United said Thursday it was moving forward with plans to outsource its catering operations following a six-month review, similar to other airlines’ strategies. United said it has selected three suppliers to operate the airline’s five kitchens and oversee menu design and administration. The airline’s staff were informed of the decision in a memo reviewed by Reuters. Employees in good standing would be offered a job at one of the future suppliers and about 70% would continue to have union representation, according to the memo. “We wanted to proceed in a way that allowed us to protect the vast majority of jobs for our United catering team members, and invest in solutions that significantly improve our customers’ onboard experience,” United’s VP of customer innovation and strategy and catering, Mandeep Grewal, told staff. United expects to initiate the transition in October - when federal payroll aid that prohibited airline job cuts expires - and be working with its new partners by mid-November.<br/>
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Singapore Airlines faces an uneven road to recovery as the more contagious delta variant of the new coronavirus and a persisting pandemic threaten to upend the resumption of mass travel worldwide. The Singapore Exchange-listed company on Thursday reported a net loss of S$409m Singapore dollars (US$302m) for the April to June quarter -- the first in its new financial year, after racking up an annual net loss of S$4.27b the year before. "The growing pace of mass vaccination exercises across many countries provides hope for further recovery in international air travel demand," SIA said in a press release. "However, the risk of new variants and fresh waves of COVID-19 infections in key markets remains a concern." During Q2, SIA showed in an SGX filing that it was operating at 24% to 28% of pre-COVID passenger capacity across the group -- still a far cry from its days before the pandemic, but an improvement over the 3% to 5% of pre-COVID capacity it experienced in the same period a year ago. The S$409m net loss in itself was also already an improvement over the $1.12b in losses it sustained over the same quarter a year ago. "Border controls and travel restrictions remained largely in place," SIA noted of the three months to June. It expects passenger capacity to be around 33% of pre-COVID levels in the July to September quarter. By the end of September, the company said it expects to serve around 50% of the points that were part of its passenger network before the onset of the pandemic. SIA re-instated services to Cape Town in July, as well as services to Manchester and Rome. Scoot, its budget subsidiary, re-introduced flights to Sydney in July as well, and will resume flights to Berlin in August subject to regulatory approvals. Story has more details.<br/>