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The basic salaries of Singapore Airlines (SIA) pilots will be gradually restored to pre-Covid-19 levels by January next year as demand for air travel returns with the reopening of borders around the world. An SIA spokesman confirmed on Tuesday that the airline has signed a new agreement with its pilots' union, the Air Line Pilots Association - Singapore (Alpa-S). Under this agreement, which took effect on April 1, basic salaries of SIA pilots will be progressively restored over a nine-month period ending on Dec 31. By then, almost three years would have passed since the national carrier had to implement pay cuts and other staff measures to reduce expenditure during the early stages of the pandemic in 2020. For senior management and board members, however, salary reductions of up to 30% will continue to remain in effect, SIA's spokesman said. According to an internal circular issued by Captain C. E. Quay, SIA's senior vice-president of flight operations, and Alpa-S president Subramaniam Ramanathan, captains on re-employment contracts have had their pay cut reduced to 26.3%. Before the new agreement, 50% of their pre-pandemic basic pay was docked. This will go down to 17.5% from July, and then to 8.8 per cent from October, before basic salaries are fully restored from next January. For other captains and first officers, the reduction in pay cuts will depend on their salary band. For instance, since April, the pay cut for captains was reduced from between 15 per cent and 18.5% to between 7.5% and 9.8%. This will go down to between 5 and 6.5% from July, and then down to between 2.5 and 3.3% from October.<br/>

Air New Zealand says its rights offer was 88% subscribed, and it will enter a trading halt on Wednesday morning as it looks to find owners for 274m shares which were not taken up by shareholders under the offer. In early April the national carrier launched a $1.2b rights offer as part of a $2.2b recapitalisation plan to help repay its debts and improve liquidity. On Tuesday evening the airline said the rights offer period ended on Monday, and it had started undertaking a bookbuild for about 274m shares not taken up. The rights offer was expected to be completed on Monday. The bookbuild price will be determined by Air New Zealand in consultation with the offer underwriters on Wednesday and will be equal to or above the rights offer price of 53 cents per new share. Air New Zealand chair Dame Therese Walsh said the offer received strong support. Applications were received for a further $71m in over-subscriptions from existing shareholders applying for more shares than their allocation, she said. “We're very pleased with the level of take up.” Air New Zealand CE Greg Foran said there were encouraging signs in recent passenger booking activity on short haul and international services as a result of New Zealand’s border reopening.<br/>