Some 16,500 Air Canada employees who were laid off because of the coronavirus pandemic will be rehired under a government relief package for businesses, the airline said Wednesday. PM Justin Trudeau announced during his daily news conference that the program would now be open to companies that suffered a drop of more than 15% in their revenues in March, against 30% previously. Air Canada furloughed nearly half of its Canada-based workforce of 36,000 on Mar 30 after seeing business abruptly dry up by more than 90% as country after country imposed travel restrictions and people stopped flying. The Canadian government stepped in Apr 1 with the emergency wage subsidy plan designed to help employers keep their workers or bring back ones that were laid off because of the pandemic. It is retroactive to Mar 15 and the government will pay 75% of hard-hit companies' payrolls through Jun 6. Air Canada said that under the "CEWS" relief package it will bring back the people it had furloughed. "Subject to its adoption into law substantially as announced, Air Canada intends to adopt the CEWS for the benefit of its 36,000 Canadian-based employee workforce," the company said. <br/>
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Lufthansa will seek state aid in Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Austria as the coronavirus crisis that forced it to ground almost all of its planes will persist longer than feared, the German airline's CE said. "I am optimistic that the talks in Bern, Berlin, Brussels and Vienna will lead to good and positive results," CEO Carsten Spohr said. People close to the matter said last week that Germany was in talks to provide Lufthansa, which has grounded 95% of its fleet due to the pandemic, with billions of euros in state aid and could take a stake in the airline. Spohr added that Lufthansa was lucky to have a liquidity buffer of more than E4b, but some of that was owed to customers that have paid for now-cancelled flights and the carrier was currently losing cash at a rate of E1m per hour, possibly for months to come. "This crisis will take much longer than we could have imagined just a few weeks ago," Spohr said. Lufthansa has previously said it was considering requests for state support.<br/>
An EgyptAir flight left Cairo airport on Wednesday to Toronto, Canada carrying 344 Canadians back home in coordination with the Canadian embassy in light of suspending all flights due to the spread of coronavirus. The Canadian embassy had urged Canadians living in Egypt who would like to return home to register their data for operating a flight taking them back home. The Egyptian civil aviation authorities have suspended all flights from March 19 until April 15 due to the spread of the virus. The Canadian Embassy in Egypt announced that a repatriation flight had successfully been arranged with EgyptAir to depart on Wednesday for Toronto. “Departing Cairo for Toronto on Wednesday, the flight will bring 344 Canadians home. We continue to work hard on identifying options for other Canadians who may wish to leave Egypt,” it said.<br/>