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The CE of United Airlines warned that air travellers can expect continued chaos this year and that competitors have sold more flights than they can realistically operate. The airline industry is dealing with constraints that will limit flying this year, Scott Kirby told investors on an earnings call. The winter storm that precipitated a meltdown at Southwest Airlines caused problems at other airlines too, and structural changes in the industry mean problems are likely to continue, particularly at low-cost carriers. Airlines that try to fly as much as they did in 2019 will be forced to cancel flights, Kirby said Wednesday. The reasons include shortages of both pilots and new aircraft, to higher levels of staff felled by sickness, and outdated technology at airlines and their main regulator, the US FAA. “Any airline that tries to run with the same staffing level that it had pre-pandemic is bound to fail and likely to tip over to meltdown anytime there or weather or air traffic control stresses,” Kirby said. “There are a number of airlines who cannot fly their schedules and their customers are paying the price.” There is “a new math for airlines” that means carrying higher costs to run a more reliable operation, Kirby said. United forecast that for 2023 its cost to fly one seat one mile, excluding the expense of jet fuel, would total about 12 cents — 15% higher than in 2019. The company is spending more because it needs to allot for more pilots and more aircraft to generate the same amount of flight capacity as it did prior to the pandemic. “It’s a new world,” he said. “You can’t run the airline like you did in 2019.”<br/>

United Airlines’ CE Scott Kirby.believes the dramatic shift in operating environment for airlines following the Covid-19 pandemic requires new ways of doing business. “Our industry has changed profoundly by the pandemic, and you can’t run your airline like it’s 2019 or you will fail,” Kirby said on the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call on 18 January. Ongoing staff shortages, technological shortcomings and supply chain constraints are just a few of the numerous issues that have contributed to structural changes in the industry, which, he says, is not going to achieve its 2023 capacity targets. “Pilots are and will remain a significant constraint on capacity,” Kirby says. Since Covid, all airlines will need to staff their operations at higher levels. That means they are hiring more employees, which will inevitably have lower experience levels than previously. In addition, higher sick rates will impact the system more over time. “Covid hit our industry harder than others, and all [airlines] lost experienced employees and did not invest in the future,” Kirby says. “Any airline that tries to run at the same staffing levels pre-pandemic is likely to fail when there are stresses in the system. This is the new reality and the new math for airlines." The cracks show especially when there are additional strains in the system, such as the severe winter storm which paralysed air traffic across the country during last month’s busy end-of-year holiday travel season. While all airlines were affected by the inclement weather, some had more issues than others. Southwest, for example cancelled more than 16,700 flights between 21 December and 31 December as its decades-old software lost track of the locations of flight crews and aircraft. It took days for the airline to reset its network. Government officials blasted Southwest for the snafu, and called for an investigation of the matter. “The weather was what broke the camel’s back for them,” Kirby says. United is currently operating with “five to 10% staffing buffers” as well as 25% more spare aircraft than pre-pandemic, and higher aircraft utilisation, Kirby says. <br/>

United Airlines hopes to soon restore non-stop service to mainland China after that country lifted all Covid-19-related travel restrictions earlier this month. But the Chicago-based carrier said on 18 January that it’s still waiting for approval to increase the number of flights it may operate between the USA and China. “We intend to convert our one-stop service to non-stop service sometime in the next few weeks,” says United chief commercial officer Andrew Nocella. “We do not have rights to increase our service any further. At this point there’s no green light to go beyond what we are currently flying.” United currently flies four-times-weekly between San Francisco and Shanghai with a stopover in Seoul. Prior to the pandemic, United served Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu with numerous weekly connections from its hubs at San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington DC, Chicago and Newark. Airlines cut most flights to Asia in March 2020 as the global coronavirus pandemic nearly brought the industry to its knees. While US carriers have gradually been returning capacity to other parts of Asia as markets have reopened, non-stop service to China has remained severely limited due to the latter’s only-recently eased zero-Covid policy. Earlier this month, Delta CE Ed Bastian said that carrier will “not going to get ahead of ourselves” in restoring capacity to China even though the airline’s international recovery is “well underway”. Pre-pandemic, Delta operated flights to China from Atlanta, Detroit, Seattle and Los Angeles, according to Cirium data. China lifted all coronavirus-related travel restrictions on 8 January after almost three years. <br/>

Lufthansa said it submitted an offer Wednesday for a minority stake in Italy’s ITA Airways Spa, formerly Alitalia. The Italian finance ministry said in a statement that the Lufthansa offer was the only one submitted by Wednesday’s deadline. No financial terms were disclosed. Lufthansa said it would have the option to buy remaining shares at a later date. ITA Airlines, and before it Alitalia, has been looking for an industrial partner as its domestic business has suffered under competition from low-cost airlines. Other offers have fallen by the wayside. ITA officially launched in October 2021 after bankrupt flag carrier Alitalia landed its final flight, ending a 74-year business history with a series of inglorious deals that never managed to restore the carrier to health. Already, Lufthansa operates Air Dolomiti in northern Italy, which funnels long distance traffic from airports such as Milan’s Malpensa, Verona’s Valerio Catullo and Venice’s Marco Polo to connections in Munich and Frankfurt. “For Lufthansa Group, Italy is the most important market outside of its home markets and the US,″ Lufthansa said in a statement. ”Italy’s importance for both business and private travel lies in its strong export-oriented economy and status as one of Europe’s top vacation spots.”<br/>

Ethiopian Airlines plans to launch its first service to Atlanta this summer, with four flights weekly to the US city from mid-May. The Star Alliance carrier already operates passenger flights to Chicago, Newark, New York-JFK and Washington-Dulles, and to Toronto in Canada, either directly or via intermediate stops in Africa or Europe. The airline plans to operate its Atlanta service, which is to launch on 16 May, from Addis Ababa via a stop in Dublin on the outbound leg and non-stop on the return. Ethiopian CE Mesfin Tasew says: “We are truly delighted to open our sixth gateway in North America with the new flight to Atlanta. We have been connecting the US and Africa for 25 years now and the new service will help boost the investment, tourism, diplomatic and socio-economic bonds between the two regions.” Cirium schedules data show no other carriers operate non-stop flights between Ethiopia and North America. Ethiopian will deploy Boeing 787-9 jets on the route, its website shows.<br/>