Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou seeks ‘whistleblower’ to help scupper airline’s £4.5bn, 107-plane deal
EasyJet founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou is offering £5m to any “whistleblower” providing him with information that scuppers the budget airline’s 107-plane order from Airbus.
Haji-Ioannou, who has been attempting to force easyJet’s board to cancel the order for months, says the £4.5bn deal will leave the carrier without enough cash to survive the coronavirus crisis.
Continue reading...Lockdowns are starting to ease but travel and migration will be disrupted for longer
Our globalised world has been brought to a crashing halt by coronavirus.
By April, over 90% of the world’s population – 7.1 billion people – lived in countries with coronavirus-related travel restrictions on people arriving from abroad, a Pew study found.
Continue reading...Billionaire puts more than fifth of stake up for sale to help prop up airline and rest of group
Sir Richard Branson is to sell $500m (£405m) in Virgin Galactic shares in order to prop up his airline and leisure interests, which have been ravaged by the coronavirus crisis.
In a statement to the New York Stock Exchange, Branson’s Virgin Group said it intended to sell 25m shares via a series of transactions, prompting a 5% fall in the share price of Virgin Galactic during pre-market trading.
Continue reading...As one of Norway’s greatest exports, A-ha, put it, in their classic 1980s hit Take on Me, it’s no better to be safe than sorry. This advice may appear ever more overwhelmingly wrong to those who bet their kroner on the vision of the two Bjorns, Kjos and Kise, the co-founders turned chief executive and chairman of Norwegian Air.
The pair wisely exited the scene last year after an extraordinary ride during which they turned Norwegian from a small local carrier into a global pioneer of low-cost, long-haul air travel, and eventually established bases all around Europe. With half an eye on transatlantic links and another on a booming short-haul operation, Norwegian became a dizzying array of subsidiaries whose complexity could not disguise the fact that it was heading for financial disaster.
Continue reading...Environment groups insist conditions must be attached to Covid-19 rescue plan for sector
Airlines are seeking €26bn (£22.7bn) in state aid to deal with the economic fallout from coronavirus, according to environmental campaigners, who accuse governments of failing to attach binding climate conditions to negotiations.
My flight to Europe is cancelled. All I’m being offered is an alternative flight or vouchers. Is this legal?
Continue reading...Plane maker’s staff told it needs to take immediate action to survive coronavirus lockdown
Airbus has warned its 135,000 employees that it may not survive the coronavirus lockdown unless it takes immediate action that may involve deeper job cuts.
Its chief executive, Guillaume Faury, told staff in a letter on Friday that the plane maker was “bleeding cash at an unprecedented speed”, and was considering all options as it waited to see how badly demand would be affected by the Covid-19 outbreak.
Continue reading...Michael O’Leary says business model will be in tatters if he is forced to leave middle seats empty
Ryanair planes won’t return to the skies if the airline is forced to leave the middle seat empty to comply with “idiotic” in-flight social distancing rules, its chief executive, Michael O’Leary, has said.
The boss of the no-frills carrier, which has thrived by packing its flights as full as possible with passengers lured by low prices, has previously said that blocking out the space in between aisle seats is “nonsense” that would have no beneficial effect.
Continue reading...As travel restrictions in response to the pandemic savagely cut the number of flights, airlines are scrambling to find places to park their redundant planes
Continue reading...Tycoon’s blog appeal comes after reports UK government has rejected £500m bailout
Sir Richard Branson has said he will put his private Caribbean island up as collateral in his attempt to persuade the UK government to save his Virgin Atlantic airline from going bust.
Branson, who is the UK’s seventh richest person with an estimated £4.7bn fortune and lives on Necker Island in the tax-free British Virgin Islands, on Monday promised in a public blogpost that he would “raise as much money against the island as possible to save as many jobs as possible”.
Continue reading...Europe’s leaders are worried – and rightly so. The deadly impact of Covid-19 has resulted in a full-scale health crisis. Evidence of the economic consequences of trying to keep populations safe from coronavirus is starting to emerge. The political ramifications are only starting to be assessed – but they could be profound.
The European Union has found itself in some tight spots over the years, but always found a way of muddling through. It survived the financial crisis and will cope with Brexit. But this time things are a lot more serious.
Continue reading...A 96% drop in passenger numbers because of coronavirus restrictions has not been matched by cuts in flights
The coronavirus outbreak has provoked a string of unsettling sights, such as the sudden widespread use of masks, shuttered businesses and deserted streets. Another unusual phenomenon is also playing out in the skies – near-empty airplanes flying through the air.
