Turkish Airlines will start a buyback program after it’s approved at its shareholders’ general assembly meeting scheduled March 31, chairman Ilker Ayci said Sunday. Around 85% of the carrier’s passenger planes are not being used at the moment, Ayci said, after Turkey suspended flights from more than 60 countries because of the coronavirus outbreak. The carrier will halt most international flights from March 27 until April 17, CE Bilal Eksi said. Service will continue to Hong Kong, Moscow, Addis Ababa, New York and Washington. The airline will continue cargo flights while reducing the frequency of domestic flights, he added. As part of its efforts to counter the economic impact of the outbreak, Turkey cut value-added tax on aviation to 1% from 18% until the end of June. <br/>
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Air NZ CE Greg Foran said airline staff being transferred to the Ministry of Health was "absolutely on the table". Monday Foran said, based on forecasted impacts of Covid-19 on air travel, the airline's 12,500 workforce could reduce by up to 30%, which equates to about 3750 jobs. The govt threw the carrier a lifeline Friday morning by offering a loan of up to NZ$900m to support the airline through the crisis. Finance minister Grant Robertson said he was mindful of the uncertainty and anxiety of Air NZ staff who faced the prospect of losing their jobs. One option being explored by the airline and the govt was redeploying Air NZ workers to the Ministry of Health to help with New Zealand's response to Covid-19. The Ministry of Health, Air NZ and unions had already been discussing options, he said. <br/>
Air Canada is temporarily laying off 5,100 cabin crew as the coronavirus hits its business, forcing it to ground aircraft and take significant capacity out of its network. Without confirming staff cuts, Air Canada said Friday: “In light of the rapidly evolving COVID-19 global crisis and Air Canada’s significantly reduced network, Air Canada has initiated discussions with its unions to begin placing employees on temporary, off-duty status. Employees would be returned to active duty status when we ramp up our network schedule as conditions allow. We do not have final numbers of total employees affected yet or details on timing as we are working through mitigation programs with each union,” the airline says. <br/>
South African Airways is immediately cancelling all international services until the end of May. Operations will continue on some of SAA’s domestic and regional routes, although the majority were cancelled in recent days. South Africa has declared a “state of disaster” in response to the coronavirus outbreak and placed restrictions on travellers from “high-risk” countries, including the US, UK, and Germany – 3 of SAA’s most popular destination markets. The operator is being run by “business rescue practitioners” while a turnaround plan is drawn up. Thursday, IATA appealed to govts in Africa and the Middle East to provide emergency support to airlines, noting that many routes had been suspended and others had been hit by demand drops of up to 60%. <br/>
Sweden’s national legislature has rapidly approved a proposal to issue credit guarantees of up to SKr5b (US$488m) to airlines, of which SKr1.5b will be allocated to SAS. Under the agreement the state will guarantee commercial loans to airlines affected by the coronavirus crisis. “The matter was decided even though it had been submitted less than 2 working days [beforehand],” says the legislature, the Riksdag. Credit guarantees must be notified and approved by the EC before they can be issued, it points out. The measure was put forward under special conditions which enable amending of the budget in extraordinary circumstances. SAS will benefit from similar measures provided by the Danish govt, the ministry says. Both govts are shareholders in the airline. <br/>