With the way the situation is developing, I think the sensible approach for UK airports over the next few months is going to be a mixture of consolidation and temporary closure.

Having multiple terminals open at Manchester or Heathrow for example will simply not be tenable with what will in all likelihood be just a handful of flights each day. I know different airlines and groups are clustered to particular terminals, but with the low numbers of passengers being handled - probably not more than a few hundred per day at Heathrow for example - some form of manual check-in could be instigated. It simply won’t be worth having shops, restaurants, bars, duty free, check-ins, toilets etc open in every terminal and there probably wouldn’t be enough people available to staff them anyway.

Whilst I would imagine airports such as MAN, GLA, LHR etc will remain open, it would be more cost-effective to concentrate any flights that are still operating to these airports, with the likes of Bristol, Southampton, Exeter, Birmingham, Leeds, Newcastle, Liverpool etc being closed and mothballed to all but emergency traffic for a few months. Staff would still need to be paid, but it simply wouldn’t be financially viable to stock an airport with fresh food and other supplies if there is virtually no traffic.

According to data published today by University College London comparing transmission infection rates in various countries, using Italy as the ‘benchmark’, the UK is approximately 14 days behind Italy - so the whole landscape will almost certainly be very different in a few weeks from now.

Taking such measures may seem drastic, but it would hopefully allow more of our airports and airlines to survive the coming events. I think it’s quite likely that some of UK airlines and airports will not survive, at least in their present form, but I’m sure that there will be a gradual return to something nearer normality later in the year. However I do think investors and financial institutions including insurers will be very wary of the airline industry, and it could be many, many years before we see traffic return to previous levels - if ever with the current growing awareness of environmental considerations.

Italian Airforce yesterday................... with key point in Nessum Dorma

'Now more than ever, lest's be a team, together with strenght, together we can beat this"

Hate it when it rain indoors.

Saw a remarkable picture earlier on HKIA of aircraft parked bumper to bumper on taxiways as all contact stands were filled up. How BA are going to manage this at LHR in the next few weeks is going to be something as they rely on 50 aircraft overnighting downroute. There is going to be shortage of tarmac in many airports in the next few days.

How much space do BA have available in Cardiff ? Perhaps they could use Doncaster or Exeter instead ? Prestwick ? Would the MoD / RAF be amenable to BA paying rent on space somewhere ?

No real need for BA to be parking aircraft at Heathrow or Gatwick if expected to be on the ground for several days or longer

Prestwick's secondary runway is now being used for parking and a NOTAM has it closed for the next week. Three VS A340s have arrived for storage.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ng-10-000-jobs

Thanks to TartinTom on this

SAS cutting jobs hopefully temporarily, as Social welfare system is way different then majority of employees should lose little income if based in Scandanavia.

So let’s look at Easyjet and if they need state aid. Who should provide it and why? Much of their fleet is on the Austrian register. Most of their routes are between EU nations and don’t touch the UK. Is it down to the UK to keep the EU connected and keep EU citizens employed?

Same applies to Ryanair who has moved much of their fleet off the Irish register and only a small proportion of their services touch the republic. Not even sure if any heavy engineering is done in Ireland so we could just be talking about their HQ that is Irish based so how many jobs is that then?

Where do Easyjet and Ryanair pay taxes ?

If they have good accountants, probably nowhere.

Happy Monday campers,

Tomorrow will likely see the number of cases outside of China be greater than inside... probably 83,000+ tomorrow, on Wednesday we will break the 100,000 mark and in 14 days from now outside of China will have exceeded 500,000 - at that point, I'm not expecting any airlines to be flying anywhere in the world apart from domestic China / Russia and a few others.

The peak of cases will move like a barometer for each country - where it stabilises in some it will rapidly grow in others, BUT when that number reaches over 1 million cases in 19 days time on the 3rd of April I think it will dawn on most in this industry that there is no possible recovery for 2020, depending on WHEN we reach the inflection point of the virus outside of China depends when plans can be made to start re-introducing travel to some countries, however it will still take another 90 days from the date of inflection point to see a true downward curve.

In 2021 as the worst of it is over depending on if we have a vaccine produced and available and depending on if its an annual virus like the flu will depend on how airlines come back to life.

2021 will see the year of 'Flag State Carriers' coming back to life but in a completely different model and not run like Alitalia etc.

Stay safe everyone and good luck!

It depends how much maintenance they will need while stood down. BA will want to store aircraft where they have engineers to look after them. Pretty limited I know but most of the UK domestic destinations have BA engineers on hand. If LHR, LGW, CWL are getting crowded then options are available.

Fixed it for you
David

They do, millions every year or does Employer National Insurance at circa 15% of an employees pay in UK not count ? or Vat ?

They make profits but are not unsurprisingly allowed to offset the billions they are spending on capital investment. Easyjet added 58 news planes in last financial year, Ryanair added 45 new planes.

BUT in 2019 Easyjets tax charge was £78 million on profits, Ryanair was €63 million................... all this is available in their published accounts,

Can't understand why people think airlines/airports should be supported by Govt. ALL industries are affected and many companies will go bust - hotels, restaurants, transport companies, taxi drivers etc for sure

This isn't a single industry issue - a global meltdown is more like it

I'd expect EVERY airline in the world to go into administration and it may be a couple of years before we see (much reduced) restoration of air travel to any thing lie decent levels.

We have to face it - this is going to be "transformational" and a lot of what has taken years to build up is going on the scrap heap in a few weeks.

Austrian and Lauda to suspend all flights

Talking about negligence and irresponsibility, I'd like to recall one of the earlier messages of this threadSimon Calder, are you still looking for travel opportunities?

Flight - Ryanair may cancel entire April-May schedule

Egypt shuts at midday Thursday - no more intl traffic

Ryanair to ground almost its ENTIRE fleet...
80% of flights are cancelled with the possibility of all flights to be cancelled imminently.
https://www.airlive.net/breaking-rya...eing-737-800s/

Norwegian to lay off 90% of its staff...
https://www.airlive.net/breaking-nor...f-90-of-staff/

He was on the radio, in Aden waiting for the last flight out..