Coronavirus Impact on Air Travel

[racedo]

https://corporate.ryanair.com/news/r...apr/?market=en

Ryanair cancels 25% of Italian SH flights and indicates high level of no-shows on flights to and from Italy.

[LTNman]

So Ryanair make cutbacks until April 8th. Are they expecting everything to be roses after that date? I am thinking it will only get worse as more and more people will stop traveling not only to Italy but inter Europe in general.

[ara01jbb]

From The Air Current today, and an unnamed “Middle Eastern airline”, who may or may not have deeper pockets to ride this out than many smaller European airlines. This has been the single most striking quote I’ve read on the subject.

“No bookings are coming in,” said a senior network planner at a major Middle Eastern airline on Sunday. “It’s just like 9/11, just that you can still fly. Effectively Asia is closed for us.” The commercial impact “only got bad in the last two days,” said a European airline executive on Saturday. “But it was a cliff.” One official at a U.S. airline said it was missing booking targets in the single-digit percentages last week and expected that to increase into the teens by the early days of this week.

[Dannyboy39]

Originally Posted by racedo

https://corporate.ryanair.com/news/r...apr/?market=en

Ryanair cancels 25% of Italian SH flights and indicates high level of no-shows on flights to and from Italy.

Without a doubt Ryanair are the strongest airline in Europe to handle this kind of a crisis. As MOL rightly points out, they have hands in many pies, a lower cost base, €4b in the bank and probably have another $15-20b in aircraft and other assets.

[FFHKG]

Reported elsewhere that Cathay Pacific/Dragon have "parked-up" half their aircraft and will only operate 25% of their schedule during March!!

[22/04]

There is a great deal of (possibly) unintended but nevertheless inaccurate reporting about this virus which is fueling the panic. For sure all form of businesses are going to suffer the consequences, many of which could have been avoided. The outcome may be that the virus may kill more businesses than people!

It may. But the real risk is that younger people (who are not likely to be affected) spread it to older people and we get more deaths that way. If you are under 60 ( or maybe 70) not too much to worry about but if you are older...………….

Should we save older people or businesses?

[racedo]

Originally Posted by LTNman

So Ryanair make cutbacks until April 8th. Are they expecting everything to be roses after that date? I am thinking it will only get worse as more and more people will stop traveling not only to Italy but inter Europe in general.

Nope but it gives breathing space to allow then make decisions after looking at the numbers rather than knee jerk reactions.

Couple of years ago when snow hit Dub badly (think it was 2010), they shut down the extra day because aircraft and people were not in correct place, everybody jumped on bandwagon complaining but believe EI cancelled 1 in 5 on that day with lots of issues. Following day FR was 100% out of Dublin where as EI still had lots of cancellations.

They know the numbers more than anybody and will take the decisions based on this.

[racedo]

Originally Posted by Dannyboy39

Without a doubt Ryanair are the strongest airline in Europe to handle this kind of a crisis. As MOL rightly points out, they have hands in many pies, a lower cost base, €4b in the bank and probably have another $15-20b in aircraft and other assets.

Nobody is strong if business collapses and it may take 2 yrs to recover. But you are correct as cash is king, cutting jobs or sacking people is an option BUT also putting people on short hours, cutting pay so everybody gets something is also an option. May not be comfortable for anybody but failing to pay mortgage for 3 months because Economy is dead will not have banks doing repos.

Only benefit Ryanair may have is that Boeing will not be pushing hard for aircraft payments especially when Ryanair likely damages for Max impact will be in the hundreds of millions.

Old rule on business is, You can never have enough cash, cash burn when no income is a lot quicker than you plan. Any of the new ventures in IT space will tell you that.

[racedo]

Originally Posted by davidjohnson6

Let us suppose for a moment that Europe goes into some sort of lockdown comparable to the current state in China.
What happens to places like Mallorca or Corfu, islands whose economies are almost completely dependent on millions of sun-starved visitors from northern Europe coming to visit ?

Basically you sit it out, exactly same will be position in UK IF towns and cities go on lockdown. Financial institutions are the ones to watch.

