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The airlines' summer travel season won't be as busy or profitable as last year's. But it's looking less dire than expected. American Airlines is seeing "improving demand for air travel," the company said Thursday, prompting it to plan a sizable increase in flights for July. American will fly 55% of its normal domestic schedule next month — a huge jump from the 20% of normal that it flew in May.<br/>According to American, flying turned a corner in May. The number of customers it was flying daily surged to about 110,000, which was a 71% increase from April. The percentage of seats filled on every flight grew to 55% for the last week of May, up 15% from the average in April. That mirrors recent data from TSA, which said earlier this week that it screened nearly 949,000 passengers last weekend. That's a large increase from the 476,000 people it screened over the first weekend of May 2020. But in May 2019 roughly 2m passengers passed through security checkpoints daily, according to TSA data. Still, American's more robust schedule is providing some optimism for a battered industry: Shares soared as much as 30% in early trading. "We're seeing a slow but steady rise in domestic demand," said Vasu Raja, American's SVP of network strategy. <br/>

American Airlines will reduce its officer ranks by 30% as the carrier slims down operations in the wake of reduced travel demand because of the coronavirus. Fourteen of the company’s officers will be leaving voluntarily, including veteran revenue management and customer experience leaders, and five other positions will remain vacant, CEO Doug Parker said in a memo to employees Thursday. The shake-up is the first phase of changes under which 30% of management and support staff will be cut at American. “There is no question this is a time of unprecedented change,” President Robert Isom said in a separate memo. The management changes and “the reality of becoming a smaller airline on the backside of this pandemic will change the way we do business.” The changes add to the nearly 109,000 employees at the four largest US airlines that already have opted to take voluntary leaves or retire early. Carriers are hoping the volunteers will help avoid or reduce widespread furloughs on Oct. 1, when a prohibition on job cuts tied to federal aid expires.<br/>

More needs to be done to end racial inequality, American Airlines CEO Doug Parker said Wednesday. As protests over the death of George Floyd in police custody sweep across dozens of US cities, many top executives have said corporations need to do more to combat racial inequality in its various forms. American appointed Kenneth Charles in January as chief inclusion and diversity officer, a new role and department at the airline. American also has included implicit bias training for its staff, which number roughly 130,000. “All that work, really important work, has had really [a] positive impact,” Parker said. “What I think we are all seeing as a country is that those initiatives, while helpful, are insufficient and we need to do more.” Parker added that corporate leaders must be more “deliberate” to break down barriers. “There are structural barriers in place that keep these disparities in place,” he said. <br/>

The boss of BA said its parent company IAG was burning through GBP178m a week and could not guarantee its survival, prompting him to urge unions to engage over 12,000 job cuts. British Airways came under heavy attack from lawmakers in parliament on Wednesday, who accused it of taking advantage of a government scheme to protect jobs while at the same time announcing plans to cut its workforce by 28%. In an internal letter to staff, Alex Cruz, the CE of British Airways said the job losses were necessary as IAG’s cash reserves would not last forever and the future was one of more competition for fewer customers. BA also wants to change terms and conditions for its remaining workers to give it more flexibility by, for example, making all crew fly both short and long-haul.<br/>

A row has broken out between Priti Patel and BA over the plans to quarantine travellers for 14 days as the airline refused to meet her, and a government source branded the company “not serious about getting Britain working again”. Tensions between the government and the airline escalated on Thursday, as Alex Cruz, the chief executive of BA, declined to join an industry call with Patel, the home secretary, and Kelly Tolhurst, the aviation minister. Conservative MPs are up in arms about the quarantine proposals, arguing they will harm airlines and dash people’s hopes of summer holidays, but Boris Johnson insisted this week that the policy will go ahead from Monday as an essential way of stopping new outbreaks of coronavirus. Earlier on Thursday, Cruz had warned employees that BA’s parent company was haemorrhaging cash and accused the government of dealing “another blow” by pressing ahead with the plan to quarantine inbound travellers for 14 days at a time when many other countries are lifting such measures. Airports, aviation bodies and almost every other major airline apart from Ryanair were on the call with Patel. A source said the industry made the case for the quarantine rules to be in place for three weeks only until the first review date on 29 June. A source close to the talks said that BA’s team had advised Cruz that it “wasn’t worth his time engaging”.<br/>

Qantas will reactivate plans to order airplanes capable of the world’s longest non-stop commercial flights from Sydney to London when the airline returns to financial strength, its CE said Friday. “I think the business case for doing it is very strong,” Qantas CEO Alan Joyce said on a tourism industry webcast. “The aircraft are not going anywhere,” he added. “When we are comfortable in doing it and have the financial strength to do it, we will be doing it.” Before the coronavirus pandemic, the airline had planned this year to order up to 12 Airbus A350-1000 planes to allow Sydney-London and Sydney-New York flights by 2023. The airline has since grounded 220 planes and halted all international flying with the exception of government repatriation charters and cargo flights. Qantas on Thursday said it would triple domestic capacity to 15% of normal levels by the end of the month, with the potential to rise to 40% of normal in July if state border restrictions ease.<br/>

Qatar Airways said Thursday it was gradually rebuilding its network and resuming flights to more than 40 designations, including Bangkok, Barcelona and several cities in Pakistan. The airline also announced in a statement the upcoming resumption of flights to other hubs including Berlin and New York. <br/>