Lufthansa is to permanently decommission more than 40 of its aircraft and axe its Germanwings low-cost arm, warning it will take years for the airline industry to return to its pre-coronavirus peak in passenger numbers. After a board meeting Tuesday, the German group added that it would reduce the capacity of its Eurowings brand by cutting its long-haul operations. It will also accelerate the restructuring of its Austrian Airlines and Brussels Airlines subsidiaries. The passenger jets that will no longer fly under a Lufthansa flag will include six Airbus A380s, seven A340-600s, and five Boeing 747-400s. Eleven Airbus A320s, which had been used for short-haul connections, will also be dropped. As a result, Lufthansa’s capacity at its main hubs in Frankfurt and Munich will be reduced. In a statement on Tuesday, the company, which has already furloughed almost 90,000 workers and scrapped its dividend, said it would take “months until the global travel restrictions were completely lifted and years until the worldwide demand for air travel returns to pre-crisis levels”. The airline, which is in daily talks with the German government about its rapidly diminishing liquidity, said in March that it had credit lines of more E5b available. The carrier, which has cut 95 per cent of its flights, also has an unencumbered fleet worth E10b against which it could borrow money.<br/>
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Ethiopian Airlines is bracing for income loss of half a billion dollars and has axed most of its scheduled passenger flights, but is turning to cargo and charter operations to soften the blow, its CEO said Tuesday. "As we speak, Ethiopian Airlines has lost a revenue of $550m including April," Tewolde Gebremariam said, adding that the company faced "a serious financial, operational and commercial crisis". In recent weeks Africa's biggest carrier has distributed medical equipment across the continent, repatriated US Peace Corps volunteers stranded overseas and evacuated cruise ship employees from the US to their homes in Asia, Tewolde said. Tewolde said the company would try to take advantage of demand for cargo operations -- including for medical supplies -- and would even remove seats from passenger jets, though he acknowledged that cargo accounts for only 15% of its revenue. Ethiopian Airlines continues to fly to 19 passenger destinations, down from 110. Tewolde said he was confident the airline, which is state-owned, would weather the crisis without laying off any of its 13,000 regular employees, though he left open the possibility that it could ultimately need outside support to stay afloat. "Our plan is to sustain and pass this crisis on our own, but if it is unfortunately prolonged beyond our imagination we'll cross that bridge when we get there," he said.<br/>
SAS has temporarily laid off 11,000 employees and will make 120 positions in Sweden permanently redundant, and is warning that the state support it is set to receive “will not suffice” if the coronavirus crisis persists. The airline also disclosed today that it was forced to slash scheduled and charter capacity by 45% in March, compared with the same month in 2019, as traffic fell 62%. Load factor for the month dropped 21.8 percentage points to 49.6%. SAS says it has cancelled “almost all flights” in April, with the exception of “a few domestic routes” in Norway and Sweden. The airline will serve more destinations in Norway than in Sweden following an agreement with the Norwegian government. Sweden is allocating $150m in credit guarantees to SAS, which will also benefit from similar measures provided by Denmark. Both governments are shareholders in the airline. It is also in line to receive 25% of a $588m conditional state loan guarantee that Norway is providing to its aviation sector. However, SAS warns that these measures might not be enough.<br/>
United said Tuesday it was temporarily, but significantly, reducing daily flying in and out of Los Angeles and San Francisco airports to better match demand that has dropped due to the new coronavirus. Starting on April 12, United will operate 13 daily flights from LAX to six destinations, down from 33 flights to 19 destinations previously, and 50 from SFO to 37 destinations, down from 65 flights to 40 destinations previously, COO Greg Hart said.<br/>
Instead of serving passengers on a plane, 30 SIA cabin crew members will be caring for patients in Khoo Teck Puat Hospital (KTPH) instead, starting from next week. They are the first batch of cabin crew, who were temporarily grounded due to cancelled flights in the light of the coronavirus outbreak, to be redeployed as "care ambassadors" at the public hospital in Yishun. They will be assigned to low-risk wards and support hospital care teams to carry out basic caregiving procedures, nutritional care as well as patient service management for patients. Patients in these general wards are treated for, among other things, chronic diseases, heart disorders and acute surgical conditions. On Tuesday, the care ambassadors underwent medical screening, vaccinations and a hospital orientation. Over the next five days, they will undergo training and be taught basic medical terminologies, vital signs monitoring, oral feeding, as well as positioning, turning and ambulating a patient. They will also be trained in safety and infection control measures and will be required to wear a mask, although they will have no direct contact with Covid-19 patients. From next week, they will be deployed to work the nine-hour day and night shifts at the hospital, five days a week.<br/>