Lufthansa said Thursday that it would have to slash 22,000 full-time jobs as it predicts a muted recovery in demand for travel following the coronavirus pandemic. "The recovery in demand in the air transport sector will be slow in the foreseeable future," the airline said. About 100 aircraft will remain grounded after the crisis, leading to "a total of 22,000 fewer full-time positions in the Lufthansa Group, half of them in Germany". The posts make up 16% of the Lufthansa Group's total workforce of 135,000. The airline said however that it would look at how it could use schemes for shorter work hours and other crisis arrangements to avoid outright redundancies. "Without a significant reduction in personnel costs during the crisis, we will miss the opportunity of a better restart from the crisis and risk the Lufthansa group emerging from the crisis significantly weakened," said Michael Niggemann, who heads the airline's human resources and legal affairs departments.<br/>
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Airlines don’t need to compensate passengers if a flight is delayed by one person biting another as it is an “extraordinary circumstance”, the EU’s top court ruled on Thursday after a customer sued Portuguese airline TAP over such an incident. However, the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg called on carriers to ensure passengers are re-routed as soon as possible, either via direct or indirect flights on other airlines, to absolve themselves from such claims. “The unruly behaviour of an air passenger may constitute an ‘extraordinary circumstance’ capable of exempting the carrier from its obligation to pay compensation for the cancellation or long delay of the flight concerned, or of a subsequent flight operated by that carrier using the same aircraft,” judges said. The ruling came after a traveller sued Transportes Aereos Portugueses for compensation after the departure of his flight from Brazil to Portugal in August 2017 was delayed, causing him to miss a connecting flight to Norway. The TAP plane left Brazil late because it had been diverted on its way there to disembark a passenger who was biting other people on board and assaulting crew members. The court said re-routing the passenger on the next flight operated by TAP was a reasonable measure that released the airline from its obligation to pay cash compensation, even if the passenger arrived a day after his initial schedule.<br/>
Turkish Airlines and its budget carrier Anadolujet resumed some international flights to Germany, Britain and the Netherlands on Thursday, carrying passengers with approved documents. A spokesman for the flag carrier said the outbound flights could only carry passengers with EU citizenship, residence permits or certain visas. “Istanbul-London and Istanbul-Dusseldorf flights took off this morning carrying EU citizens or residence permit holders,” a spokesman said. Leisure airline SunExpress, a joint venture of Turkish Airlines and Lufthansa, also restarted flights to Germany and Switzerland. It said the flights were only available for Turkish citizens who have residency permits, work permits or special passports for family reunion purposes, as well as EU citizens.<br/>
Transat AT, the parent company of Canadian holiday specialist Air Transat, says its merger with Air Canada is still on track and now due to close in Q4 of 2020. Transat said Thursday that it is “firmly committed to completing the transaction”. But, it added that factors “beyond its control” and related to the global coronavirus pandemic have delayed the tie-up, which received overwhelming approval by shareholders last year. Originally, the merger with Air Canada had been scheduled to close in Q2. “The market conditions of the global industry have been completely transformed. Among other things, the vast majority of North American, European and international air carriers have announced reductions in capacity and requested financial assistance measures,” Transat wrote Thursday. “This could impact the possibility of reaching an agreement with regulatory authorities regarding an appropriate package of remedies aimed at obtaining the necessary approvals.” The merger has been under scrutiny for quite some time from various regulatory agencies.<br/>
THAI has admitted it is looking to delay yet again the resumption of scheduled flights to Aug 1 although this is only a plan, said airline board member Pirapan Salirathavibhaga. Pirapan said the plan was being studied by the airline's commerce department and it would help the company prepare better in case the ban on international flights, imposed by the Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand (CAAT) to contain Covid-19, is lifted. His remark came on the heel of media reports citing a THAI source who disclosed the airline would resume scheduled flights from Aug 1, a month later than originally planned. According to the source, the flights will restart over three days from Aug 1 through to Aug 3 with reduced services to fewer destinations. While Pirapan confirmed the Aug 1 resumption was on the drawing board, he stopped short of validating details of the reportedly "watered down" flight schedule. For example, flights to Singapore, which THAI operated several times per day before Covid-19 forced the airline to ground all of its flights in March, will be reduced to four per week. Similar cuts are also expected for flights to high-traffic cities including Tokyo, the source said.<br/>