American Airlines Group is resuming much of its short-distance service to Latin America and starting to bring back longer flights over the next few weeks, building off of its dominance in the region among US rivals. South America is the strongest part of American’s long-haul system amid the coronavirus pandemic “when, admittedly, all of it is relatively weak,” Chief Revenue Officer Vasu Raja said Tuesday. The carrier serves every major city in the region “and most of the secondary and tertiary cities in terms of population,” he said. American is reawakening some of its Latin America service amid a deep slump in long-distance flying caused by the pandemic. While travel demand within the US is at about 40% of last year’s levels, international trips have tumbled even more. Travelers have been discouraged by concerns over new surges of infections and changing rules for entering various countries. “We really like where we are in South America,” Raja said. “We think this is an opportunity for us to bring out more of that network sooner than later, given the innate competitive advantages that we have.” Many short-distance flights to Latin America and the Caribbean have returned, as have longer routes to cities such as Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo and Santiago from Miami, a spokeswoman for American said. The carrier is beginning to expand such flights from Charlotte, North Carolina, according to Raja.<br/>
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American Airlines Group announced a proposed underwritten public offering of 38.5m shares of its common stock on Tuesday, as the airline looks to boost its liquidity amid falling sales during the coronavirus crisis. Sole bookrunner Bank of America has priced the offering at $13 per share, representing a discount of 1.5% to the airline’s closing price on Monday, according to sources. American Airlines said it expects to use the net proceeds from the offering for general corporate purposes. The airline said it expects to end Q4 with more than $14.5b in total available liquidity, up from $13.6b at the end of Q3.<br/>
For many people in Hong Kong, it is hard to imagine the city with its home airline controlled by any group other than Swire Pacific. Alongside Jardine Matheson, Swire is one of two British colonial trading houses that still loom large over the former UK colony. It has run Cathay Pacific Airways for more than 70 years. Under Swire’s stewardship, Cathay grew into one of Hong Kong’s most recognised global brands as the then British colony transformed itself from a sleepy Chinese entrepôt into a dynamic international business and financial hub. But then Hong Kong is rapidly changing in lots of ways that were previously inconceivable, especially as a tough new Chinese national security law adopted in July chips away at the territory’s previously robust civil freedoms. Cathay becoming, say, just another subsidiary of its second-largest shareholder, Beijing flag carrier Air China, would be entirely consistent with the current zeitgeist in Hong Kong. It would also arguably be a good thing for Swire, which is perhaps best thought of as a jumbo jet with four engines. These include a cash-cow property arm, a similarly successful Coca-Cola bottling division, Cathay and a maritime services unit whose fortunes are largely tied to the offshore oil industry. Cathay and the maritime unit have traditionally hedged each other. Low oil prices flatter Cathay’s bottom line but depress servicing demand from offshore oil rigs. When oil prices are high, Cathay suffers but the maritime business booms. As a result, Swire shareholders have traditionally been able to assume at least three of the group’s engines will be firing nicely. But then came Covid-19, which has hit both aviation and oil hard. Worse still for Swire, Cathay was already coming off a terrible year because of the increasingly violent clashes between Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters and police through the second half of 2019. The unrest had a big impact on business and tourist travel to Hong Kong. Story has more.<br/>