Major US airlines asked the US Treasury to move quickly to release up to $58b in government grants and loans and recommended a formula to divide up the money. In a letter dated Saturday, carriers wrote that "given the urgent and immediate need, it is essential that these funds be disbursed as soon as possible." The letter was signed by the CEs of American Airlines, Delta, United, Alaska Air, JetBlue, Southwest, Hawaiian Airlines and Atlas Air Worldwide. It was also signed by senior executives at UPS Corp and FedEx and the head of an airline trade association. The $2.2t stimulus and assistance legislation signed into law Friday by President Donald Trump gives passenger airlines $25b in cash assistance to cover payroll costs and $25b in loans, while cargo carriers are eligible for $4b in grants and $4b in loans. Airlines had threatened to quickly start laying off tens of thousands of workers within days if they did not get a bailout. Treasury faces an April 1 deadline to issue procedures to airlines to apply for grants. The airlines said Treasury should allocate grants in accordance with salaries and benefits paid by carriers from April 1 through Sept. 30, 2019 and filed with the US DoT.<br/>
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The US government could take equity shares in airlines and other troubled but vital American corporations as it moves to stabilize an economy amid the new coronavirus pandemic, top US officials said Sunday. White House economics adviser Larry Kudlow said the government should get a stake in companies that receive direct cash grants from the federal government. "I think in return for direct cash grants, which is what the airlines have asked for, I see no reason why the American taxpayer shouldn't get a piece," he said. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin also said the government could take equity positions in return for infusions of taxpayer money. "As the president said, we'll look at each one of these situations," he said. "Some of them are very good companies that just need liquidity and will get loans. Some of these companies may need more significant help and we may be taking warrants or equity as well as that. The president wants to make sure the American taxpayers are compensated. This is not a bailout." Mnuchin said any such transactions would take the form of warrants, a type of security that gives its holder the right to buy or sell an asset at a certain price up to a certain date determined when it is emitted. Warrants can thus be converted into shares.<br/>
The global airline industry has never had it so bad. Not even after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Airlines could lose a quarter of a trillion dollars in revenue this year, according to the IATA, as travel comes to a standstill with countries locked down to fight the coronavirus. Most carriers will go bankrupt by the end of May if they can’t find support, Sydney-based CAPA Centre for Aviation said last week. Which airlines are most at risk? Like the virus, the crisis is indiscriminate, affecting everyone from budget operators to national flag carriers. Aircraft manufacturers and their suppliers also are under immense pressure. Using the Z-score method developed by Edward Altman in the 1960s to predict bankruptcies, Bloomberg News filtered out listed commercial airlines to identify the ones most at risk of going bust. The calculations don’t take into account government bailouts or other funding sources that could help keep operators alive. While the list is concentrated in Asia, mostly due to high debt levels, European carriers aren’t immune. According to Altman, scores of 1.8 or below indicate a risk of bankruptcy and scores over 3 suggest sound footing. Indebted low-cost carrier Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA and Air France-KLM both landed below the threshold, as did American Airlines Group and SkyWest. Story has more details.<br/>
The TSA announced more than 20 new cases of coronavirus among its airport screening workforce on Friday. A total of 64 transportation security officers have tested positive since the outbreak began, according to data from the agency. Forty-six of the positive results came in the last 14 days. Amid the outbreak, the agency has closed checkpoints at some airports due to massive drops in passengers and, in some cases, coronavirus infections, according to an aviation official familiar with the matter. The agency on Thursday screened only 8% of the number of people it saw on the same day in 2019 -- the first day in the coronavirus outbreak that the agency has screened less than 10% of last year's traffic. The agency said Friday that it will begin supplying its officers with the N95 respirator masks that health care workers use as one form of protection against the virus. Officers were previously allowed to wear some masks, but not the N95. Many of its officers already wore protective gloves when interacting with the public, and since the start of the outbreak, the agency has required more officers -- such as those who handle passengers' identification cards and boarding passes -- to wear gloves, too. The union representing TSA officers, part of the American Federation of Government Employees, said it has been asking for permission to wear the respirators since January. <br/>
Miguel Diaz’s JetBlue flight from New York to Orlando cost just $79 with a checked bag and was nearly empty. The 11 passengers each had a row of seats to themselves, spaced at least six feet apart to maintain high-altitude social distancing. “The entire experience was luxurious,” the 30-year-old Queens librarian said. He was one of 279,018 people who passed through security at a US airport Tuesday -- compared with 2.2m on the same day a year ago. With the coronavirus pandemic shrinking the number of passengers, now down more than 90%, some US airlines have announced plans to cut as many as eight out of 10 flights in coming months. That’s got them and their employees anticipating a $61b aviation aid package in the $2t economic rescue bill signed Friday by President Donald Trump. The bailout is designed to avert thousands of layoffs but it won’t solve the industry’s biggest problem: A lack of passengers. Carriers have cut food and drink service with only canned or bottled water available on request in some cases. And with passenger cabins flying almost empty, airlines are turning to freight operations. American Airlines has started parcels-only flights for the first time in 36 years and Delta has expanded charter freight operations. Yet the potential for months-long disruptions far outweigh what the industry faced after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. “You can’t cut a plane in half,” said Michael Ball, a professor at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. “You cut your level of service, but you have to maintain your basic routes and your network.”<br/>
