Your weekly travel and aviation Quote-a

7 August, 2020

The Blue Swan Daily brings you a roundup of the most thought-provoking and interesting comments from those industry leaders in the know.

Air Canada CEO: Aeroplan will not be influenced by short term corporate travel demand

Air Canada chairman and CEO Calin Rovinescu said the carrier's plans for Aeroplan are "not going to be influenced at all by what we're seeing in terms of short term corporate travel demand" (Seeking Alpha, 31-Jul-2020). He noted Aeroplan is a "long term investment", and the carrier will still continue with plans to roll out features. He observed: "Even in the height of the pandemic, we had some of our loyal Aeroplan members purchasing points on a discounted basis for future travel and so on and so forth".

Fraport CEO: Impacts of coronavirus will 'permanently change our industry'

Fraport chairman and CEO Dr Stefan Schulte said (04-Aug-2020) the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic "will be felt well beyond" 2020 and are expected to "permanently change our industry". He added moderate long term growth is expected to start again from 2022/2023. "We believe that people will continue to want to travel and explore the world. We are confident that aviation will rebound as a growing market in the future", Dr Schulte concluded. [more - original PR]

Hawaiian Holdings plans to be approx 25% smaller in future, anticipates involuntary furloughs

Hawaiian Holdings president and CEO Peter Ingram said the company's "primary planning scenario" is to be a smaller airline by approximately 15% to 25% in summer 2021, compared to 2019 (Seeking Alpha, 28-Jul-2020). "With this in mind, we are taking steps to right size our company for this new baseline allowing us to build back the business over time from this smaller base", he noted. As part of this right sizing, the company is offering voluntary separation packages for administrative staff and early retirement packages for pilots, and is "working through each work group and engaging with union representatives, where applicable". For other employee groups, the company intends to "reduce the workforce through voluntary means to the extent feasible", although Mr Ingram said the company will "likely...need to proceed with involuntary separations as well". He stated: "We expect to issue WARN Act notifications to our employees who are at risk of being impacted by involuntary furloughs in the coming days".

Amadeus 'severely' impacted by travel shutdowns in 1H2020

Amadeus stated (31-Jul-2020) its financial performance in 1H2020 was "severely" impacted by the COVID-19 travel shutdown. Details include:

  • Revenue decreased 54.7% year-on-year and adjusted profit declined 113.4% to a loss of EUR89.2 million;
  • Travel agency bookings decreased 78.6% to 65.9 million;
  • Passengers boarded decreased 56.2% to 415.2 million;
  • President and CEO Luis Maroto said the company is "taking measures to improve the way we operate, the way we serve our customers, to foster innovation and most importantly, to protect our business". Measures include "efficiency adjustments and also an organizational evolution".

Mr Maroto commented: "The large scale lockdowns across regions had a severe impact on travel, flight scheduling, on air bookings (further worsened by cancellations), and passengers boarding aircraft". He added: "Since late May, we have begun to see an increasing number of flights being scheduled, and air traffic and bookings have been responding. However, the situation remains highly uncertain". [more - original PR]

Air France-KLM environmental strategy remains unchanged despite 'unprecedented' COVID-19 crisis

Air France-KLM CEO Benjamin Smith said (31-Jul-2020) the group's 2Q2020 results "demonstrate the unprecedented impact of the COVID-19 crisis", though cost reduction and liquidity preservation measures rapidly implemented have enabled operational losses to be reduced. Mr Smith added that while state aid commitments from France and the Netherlands have provided the company with liquidity needed to weather the crisis, there remains "very strong" uncertainty linked to the health situation, the opening of borders and the general economic situation. Air France-KLM's stated strategy remains unchanged despite the crisis, including sustainability commitments, fleet modernisation and optimisation of fuel use to reduce its CO2 emissions per passenger by 50% by 2030 compared to 2005. [more - original PR]

JetBlue Airways CEO: US airlines are capable of weathering COVID-19 crisis

JetBlue Airways CEO Robin Hayes said he believes "every US airline" entered the COVID-19 crisis with a "strong balance sheet or liquidity position... And so, our ability, I think, to weather this [COVID-19]...is significant" (Seeking Alpha, 28-Jul-2020).