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ANA Holdings said Wednesday it saw a record quarterly loss worth $1b as the coronavirus continues to hammer the global aviation industry with no clear end in sight. The company said its net loss during the April-June period came to Y108.8b, its worst three-month return since it began issuing quarterly financial figures in 2003 and a sharp fall from Y11.4b in profit a year ago. Its operating loss reached Y159.0b, compared with an operating profit of Y16.2b a year ago, with sales of Y121.6b, down 75.7%. “Passenger demand for both international and domestic flights declined significantly, due to worldwide government travel restrictions and the declaration of the state of emergency from the Japanese government,” said Ichiro Fukuzawa, CFO of ANA Holdings. ANA has attempted to cut costs and take other measures to ease the damage, he said. “While we aggressively worked to offset lost revenue by catering to the increased demand for international cargo transportation … we were unable to offset the unprecedented impact of COVID-19 and ended with a large quarterly loss,” he said. ANA did not issue annual forecasts due to high uncertainty involving the outlook of the pandemic.<br/>

SIA’s shares fell to their lowest price in more than 21 years after the carrier posted its biggest quarterly loss ever as the coronavirus wiped out travel demand. The net loss in the three months to June was S$1.12b, compared with net income of S$111m a year earlier. Sales dropped 79% to S$851m, and traffic measured by revenue passenger per kilometer sank 99.5%. Singapore Airlines said Wednesday its passenger capacity still may be less than half of pre-coronavirus levels by the end of its fiscal year next March. The carrier’s fuel hedging policy led to a S$535m loss in the quarter, while there was also a S$127m hit from the liquidation of NokScoot. Singapore Airlines owned a 49% stake in the low-cost Thai carrier that collapsed in June. Singapore Airlines was operating only to 24 cities by the end of June. Its SilkAir unit ceased most operations except for flights to Chongqing, China, and it suspended flights to the Thai resort island of Koh Samui. Low-cost unit Scoot operated a minimal network to cities such as Hong Kong and Perth, Australia. Passenger capacity at the end Q2 is forecast to be about 7% of the level before Covid-19. Out of a fleet of 213 passenger aircraft, only 32 are being deployed, the airline said.<br/>

United Wednesday extended a deadline for most employees to decide whether to take voluntary furlough deals to Aug. 10, as it waits to see if the US Congress extends an airline bailout in the first week of August. United announced the extension in a memo to employees seen by Reuters, adding that it was working with unions, which are lobbying US lawmakers for an extension of the bailout that would prevent voluntary furloughs and delay impact on employees until early 2021. United confirmed the memo and declined to comment further. Most employees had previously faced a Thursday deadline to decide whether to apply to leave. “While nothing is certain, our union partners have built a strong campaign to advocate for an extension” of the payroll assistance program, the memo said. “We have worked closely with them to support those efforts.” But the letter added that United is “not counting on Congress passing an extension.” United said last week more than 6,000 employees had opted for exit packages. But after sending 36,000 notices of potential furloughs this month, that relatively low take-up suggests United might have to furlough a significant number of workers.<br/>

Air NZ still holds a landing slot at Heathrow four months after shutting its London base and axing its Los Angeles-London service. Last year the airline said it would stop the daily service from October resulting in the loss of 130 jobs. But the route’s closure was brought forward to late March due to the coronavirus pandemic. A landing slot trading update by airport co-ordination company ACL shows Air NZ swapped 14 of its valuable arrival and departure slots at Heathrow Airport with United. The airlines requested on June 17 for Air NZ’s 10.50am arrival and 3.20pm departure slots at Heathrow to be swapped with United’s 11pm arrival and 11.05pm departure slots.<br/>The new slots would apply from late October to late March next year. An Air NZ spokeswoman said it would not provide detail about the Heathrow slots “due to strict obligations around confidentiality in the agreement”. In January Air NZ told investors it made a gain of about $21m resulting from the partial sale of airport slots at Heathrow Airport to an undisclosed party.<br/>

Adding insult to injury of employees as they protest what they call “a draconian” leave without pay (LWP) policy going up to five years, Air India is on a recruitment drive to hire new people. Air India Express has put out an advertisement to hire in the finance and medical services department. The general principle is that if a company is laying off people and sending them on long leave without pay, then it does not hire fresh personnel. In the advertisement, Air India Express has invited applications from Indian citizens (wherever domiciled) for the posts on a fixed term contract basis. The positions in the medical services department include Chief Medical Officer and Senior Assistant, Medical. The positions open for hiring in the Finance Department include Deputy Chief of Finance, Manager-Finance and Deputy Manager-Finance. Interested and eligible candidates have been asked to submit their applications within 15 days of this advertisement. This will add fuel to the fire as employees across the board from pilots to service engineers are protesting pay cuts and Leave Without Pay in Air India. The company is also on the block for privatization. Air India has justified the cut in allowances of existing employees by citing the precarious financial position due to Covid 19.<br/>