The supervisory board of Lufthansa has given its blessing to a E9b government bailout plan thrashed out between the airline, the German government and the EU. In a statement Monday, the German carrier quoted Lufthansa Chairman Karl-Ludwig Kley saying it had been “a very difficult decision.” “We recommend that our shareholders follow this path, even if it requires them to make substantial contributions to stabilizing their company,” said Kley. "It must be clearly stated, however, that Lufthansa is facing a very difficult road ahead.” Lufthansa will be required to relinquish some of its slots in Frankfurt and Munich to competitors. A German government stabilization fund will receive a 20% stake in the airline. Environmental campaigners have criticized the government, saying it had not pressed for tougher emissions reduction targets as part of the bailout plan. Lufthansa’s current shareholders and the EC need to provide final approval for the plan.<br/>
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Lufthansa said Tuesday it will resume flights to South Korea later this month, as the new coronavirus outbreak appears to have passed its peak. Lufthansa will offer three flights a week from Incheon to Munich starting on June 24, as European countries plan to ease entry restrictions on incoming passengers from June 15, the company said in a statement. "Lufthansa will do its best to strengthen and supplement its European and continental air networks to meet the needs of Korean travelers, while also making sure customers travel safely," said Alejandro Arias, Lufthansa general manager of Korea. The company said the resumption of flights to Frankfurt depends on market conditions. Lufthansa suspended all flights on its routes from Incheon to Munich and Frankfurt in mid-March in response to a sharp decline in air travel demand amid virus fears. Among European carriers, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines is the only airline that has continued to offer flights between South Korea and the Netherlands.<br/>
The government of South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa is considering resurrecting the country’s flag carrier with state funds. The proposal would reverse previous pledges to withhold more bailouts from South African Airways that has been pushed close to liquidation by the coronavirus pandemic. The government would inject R4.6b ($264m) to create a new state airline out of SAA, which was placed into a form of bankruptcy protection last year. The draft proposal by administrators was published by South Africa’s biggest opposition party on Monday. The ministry responsible for overseeing state-owned companies said the government “has not discussed the plan yet and no decisions have been taken on some of the proposals it contains”. SAA has grounded commercial flights since South Africa began a lockdown in late March. This has added to a decade of losses that has brought it to near-collapse and tested the limits of Ramaphosa’s willingness to devote stretched public finances to rescue beleaguered state companies. SAA administrators said in the draft plan that state funds were needed on top of about R16bn that the government has already approved to pay off creditors of the airline. The resurrected SAA would sharply cut jobs and aircraft but would be projected to post losses of more than R19b in the next three years. “If this draft business rescue plan is approved in its current form, SAA will continue to be a fiscal black hole for years to come,” the main opposition Democratic Alliance said.<br/>
Singapore Airlines and regional wing SilkAir will reinstate certain flights in June and July, subject to regulatory approvals. Among the reinstated scheduled services include: Adelaide, Amsterdam, Auckland, Barcelona, Brisbane, Cebu, Christchurch, Copenhagen, Hong Kong, Medan, Melbourne and Osaka, said SIA on its website. The national carrier on May 14 reported its first annual net loss of S$212m in its 48-year history, after COVID-19 crippled travel demand. This compares with a S$683m profit in the previous year. The group had announced in March that it would cut 96% of its capacity and ground 138 planes from SIA and SilkAir, out of a total fleet of 147. With the reinstated flights, SIA has cut about 94% of the passenger capacity originally scheduled for June and July, it said. "SIA and SilkAir will continue to adjust our capacity to match the demand for international air travel," SIA said.<br/>
Most directors of SIA have chosen to let their rights mandatory convertible bonds (MCBs) lapse without exercising them, despite proposing the MCB rights issuance to shareholders as part of larger cash call in April. SIA CE Goh Choon Phong let his provisional allotments in respect of 3.34m rights MCBs lapse last week, according to a Singapore Exchange filing on Monday. SIA non-executive chairman Peter Seah also let his allotment of 73,160 rights MCBs lapse last week, filings showed. However, both Goh and Seah have applied to take up all their rights shares, and their actual allocations will be decided at a later date. SIA's rights exercise involved the issue of 295 rights MCBs for every 100 SIA shares held. Each of the rights can be exercised at S$1 for one MCB. The rights shares were issued on the basis of three rights shares for every two existing SIA shares owned by shareholders.<br/>
Turkish Airlines expects a slow recovery in global demand towards the end of the summer months but there will be a 60% drop in passenger numbers this year compared to initial expectations, Chairman Ilker Ayci said. Turkey’s flag carrier, which flew to 126 countries before the coronavirus outbreak, resumed domestic flights on Monday after some two months of suspensions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is expected to start some international flights from June 10. Ayci said Friday the company expects available seat kilometres to drop around 55% from its initial expectations for this year, adding that Turkish Airlines is taking many actions to decrease operational expenses and secure liquidity. The measures included re-negotiating payment terms with major vendors, postponement of ticket refunds, freezing recruitment and deferring tax payments. More than 180 aircraft were planned to be delivered between 2020 and 2024, Ayci said, adding that the company is in talks to postpone some deliveries in the coming years due to the contraction in demand so that there is no excess capacity in 2021 and 2022. The company also aims to postpone pre-delivery payments for those years, he said, in addition to selling and leasing back different aircraft types.<br/>
Turkish Airlines resumed limited domestic flights, restaurants welcomed sit-in customers and beaches and museums reopened as Turkey’s broadest easing of coronavirus restrictions came into effect Monday. A Turkish Airlines flight, with 156 people on board, departed from Ankara airport for Istanbul as Turkey lifted a travel ban between 15 of its worst-affected provinces. The air routes between Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Antalya and Trabzon are the first start, with others scheduled to follow gradually. Istanbul’s 15th-century Grand Bazaar, museums, libraries, gyms, swimming pools, child care centers and nurseries were among other venues allowed to resume operations. Businesses will be required to ensure social distancing and strict hygiene conditions are maintained. Turkey has registered more than 4,500 COVID-19 deaths and nearly 164,000 confirmed infections.<br/>
Poland’s national airline LOT may resume international flights in the next few weeks, State Assets Minister Jacek Sasin said Monday. State-controlled LOT restarted flights between the country’s biggest cities, including Warsaw, Gdansk, Krakow, and Wroclaw, from June 1. “We hope that within a few weeks we will be able to release information about unfreezing international flights,” Sasin said. He said connections to countries included in the so-called Three Seas Initiative - which include the Czech Republic, Hungary, the Baltic States, Romania and Bulgaria - will be reopened first.<br/>
Air New Zealand has come up with a novel, if harsh, punishment for passengers if they don't stick to physical distancing rules on board – bringing back its much-derided rap safety video. The airline shared a memo from "Tod Michaels, Head of Safety" to the marketing team, suggesting "a new way of encouraging people to follow our physical distancing measures on board." "If people adhere to the new standard, we'll promise not to bring back our rap safety video this month," the memo says. "Tod Michaels" appears to be a corruption of the name of outgoing chief marketing officer Mike Tod. Air NZ pulled the $2.5m It's Kiwi Safety music/safety video in January 2019, just three months after it released the video, which featured an all-Kiwi cast getting down to a Kiwified version of Run DMC's 1986 hip hop hit It's Tricky. The video received a barrage of criticism after its November 2018 launch, with Breakfast presenter Hayley Holt branding it "embarrassing", while NZ First MP Shane Jones called it "confusing" and "tone deaf" and said it "trivialised safety". Going by the comments Air New Zealand's threat to bring back the rap video received on social media, it could prove pretty effective.<br/>