Lufthansa can emerge stronger from the airline industry’s worst crisis since World War II by becoming leaner, CEO Carsten Spohr said. Europe’s largest airline group will become smaller, more efficient and use more modern planes as it manages the fallout from the pandemic that has curbed demand for travel, Spohr told reporters on Saturday at the opening of Berlin’s new airport. “We will certainly want to maintain at least our relative market strength, and maybe even use opportunities from the crisis to improve our global position,” Spohr said. Lufthansa avoided insolvency with a E9b multi-government bailout, among the largest in Europe. More than two-thirds of those funds remain available to help it manage the crisis. To cut costs, Lufthansa has switched to leasing more aircraft, retiring older, fuel-guzzling jets and paring its fleet by about 150 planes to reflect lower demand, especially for lucrative business travel. <br/>
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The Indian government has changed the rules for the Air India bidding process and again extended the timeline, hoping to garner more interest in a sale of the carrier. The government is now inviting bids at enterprise value, on an equity and debt basis, civil aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri announced on 29 Oct at a press conference. Previously, the government had said that any bidder would have to absorb debt of Rs230b. The change means bidders will set the amount of debt that they can absorb, ministers explained in the press conference. Of the enterprise value quoted by bidders, 15% will be given in cash to the government and the remaining 85% will be taken on by the bidder as debt. “This gives more leverage to bidders for participation in the process,” Puri said via his Twitter account on 29 October after the press conference. The deadline for the sale has also been extended again, he says. Expressions of interest will now be sought up to 17:00 (local time) on 14 December and the government will inform qualified interested bidders by 17:00 (local time) on 28 December. This is the second attempt by the government to sell Air India. It had originally planned to sell a 76% stake in 2017. When that was unsuccessful, the government changed track, announcing at the start of 2020 that it was now planning to sell its entire 100% stake and reducing the amount of debt bidders would have to take on to Rs230b from Rs330b. The deadline for the current sale process has been extended several times this year amidst industry disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.<br/>
More than 1000 Air NZ staff have petitioned the airline’s management to save New Zealand jobs and stop outsourcing work, including cabin crew roles to Chinese nationals based in Shanghai. But in response to the “Kia Kaha Aotearoa” petition, signed by 1287 staff, Air NZ CE Greg Foran said the airline would continue to outsource work in order to meet financial objectives set out in its new strategy called Kia Mau. “I have empathy for your sentiment around outsourcing – that everything should be based in New Zealand, but unfortunately that is not always the best or most feasible business outcome,” Foran said Thursday. The call from staff comes following confirmation last week that about 385 international cabin crew would be made redundant, as well as 550 furloughed international cabin crew, who have not worked since July. More than 4000 staff, about a third of the airline’s workforce, have lost their jobs since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. A petition from an Ellie Leonard has also appeared on the New Zealand Parliament website requesting that the House of Representatives urge the Government as majority shareholder (52%) to hold Air NZ accountable for job losses. It has 1452 signatures and closes on November 30. It is not clear if it’s the same petition as the one Foran responded to. “Air New Zealand received a $900m Government loan. Why isn't it retaining employees in NZ and closing its Chinese base?” it said. The airline should be saving New Zealand jobs instead of outsourcing the work, it said. “Air NZ is using Covid as an excuse to clean house and weaken employment agreements.” In Foran’s memo he said the company would continue to utilise a range of business partners to provide specific services. Some to deliver specialised work, others in larger, more involved partnerships, some of which were in New Zealand, some overseas, he said. “We do not though make such partnership decisions lightly.”<br/>