Ryanair is set to close its base at Frankfurt Hahn airport in November as part of wider cuts after failing to reach agreement on cost savings with German pilots. In a company memo sent to the airline’s Germany-based pilots, the low-cost carrier says that having been informed by the Vereinigung Cockpit union that pilots had rejected proposed cost-savings, it “must move” on alternative measures to deliver savings. These measures include the planned closure of its long-standing Hahn base - the airline’s second mainland Europe base when it opened in February 2002 - from the start of November. It also warns its Berlin-Tegel and Weeze airport near Dusseldorf bases “are likely to close before” the start of the winter 2020 season. It will issue an update on this in the next week. It further adds that it is “over-crewed” for pilots at its Frankfurt, Berlin Schonefeld and Cologne bases and that once the various base closures have been addressed, it will deal with these surpluses.<br/>
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Four expressions of interest have been received by advisers to South African carrier Comair’s business rescue process. The company’s rescue practitioners state that the adviser, Redford Capital, has received 19 signed confidentiality agreements having “engaged” with 47 parties since the process began. Comair was placed under business rescue in May. Redford Capital is communicating with providers of several “detailed” non-binding expressions of interest, add the practitioners. The advisers are “working expeditiously” to advance these expressions towards a formal offer which could then be included in the business rescue plan. Emergence of interest in the company has pushed back the publication deadline for the Comair rescue plan. This plan is due to be published on 28 July. The practitioners have been seeking to increase their fee for dealing with Comair’s rescue, arguing that the regulated tariff has not been updated since 2011 and is “no longer market-related” for the specialist skill required for a company of Comair’s size and complexity.<br/>
The disinfection of aircraft has added at least 20 minutes to turnaround times for Air Baltic’s Airbus A220-300 fleet, according to the carrier’s CE. Martin Gauss explained that Air Baltic is “technically” flying 11 aircraft today, “but we use 16 for it”. “One of the reasons is that we have a minimum turnaround time now of 60 minutes because of the disinfection,” he states. The airline – which operates a hybrid model featuring ultra-low-cost economy seating and a small business-class area at the front of the cabin – confirms that its pre-coronavirus average turnaround time was 40 minutes. As a result, “utilisation is nowhere [near] where it should be”, says Gauss. “That is one of the prices you have to pay for that kind of an operation.” Announcing new onboard health measures in mid-May as it moved to restart operations, Air Baltic said that “the aircraft cabin disinfection will be done with increased regularity”, while passengers would be ”provided with a complimentary basic care kit consisting of a protective face mask and disinfection wipes”. Crew members are required to wear a protective face mask and gloves.<br/>