Industry veteran Willie Walsh will now lead the International Air Transport Association (IATA) as the new Director General. IATA announced leadership major changes approved by the 76th IATA Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Geneva. Robin Hayes, CEO of JetBlue is now the Chair of the IATA Board of Governors (BoG), succeeding Carsten Spohr, Chair IATA BoG (2019-2020) and CEO of Lufthansa. Hayes will serve a term commencing immediately and ending at the conclusion of the Association’s 78th Annual General Meeting to be held in 2022. Hayes will serve an extended term as Chair covering two AGMs due the disruption to governance cycles necessitated by the COVID-19 crisis.Rickard Gustafson, CEO of SAS Group will serve as Chairman of the BoG from the conclusion of the 78th IATA AGM in 2022 u...
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IATA AGM also requests governments to support safe and sustainable industry restart The International Air Transport Association (IATA) 76th Annual General Meeting (AGM) unanimously resolved to urgently call on governments to re-open borders to travel. IATA is proposing systematic testing of international travelers which would permit the lifting of border restrictions and provide an alternative to current quarantine rules. Quarantines essentially kill demand for air travel and governments need to immediately consider the drastic socio-economic effect this is having. International air travel continues to be down 90% on 2019 levels. Current estimates are that as many as 46 million jobs supported by air travel could be lost and that the economic activity sustained by aviation will be re...
Read MoreThe International Air Transport Association (IATA) announced a revised outlook for airline industry performance in 2020 and 2021. Deep industry losses will continue into 2021, even though performance is expected to improve over the period of the forecast. A net loss of $118.5 billion is expected for 2020 (deeper than the $84.3 billion forecast in June).A net loss of $38.7 billion is expected in 2021 (deeper than the $15.8 billion forecast in June). Performance factors in 2021 will show improvements on 2020; and the second half of 2021 is expected to see improvements after a difficult 2021 first half. Aggressive cost-cutting is expected to combine with increased demand during 2021 (due to the re-opening of borders with testing and/or the widespread availability of a vaccine...
Read MoreThe International Air Transport Association (IATA) and the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) issued a joint statement calling for urgent government intervention to prevent an employment catastrophe in the aviation industry. Estimates from the Air Transport Action Group suggest some 4.8 million aviation workers’ jobs are at risk as a result of air travel demand falling more than 75% (August 2020 compared to August 2019). The impact of COVID-19 related border restrictions and quarantine measures has effectively closed down the aviation industry, grounding planes and leaving infrastructure and aircraft manufacturing capacity idle. The IATA and the ITF request to governments includes calls to: Provide continued financial support for the aviation industrySafely re-...
Read MoreThe International Air Transport Association (IATA) announced that passenger demand in September remained highly depressed. Total demand (measured in revenue passenger kilometers or RPKs) was 72.8% below September 2019 levels (only slightly improved over the 75.2% year-to-year decline recorded in August). Capacity was down 63% compared to a year ago and load factor fell 21.8 percentage points to 60.1%. International passenger demand in September plunged 88.8% compared to September 2019, basically unchanged from the 88.5% decline recorded in August. Capacity plummeted 78.9%, and load factor withered 38.2 percentage points to 43.5%. Domestic demand in September was down 43.3% compared to the previous year, improved from a 50.7% decline in August. Compared to 2019, capacity fell ...
Read MoreMalaysia-based carrier Malindo Air has launched a retrenchment exercise ranging from termination to a year’s unpaid leave for 2,647 employees, the human resources ministry said on Wednesday, as the coronavirus pandemic batters the aviation industry. Reeling from a slump in demand in the wake of travel curbs, the Malaysian arm of Indonesia’s Lion Air had already ordered a 50% pay cut and unpaid leave for staff in March. “The ministry... has conducted discussions with Malindo Air’s management on Nov. 3 to ensure the rights of the affected workers are protected and appropriate assistance is given,” said Human Resources Minister M. Saravanan. The plan unveiled on Sunday gave 439 employees notice of a year’s unpaid leave, with the possibility of being hired again when the economy ...
Read MoreThe International Air Transport Association (IATA) presented new analysis showing that the airline industry cannot slash costs sufficiently to neutralize severe cash burn to avoid bankruptcies and preserve jobs in 2021. IATA reiterated its call for government relief measures to sustain airlines financially and avoid massive employment terminations. IATA also called for pre-flight COVID-19 testing to open borders and enable travel without quarantine. Total industry revenues in 2021 are expected to be down 46% compared to the 2019 figure of $838 billion. The previous analysis was for 2021 revenues to be down around 29% compared to 2019. This was based on expectations for a demand recovery commencing in the fourth quarter of 2020. Recovery has been delayed however, owing to new COVID-19 o...
Read MoreFinland's national carrier Finnair has started selling its business class meals in a supermarket to prevent job cuts at its catering unit due to COVID-19. The airplane meals have quickly turned into a hit with 1,600 meals sold within days at the supermarket located near Finnair’s main hub the Helsinki-Vantaa airport, Finnair said. It plans to sell in more outlets. FILE PHOTO: A Finnair Airbus A320-200 aircraft prepares to take off from Manchester Airport in Manchester, Britain. REUTERS/Phil Noble “There are redundancies and layoffs going on already at Finnair and we are trying our best to find new innovative ways,” head of Finnair Kitchen Marika Nieminen said. Finnair said last Tuesday it would cut around 700 jobs by March 2021. Finnair Kitchen’s first main courses on the g...
Read MoreThe risk of COVID-19 spreading on flights appears “very low” but cannot be ruled out, despite studies showing only a small number of cases, the World Health Organization (WHO) said. “In-flight transmission is possible but the risk appears to be very low, given the volume of travellers and the small number of case reports. The fact that transmission is not widely documented in the published literature does not, however, mean it does not happen,” the WHO said in a statement to Reuters. The characterisation of the risk echoes the findings of a U.S. Defense Department study that last week described the probability of catching the disease on airliners as “very low”. Some airlines have however used more robust language to describe the risk of onboard transmission. Southwest Airl...
Read MoreDecline in revenue-passenger kilometre and high cash burn rate are compelling various airlines to cut jobs. Now Cathay Pacific Airways is cutting over 5,000 jobs in Hong Kong and closing its Cathay Dragon brand. Cathay Pacific joins a growing list of airlines, which have been cutting jobs or plan to do so. Recently, Singapore Airlines and Qantas Airways reduced their workforce by 20% and 30%, respectively. Airlines across the globe are going through the most severe crisis that they have ever encountered. Compared to the impact of SARS on the aviation industry, the monetary impact of COVID-19 is expected to be 45-50 times higher. Animesh Kumar, Director of Travel and Tourism Consulting at GlobalData, a leading research and consulting company, said: “Several countrie...
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