IATA warns govt action needed to tackle airline liquidity crisis

IATA is calling for govts to urgently step in with financial support measures, warning a liquidity crisis resulting from the swathe of capacity cuts means many airlines are close to running out of cash. IATA had in a March 5 update painted a worse-case scenario under which the coronavirus could wipe US$113b from airline passenger revenues in 2020 - a scenario made before the US announced a ban on travel from European countries and the recent run of countries opting to close their borders to tackle the crisis. ”We are not revising these estimates today, though they are clearly worse than this - particularly in Europe and the Americas,” said IATA chief economist Brian Pearce Tuesday. “If we look at spread of the COVID virus it is covering markets that represent 94% of global passenger revenues." <br/>