Widespread travel restrictions around the world have slashed demand for air travel, with more than eight in 10 flights canceled. But there is a disparity in the US – while the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has reported a 96% slump in passenger volume, to a level not seen since 1954, this hasn’t been matched by the number of flights being scrapped.
Continue reading...Airport’s forecast comes as numbers shrank by 52% in March after Covid-19 lockdown
Heathrow airport expects passenger traffic to plunge by 90% in April, as demand is mainly limited to airlines focusing on repatriating citizens stranded abroad during the coronavirus outbreak.
The airport said passenger numbers had already tumbled by 52% to 3.1 million in March, compared with a year earlier, after the UK government advised against all but essential travel. Meanwhile, the total number of flights landing and taking off at Heathrow – covering passenger planes and cargo – fell 35% to 25,798.
Continue reading...Stelios Haji-Ioannou, easyJet’s biggest shareholder, has repeatedly tried to get order cancelled
EasyJet has agreed with Airbus to delay the delivery of 24 new aircraft as the budget airline tries to stave off a shareholder rebellion led by its founder and former chief executive, Stelios Haji-Ioannou.
Haji-Ioannou, easyJet’s biggest shareholder, has repeatedly called for easyJet to cancel its orders for new planes, with coronavirus lockdowns likely wiping out months of revenues.
Continue reading...Airline turns to New Zealand after failing to get sufficient volunteers from Australia amid coronavirus fears
Qantas is moving to recruit cabin staff from its New Zealand subsidiary to operate scheduled flights to rescue Australians trapped overseas, after it failed to get sufficient volunteers from its Australian cabin staff to operate planned flights.
Amid news that 50 Qantas and Jetstar staff have contracted coronavirus there has been growing anxiety among Qantas staff about plans to resume flights to Los Angeles, London, Auckland and Hong Kong later this week.
Continue reading...Former EU climate chief Miguel Arias Cañete fears end of Covid-19 will bring higher carbon emissions
Financial help from taxpayers to airlines hit by the coronavirus crisis must come with strict conditions on their future climate impact, the former EU climate commissioner and a group of green campaigners have said.
“It must be conditional, otherwise when we recover we will see the same or higher levels of carbon dioxide [from flying],” said Miguel Arias Cañete, the EU climate commissioner who led the bloc to the Paris agreement, in an interview with the Guardian. “We know the level of emissions we have to commit to [under Paris]. They [airlines] are worried about survival and will need lots of support, lots of liquidity – that gives them a big responsibility.”
Continue reading...Company becomes first major employer in the country to stop forcing dress code on women
Female flight attendants working for Japan Airlines will no longer be required to wear high heels or skirts, the airline has said, in a rare victory for Japan’s #KuToo campaign against workplace dress codes for women.
The airline is the first major Japanese company to relax its regulations in response to complaints from women that having to wear high heels was uncomfortable and often left them in considerable pain.
Continue reading...EasyJet and Ryanair to stop flying on Monday and less than 5% of passengers expected at airports amid coronavirus
Airlines and airports have warned that time is running out for the government to enact promised measures to help the aviation industry, with EasyJet and Ryanair set to stop flying after Monday and less than 5% of normal passenger numbers expected at major airports.
Further talks are expected between ministers and the industry on Monday as the government wrestles with how to keep critical infrastructure functioning.
Continue reading...Stranded British travellers decry Foreign Office assistance and ‘exorbitant’ replacement flights
Thousands of British holidaymakers could find themselves stranded abroad, as flight cancellations, travel restrictions and lockdowns due to the global coronavirus pandemic complicate their journeys home.
As many as 100,000 tourists may still be in Spain, despite a near-total lockdown and government orders that all hotels be shut down within the week. Recent days have seen the epidemic in Spain spiral into one of Europe’s worst, claiming more than 1,000 lives.
Continue reading...Canada’s largest airline plans to cut more than 5,000 jobs in the coming weeks as the coronavirus forces it to ground hundreds of international and domestic flights.
Air Canada is cutting 3,600 employees from its banner company and 1,549 from its discount carrier Rouge. The cuts, which make up nearly 60% of the company’s flight staff, will come in April.
Continue reading...A summary of major developments in the coronavirus outbreak across Australia
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• Follow the latest global coronavirus updates in our international live blog
Key Australian developments in the global coronavirus outbreak on Thursday include:
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