IATA is urging regulators and slot coordinators to recognise the Covid-19 outbreak as an exceptional circumstance and put in place measures to ensure airlines do not lose their historic slots for services to and from China. Not allowing for an alleviation of the 80/20 “use it or lose it” rule—requiring air carriers to operate the slots for at least 80% of the time in a series of 5 weeks to keep the entitlement in the next equivalent season—would hinder a quick recovery of air traffic when the epidemic subsides, IATA cautioned. “What we look for is a globally aligned level playing field where airlines can adjust temporarily their schedules owing to health or safety reasons or because flying is commercially not sustainable due to a sudden drop in demand outside their control,” Lara Maughan, head of worldwide airport slots at IATA, said. <br/>
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Many airline pilots feel stressed and undervalued by management, and – despite record demand for flight crew globally – worried about job security and automation making their role redundant. Those are among the findings of a survey by Goose Recruitment and FlightGlobal, which polled more than 1,300 working pilots worldwide on their attitudes to work. Despite a common public perception that a cockpit career is glamorous, well rewarded and a job for life, the survey reveals that pilots often feel anxious and insecure. Frequent studies maintain that an expanding aviation industry will struggle to find the pilots it needs over the next decade, yet more than half the flight crew in the survey say they have worried about losing their job in the past 2 years. This may be partly due to recent publicity around high-profile airline collapses. <br/>
Airbus plans to invest between E500m and E1b (US$539m-$1.08b) this year on its A220 passenger jet program, CE Guillaume Faury said Thursday. Earlier in February, Airbus raised its stake in the A220 program - known as Airbus Canada - to 75% from 50.1% after teaming up with the govt of the Canadian province of Quebec to buy Bombardier's 33.5% stake. With the deal, Bombardier exited the civil aviation industry and bolstered the European planemaker's position in its ongoing competition with Boeing. Airbus has been ramping up production of the A220 towards its maximum monthly capacity rate of 10 at its facility in Mirabel and to a monthly rate of 4 in Mobile, Alabama, targets it hopes to reach by the middle of this decade. <br/>
Airlines in the Asia-Pacific region stand to lose US$27.8b of revenue this year as they slash flights due to declining demand as a result of the coronavirus, according to a preliminary estimate from an industry body. The bulk of the losses will be borne by Chinese carriers, including a $12.8b hit to the Chinese domestic market alone, IATA said in a forecast released Thursday. Chinese airlines have cut 80% of their planned capacity to, from and within China this week, according to flight data firm OAG, as they grapple with a sharp fall in demand due to the virus that has killed more than 2,100 people in China. Overall, IATA expects passenger traffic in the Asia-Pacific region to fall by 8.2% this year, compared to an earlier estimate of a 4.8% rise. <br/>