South Africa’s government has started talks with private entities interested in buying into the country’s insolvent national carrier, which needs at least 10b rand ($583m) to resume operations. A team from the Department of Public Enterprises and advisers from FirstRand’s Rand Merchant Bank began negotiations after receiving as many as four promising proposals regarding South African Airways, according to Kgathatso Tlhakudi, the DPE’s director general. The state ideally wants SAA to resume operations by the year-end, he said in an interview on Wednesday, although much will depend on a pick up in demand amid the Covid-19 pandemic. While Tlhakudi declined to identify SAA’s suitors, the government has said previously that approaches have been made by private-equity firms and potential aviation partners. Ethiopian Airlines Group, Africa’s largest and only consistently profitable carrier, has in the past said it may be interested. SAA has been in administration since December and hasn’t flown a commercial passenger flight since March, when South Africa’s borders were closed to help contain the coronavirus. <br/>
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Lufthansa Wednesday raised the possibility of redundancies for some of its pilots in 2021, as the slump in world travel due to the coronavirus looks set to last. The warning came after the German flag carrier said it had concluded a short-term agreement with the pilots' Cockpit union (VC) to cut wage costs. The deal means the airline will hold back from implementing redundancies until Q2 2021. However, "the significant overcapacity of pilots will last considerably beyond March 2021," Lufthansa said. "The number of redundancies for operational reasons can therefore only be limited by concluding a long-term crisis agreement," the company added. The deal with VC cuts short-time work compensation and pension benefits from September to the end of the year, and wage increases planned for 2020 will be postponed until January 2021, the airline said. "We clearly reject Lufthansa's threat to make compulsory redundancies," Markus Wahl, VC President, said. "Pilots are prepared to make a tangible contribution to keeping all cockpit personnel on board." The measures apply to the pilots of Lufthansa, Lufthansa Cargo, Lufthansa Aviation Training and Germanwings pilots, according to the company.<br/>
The management board of Lufthansa unit Austrian Airlines said Wednesday they would hand back their recent bonuses after Austria’s finance minister said the payments were “unacceptable” for a company that is being bailed out. Austria’s conservative-led government agreed in June to pay the airline E450m ($537m) in grants and loans as it reeled from a collapse in air travel because of the coronavirus pandemic. In exchange, the airline pledged to protect Vienna as a Lufthansa Group hub. “We have decided today after consulting with Finance Minister Gernot Bluemel to voluntarily hand back the management board’s bonuses paid for 2019,” Austrian Airlines CE Alexis von Hoensbroech said. As details emerged this week of E2.9m in bonuses paid to some 200 Austrian Airlines managers this summer for their performance last year, opposition parties slammed Bluemel for failing to stop the bonuses as part of the bailout deal. Bluemel criticised the bonuses on Tuesday, then hardened his stance on Wednesday to demand that the board pay them back. “To claim state aid for the company while having staff on shorter working hours and at the same time to pay out bonuses to management is completely unacceptable,” Bluemel said, urging the board to repay the bonuses “immediately”.<br/>
SIA burned through half of the S$8.8b ($6.4b) it raised through share sales in just two months, highlighting how carriers’ expenses keep incurring even as planes are grounded. Of the S$4.4b spent since mid-June, S$1.1b was used for operating expenses, maturing fuel-hedging trades and ticket refunds from canceled flights due to the coronavirus pandemic, the airline said Wednesday. About S$2b was used to repay a bridge loan facility, S$900m to service debt and S$200m to buy aircraft. SIA raised the funds in June after the outbreak and resulting border restrictions decimated travel demand. The proceeds spent during the two months to Aug. 14 are almost equivalent to the combined net losses made by Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific and Qantas in H1. To curb costs, the Singaporean carrier has slashed salaries and put staff on unpaid leave as it operates at less than 10% of capacity.<br/>
The majority shareholders of Colombia’s Avianca Holdings, brothers German and Jose Efromovich, were arrested in Brazil by the country’s federal police on Wednesday as part of the sprawling Car Wash corruption probe, authorities said. Prosecutors have accused the brothers of laundering money and bribing public officials in order to land ship-building contracts with Transpetro, the logistics unit of Brazilian oil company Petrobras. The accusations are unrelated to Avianca. The judge handling the case ordered the brothers to be detained and put on house arrest. The two will wear electric monitors and be forbidden from leaving Brazil. The judge said there was reason to believe that the two had created a corporate structure in Brazil and abroad to launder money, costing public coffers some 610m reais ($111m). The Avianca-branded subsidiaries in Brazil, Argentina and Peru have all folded since last year, while the Colombian carrier is going through bankruptcy restructuring. Avianca Holdings declined to comment. The Efromovichs retain a majority stake of just over 50% in the now-bankrupt company but do not have voting rights.<br/>
Hong Kong has banned Air India flights till the end of August after some passengers on one of its flights tested positive for COVID-19 post arrival, a government official said Wednesday. Passengers from India can arrive in Hong Kong only if they have a COVID-19 negative certificate from a test done 72 hours prior to the journey, according to rules issued by the Hong Kong government in July. Moreover, all international passengers are required to take a post-flight COVID-19 test at the airport premises in Hong Kong. “Some passengers who landed in Hong Kong on one of Air India flights recently tested COVID-positive post arrival,” the government official said. “The Hong Kong government has banned all Air India flights till August-end,” the official added. The airline had said on Twitter on Monday: “Due to restrictions imposed by Hong Kong Authorities, AI 310/315, Delhi – Hong Kong – Delhi of 18th August 2020 stands postponed. Next update in this regard will be intimated soon. Passengers may please contact Air India Customer Care for assistance.”<br/>
The Health Ministry has not been able to clarify whether all air crew flying into New Zealand will be tested for Covid-19, two days after Health Minister Chris Hipkins appeared to suggest that he believed that should be happening already. Rules published on the Health Ministry website indicate that crew who live in New Zealand and who spend more than two nights on a lay-over overseas must have a Covid test after their return. But this is not stated as a requirement in other situations. Concerned air crew revealed last week that the Government had been transferring people arriving in Auckland to managed isolation facilities in Wellington on turboprop aircraft with no Hepa anti-virus air filters and only one shared toilet, before those incoming passengers had been tested for Covid-19. Crew on those special flights could then be required to immediately crew regular domestic flights without first having a Covid test, they said. A Health Ministry spokeswoman said the ministry was working on health advice which would include “revised protocols and policy for testing of flight crews”. However, the ministry was not able to clarify whether the new order would require the testing of all Air New Zealand crew flying internationally, or whether such an order would also apply to airline staff crewing domestic transfers into managed isolation. Air New Zealand said in a statement on Wednesday that it had worked closely with Ministry of Health officials to implement the measures currently in place.<br/>