Spirit Airlines is optimistic that it will be one of the first carriers to pull out of the coronavirus-driven industry crisis as leisure travellers begin to return and book vacations in greater numbers. The Miramar, Florida-headquartered ultra low-cost carrier says on 21 April that even though it had widened its loss for the first quarter to $112.3 million, demand had picked up in the final weeks of the period. Last year, the company posted a $27.8m loss in the first quarter, as the Covid-19 pandemic was just beginning to make itself felt in the industry. For 2020, the airline reported a full-year loss of $507.8m. “We were very pleased to see how well both our domestic and international network performed as demand strengthened in the last few weeks of the quarter,” says Ted Christie, the airline’s chief executive. “This strength, along with improvement in forward bookings, drove positive cash from operations for the full first quarter 2021.”<br/>
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Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary expects business travel to make a full recovery from the pandemic, marking him out as one of the most optimistic figures over the future of a lucrative part of the industry that has been wiped out over the past year. O’Leary said he expected corporate travel to return to pre-Covid-19 levels by 2022 unless the pandemic unexpectedly worsened and vaccines did not allow people to travel freely again. “All of these predictions business travel is dead . . . they generally always prove to be wrong,” he said Wednesday. His confidence stood in contrast to several other figures in the airline industry, who have warned that the successful adoption of video conference technology such as Zoom meant the business travel segment would take a long-term hit from the pandemic. Shai Weiss, Virgin Atlantic’s CE, said that he expected a 20% reduction in the coming years, while Jeffrey Goh, CE of Star Alliance, the world’s largest airline group, forecast up to a third of trips would disappear. In normal times, 30% of Ryanair’s passengers were flying on business, with another 30% visiting friends and family and 40% travelling for leisure. O’Leary expected a “small decline” in company executives travelling around the world for internal meetings, which he thinks will be lost to video conferencing.<br/>
Virgin Atlantic Airways is aiming to get all of its planes flying by October or November amid continuing uncertainty over how far Covid-19 border curbs will be eased before the end of the summer. The carrier controlled by billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson is working toward the return to full capacity while awaiting details of UK plans to begin reopening travel from May, CEO Shai Weiss said Wednesday. Virgin Atlantic expects to lose more than GBP1b this year and last combined, but aims to be profitable from 2022 and sustainably so after that, Weiss said. The company has the liquidity to ride out the crisis after two rounds of financing and sales of aircraft, though that would change for all airlines if international travel remained idled for another year, he said. Virgin Atlantic is currently operating 27 aircraft, leaving 10 more, largely A330s, to return to service, a spokeswoman said. Weiss said he sees no reason for any restrictions on travel from Britain to so-called “green list” countries. Opening the vital trans-Atlantic market would require that the US be among the nations listed, along with an American easing of legal barriers to foreign visitors.<br/>
Emirates may need to raise more cash this year, possibly through another equity injection from the Dubai government, if demand for air travel does not pick up soon, its president said on Wednesday. The state carrier had hoped the global vaccine rollout would renew confidence in air travel but demand remains at very low levels, leaving many airlines to ground planes or fly them near-empty. "We are good for another six, seven or eight months in terms of cash. We have sufficient cash coming in to be able to keep the day-to-day operation at a neutral basis," Tim Clark said. "But like everybody else, if in six months global demand is where it is today then we are all going to face difficulties. Not just Emirates."<br/>