From Reuters:

United Airlines, pilots union reach creative deal to limit furloughs

From The Motley Fool:

United Airlines has a huge warning for airlines

United Airlines is warning it could be forced to furlough about a third of its U.S. employees (36,000 employees). The cuts could come on October 1.

The cuts will impact pilots, flight attendants, mechanics and technicians.

The warning is coming as demand for air travel is stalling due to the continued rise in new COVID-19 cases the United States and new travel restrictions for self quarantine.

The airline has warned its employees that “it’s increasingly likely that travel demand will not return to normal until there is a widely available treatment or vaccine.”

United Airlines aircraft photo gallery:

United Airlines aircraft slide show:

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United Airlines today announced it is tripling the size of its August schedule compared to its June 2020 schedule, adding nearly 25,000 domestic and international flights compared to July 2020, and plans to fly 40% of its overall schedule in August, as compared to August 2019. While travel demand remains a fraction of what it was at the end of 2019, customers are slowly returning to flying with a preference for leisure destinations, trips to reunite with friends and family, and getaways to places that encourage social distancing. According to TSA, more than 600,000 passengers passed through airport security checkpoints on Monday, June 29, the first time since March 19 that those numbers exceeded 25% of pre-COVID levels.

United has overhauled its cleaning and safety procedures under United CleanPlus and is  giving customers more flexibility when booking by extending its waiver of change fees and award redeposit fees for reservations through July 31.

United plans to add more than 350 daily flights from its U.S. hubs in August, including doubling the number of flights from New York/Newark compared to July. This increase includes more flights to mountain and national park destinations like Aspen, Colorado; Bangor, Maine; Bozeman, Montana; and Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Internationally, United’s August schedule will include a return to Tahiti and additional flights to Hawaii, the Caribbean and Mexico. Across the Atlantic, United will add more flights and options to Brussels, Frankfurt, London, Munich, Paris and Zurich.

“We’re taking the same data-driven, realistic approach to growing our schedule as we did in drawing it down at the start of the pandemic,” said Ankit Gupta, United’s vice president of Domestic Network Planning. “Demand is coming back slowly and we’re building in enough capacity to stay ahead of the number of people traveling. And we’re adding in flights to places we know customers want to travel to, like outdoor recreation destinations where social distancing is easier but doing so in a way that’s flexible and allows us to adjust should that demand change.”

U.S. Domestic

Domestically, United plans to fly 48% of its 2019 schedule in August compared to 2019 levels, up from 30% in July. Travelers in search of more socially distant vacation options like beach, mountain and national park destinations will see more opportunities for leisure travel in United’s August schedule. Highlights include:

• Adding more than 600 daily flights to more than 200 airports across the United States, including the resumption of 50 routes from July to August.
• Expanding flights at 147 airports across the United States.
• Increasing connectivity in United’s mid-continental hubs, including Chicago, Denver and Houston.
• Doubling the number of flights from New York/Newark
• Returning around 90 aircraft back into service, including adding more CRJ-550 service between New York/Newark and St. Louis; Indianapolis; Richmond, Virginia; Cincinnati; Norfolk, Virginia; and Columbus, Ohio.
• Increasing service between Hawaii and its hubs in Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles and San Francisco
• Resuming service to more Hawaiian destinations, including Lihue from San Francisco and Hilo from Los Angeles.

International

“United’s international schedule continues to be guided by customer demand as we add back capacity in regions with relative strength,” said Patrick Quayle, United’s vice president of International Network and Alliances. “For August, we’ve seen increasing demand for leisure travel and have added options to places like Cancun and reinstated service to Tahiti. Additionally, we are further building out service to partner hubs like Frankfurt and Zurich, where customers can connect on to a wide array of destinations.”

Atlantic

Internationally, United is scheduled to fly 25% of its schedule in August, up from 16% in July. Across the Atlantic, United plans to offer customers more opportunities to get to Europe and beyond, with more flying from Chicago, New York/Newark and San Francisco. Highlights include:

• Resuming service between Chicago and Brussels and Frankfurt.
• Resuming service between New York/Newark and Brussels, Munich and Zurich.
• Resuming service between San Francisco and London.

