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ANA Holdings has decided on a plan to reduce the number of group employees by some 3,500 by fiscal 2022 in an effort to survive the coronavirus crisis, informed sources said Sunday. The airline group plans to downsize its workforce through compulsory retirement and a freeze on hiring, hoping to cut fixed costs to brace for prolonged pandemic-caused damage to travel demand. ANA will include the job cut plan in its business restructuring program to be announced Tuesday, the sources said. According to a securities report released by ANA, the number of the group's employees stood at around 46,000 as of the end of March this year. In the business restructuring program, ANA group also plans to include the reduction of the number of small aircraft it owns in response to a plunge in demand for international flights, the sources said. <br/>

Japan’s government is in no mood for a huge bailout plan for ailing airline ANA, sources say, preferring a piecemeal approach to direct capital injections - a stark contrast to the bold moves other countries have made to protect flagship carriers. Forecast to suffer a net loss of about $4.8b in the fiscal year to March, Japan’s largest airline is expected to announce a revival plan next week that will most likely include pay cuts and reduction in its fleet of aircraft. The government hopes a waiver on airport landing fees, a tax-funded domestic tourism campaign and a gradual re-opening of borders will be enough to keep ANA alive, said government and ruling party officials with direct knowledge of the matter. These measures will come on top of $3.8b in subordinated loans to ANA Holdings from state-backed and private lenders. The loans, cost cuts and capital accumulated during Japan’s inbound tourism boom in the past few years will allow ANA to weather the hit from COVID-19 at least for now, they said. Though nothing has been officially decided, the government is ready to offer more relief if a deepening economic slump worsens the plight of big companies with national impact such as ANA. But ideas being floated among government and political circles centre on tax breaks for aircraft and fuel, as well as extensions of existing programmes such as the tourism campaign and subsidies to companies that retain jobs, the officials said. More radical steps such as those taken by Germany, which did direct capital injection, are off the table for now, they said.<br/>

Lufthansa is preparing to ground more planes than planned and cut working hours during the winter as a surge in coronavirus infections is putting people off travelling. Lufthansa and its subsidiaries Eurowings, Swiss, Austrian and Brussels Airlines will ground 125 more aircraft during the winter than originally planned, CE Carsten Spohr said in a letter to staff. “It is unavoidable to ramp down operations during the winter of 2020/21 even further and to put as many areas as possible in ‘hibernation’ from mid-December,” he said. Most of the group’s administrative staff will be put on a government-sponsored reduced hours scheme, he added.<br/>

Austrian Airlines is offering rapid pre-boarding coronavirus tests free to passengers on one of its routes as part of a group-wide plan to make such tests standard, the company said on Friday. The antibody tests, which provide results within 15 minutes, will be offered to passengers on a voluntary basis before they board flights to Berlin from Vienna Airport from Friday, Austrian Airlines said. “We must break down the borders that corona has built up in recent months,” COO Jens Ritter said in the statement, which acknowledged that for the time being these tests are no substitute for the standard PCR tests required by national authorities. “Eventually we aim to also achieve the loosening of travel restrictions, but first we want to show how a targeted testing programme could work.” Austrian aims to roll out testing more widely if it becomes well established, it said, adding that the results from Vienna would inform Lufthansa’s general testing project.<br/>

Turkish Airlines will be putting foreign national pilots on unpaid leave to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on its finances, according to company emails. The national flagship carrier has told some of the foreign crew by email that their leave starts from Nov. 1 and that the decision would be reviewed after six months. The company emails don’t state how many pilots will be affected. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Turkish nationals would also be affected. <br/>

