Delta is offering to buy back up to $1b of high-cost bonds issued at the height of the pandemic last year, as the company begins to look at ways to scale back its balance sheet. The tender offer is for three bonds issued between April and September 2020, according to a news release. The airline raised cash to survive the crisis as travel collapsed worldwide amid lockdowns to try to contain the Covid-19 outbreak. Story has details of the offer, which investors can choose to accept or not, and shows that the airline is beginning to chip away at its balance sheet that has seen debt swell over the last year. Delta’s adjusted net debt was $18.3b through the June quarter, or $7.8b higher than December 2019, it said in a report earlier this week. The company finally reversed a cash burn and generated $1.5b of cash in the latest quarter. “With improving financial performance and a strong liquidity position, we’re using cash to reduce leverage and non-operating expense while rebuilding unencumbered assets and managing our debt maturity profile,” said interim-CFO Gary Chase in an earnings call on Wednesday.<br/>
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Carrier Italia Trasporto Aereo (ITA) will replace state-owned Alitalia and start flying in mid-October after Italy reached a long-awaited deal with the EC following months of haggling over the fate of the old, loss-making airline. The negotiations focused on making ITA independent of Alitalia to ensure it was not liable for paying back billions of euros the old carrier had received in state aid. ITA, which will be fully operational from Oct. 15, said it will aim to raise initial capital of E700m to buy assets from the old company and begin operating. Following the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the airline industry, demand is beginning to recover but companies are still grounding many aircraft or flying nearly empty The new airline, which was initially supposed to start operating in April, said it expected revenue of just above E3.3b in 2025. It added it would reach earnings before interest and taxes of E209m and a break-even by Q3 2023. ITA will buy assets for its aviation business directly from Alitalia and it will bid in a public tender to acquire the carrier’s brand, which it sees as “an essential element in carrying out its industrial plan” and was one of the European Union requirements for the deal.<br/>