Air Transport

Some U.S. airlines have discovered a workaround to the CARES Act’s prohibition on employee pay cuts, and their unions are not having any of it.

An ICAO-led task force has issued initial guidance developed to serve as a blueprint for revising travel procedures amid the COVID-19 pandemic and plans to have a comprehensive set of protocols drafted by month’s end.

US DOT estimates top 24 US airlines carried 38.7m pax (34.1m domestic/4.6m international) in March, down 51% vs March 2019.

Sean Sullivan to Chief Financial Officer of Vx Capital Partners, San Francisco.

Wu Zhendong to Chairman of Asian Sky Group (ASG), Hong Kong.

The U.S. Transportation Department (DOT) offered airlines further relief from minimum flying levels included in the CARES Act, as concerns about the financial harm caused by the rule continue to grow.

De Havilland Aircraft of Canada expanded its “simplified package freighter” conversion program to its legacy Dash 8s, announcing Transport Canada approval and a launch customer.

With so much going on within the aviation sector we want to know your views on the key topics and stories.

Embraer delivered nine executive jets during the 2020 first quarter (Q1) compared to 11 a year ago, and five commercial aircraft, versus 11 in Q1 2019, the company said May 12.

Turboprop manufacturer ATR enjoyed a significant increase in orders in 2019 and believes that the regional market will be one of the first to recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

GARUDA is working with Indonesian Govt to draft $1b financing proposal to restructure $500m Islamic bond and provide $500m bridging loans for working

ALITALIA is to be relaunched in June with at least €3b from Italian Govt; it is expected to begin with about 90 aircraft.

MESA had $1.9m net income in 1Q20 (vs $13.2m in 1Q19) on 1.5% higher revenues; primary reason for $14.1m reduction in pretax income was anticipated

There are now at least 19 entities expressing interest in buying Virgin Australia during the airline’s administration proceedings, according to court documents.

US DOT has relaxed service (destination) obligations for US carriers covered under the CARES Act in light of ongoing challenges.

Etihad Airways plans to restore service from Melbourne, Australia (MEL) to London Heathrow (LHR) via its hub in Abu Dhabi (AUH) after it was suspended because of the COVID-19 crisis.

Robert Johnson to Vice President-Flight Operations of Hawaiian Airlines.

Brett J. Hart to President of United Airlines, Chicago.

LONDON HEATHROW handled 206k pax in April, down 97% vs April 2019.

SINGAPORE CHANGI is suspending operations at T4 (in addition to T2) on May 16 and will now operate only at T1 and T3; traffic was down 99.5% in April.

TAV, Turkey and VPE CAPITAL agreed to acquire ALMATY INTL AIRPORT.

CHINA EXPRESS AIRLINES is expected to order 50-80 ARJ21s from COMAC for delivery starting in 2H20. It has 38 CRJ900s.

AMAZON took delivery of first (32348; ex-Pegasus) of 10 converted 737-800BCFs from GECAS for operation by SUN COUNTRY.

RYANAIR announced plan to return to 40% of normal flight schedules on July 1, subject to several conditions.

Richard Branson’s Virgin Group is considering selling up to 25,000,000 Virgin Galactic shares to raise funds for the group’s travel businesses, which have been hard-hit by COVID-19.