Collapsed airline Virgin Australia has launched legal action in the US to protect itself from creditors there who are owed billions of dollars. The move, made Wednesday ahead of a meeting of creditors in Australia on Thursday, is also designed to protect from seizure four of Virgin’s planes that are currently undergoing maintenance at an airport in Nashville, Tennessee. It comes as the Western Australian mining magnate Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest reportedly put together a consortium to bid for the airline, which collapsed into administration last Monday. Virgin, which has been all but grounded by the crisis, owes $6.8b to about 12,000 creditors. The administrators, partners at Deloitte, told creditors at Thursday's meeting that they had received bids from a number of “high quality” parties interested in buying the airline, but would not name any of them. They said they would ask a court to delay a second meeting of creditors by three months. This would push the date of the meeting into late August, by which time the administrators hope to have sold the airline.<br/>
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The CE of Wizz Air has outlined a bullish outlook for recovery in air travel as the carrier this week prepares to become the first big European airline to restore passenger flights. József Váradi said the carrier will start services from London Luton airport to 15 destinations, including Tenerife and Lisbon, from Friday with plans to fly all its planes by the end of the year. The largest low-cost airline serving central and eastern Europe aims to run at about 10% of capacity in May before ramping up to about 70% of its flights in July and August, subject to an easing of travel restrictions. The move to resume some flights comes in spite of bans still in place for non-essential air travel in many countries. But Váradi said he is confident countries and governments will start easing travel restrictions over the course of May and early June. “At this point in time the objective [for us] is to put infrastructure back in the air, to have a schedule that is operational so that we are able to start stimulating the market [with low fares],” he said. <br/>
The transport secretary, Grant Shapps, promised EasyJet that green taxes would not be levied on airlines six months before the company was given a GBP600m coronavirus crisis loan with no environmental conditions attached, newly released documents show. Direct lobbying against environmental taxes by Britain’s biggest airline are revealed in Freedom of Information Act responses obtained by Unearthed, Greenpeace’s investigations unit. Evidence of the lobbying came as airlines across Europe were set to receive more than E26b in taxpayers’ money for coronavirus bailouts with no binding environmental conditions attached, according to data compiled by Transport & Environment, Carbon Market Watch and Greenpeace. The meeting with Johan Lundgren, the boss of EasyJet, took place shortly after Shapps’s appointment as transport secretary last year. During the meeting, Shapps reassured the CEO he wanted the Department for Transport to be pro-aviation. In a separate meeting a month earlier with the CE of Heathrow, John Holland-Kaye, Shapps also stated that he wanted to reorient the transport department to be “more proactive in promoting aviation”. The easyJet boss used his meeting to criticise the Netherlands’ plans to levy green taxes on airlines, while Shapps “agreed this was not a way forward”.<br/>
The prospect of Ryanair, Aer Lingus and other airlines getting the green light from EU authorities to offer credit notes instead of cash refunds appears more likely after transport ministers from 12 countries, including Ireland, wrote to the EC to make the case for vouchers. The letter says that when the existing regulations were drawn up, the scale of the coronavirus crisis and its impact on commercial air travel “could not have been foreseen”. A voucher system would support airlines and incentivise people to travel, which would boost economies across the EU in the months ahead, it says In recent days Aer Lingus and Ryanair have been encouraging passengers on flights cancelled because of the coronavirus crisis to accept vouchers instead of cash. Earlier this week Ryanair revised its strategy again when it wrote to affected customers to say it would exchange vouchers issued now for cash if they were not used within 12 months. Both airlines have insisted they are fully compliant with existing EU refund regulations.<br/>
Jazeera Airways of Kuwait laid off about 300 employees, or about a third of its workforce, in an effort to cuts costs as the coronavirus batters the airline industry. The low-cost airline is also talking to its lessors to try to defer or waive charges for as long as the pandemic persists, CEO Rohit Ramachandran said. The company has about $100m in cash reserves and isn’t currently talking to banks about financing or seeking government aid, he said. “We have many untapped lines of credit that we have the ability to call upon because of a strong balance sheet,” Ramachandran said. The company’s entire management team has taken a 50% pay cut since February, while the CEO isn’t receiving a salary at all, he said. Jazeera may report a loss for this year, Ramachandran said.<br/>
Comair warned investors that the grounding of South African air travel has put its finances in a precarious position, with the carrier preparing for at least five more months before it can resume flights. The owner of budget airline Kulula and the operator of local flights for British Airways had slumped to an operating loss of $31m in the six months through December -- before the global coronavirus pandemic forced the grounding of almost all aircraft worldwide. South Africa imposed a strict lockdown in March and, while the government is slowly easing restrictions, a resumption of flights is unlikely before October, Comair said. “The five-week lockdown has caused the situation to rapidly deteriorate to a point where the company finds itself in a very difficult financial position and shareholders are advised to exercise caution,” the Johannesburg-based carrier said Thursday. Comair is working to reduce costs and strengthen the balance sheet to ensure survival, including through job cuts and asset sales. The company is in talks with lenders about providing bridge financing, though negotiations are ongoing.<br/>