[AirportPlanner1]

Smaller airports and bases will be victims I suspect ie Ryanair scrapping LGW/LTN/SEN in the short term, Jet2 bussing BHX, LBA, EMA pax to MAN. It will make no sense flying fresh air from every airport around the country

[racedo]

I see route cuts but LGW is overwhelmingly to Ireland so reduced frequency unless a total ban from within Ireland on flights there.

I do remember the F&M (Foot and Mouth) outbreak in the UK, Ireland flights I took into Dublin and Shannon you had to walk through disinfectant footpath. Friend with me thought it was overdoing it BUT Hotel boss in centre of Dublin dissauded him of that notion. All schools did it as did many shops and businesses. The collective mindset was we have to prevent it, it worked because everybody knew the consequences. Back in London F&M was something on news and nobody cared.

[LTNman]

If Ryanair drop bases at other London Airports then they might not get back in apart from Southend.

[davidjohnson6]

April 8th is just before the Easter weekend

[racedo]

Originally Posted by LTNman

If Ryanair drop bases at other London Airports then they might not get back in apart from Southend.

Understand your thinking BUT false assumption is that once this is over then everything takes off and reverts to normal like 2019.

There will be a new normal, it will not be like 2019. The drop in people taking flights is likely to be quite considerable for the rest of this year and likely into next year, it is about confidence and that will take a while to recover. Therefore airports will not be turning their noses up at airlines because some of the airlines today may not be around.

We saw a new normal 10-12 years ago in the worldwide crash as people did not have money to fly, this time they may have money but are just scared to fly. The pressure will be on Airbus / Boeing to improve their air filtering system on planes as people will demand it.

[PAXboy]

There has been a new financial crash slowly building up for ten years. Central banks and politicians have cut interest rates and printed money to try and get a stronger recovery since 2008. Many companies are over extended in debt and ill prepared for the next crash. Nations also have much the same problem, sovereign debt is astronomical.

Many have been waiting to see what it was that would pull the trigger on the next crash. Currently, Covid19 is favourite. If this spreads as badly as many (and I for one) think - then the rest of the dominoes will rapidly crash too. It will not be the sole fault of Covid19 - but it could be the last straw that breaks the precarious system.

Already this week, central banks and politicians are saying that they will be supporting their economies. That means printing more money and creating more sovereign debt to support business and health. That, of course, will only make matters worse in the long term.

[Falcon666]

Originally Posted by FFHKG

Reported elsewhere that Cathay Pacific/Dragon have "parked-up" half their aircraft and will only operate 25% of their schedule during March!!

I transited through HKIA on 28/2 and yes counted at least 15 wide bodies parked nose to tail on various internal taxi ways to remote parking areas.
One Hong Kong A320 looked very nice with landing gear and engines covered in what initially looked like tin foil from a distance but obviously wasn’t.

[LTNman]

Are you mad, China might be containing the virus but it is still a major source of new cases and you want the worlds airlines to help spread it faster by resuming service as normal.

Yes China’s suppression of news if well known and seems to have taken you in but it is hard to hide from the people that they cannot leave many areas of China. Governments around the world big mistake was not to ban travel to and from hot spots like China in the early days. This has allowed the free spread of the virus to the 4 corners of the planet and I would say now it is too late.

China will no doubt recover but then it will find there are no markets for its products as the world by then will be in a deep recession.

[eu01]

TheLocal.it writes:

Airline industry experts have predicted that the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on travel plans could put financially-troubled airlines such as Italian carrier Alitalia out of business.

Alitalia out of business? Impossible. Years of debt-swelling and two bankruptcies didn't change much, the virus will be just one more excuse for pumping more money into the business.

[Jetscream 32]

There are a total of 90,936 confirmed cases worldwide - although more than half of those (47,995) have already recovered.

From the BBC news feed - why is the worlds media not focused on the 47,995 that have recovered??

Destroying the global airline industry and creating global fear just because a new nasty virus is doing the rounds is not on....

Again the narrative needs to change - if you are over over 70 years old, or with underlying health problems - take extra care - if you don’t fit that then just take extra precautions, keep calm and carry on!!

[LTNman]

A bit like that 34 year old Chinese doctor did before it killed him.