United is buying 25 additional Boeing 737 Max planes and taking delivery of other orders earlier than previously planned as it prepares for a recovery in travel demand, the carrier said Monday. “As we plan for the future and the return of demand, we’ve been looking at ways to best position our fleet for the recovery and be in a position to best take advantage of people’s desire to travel,” Andrew Nocella, United’s chief commercial officer, said in a note to staff. In addition to the 25 Boeing 737 Max planes that are slated for delivery in 2023, the airline said it moved up the delivery of 40 other Max jets to 2022 and five others to 2023. In total, United has firm commitments for 188 Maxes, according to a securities filing Monday. The vote of confidence in the jetliner comes just months after the FAA lifted its ban on the planes following two deadly crashes. United, which had 14 Boeing Max 9 jets in its fleet at the time of the March 2019 grounding, started receiving the planes from Boeing again in December, the first carrier to do so. It started commercial flights with those jets last month.<br/>
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Thai Airways International is seeking a capital infusion of as much as 50b baht ($1.65b) under a debt restructuring plan set to be submitted to a bankruptcy court to keep the flag carrier operational, according to people familiar with the matter. The fund may be raised through equity, loans or convertible securities, said the people, who asked to not be identified before the debt plan is submitted to the court in Bangkok on Tuesday. The capital infusion plan will need to be backed by the airline’s hundreds of credit-holders and approved by the court, they said. Under the debt rehabilitation plan discussed by the court-appointed planners, banks and bondholders will have to take minimum haircut on their exposure, the people said. A spokesman for Thai Airways declined to comment on the specifics of the debt rehabilitation plan but said the carrier’s Acting President Chansin Treenuchagron will hold a briefing at 2 pm local time on Tuesday.<br/>
The coronavirus-hit travel unit of Japanese airline group ANA Holdings will cut its capital 900m yen ($8.4m) to 100m yen in yet another move by a company in the travel sector to downsize for tax purposes. The capital reduction of ANA Sales will lessen its tax burden, as it will then be classified as a small or midsize company under Japanese tax law. Shareholders approved the action on Jan. 12., with the reduction to take effect on March 31. ANA Holdings has also decided to transfer ANA Sales in April to ANA X, which oversees mileage management, as part of the group's structural reform. The group hopes to strengthen its travel business by utilizing customer data obtained through airline tickets and mileage programs in the hope of spurring online sales of travel services.<br/>
Singapore’s SilkAir and Singapore Airlines have appointed Skytech-AIC to market for outright sale seven Boeing 737-800s. The aircraft were delivered to SilkAir between 2014 and 2016 and the airline self-manages all the aircraft, according to Cirium fleets data.<br/>