, including the company’s stock repurchase program and the Board’s suspension of future dividend payments.

“The growing need to protect Delta’s future has led to difficult decisions across our business that are impacting all of our stakeholders,” said Delta CEO Ed Bastian. “Maintaining ample liquidity during this crisis is critical to the essential service that Delta provides in America’s transportation infrastructure as well as the jobs of more than 90,000 Delta people across the country.”