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The hedge fund Citadel Advisors, United Airlines and a Salvadoran air mogul are among investors offering loans as part of Latin American airline Avianca Holdings SA’s $2b bankruptcy financing plan, according to court documents. The companies, which were stakeholders in the carrier before it filed for Chapter 11 protection in May, would help provide about $722m in loans. Together with a separate tranche of roughly $1.3b of debt, Avianca said it has commitments for $2b in debtor-in-possession funding. “Securing these financing commitments is another concrete step forward in our Chapter 11 reorganization process,” CEO Anko van der Werff said. The plan needs approval from the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. The debt being offered by an affiliate of Citadel -- the famed hedge fund founded by billionaire Ken Griffin -- United, and Salvadoran Roberto Kriete’s Kingsland Holdings would be eligible to roll over into common shares when Avianca emerges from the Chapter 11 reorganization, according to court filings. Meanwhile, the loans will bear an interest rate of 14.5%, according to filings. Creditors holding the 2023 notes will have $220m of the debt rolled up into new loans. They have agreed to lend an additional $290m, according to a company statement.<br/>

United expects to remain 45% of its pre-pandemic size for the next 15 months, CEO Scott Kirby said Tuesday. Absent the development and widespread distribution of a vaccine, which Kirby believes will not occur until the end of next year, the airline will not grow beyond its current size. Kirby, however, is confident that demand will spring back as soon as a vaccine is widely available. But will United be in a position to spring back? Airline employees — technicians, pilots, flight attendants, among others — are licensed and have specialized skills. If United and its peers are forced to furlough tens of thousands of such workers, as they say they will when payroll support through the CARES Act expires on September 30, they won’t be able to respond quickly to rapidly returning demand if their employees have taken other jobs or need to be re-trained. “Huge kudos to everyone in Washington,” Kirby said, referring to the bipartisan support for the $2.2tn CARES Act, which he credits with saving the economy when it became law in March. Airlines got $25b in federal aid to continue paying employees through September 30, but were forbidden from laying them off until October 1. If Congress doesn’t extend the payroll support program, United will lay off or furlough 16,000 employees when the program expires. This is in addition to the 25,000 employees that are on unpaid leaves of absence or other types of voluntary leave. “It could literally take years,” to return to a full bench of qualified employees, Kirby said. United has joined its peers on calling on Congress to extend the program through March of next year. “[Airlines] are an economic magnifier,” he said. “That is why it is so important that airlines get an extension." Story has more.<br/>

United intends to tap US Treasury loans available under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, CE Scott Kirby said Tuesday. Also speaking to reporters, American Airlines CEO Doug Parker affirmed his airline is also taking the Treasury loans, while JetBlue Airways CEO Robin Hayes said a decision will be made in the near future.<br/>

CDB Aviation has agreed to purchase and lease back 12 new aircraft from US carrier United Airlines. The transaction comprises two Boeing 787-9s and 10 737 Max 8s, a 22 September filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange shows. Under the agreement, the lessor expects to take delivery of the aircraft between 2020 and 2021. It did not give further details on the transaction in the filing. Back in April, the company cancelled 29 of 99 737 Max orders, while making adjustments to the rest of its orderbook for the type.<br/>

Lufthansa plans to start making rapid COVID-19 antigen tests available to passengers in October and is weighing the option of opening test centres at airports in the US and Canada, a company executive said on Tuesday. The move comes as airlines and airports globally have urged countries to accept a passenger's negative COVID-19 test as an alternative to travel restrictions and quarantines that have battered demand for travel. While the aviation industry has largely backed the use of PCR tests which take several hours to process in a lab, airline trade group IATA on Tuesday touted antigen tests that can be processed on site and typically give results within about 15 minutes. Abbott Laboratories recently won the US FDA approval for BinaxNOW, a $5 disposable device the size of a credit card. Some other antigen tests must be read using a small, portable device. "You know that companies like Abbott or Roche are bringing these tests to the market and we are definitely looking into this," said Bjoern Becker, senior director, product management, ground & digital services for the Lufthansa Group. "You will see us applying them for new products within the next few weeks in October," he told reporters during a virtual call. "That's definitely the next thing to come." Becker said Lufthansa is considering making the new antigen tests initially available to its first-class and business class passengers, given limited supply.<br/>

After over half a year of managing ANA's ground operations at Haneda Airport amid a pandemic, heightened sanitation and social distancing have become so routine for Mariko Kumita and her team that, as she says, "I am starting to feel like I'm forgetting what used to be normal." The situation is a far cry from the scramble in January, when ANA sent a flight to repatriate Japanese citizens from Wuhan, the Chinese city that was the coronavirus epicenter. Back then, a terminal typically used for domestic flights had to be reconfigured with immigration and customs checkpoints in under 48 hours. Since then, the airline has increased the number of check-in counters to keep travelers adequately spaced. Plastic sheets hang between airport staff and passengers, and interactions between cabin crew and ground crew are kept to a minimum. At every stage of check-in, travelers are asked to disinfect their hands. "All the staff have completely altered their level of consciousness for disinfection and safety, so I hope the customers can be relaxed," said Masahiro Tsurukawa, the station manager for ANA's operations in Wuhan. Both Tsurukawa and Kumita said their airline's coronavirus measures make them feel safe at work every day. But the same is not true of passengers, who have yet to return to the air in large numbers. Much of that is due to country travel restrictions -- but resurgent virus cases throughout the region have also led people to question their desire to fly amid anxiety over infection. Airlines such as ANA have been consistently attempting to lure back travelers with their new health standards -- aware that their own financial well-being is at stake. ANA Holdings posted a net loss of 108b yen ($1.03b) for the three months from April through June -- the worst since it started unveiling its quarterly performance in fiscal 2003 -- and furloughed around 43,500 employees. But the question for carriers is whether the new health practices on the ground and in the air are sufficient to make passengers fly again with confidence. Story has more.<br/>

Air NZ has announced it will be resuming its food and beverage services on all domestic flights from Thursday. These services have not been available under Covid-19 alert level 2 to minimise contact between passengers and cabin crew. “Lots of our customers told us they have been missing our usual inflight service snacks, so we have brought back our food and beverage offering to give people this option,” an Air NZ spokeswoman said. Koru Hour services – where wine or beer and cheese and crackers are offered on evening jet flights – would not return until all of New Zealand was at alert level 1. The return of the traditional tea, coffee, and cookie or corn chips comes after Air NZ said face coverings would remain mandatory on all flights until the whole country is at alert level 1. Auckland is set to stay at alert level 2 for two more weeks, with alert levels to be reviewed again on October 5. Air NZ’s current rules state anyone refusing to wear an appropriate face covering will not be allowed to board the aircraft. But the airline said customers would be allowed to temporarily remove their masks to eat or drink during the flight. “Customers will be required to keep their mask or face covering on while they are not eating or drinking,” the Air New Zealand spokeswoman added.<br/>