The Danish and Swedish governments have each agreed to increase their stakes in SAS to 21.8% under the Scandinavian carrier’s SKr14.25b ($1.62b) recapitalisation plan, which has now been finalised. SAS obtained approval from both governments in August for its revised recapitalisation plan, which was originally disclosed on 30 June. It featured a directed issue of shares to the two governments totalling SKr2b and a directed issue of hybrid notes amounting to SKr6b, as well as a SKr4b rights issue to eligible shareholders and the conversion of hybrid notes and bonds. The airline later revised the conversion terms and said there would be increased interest payments for hybrid notes placed with the Swedish and Danish governments. SAS says in a 23 October statement that its SKr2.25b debt-to-equity conversion plan to holders of unsecured bonds due in November 2022 resulted in 56.44% of the offered shares being subscribed for. The remaining bonds were converted into new hybrid notes in an aggregate amount of SKr1.6b. Just over 1.7b shares were issued to the Danish and Swedish governments, giving each a 21.8% stake in the carrier. Denmark and Sweden previously held respective stakes of 14.2% and 14.8%. <br/>

In an effort to capture more of the leisure travel market while keeping its fleet active, United Airlines will extend its offering of point-to-point connections between the Northeast and Midwest USA to Florida beyond the winter holiday season. The carrier, which announced the new routes in August, says on 23 October that it will extend the nonstop flights through the end of the traditional US spring break, a period when many winter-weary northerners are looking for a sunny beach escape. The routes are set to begin in November and December, and will now end in early- to mid-April. “Extending our Florida point-to-point schedule reflects our proactive and demand-driven approach to offer more opportunities for customers to get to popular warm-weather destinations,” says United’s VP of domestic planning and scheduling Ankit Gupta. “The extended schedules have been designed with customers in mind and are aligned with holiday and spring break periods in Boston, Cleveland, Columbus, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, New York and Pittsburgh.” By December, the airline will offer 29 daily departures from the seven cities to the Florida destinations Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, Orlando, West Palm Beach and Tampa.<br/>

THAI has outlined a broad plan to its lessors that would involve reductions in both its total fleet size and the number of aircraft types it operates, plus haircuts for lessors, sources have revealed. The carrier’s CFO presented the proposals during a 21 October virtual meeting held over Webex, four of the attendees said. “They are simplifying the fleet and they are asking for the restructuring of all their leases as well,” said one. “The meeting yesterday was mainly an introduction of their restructuring plan and what they are going to do with the fleet in future.” Thai’s fleet includes multiple aircraft types ranging from Boeing 737-400s to Airbus A380s. Market sources have suggested to Cirium that the diversity of aircraft does not make for a sustainable business model, especially in the Covid-19 environment. Requests for proposals will set a 4 November deadline, two of the Webex meeting’s attendees said, giving lessors less than two weeks to present their best offers to the airline. “[They are saying]: ‘This is what we want; what can you offer?’ If you don’t give them what they want and other people do, you have more chance of being rejected. Even if everyone gives them what they want, they don’t want all the aircraft,” said one of the two. Sixteen lessors have exposure to Thai Airways to the tune of 41 aircraft, Cirium fleets data indicate.<br/>

For the first time since air traffic was mostly grounded by the Covid-19 pandemic in March, a palpable buzz was evident in a section of Terminal 3 at Changi Airport when SIA's Restaurant A380 @ Changi opened for business. Customers streamed through the entrance usually reserved for first-class passengers, trading in their passports for a card that indicated seat numbers. Airport security crew were hard at work, screening the constant stream of people before the boarding area. Those who had bottled water were politely asked to empty them, while those who had laptops were asked to take them out at the X-ray scanning machines. Like a normal flight, dozens of cabin crew from Singapore Airlines (SIA), with the stewardesses donning the carrier's signature sarong kebaya, soon arrived to board two waiting Airbus A-380 planes, with luggage in tow. The scene drew applause from about 400 customers who were waiting to board the planes. They were also treated to a mini fashion show put up by other cabin crew who modelled SIA uniforms from the past. The planes did not take off, as the crew went about serving the customers for three hours as SIA launched its first Restaurant A380 experience at Changi Airport. Story has details.<br/>