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Lufthansa said on Thursday it further narrowed its losses in the second quarter and recorded its first positive cash flow since the start of the coronavirus crisis, citing faster than planned cost cuts. The group, which also owns Eurowings, Swiss, Brussels and Austrian Airlines, said its adjusted operating loss narrowed to E952m, down 43% from a year earlier and lower than the E971m forecast on average in a company-provided poll. Revenue came in at E3.2b against a E3.3b forecast. Lufthansa, which in June laid out plans to return to profitability with fewer planes and staff than it had before the coronavirus pandemic pummelled the travel industry, said it continued to expect high demand for tourist destinations and recovery in business travel in the second half of the year. The group reported adjusted cash inflow of E340m in Q2 after a E1.13b outflow a year earlier. “We have been able to stop the outflow of funds in the current phase of reviving our business and generate a positive cash flow for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic,” CE Carsten Spohr said. The group said its airlines carried 7m passengers in the quarter ending June 30, 18% of the pre-crisis levels in 2019, but as planned offered capacity gradually improved over the quarter to reach 40% at the end of June. Lufthansa also confirmed its target to reach 40% capacity level for the entire year 2021, with the operating loss significantly below last year’s nearly E5.5b. The airline said it has already reached half of the E3.5b in cost cuts targeted by 2024, six months earlier than planned, citing better than expected uptake of voluntary redundancy programs in Germany and Switzerland.<br/>

Austrian Airlines will axe another 500 jobs, downsizing by 20%, following a mid-year loss of E95m (US$112.4m) as the COVID-19 health crisis continues to impact the carrier despite an increase in summer bookings. Presenting the company’s results for the first half of 2021, Chief Executive Officer Alexis von Hoensbroech said the company would in total shed 1,350 full-time employees, 850 of whom had already left through attrition. He told Austrian ORD TV that excess positions amongst flight- and technical crews and administrative staff would likely be affected. The company had already shrunk by 9% to 6,132 employees compared to 6,999 at the same time in 2019. “Virus variants, the travel restrictions often associated with them, and low demand for long-distance and business travel are clearly slowing down the recovery of the aviation industry. The increasing number of bookings in summer gives us some breathing space, but the crisis does not allow us to breathe a sigh of relief,” he said. Revenue of E126m in 2Q21 represented a 79% decline compared to 2Q19, although it was 260% higher than the E35m earned in 2Q20 during two weeks of minimal operation in June 2020.<br/>

Copa Holdings, parent of Panama’s Copa Airlines, achieved a small profit during Q2 2021 as operations began to normalise following the long Covid-19-driven disruption. But travel restrictions in many countries in Latin America are continuing to drag on the company’s ability to reinstate flights, preventing it from quickly returning to 2019 levels. The Panama City-headquartered carrier earned a $28m profit in three months ending on 30 June, it says on 5 August. Revenue for the quarter came in at $304m, down 53% from the $645m it earned in the same period in pre-coronavirus 2019. But the two diverging trends that Copa reported in Q1 – some countries opening travel, others locking down further – continues, CE Pedro Heilbron says during the company’s Q2 earnings call. “The story has not changed much. Several countries have maintained, and in some cases increased, travel restrictions, which has affected our ability to reinstate capacity,” Heilbron says. The industry, he adds, “still faces significant challenges” in Latin America. “Practically every market has some sort of travel restrictions,” Heilbron says. Some countries have testing requirements, some require quarantines. “Where we are most affected is when countries like Argentina restrict the number of flights... The open markets – like Brazil, Mexico and the US for most origins – those markets are seeing a faster recovery than the ones that have higher restrictions.” <br/>

South African Airways has taken a step closer to resuming operations after the country’s civil aviation regulator renewed the carrier’s operating licence. While SAA is still to set a restart date, its interm chief executive Thomas Kgokolo last month described securing the AOC as the key precursor to the carrier being able to restart operations. ”This is an important development as SAA readies itself to take to the skies again in just a few weeks,” Kgokolo says in announcing the operating licence has been renewed. “Our staff are hard at work in finishing the final preparatory phases before we make an official announcement about the exact take-off date. “While I acknowledge there is frustration over a delay in confirming this date, all of us at SAA need to make sure vital components in a very complicated and multi-faceted process are working seamlessly before we start. I’m confident that we will be able to make that announcement soon.” Kgokolo previously said the carrier intended to initially resume cargo flights, before returning to passenger operations. He says the airline, which entered a formal business rescue process in the autumn of 2019 and for whom new investors were identified in June, expects to resume operations with a fleet of eight aircraft. Passenger operations in South Africa were themselves further curtailed in recent weeks after a spike in Covid cases prompted a ban on leisure travel between provinces in the country. That restriction was eased in late July.<br/>

South Korean budget carriers may get a chance to fly to Mongolia as the government plans to double flight capacity between the two capital regions from next summer and invite more airliners to the line currently serviced by full-service carriers Korean Air Lines and Asiana. According to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport on Thursday, Korea and Mongolia have recently agreed to double direct flight seats to and from Incheon and Ulaanbaatar from weekly 2,500 to 5,000 during peak June-September season from next year. The flight openings could become available beyond full-service carriers. Jeju Air had briefly operated irregular flight to Mongolia in 2019. Asiana Airlines was invited to run flights between the two capital regions from 2019 to address to monopoly issue from exclusive flight by Korean Air Lines since opening in 1995. But the monopoly issue reemerged as Asiana Airlines would go under Korean Air Lines. Since its launch, Asiana Airlines had charged fares 10% cheaper, sending Korean Air Lines to cut its rate 20%.<br/>