Upon government approval, United will restart daily service between Delhi and San Francisco and New York/Newark.

Pacific

Across the Pacific in August, United is scheduled to restart three-times-weekly service connecting the mainland United States and Tahiti. In July, United made several changes to its Asia Pacific schedule. Highlights of United’s service include:

• Starting new service, five times weekly, between Chicago and Tokyo’s Haneda Airport. United will continue operating daily service to Tokyo Narita from New York/Newark and San Francisco.
• Resuming service between Hong Kong and San Francisco five days a week, with service continuing to Singapore.
• Resuming service to Seoul, South Korea three days a week.
• Resuming service to Shanghai from San Francisco two days a week.

Latin America/Caribbean

Throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, United is expanding across each region with a total of 35 new routes for August. Highlights of United’s schedule include:

• Resuming service between Houston and Lima.
• Resuming service between New York/Newark and Sao Paulo.
• Resuming service between Mexico City and Chicago, New York/Newark and San Francisco.
• Adding more ways to get to Cancun from Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, New York/Newark and San Francisco.
• Resuming service to San Salvador and Guatemala City from Houston, New York/Newark, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.
• Increasing the number of flights between Houston and Mexico City, Cancun, Guadalajara and Leon in Mexico; Panama City, Panama.
• Increasing the number of flights between New York/Newark and Punta Cana, Santiago and Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic.

Committed to Ensuring a Safe Journey

United is committed to putting health and safety at the forefront of every customer’s journey, with the goal of delivering an industry-leading standard of cleanliness through its United CleanPlus program. United has teamed up with Clorox and Cleveland Clinic to redefine cleaning and health safety procedures from check-in to landing and has implemented more than a dozen new policies, protocols and innovations designed with the safety of customers and employees in mind, including:

• Requiring all travelers – including crew members – to wear face coverings and potentially revoking travel privileges for customers who do not follow these requirements, as underscored in a recent video from United CEO, Scott Kirby.
• Using state-of-the-art high-efficiency (HEPA) filters on United aircraft to circulate air and remove up to 99.97% of airborne particles.
• Using electrostatic spraying on all mainline aircraft before departure for enhanced cabin sanitation.
• Adding a step to the check-in process, based on a recommendation from the Cleveland Clinic, requiring customers to acknowledge they do not have symptoms for COVID-19 and agree to follow our policies, including wearing a mask on board.
• Offering customers a touchless baggage check-in experience at more than 200 airports across the United States; United is the first and only U.S. airline to make this technology available.

United Airlines announced today it will resume service to China with twice-weekly flights between San Francisco and Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport via Seoul’s Incheon International Airport beginning July 8, 2020. United will operate service with Boeing 777-300ER aircraft from San Francisco to Shanghai on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Customers traveling from Shanghai will return to San Francisco on Thursdays and Sundays.

Prior to suspending service to Shanghai in February due to COVID-19, United was the largest U.S. carrier serving China and operated five daily flights between Shanghai and its hubs in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York/Newark and has served Shanghai for more than 30 years. In July, across the Pacific, United will also reinstate service between Chicago and Tokyo with the addition of new service to Tokyo’sHaneda Airport. Additionally, United will resume service to Seoul; restart service to Hong Kong and will fly to Singapore via a stop at Hong Kong.

Committed to Ensuring a Safe Journey

United is committed to putting health and safety at the forefront of every customer’s journey, with the goal of delivering an industry-leading standard of cleanliness through its United CleanPlus program. United has teamed up with Clorox and Cleveland Clinic to redefine cleaning and health and safety procedures from check-in to landing and has implemented more than a dozen new policies, protocols and innovations designed with the safety of customers and employees in mind, including:

• Requiring all travelers – including crew members – to wear face coverings and temporarily revoking travel privileges for customers who do not follow these requirements.
• Using state-of-the-art high-efficiency (HEPA) filters on all United mainline aircraft to circulate air and remove up to 99.97% of airborne particles
• Using electrostatic spraying on all aircraft before departure for enhanced cabin sanitization
• Adding a step to the check-in process, based on a recommendation from the Cleveland Clinic, requiring customers to acknowledge they do not have symptoms of COVID-19 and agree to follow our policies including wearing a mask on board
• Offering customers a touchless baggage check-in experience at more than 200 airports across the United States; United is the first and only U.S. airline to make this technology available

For more details on all the ways United is helping keep customers safe during their journey, please visit united.com/cleanplus.

