United said Wednesday it will expand its policy on mandatory face coverings to include the more than 360 airports it serves worldwide. Starting July 24, customers will be required to wear face coverings in all areas of the airport, including at customer service counters, United Clubs and in baggage claim areas, airline officials said. Individuals who refuse to comply may risk losing their flight privileges while the mask requirements are in place. The airline also said it is tightening its policy on who must wear a mask, exempting only children under the age of 2. Passengers who believe there are “extraordinary circumstances” that might prevent them from wearing a face covering should contact United before their flight, the airline said. The airline’s announcement comes a day after President Trump acknowledged the pandemic “will probably, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better.” United said it would post signs throughout airports and verbally remind passengers of the new policy. It also will offer free masks to those who don’t have their own. Customers who refuse to comply will be given warning cards and could be barred from boarding the aircraft. At the most extreme, they could be banned from flying on the airline while the mask requirement is in place.<br/>
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United CEO Scott Kirby said Wednesday he expects airfares to slip as the pandemic continues to depress demand for flights. “My guess is that pricing is going to go lower for the short term,” Kirby said. “All of the normal pricing metrics ... in this pandemic are a little bit irrelevant.” The airline lost more than $1.6b in the three months ended in June and is now focused on shaving more than a third off its daily cash-burn rate from $40m during Q2 to $25m in Q3. “The most important metric is cash burn,” he said. The pandemic and travel restrictions designed to stop it from spreading have devastated air travel demand. United has been cautious about adding flights and said it could pull back capacity even more, depending on future demand. Kirby said demand has appeared to have bottomed after slipping in recent weeks, but that revenue could plateau at 50% of 2019 levels, until there’s a widely available vaccine for Covid-19. United’s revenue fell more than 87% in Q2 from a year earlier. United Tuesday said it expects to have $18b in liquidity after raising more than $16b since the start of the crisis through debt and stock sales, as well as federal aid.<br/>
Airlines are taking extreme measures to survive the pandemic, with Asiana Airlines flying the world’s biggest commercial plane more than 20 times, going nowhere and carrying no passengers, just to keep trainee pilots certified. The empty Airbus SE A380 flew over South Korea for a few hours a day for three days in May to enable pilots of the 495-seat superjumbo to practice taking off and landing. The alternative -- a trip to Thailand to use a simulator owned by THAI -- was blocked because of travel bans, an Asiana spokesman said. “Takeoffs and landings of this plane cost a lot of money, and it’s money that needs to be used wisely, especially these days,” said Um Kyung-a, an analyst at Shinyoung Securities in Seoul. “Asiana is in a bind because it also can’t afford for its pilots to lose their licenses.” Asiana had another 135 pilots who didn’t have enough flying time on its six A380s, but it couldn’t afford to keep flying the empty jet. In the end, the country’s transport ministry extended the pilots’ flying credentials as a special exemption. Japan’s ANA, which operates two A380s, received a similar extension from Japan’s aviation authority. Most of the big A380 operators, like Asiana’s rival Korean Air Lines, have their own simulators. The ICAO has provided guidelines to state members on how to help pilots keep up their skills. Normally, pilots must have taken off and landed an aircraft at least three times within the previous 90 days to keep their license.<br/>
An Ethiopian Airlines' Boeing 777 cargo plane caught fire while loading cargo at Shanghai Pudong International Airport on Wednesday, the airline said, adding that fire has been contained and none of the crew or ground staff were harmed. The cause of the incident was under investigation, Ethiopian Airlines said in a Facebook post. The aircraft was on a regular scheduled cargo service from Shanghai to Sao Paulo-Santiago, it added. Pictures and videos circulating on Chinese social media showed heavy smoke pouring from an Ethiopian aircraft, and a large section of the upper fuselage appeared scorched. After the fire broke, flights bound for Shanghai Pudong International Airport were diverted to Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport, said aviation data provider Variflight.<br/>
Air NZ was unprepared for the sheer scale of customer calls it received as a result of coronavirus-related disruptions, CE Greg Foran says. Foran, sitting alongside his CFO Jeff McDowall, told the Transport and Infrastructure Select Committee that the airline went from fielding about 5000 calls a day before Covid-19 to as many as 75,000 a day during the crisis. “We weren’t ready to handle this. We’ve reacted as quickly as we could,” Foran said. Covid-19 wreaked havoc with Air NZ, which slashed its network capacity by up to 95% at one point, resulting in more than 15,000 flight cancellations. No airline had a refund or credit system in place to deal with such a huge number of cancellations, he said. “The reality is our systems and processes just could not cope.” Air NZ released a new online credit redemption tool on Monday, for the more than 300,000 customers who held credit for coronavirus-related disruptions. Foran said the tool was a “minimum viable product” and basic in the functions it could perform but the airline would develop it further. ”Trust me, we will not leave this stone unturned because you never know when Covid-20 might come and we would not want to find ourselves in the same situation we’ve found ourselves now.”<br/>