United Airlines said Thursday it will continue to fly its regular schedule from Europe to the US through March 19 but is scaling back flights after that date. United said it is continuing to monitor travel demand, which has fallen sharply as the coronavirus spreads globally and is expected to decline even more once US restrictions on travel from Europe take effect after Friday.<br/>
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Singapore Airlines has cancelled 15 flights into Christchurch and Wellington due to reduced demand resulting from the coronavirus outbreak. Airlines including Air New Zealand, Korean Air and China Southern have suspended routes to New Zealand and many other services have been drastically scaled back. Singapore Airlines spokesman Karl Schubert said in response to the fall in demand for air travel across the globe, as a result of the Covid-19 outbreak, it had reduced its capacity on a number of routes. In New Zealand, Singapore Airlines had cancelled eight flights between Christchurch and Singapore between April and June, as well as seven flights between Wellington and Singapore during the same period. Singapore flies Christchurch to Singapore daily and Wellington to Melbourne five times a week. Both routes are serviced with Airbus A350s. "We will continue to monitor the situation, and be nimble and flexible in adjusting our capacity to match the changing demand patterns in the market," Schubert said. Air New Zealand has reduced total capacity by 10% and suspended services from Auckland to Shanghai and South Korea and reduced services between Auckland and Samoa, Hong Kong, Fiji, Rarotonga, Singapore, Taipei, Tokyo and Tonga.<br/>
While international airlines have been blindsided by the impact of the coronavirus on global travel, the outbreak may bring unexpected benefits for SAA as it battles to lower costs. A sharp reduction in international flights has deflated the price of leasing jets and made it easier for state-owned SAA to re-negotiate terms, according to Siviwe Dongwana, one of two administrators hired by the government to draw up a turnaround plan. Equally, this week’s oil-price crash triggered by Saudi Arabia and Russia will lower the cost of fuel, he said. “The coronavirus issues and the impact on the industry means that a lot more lessors are going to find themselves with a lot of aircraft,” the administrator said Wednesday in Bloomberg’s Johannesburg office. “At a risk of being too much of an optimist that’s a silver lining for our renegotiation of aircraft.” While the coronavirus may have significantly cut demand for international travel, an enforced reduction in flights to hubs such as London could help SAA preserve cash in the short term by taking out landing fees and fuel bills, said Dongwana, an accountant who once served as the country’s director general in the public works ministry. Many of SAA’s routes are loss-making anyway and the load factor on its planes -- or the amount of seats filled -- fell to 71% in January as flyers feared for the airline’s survival.<br/>