The NHS will draw on airline cabin crews to help staff the new Nightingale hospitals that are being constructed to cope with the wave of patients expected to need critical care as the coronavirus outbreak unfolds. EasyJet has written to 9,000 UK-based staff, of whom 4,000 are trained in CPR, to invite them to volunteer for further training before helping out at the critical care field hospitals in London, Birmingham and Manchester. Virgin Atlantic will contact 4,000 of its employees from Monday and prioritise those who already have relevant skills that can be put to good use at the sites. The volunteers will perform support roles, such as changing beds under the guidance of trained nurses, and will continue to be paid by the airlines. Work is under way to convert the ExCeL centre in London’s docklands into a 4,000-bed hospital, with an initial capacity for 500 beds with ventilators and oxygen. The hospital could open as early as this week. Two more Nightingale hospitals are being built at Manchester’s Central Convention Centre and the NEC in Birmingham.<br/>
Canada will not allow anyone displaying symptoms of the COVID-19 respiratory illness to board domestic flights or inter-city passenger trains, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Saturday, the latest travel restriction aimed at curbing the coronavirus outbreak. Trudeau's government has long urged Canadians feeling ill to stay at home, but he said that Transport Canada had now formalized travel rules as COVID-19 cases steadily rise. Trudeau had been in self-isolation after his wife tested positive for the virus. Canada's domestic travel restrictions will take effect on Monday at noon EDT. Asked how screening would be different, Trudeau said the government was giving new tools to airlines and railways. Transport Canada later said airline and rail company staff would ask health questions of passengers and look for visible symptoms. Even enhanced screening offers "no guarantee" that sick people will not board, as they can hide symptoms, Howard Njoo, Canada's deputy chief public health officer, said in a separate press conference. Air Canada, the country's biggest airline, said it would operate a special flight returning Canadians from Algeria on Tuesday, with additional flights scheduled from Peru and Ecuador.<br/>
The UK government’s offer of “last resort” support to the aviation industry undermines its commitment to regional connectivity, according to airport groups who say they are suffering heavily from a sharp drop in passenger numbers because of the coronavirus pandemic. Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, last week warned airlines and airports that companies would only receive “bespoke” support from the government after all other financing options have been explored. “The suggestion that government funding is only a last resort is not going to help regional areas sustain their connectivity or objectives that we still hopefully think are important for the country,” said Neil Pakey, chair of the Regional and Business Airports Group, an association for airports with fewer than 3m annual passengers. As smaller airports grapple with the impact of the UK-wide lockdown and international travel bans on passenger numbers, a handful including Teesside in the north east and Newquay in the south west have already shut their doors, remaining open only for emergency services. Pakey said there is an uneven playing field between small and large airports as staff wages and business rates make up a bigger proportion of costs for regional airports. He said there are “sure to be casualties” if support is focused on larger airports which may be deemed more important. “It’s a risk for us,” added Pakey. “Instead of narrowing the gap between the importance of larger airports compared to smaller ones, it’ll widen it.”<br/>
Boeing still expects to get some help from the federal government. Just not the same kind of help that the airlines are set to receive. Although the federal government likely will end up owning stakes in the nation's airlines, taxpayers probably won't receive shares of Boeing. The aircraft maker asked for help from the federal government on March 17, as the airlines, hotels, restaurants, retailers and other industries were simultaneously requesting assistance. And there is potential help for Boeing in the $2t coronavirus relief bill that just passed Congress. Although some of those other companies, such as airlines, will likely get direct government grants to weather the crisis, Boeing said it was looking primarily for loan guarantees, which can lower the cost of borrowing and make it easier to find loans. Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun was asked about how he felt about the prospect of the government taking a stake in his company in return for help, he said he was not in favour of such a move. He said that if the government required an equity in exchange for help, that Boeing would "look at all the other options, and we've got plenty of them." "If they attach too many things to it [government assistance], of course you take a different course." That comment prompted Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin to suggest Friday that Boeing would not be getting any help from the government.<br/>
Private-jet companies could receive billions of dollars in loans, aid and tax relief from the federal government as part of the coronavirus aid package. As part of the $2t stimulus bill, private-jet charter companies and jet-card companies will several types of help from the federal government. First, private-jet companies will no longer have to pay a 7.5% tax to customers. The tax, known as Federal Excise Tax, is charged to customers of private-jet charters and jet-card users. The tax won’t be charged for the rest of the year. Jet companies also won’t have to pay any fuel taxes. Private-jet companies will also be eligible to receive funding from the $25b in loans and loan guarantees available to the aviation industry. In addition, they are included in the $25b in grant payments for the continuation of wage payments to workers. Private-jet airports and smaller airports will also receive more than $100m in federal funding under the bill. The aid follows a lobbying effort by private-jet companies and general aviation firms to receive a portion of the federal aid money, arguing that private aviation generates 1.2m jobs and $77b in income. “On balance, the bill is helpful to general aviation,” said Ed Bolen, president and CEO of the National Business Aviation Association, which represents private-jet companies and owners as well as general aviation companies. “The industry clearly made its voice heard in insuring that the important provisions for general aviation, commercial operators and other small businesses were considered as this legislation was assembled.”<br/>
The newly built Yogyakarta International Airport (YIA) in Kulon Progo regency officially commenced operations Sunday, replacing Adisutjipto International Airport as the main flight hub in the province. “YIA has started operating in full capacity, taking over all flights from Adisutjipto Airport,” state airport operator Angkasa Pura I president director Faik Fahmi said Saturday. “This is a part of the ongoing COVID-19 mitigation efforts; we don’t plan on holding any special ceremonies” because the airport is not large enough for visitors and staff to practice social distancing. YIA will be open 24 hours a day, serving 54 flights, including 48 domestic flights — 24 departures and 24 arrivals — and six international departures to neighboring Malaysia and Singapore. The airport is equipped with a passenger terminal spanning 219,000 square meters and has a total capacity of 20m passengers per year, a significant upgrade from Adisutjipto’s capacity of 1.8m passengers per year.<br/>