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American Airlines on Wednesday said August revenue is coming in lower than expected as a rise in Covid cases drives down bookings, the latest carrier to warn about the impact of infections on sales. “This has been and we expect will continue to be a very choppy recovery,” said Vasu Raja, American’s chief revenue officer. Raja said that July revenue came in ahead of the airline’s expectations but that the increase in Covid cases has led to weaker near-term bookings and higher cancellations. He added that end-of-year holiday bookings have been strong. The carrier joined Southwest Airlines, Frontier Airlines and Spirit Airlines in warning about lower bookings amid a rise in Covid cases. “Given the fluidity of the current demand environment we are not ready to make definitive adjustments to our capacity plans or guides at this point in time,” Raja said. Business travel generally picks up in the fall. Some companies are delaying a return to offices, however, raising questions about how quickly business travel will recover. “We do anticipate that there will be a...slower recovery in business demand than what we’ve seen, but there will still be a recovery in business demand,” Raja said. He added that end-of-year holiday bookings have been strong.<br/>

Qantas has reported a $1.7b statutory after-tax loss for the 2021 financial year, in which COVID-19 outbreaks kept planes grounded and delayed the airline’s long recovery from the pandemic. The result, which follows a $1.9b loss last year and a $840m profit in 2019, came as revenue fell 58% compared to 2020 - a fall of $12b compared to its pre-pandemic result in 2019. “This loss shows the impact that a full year of closed international borders and more than 330 days of domestic travel restrictions had on the national carrier,” Qantas CE Alan Joyce said. “By the end of this calendar year, it’s likely COVID will cost us more than $20b in revenue. The trading conditions have frankly been diabolical”. Despite the dire financial result, Qantas was optimistic that Australia hitting its 70 per cent vaccination target in November would enable a return to unrestricted domestic travel, and that international travel would gradually resume from December after 80% of the eligible population is vaccinated. Qantas said on Thursday it now planned to resume flights to “COVID-safe destinations” likely to include Singapore, the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, Fiji, and New Zealand and Canada from the middle of December.<br/>

Qantas has confirmed five of its Airbus A380 aircraft will return earlier than expected to operate flights from Australia to Los Angeles and London from mid-2022. The announcement was made following the release of the 2021 financial results of the Qantas Group, which includes both Qantas and Jetstar. It reported an underlying loss before tax of A$1.83b. The airline plans to focus on destinations with high vaccination rates in 2022 including North America, UK, Singapore and Japan. A total of 10 double-decker Airbus A380s with upgraded cabins will return to service, while two will be retired. The airline group said Australia's vaccination rates appear to be on track to meet the threshold of 80% in December 2021, which would trigger the gradual reopening of international borders. Qantas and Jetstar have pushed back plans to relaunch flights to destinations with low vaccination rates or high levels of COVID-19 until April 2022. These include Bali, Jakarta, Manila, Bangkok, Phuket, Ho Chi Minh City and Johannesburg. <br/>