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Senior executives at Asiana Airlines have offered to take a pay cut to help the company through a rough patch. CE Han Chang-soo has pledged to return 40% of his annual salary, while other executives and team leaders will return 30% and 20%, respectively. The leadership team have also submitted their collective resignation, though this is largely symbolic and unlikely to be accepted at this juncture. “The intention is that management will take the lead in overcoming the crisis,” Han states. Asiana faces a crisis due to a severe decline in air travel demand, Han notes, first from last year’s diplomatic row between South Korea and Japan and then from this year’s coronavirus outbreak. From January to February, Asiana reduced capacity on routes to China about 50% and to Southeast Asia 10%, while total capacity was reduced 12%. <br/>

United Airlines had to swap out Boeing 777 aircraft for a Saturday flight from Newark to Hawaii, resulting in a reduction of business class seats These aren't the passengers an airline wants to annoy. So the airline offered miles to passengers willing to sit in a lower class of seating on the Boeing 767-300 for the 11-hour plus direct flight. Nine passengers accepted US$10,000 in travel voucher compensation each for a total of $90,000. "Occasionally we have to change aircraft at the last minute and when that happens, we try to do the right thing and make the impact to customers as minimal as possible," A United spokeswoman said. The 9 business class passengers volunteered to sit in a "Premium Plus" cabin, which offers passengers more legroom and other benefits not found in a regular coach cabin. <br/>

United Airlines Monday withdrew its full-year 2020 forecast citing the impact of the coronavirus outbreak and said it was seeing an about 100% decline in near-term demand to China. As a result of the outbreak, the company said it has suspended flights between the US and Beijing, Chengdu, Shanghai and Hong Kong through April 24. "Due to the heightened uncertainty surrounding this outbreak, its duration, its impact on overall demand for air travel and the possibility the outbreak spreads to other regions, the Company is withdrawing all full-year 2020 guidance issued Jan 21, 2020," United said in a regulatory filing. <br/>

Air NZ will turn one of its domestic aircraft into a flying environmental monitor as part of a world-first project with NASA to collect data used to predict severe weather events and to inform climate change research. The carrier will install satellite receivers on one of its Bombardier Q300 turbo-prop aircraft, which will then collect environmental data for NASA's Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System as it flies between 19 different airports around the country. The NASA program consists of 8 small satellites measuring wind speeds around the globe by tracing GPS and other signals reflected from the ocean and uses that to predict cyclones and hurricanes. Air NZ's low-altitude monitoring means the program could also track indicators of climate change such as drought, flooding and coastline erosion. <br/>

Air China and China Eastern Airlines intend to resume within a 2-month timeframe some international services that were suspended due to the coronavirus outbreak. China Eastern says it will restart “more than 800” domestic and international flights over the next 2 months, starting from Feb 25. Flights from Kunming to 2 cities in Myanmar – capital Yangon and Mandalay – are first in line to be resumed, it adds. Air China plans to resume Frankfurt flights from Chengdu Feb 28, operating them twice weekly with Airbus A330-200s. The carrier resumed its Singapore service from Chengdu Feb 7. Prior to the suspension of the 2 routes, Air China served Frankfurt thrice weekly from Chengdu, while the Singapore route was operated 4 times a week. <br/>

A mixed picture in which tourism grew strongly but domestic traffic was sharply down lay behind the first year in a decade in which annual passenger numbers fell at Turkey’s two biggest carriers in 2019. Turkish Airlines’ passenger numbers fell 1.1% in 2019 in carrying 74.3m, while Pegasus Airlines passenger levels dipped 0.3% to just under 30m. The lower overall levels reflected much reduced capacity and traffic in the domestic market. Turkish Airlines’ domestic passenger numbers fell 7.5% to 30.4m. Load factor though increased almost a point as traffic measured in RPKs fell less sharply than the 6.9% cut in domestic capacity. By contrast the carrier’s international passenger numbers climbed 3.8% to 43.8m during the year. <br/>