United Airlines announced today that, along with other Airlines for America (A4A) members, it will strengthen mandatory mask policies to further mitigate against the spread of COVID-19 and help continue to keep passengers and crew safe. While the overwhelming majority of passengers are complying with United’s mandatory policy, starting on June 18, any passenger that does not comply when onboard a United flight will be placed on an internal travel restriction list. Customers on this list will lose their travel privileges on United for a duration of time to be determined pending a comprehensive incident review.

United currently requires all passengers to wear a face covering onboard its flights and expects that policy to remain in place for at least the next 60 days. The only exceptions to this policy are individuals who have a medical condition or a disability that prevents them from wearing a face covering, those who cannot put on or remove a face covering themselves and small children. Customers are expected to wear a mask for the duration of the flight, except when eating or drinking.

“Every reputable heath institution says wearing a mask is one of the most effective things people can do to protect others from contracting COVID-19, especially in places like an aircraft where social distancing is a challenge,” said United’s Chief Customer Officer, Toby Enqvist. “We have been requiring our customers to wear masks onboard United aircraft since May 4 and we have been pleased that the overwhelming majority of passengers readily comply with our policy. Today’s announcement is an unmistakable signal that we’re prepared to take serious steps, if necessary, to protect our customers and crew.”

Under this new policy, if a flight attendant notices or is informed of a customer onboard who is not wearing a face covering and that passenger does not fall within an exception, the flight attendant will proactively inform the customer that for the health and safety of everyone, face coverings are mandatory for all customers and crew on board. They will also offer to provide the customer with a mask if needed. If the customer continues to be non-compliant, flight attendants will do their best to de-escalate the situation, again inform the customer of United’s policy, and provide the passenger with an In-Flight Mask policy reminder card. If a customer continues to not comply, the flight attendant will file a report of the incident, which will initiate a formal review process. Any final decision or actions regarding a customer’s future flight benefits will not occur onboard but instead take place after the flight has reached its destination and the security team has investigated the incident.

“U.S. airlines are very serious about requiring face coverings on their flights. Carriers are stepping up enforcement of face coverings and implementing substantial consequences for those who do not comply with the rules,” said A4A President and CEO Nicholas E. Calio. “Face coverings are one of several public health measures recommended by the CDC as an important layer of protection for passengers and customer-facing employees.”

In April, United became the first major U.S.-based airline to require flight attendants to wear a face mask while on duty, and beginning in May, expanded that mandate to include all employees and customers on board. This includes front-line workers like pilots, customer service agents and ramp workers when on board an aircraft, along with any other United employees traveling using their flight benefits.

“Wearing a mask is a critical part of helping make air travel safer,” said Dr. James Merlino, Chief Clinical Transformation Officer at Cleveland Clinic. “The more people in a given space wearing masks, the fewer viral particles are making it into the space around them, decreasing exposure and risk.”

The airline’s mask policy is an important part of the United CleanPlus program, which brings together one of the most trusted brands in surface disinfection – Clorox – and the country’s top medical experts – Cleveland Clinic – to inform and guide United’s new cleaning, safety and social distancing protocols. As part of this program, United is taking a layered approach to help protect passengers and employees on board. In addition to requiring masks, United Airlines planes have HEPA grade filters that recirculate air every 2-3 minutes, and the airline is using electrostatic sprayers to disinfect the cabin before flights.

In addition to the onboard actions, United has implemented dozens of other new procedures at other points in the travel journey including offering touchless check-in for baggage at more than 200 locations, asking customers to complete a health assessment at check-in, installing sneeze guards and adjusting the boarding process.

