American Airlines posted a significantly worse-than-expected loss in Q1, its first loss since emerging from bankruptcy six years ago. The world's largest airline posted a $2.2b net loss. Excluding special items, the loss still came to $1.1b, worse than the $808m loss forecast by analysts surveyed by Refinitiv. The bad times are far from over. American said it expects to lose $70m a day in Q2, as demand for travel has fallen more than 90%. Those losses will come despite cutting $12b in costs for the rest of this year. Shares of American fell 4% in early trading on the results. "Never before has our airline, or our industry, faced such a significant challenge," said CEO Doug Parker. "We have a lot of difficult work ahead of us. And while there is still uncertainty in what's to come, we are confident that through the dedication of the American Airlines team and our swift actions, we will get through this." American has reduced its schedule by 80% for April and May and by 70% of its domestic schedule and 80% of its international schedule for June. And Parker said that American is in the process of shrinking for the long-term. "While no one has a perfect crystal ball, everyone expects recovery will be slow and demand for air travel will be suppressed for some time," he told investors. "We need to begin making decisions soon about how large an airline we want to run in the summer of 2021 and beyond. Those capacity plans are severely complicated by the extreme uncertainty regarding the anticipated level of demand, not just for the next few months but for the next few years. So we at American decided to err on the side of being smaller than we might like to be, rather than larger."<br/>
oneworld
London’s Gatwick airport could bear the brunt of BA’s job cuts after the airline warned its operation may not return following the coronavirus crisis that has battered the aviation sector. In a letter to BA staff at the complex south of London, Adam Carson, MD of BA Gatwick, wrote: “As you know, we suspended our Gatwick flying schedule at the start of April and there is no certainty as to when or if these services can or will return.” The memo was sent on Wednesday, just a day after IAG, BA’s parent company, announced plans to cut almost 30% of BA’s 42,000 workforce. The airline group warned this week that a return to 2019 passenger levels would take “several years” and said it was looking at cutting up to 12,000 jobs at the British airline. Gatwick represents about 20% of BA’s operations. Its main hub is at Heathrow airport, and it also operates out of London City. In late March, the carrier temporarily closed its operations at London City and stopped flying from Gatwick a week later. While Gatwick may suffer a bigger portion of the job cuts, some within the industry are sceptical that BA would leave London’s second biggest airport completely. Job cuts are expected to take place across all of the airline’s airport operations. <br/>
Japan Airlines' annual net profit plunged nearly 65%, the company said Thursday, as it faced the "unprecedented" impact of the coronavirus pandemic on aviation demand. JAL said net profit for the fiscal year ending in March fell 64.6% to Y53.4b on annual sales of Y1.4t, down 5.1%. The results were largely in line with a profit warning the airline issued last week. JAL said demand had plunged owing to entry bans around the world, the cancellation of major domestic events, and a state of emergency in Japan with authorities urging citizens not to travel. The airline did not release earnings forecasts for the current financial year, citing uncertainty over the pandemic. For now, JAL plans to cut its number of flights by 90% on international routes and more than 60% on domestic routes from its flight schedule announced before the pandemic. But the firm said it remained optimistic about the outlook. "The decline in flight demand due to the impact of the new coronavirus is a temporary phenomenon and our mid- and long-term forecast that demand for flights from and to Japan will grow greatly has remained unchanged," it said.<br/>