Aviation

Bloomberg Deutsche Lufthansa AG may have won its battle for state aid, but its surrender of airport slots to appease regulators heralds heightened conflict between European aviation’s old guard and low-cost challengers. A rivalry that’s been simmering for years has been given fresh impetus by the coronavirus crisis, with former flag carriers falling back on government support as discounters including ...

Bloomberg South Africa’s government provisionally agreed to allocate at least 21 billion rand ($1.2 billion) to the country’s embattled national airline to help repay debt and resume operations after the lifting of Covid-19 travel bans. The proposed package includes about 17 billion rand that will go towards repaying South African Airways (SAA) creditors, according to a draft copy of a ...

Bloomberg Top Airbus executives are planning to assess additional measures that may be necessary to address the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, according to people familiar with the matter. Among the topics to be discussed at a meeting are production rates for the plane-maker’s top-selling A320-series narrow-body jet, said the people, who asked not to be named discussing confidential deliberations. ...

Bloomberg More than 200 UK travel and hospitality executives, including the head of London’s iconic Ritz hotel, joined a chorus of airlines and airports calling for the government to introduce air bridges to boost tourism and scrap contentious plans to quarantine visitors. The group of 217 — spanning hotel chains and travel agents to chefs — also want the foreign ...

Bloomberg Brookfield Asset Management rejoined the race to buy Virgin Australia Holdings Ltd, according to a person familiar with the situation, as administrators prepare to narrow the field of suitors for the collapsed carrier. The Canadian asset manager submitted a bid to administrators at Deloitte, said the person, declining to be named since the proposal hasn’t been made public. Deloitte, ...

Bloomberg US airlines have yet to tap $29 billion in federal pandemic relief loans as they wait to see whether the reopening of the economy revives demand and diminishes the need for money that comes with government strings attached. Although the four largest US passenger airlines have applied for the Treasury Department program, only American Airlines Group Inc has said ...

Bloomberg South Africa permits air travel from four main airports from Monday as the nation eases lockdown measures put in place to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. Limited domestic flights will be allowed for business purposes, and passengers must ask for authorisation based on their reason for travel, Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula said in a televised briefing. Flights ...

Bloomberg The aviation industry’s recovery from the coronavirus outbreak will be long and slow, with passenger numbers likely to stay below pre-pandemic levels through 2023, according to S&P Global Ratings, which warned of more rating downgrades for airports over the next few months. Global air passenger numbers will drop as much as 55% this year, a far steeper slump than ...

Bloomberg The German government settled a dispute with the European Commission over a 9 billion-euro ($9.9 billion) bailout of Deutsche Lufthansa AG, clearing the way for the carrier to accept the rescue package. After intensive talks, the commission and the German government agreed that Lufthansa will reduce the number of aircraft it keeps at Frankfurt and Munich airports. Lufthansa in ...

Bloomberg Southwest Airlines Co CEO Gary Kelly predicted that intense competition for passengers will create “a brutal low-fare environment” among carriers once coronavirus fears subside and more people start to fly. Even with capacity cuts, the number of available airline seats will still far outnumber customers in the near term, the chief executive officer said in a video message to ...