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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

April 8th is just before the Easter weekend

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.

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.

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.

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.

TheLocal.it writes:
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.

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

Indeed, but he is, so far as we aware at this stage in the story, the exception rather than the rule. Presently, I am four square behind Jetscream's approach.

Jetscream 32

Well said.

I've made my own risk appraisal and I'm booked to fly to Denmark at the end of the month. If the RYR flight operates I will be on it, even at the age of 71. I'll just be very careful with my hygiene and possible contamination from my environment.

100% concur. Went to Singapore Airshow a couple of weeks ago, I meet just about every Asian nationality daily. Am off to Indonesia tomorrow. More chance of falling down on an escalator than getting this virus.

Far too many people hyping it up to detract from the real issues we face today!

Get on with life.

100% looking forward to my trip to Milan this weekend. £5.99 flights, an empty aircraft, no queues at the bar, and the city near enough to ourselves.
Will take every possible precaution but no need to put life on hold, more people unfortunately will die of hunger in the U.K. today than will be diagnosed with coronavirus worldwide.

if anything, more afraid of venturing out to the slums of Southend and getting on a Ryanair flight 😉

I have underlined the pertinent bit. The real number is likely substantially higher just people not tested.

Wuhan crematoria were operating 24/7 a number of weeks ago with nobody counting apart from the state. IF you die and have not been diagnosed then your death is not within either the confirmed cases or deaths.

Abusing Chinese media is a bit rich when UK media does exactly the same in reporting what they are told by the Government.

Testing of arriving travellers could be instigated at LHR (and other airports) but this would send the wrong message so do nothing in case it spooks people seems to be the way.

OK,so you take a swab from every arriving passenger at LHR. All fairly straightforward and resultant delays probably accepted as worth it. What then do you do with these passengers? As far as I know test results take 48 hours to come through. Do you keep everyone at LHR for two days? Do you have huge isolation 'hospitals' where they all go? Or are they released into 'the wild' and contacted if their results are positive? A good idea in theory but needs a bit of work to make it effective.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....c6ac55942.jpeg

In the last 30 days, 150 people have lost their lives on UK roads...... Can we please shut down the media and this hype over a new viral infection that whilst unique is not akin to the Black Death or anything else that will wipe out the human race. We need to keep the wheels of commerce moving freely - not scare the living daylights out of the worlds population especially when some lack common-sense!

Really? So that's why the government is trying to get rid of the BBC. It's doing the government's bidding. Of course, why did we not see this before?

Threats to get rid of the BBC happen under every Govt but done in different ways. There is zero plan to get rid of it just bring it more into seeing HMG's POV first.

SAS cancels some flights with immediate effect:
https://www.sas.se/trafikinformation/meddelande/

I wonder what will happen with flights when first cabin crew tests positive as there is a new hotspot near Bergamo.

The reason that the media are having such a splurge is two fold:

1. It makes a change from all the political news that affects every country right now. The media love to play new stories
2. It is a new thing. YES millions die of cancer and on the roads and by suicide - but those are known about and in every day experience. Something that might arrive 'out of the blue' to kill you? That becomes news and people want to know new stories.

Superpilot
I regret to say that the recession was all T-eed up ready to go. For two years, I have seen the debt numbers being built up by companies and states. Since the 2008 crisis, the politicians and banks printed money and did not send anyone to jail - there has been no change to the underlying structure of the banking system. The banks and companies with long delivery routes of 'just in time' should have been expecting something like this and planning for it. Except that, if you have outsourced to the other side of the world - there s not much you can do.

The recession may, or may not, be triggered by Covid19 but it is going happen in the very near future no matter what. Airlines were going to have to park up and lose staff anyway - just like it always happens.

I started making my financial preparations for this recession three years ago as it was clearly on the horizon then.

The big risk to the airlines will be when, having been forced to use video conferencing rather than physical visits, businesses realise that much flying is unnecessary and merely serves to allow staff to top up their frequent flyer miles.

Not just airline customers, airlines as well and business in general. Assumming Factory A employs 200, they go on lock down and 80 people stay home to avoid contamination, 120 still produce pretty much what the whole 20 did. When reverts back to what constitutes normality, company may think, Now we need 140 not 200 and get rid of lots of people.

racedo that might work for a while but is not sustainable in long term. Where I work they have been cutting staff back by not replacing them when someone leaves,
OK you can cope for a day or two but then somebody goes ill on long term and things are difficult and guess what someone else goes sick and it`s oh ****! and
staff say no more and won`t co-operate by adding extra hours when they are actually trying to reduce them

Oh I don't disagree. But unfortunately it will be neither thee or I that makes the decision. It could only run for short term but sadly management woudl still demand it longer term even if can't work.

German airline giant Lufthansa said Wednesday it would ground 150 of its more than 750 planes worldwide, days after announcing a slimmed-down timetable over the effects of the novel coronavirus.
"25 long-haul aircraft and 125 short- and medium-haul aircraft" will no longer fly, a spokesman for the group also including carriers Eurowings, Austrian and Swiss told AFP.

Flybe have now collapsed and cite Coronovirus as one of their key reasons for failure. Obviously we know Flybe have been struggling for a while and to blame Coronovirus is simply a lazy excuse, but still, how much did it really impact them?

Has the first domino now fallen?

I think that depends on how long it goes on for. If we’re still talking about it come August then the list might be quite long!

Having been in a few conversations with general people, the consensus is that no one is planning a summer holiday and most have cancelled or about to cancel booked holidays. It comes to my mind that airlines who loaded with high holiday travellers look to be hit the hardest. Thoughts are focusing on Jet2. We all know they have taken in a number of Airbus leases for this summer, not a good thing to be be doing right now. Expected virus issue is at least 3 months with a peak in that time frame. Actions and words from Government are for delaying the virus, great for health but uncertainty for economics and aviation isn't what our industry wants. I figure the most robust airlines will face major problems, can't help to think that MOL isn't as worried as other CEOs. In his interview he just reiterated no we will not refund, its hard luck if you book a flight with us and don't travel for whatever reason, we have your money and that's that. It works for him. Tin hats wont protect as they used to, that attitude isn't going to work nowadays.

Thoughts go out to all at Flybe people, such a shame they caught in this mess.

Yup I go along with your consensus on travel. It will have a massive impact across many countrys including UK as airlines / airports will struggle. UK holidays will have a boon which will be sold as a Brexit benefit by BloJo.

Health triumphs economics as it should.

I think passengers who booked and then decide not to travel will have a hard time getting money back. Unless there was specific outbreak where airlines banned from flying in then there is argueably no case.

UK Govt could demand it and introduce laws but this would open a can of worms so someone could drop out of anything whenever they wanted and get a full refund irrespective of the cost to a business. This only means business will charge higher prices to account for the "we want to change our mind at any time" brigade................. like the stag/hen do who book 30 seats for a weekend in Ibiza and decide last minute not to go ahead.

I know B&Bs in Ireland who now offer last minute cancellation, one I have used in Kerry says his rates are 35% more than 5 years ago, he has to make a living and people booking 5 B&Bs and then deciding night before which one to use, means his 100% potential occupancy could be 20% and little chance of new guests.