A majority of Delta’s shareholders voted in favor of making the airline disclose its climate lobbying efforts, as per preliminary results at the company’s annual general meeting on Thursday. The motion comes amid rising pressure on companies from investors, activists and governments to match global efforts to combat climate change. The shareholder proposal had been backed earlier by Norway’s $1.4t sovereign wealth fund as well as proxy advisers ISS and Glass Lewis, despite the management’s recommendation to reject it.<br/>
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KLM said it intends to reinstate almost all of its international routes this year as vaccine rollouts offer hopes of revival for the travel industry. KLM’s president and CEO Pieter Elbers told CNBC the carrier will also add a new route to Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh, even as the capacity and frequency of all flights remain limited. “We do expect to be back in roughly 90-95% of all the destinations we were flying to prior to Covid,” Elbers said Wednesday. “However, we must say there’s going to be less capacity, so the frequency levels will be significantly lower as compared to the situation in 2019.” The speed and extent of that resumption will vary region by region, depending on vaccination rates, he said. Already, the US domestic air travel market has shown strong signs of recovery amid rising vaccination rates, he said. Europe should follow suit as inoculation levels rise, improving the prospects for transatlantic travel too. Asia, however, will be slower to resume. “Clearly, we do expect that the Europe-Asia part will be slower than some of the other recoveries given the very tight regimes in some of the countries when it comes to quarantines or other measures for inbound travel,” said Elbers. Meanwhile in the Middle East, broadly successful vaccine rollouts will see the company commence its new Riyadh route this summer, after postponing those plans last year.<br/>
Garuda Indonesia put off the payment on its Islamic debt once again, highlighting its financing crunch as the firm tries to avoid bankruptcy. The Southeast Asian airline, struggling as the pandemic depresses air travel worldwide, said it “will continue to defer the periodic distribution amount due June 3,” in a filing to the Singapore stock exchange on Thursday. The state-owned company missed the distribution payment on a $500m sukuk on June 3, and a 14-day grace period ended on Thursday. The Sharia-compliant note due in June 2023 has tumbled around 46 cents on the dollar so far this month to a record low of about 30 cents, prices compiled by Bloomberg show. The Indonesian government said early this month that it’s considering a debt standstill for the carrier to allow it to restructure. <br/>
Vietnam Airlines is on the verge of bankruptcy, the country’s Ministry of Planning and Investment has warned, as losses and debts continue to accumulate while air travel demand fails to rebound. Despite government approval of a VND12t (US$519m) rescue plan aimed at returning the cash-strapped flag carrier to profitability, it is estimated to have sustained a loss of VND10t (US$435m) in the first half of 2021, the ministry said in a draft report on business development in the country during 2020 and the first five months of 2021, released on June 14. Overdue debts have reached VND6.24t (US$272m). Vietnam Airlines, which is 86% government-owned and 8.77% held by Japan’s ANA Holdings, is facing the threat of lawsuits because of its debts, while banks are no longer extending credit to the company, the report said, describing the company’s situation as “extremely dire”.<br/>