American Airlines was warned that it did not have enough pilots to execute its ambitious summer flying schedule, the carrier’s union said, after the cancellation of hundreds of flights drew the ire of passengers. The airline said this week that it would scale back its re-expansion plans after shortcomings were revealed by bad weather over the weekend. Staff shortages meant it could not quickly recover from weather disruption at its main hubs, forcing dozens of flights to be cancelled. American has been the most aggressive of the three largest US carriers to add flights back to its schedule. Boosted by resurgent demand in the domestic market, American planned to sell only 5% fewer seats in July than it did in 2019. The company said on Monday that it was cutting about 1% of its scheduled flights through to mid-July in order “to build in additional resilience”, underscoring the tricky task of carriers in scaling back up activity as the coronavirus pandemic wanes. The Allied Pilots Association, which represents 15,000 pilots at American, said it had warned the airline that it was understaffed as a result of the furlough of employees it briefly imposed and the voluntary leave and early retirements it had accepted to get through the pandemic.<br/>
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It’s the final Wednesday of January 2020, the coronavirus has yet to claim anyone outside of China, and Qantas CEO Alan Joyce is all smiles and handshakes. He’s flown almost two hours north from Sydney to the mining town of Toowoomba to open a pilot academy. In the sweltering heat of the open hangar, he tells a crowd of staff, students and local politicians that graduates will one day captain the giant Airbus A380s or Boeing Dreamliners that anchor the iconic Australian airline’s long-haul network. There’s little mention of the virus that weeks later would lay waste to global aviation. Yet on the plane trip back to Qantas’s headquarters that afternoon, Joyce is already focusing on the looming battle. In an interview from his usual seat -- 1A -- he says he’ll do whatever it takes to come out of the pandemic on top. “It’s survival of the fittest,” he predicts. That was an early glimpse of the determined, even ruthless, approach that has seen Qantas not just survive the biggest crisis in aviation history, but become almost unassailable in its home market. While losses at airlines globally from Covid-19 are set to surpass $174 billion by the end of 2021 -- wiping out half a decade of profits -- Qantas has become one of the most financially secure carriers anywhere in the world. Its stock has surged 120% from a March 2020 low -- almost double the return of the Bloomberg World Airlines Index -- and its market value has swollen to A$8.9b ($6.7b). Qantas says net debt has peaked and it’s on track to deliver an underlying profit for the year ending this month. Story has more.<br/>