March, 2020

• 30 March

  Eight killed in medical rescue jet fire in Manila

  

  Bloomberg Eight people were killed after a Lionair plane caught fire before it took off from Manila for Tokyo on a medical mission. The plane was a West Wind 24 aircraft bound for the Haneda airport in Japan with two passengers and six crew members on board, according to Manila airport authorities. Manila International Airport fire and rescue officials rushed ...

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• 30 March

  United, Delta signal longer-term job cuts

  

  Bloomberg Two of the US’s biggest airlines are warning workers that the unprecedented loss of customers may leave both as smaller companies in the future, imperiling the nation’s airline jobs even after the government steps in with billions of dollars to help the industry weather the coronavirus pandemic. Top executives at Delta Air Lines Inc and United Airlines told their ...

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• 30 March

  Lufthansa seeks German wage support

  

  Bloomberg Deutsche Lufthansa AG has applied for German subsidies to offset wages of some 31,000 workers that have been idled because the airline has largely grounded its fleet. The so-called Kurzarbeit programme affects cabin crew and ground staff, a spokesman confirmed to Bloomberg News by email. The company is in talks with its pilots union about similar measures, with a ...

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• 30 March

  Airlines raise more than $17b from banks in weeks

  Bloomberg Airlines worldwide raised more than $17 billion in bank loans in March to shore up their finances amid the coronavirus outbreak. US carriers were the most active, borrowing $12.5 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Delta Air Lines Inc is the top borrower this month, obtaining $5.6 billion, followed by Singapore Airlines Ltd, which secured a S$4 billion ...

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• 30 March

  Covid-19: Amazon closes US apparel returns warehouse

  

  Bloomberg Amazon.com Inc has extended the shuttering of a warehouse dedicated to returning apparel after three workers tested positive for Covid-19, the first known instance of the online retailer indefinintely idling a US facility in response to the pandemic. The move comes after employees expressed concern that returning to work to process returned sneakers and wristwatches wasn’t worth the risk ...

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• 30 March

  Lululemon slips over ‘forecast’

  Bloomberg Lululemon Athletica Inc reported an acceleration of sales growth in the latest quarter, but refrained from offering an outlook for the current year because of the uncertainty caused by the coronavirus outbreak. The Vancouver-based retailer, which has closed many locations amid the health crisis, said the key metric of comparable sales, a gauge of retail success, accelerated to 20% ...

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• 30 March

  Who can lead America post coronavirus crisis?

  

  When America wakes up from its enforced hibernation sometime later this year, will Joe Biden and the Democrats look like the team that can manage a transformed, post-coronavirus country most effectively? The Democrats will resume campaigning with a discordant but perhaps beneficial mix of candidate and base. They have a genially reassuring, 77-year-old former vice president standing atop a party ...

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• 30 March

  Maybe get off social media now

  

  At first blush, this coronavirus pandemic would seem to be social media’s moment. Social distancing has us stuck in our homes, cut off from family and friends, trying to work, parent or — blessed be — both, and most of all trying to keep up with the avalanche of information coming out every day about Covid-19. Indeed, Facebook use is ...

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• 30 March

  One battle Johnson is clearly winning in UK

  As recently as a few weeks ago, it seemed as though UK politics could not possibly talk about anything besides Brexit, even after the country’s formal departure from the EU. Business as usual was expected to return at some unspecified point in the future. As elsewhere, the coronavirus has turned British politics on its head. Unlike Brexit, which continues to ...

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• 30 March

  Pandemic shutdowns work for economy, too

  With large swaths of the country turning to social distancing to reduce the spread of the coronavirus, economic activity has taken a big hit. This has led some, including President Donald Trump, to suggest that the “the cure” might “be worse than the problem” and to argue for easing distancing measures in a couple of weeks to get the economy ...

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