Delta expects US corporations to reopen for business no later than Labor Day and resume domestic travel at levels from before the pandemic by July of next year. Domestic travel is at about 30% of 2019 levels but will quickly rebound once workers return to offices, CEO Ed Bastian said Thursday. Trans-Atlantic travel will begin to return in the second half, and other long-distance trips next year, he said. “No one is going to be waiting for the government to say now is the right time to travel,” Bastian said at a Sanford C. Bernstein conference. “Businesses are going to be making those decisions and pushing their people out on the road, and I think there’s going to be a renaissance of business travel in our country.” Corporate demand is particularly important to Delta, which reaped about 50% of its passenger revenue from business customers in 2019. International corporate travel is especially lucrative. Air travel was nearly wiped out in the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, with demand recovering in fits and starts since then. While Bastian continues to expect that videoconferencing will reduce corporate travel 20% to 30%, “that doesn’t mean the overall volume” will be at the same level. Business travel eventually will be in line with figures from before the pandemic, he said. “The mix is going to change, the nature of the travel is going to change,” Bastian said. “These tools are going to be a complement to business travel going forward. They’re not going to be a substitute for business travel.”<br/>
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No explosive device has been found aboard an Air France airplane that arrived from Chad escorted by the French army following an anonymous threat about the possible presence of such a device, Interior Minister Gerard Darmanin said in a tweet on Thursday. "No explosive device has been found aboard the Air France Ndjamena-Paris plane, end of operation", Darmanin said. Air France said that following the threat, Air France Flight AF865 from N'Djamena to Paris had been escorted by a French Air Force fighter plane and had landed at the Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport.<br/>
Garuda Indonesia will seek suspension of debt payments in an attempt to avoid going bankrupt, an official at the country's Ministry of State Owned Enterprises said on Thursday. Kartika Wirjoatmodjo, deputy minister for state-owned enterprises, told a parliamentary hearing that the airline and the government have "appointed legal consultants and financial consultants to start this process" and that it is "imperative to immediately implement a moratorium or standstill [of debt payments] in the near future." Wirjoatmodjo added that if the majority state-owned carrier cannot reach an agreement with its creditors, it may go bankrupt. The deputy minister said Garuda's non-consolidated debt of $4.5b made the country's flagship carrier virtually insolvent, and with the airline losing $100m a month, "a fundamental restructuring" is needed. "We are intensively talking with management, including minority shareholders and the Ministry of Finance, how the restructuring process of Garuda in the future should be able to reduce this debt" to around $1b to $1.5b, he said. Details on any debt moratorium are yet to be decided, but may include lease payments as well.<br/>
Vietnam Airlines has announced plans to sell 11 Airbus A321s through a competitive tender. The airline announced the proposal in a statement on its web site, and has asked for bids by 29 June 2021. Cirium fleets data indicates that Vietnam Airlines has fleet of 107 aircraft, of which 50 are A321s. The average age of the A321 fleet is 9.9 years. The aircraft on sale are the oldest A321s in the Vietnam Airline’s fleet, with an average age of 14.4 years. The aircraft are powered by IAE V2500s. All are listed as in service apart from the aircraft bearing the MSN 2261.<br/>