Video:

United Airlines today announced that it expects to have total available liquidity of approximately $17 billion at the end of the third quarter of 2020. This dollar amount reflects committed financing of $5 billion to be secured by the airline’s loyalty program, MileagePlus, that allows the airline to continue to operate, evolve, and grow the program, as well as $4.5 billion expected to be available to United through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (the “CARES Act”) Loan Program. The company believes it has sufficient slots, gates and routes collateral available to meet the collateral coverage that may be required for the full $4.5 billion available to the company under the Loan Program. This $9.5 billion of additional liquidity will provide even more flexibility as the airline navigates the most disruptive financial crisis in the history of aviation.

Given the impact COVID-19 has had on travel demand, United has spent the past several months aggressively and proactively cutting costs. The airline has already reduced planned capital expenditures and operating and vendor expenditures, suspended raises and implemented an unpaid time off program for management and administrative employees, put a freeze on hiring, introduced voluntary leave and separation programs, reduced pay for all executives and cut its CEO and President’s base salaries by 100%, among other cost-saving measures. United expects an average cash burn of approximately $40 million per day in the second quarter of 2020 and to reduce its average cash burn to approximately $30 million per day in the third quarter of 2020.

Meanwhile from CNN:

Dr. Fauci says normalcy may not return until next year following Covid-19 case spikes

Goldman Sachs Lending Partners LLC, Barclays Bank PLC and Morgan Stanley Senior Funding, Inc. have committed to provide, and have agreed to arrange the syndication of, the MileagePlus financing through a term loan facility, which is expected to close, subject to standard conditions precedent, by the end of July 2020. Goldman Sachs Lending Partners LLC will act as the sole structuring agent and lead left arranger for the transaction.

MileagePlus has more than 100 million members, over 100 program partners, and is an essential asset for United. The program has historically generated material and stable revenues and free cash flows, drives customer retention, and increases customer lifetime value. United continues to invest in making MileagePlus the top loyalty program for its members. Last year the airline announced that MileagePlus miles never expire and announced a partnership with CLEAR to offer free and discounted memberships to MileagePlus members. United also introduced PlusPoints, a new industry-leading upgrade benefit for Premier members.

Will it be enough?

The new United Airline ticket counter in the Arrivals and Departures Hall at Terminal B at LaGuardia Airport opening on June 13, 2020.

United customers traveling through New York-LaGuardia (LGA) this weekend will be the first of any legacy airline to enjoy the airport’s new Terminal B experience, featuring brand-new, best-in-class Arrivals and Departures Hall. Whether their journey starts or ends at LGA, United passengers will see amenities including first-rate retail and dining choices as well as innovative lobby and baggage claim areas. The new building is part of the $4 billion, 1.3-million-square-foot Terminal B redevelopment project operated by LaGuardia Gateway Partners (LGP).

The newly completed and highly contemporary Arrivals and Departures Hall connects directly to Terminal B and the eastern concourse gates via a pedestrian bridge built over the top of the original terminal.

United’s gates opened last June in the Terminal B eastern concourse along with a new United Club located after security near the airline’s gates.

The Club is a private, 10,500-square-foot space that features more than 200 seats – 30 percent larger than United’s previous LGA Club. Along with a more spacious experience, the Club offers sweeping views of the tarmac while combining the sleek styles of New York City with the modern touches travelers desire.

United Airlines has made this announcement:

United Airlines today became the first major U.S. airline to ask all passengers to complete a health self-assessment during their check-in process. Based on recommendations from the Cleveland Clinic, the “Ready-to-Fly” checklist asks customers to confirm they have not experienced COVID-19-related symptoms in the 14 days prior to flying. The assessment is part of United CleanPlus, the company’s commitment to putting health and safety at the forefront of the entire customer experience.

“As people are returning to their daily activities during the COVID-19 pandemic, their health and safety – as well as the health and safety of others – should continue to be top-of-mind,” said Dr. James Merlino, Chief Clinical Transformation Officer at Cleveland Clinic, a nonprofit academic medical center and a United CleanPlus advisor. “Our health experts are pleased to play a role in helping people travel more safely and we worked closely with United to develop a health self-assessment for its customers to better ensure precautions are taken before beginning their journey.”