Covid-19; Impact on the aviation industry

dfx-

LXFlyer wrote: »

People are being asked to exercise some social responsibility.

Whether they do or not is being left up to them.

Is it though? Nowhere on the locator form itself or from the DFA does it say that it is "advisory" or "recommended" or left up to you etc.

Gekko

Someone should ask the DAA what they’ve done to make the security process with luggage in trays more hygienic...

Tenger

Gekko wrote: »

Someone should ask the DAA what they’ve done to make the security process with luggage in trays more hygienic...

They made a statement a few weeks back about increased cleaning of security trays.

smurfjed

Qatar Airways have enforced a new 25% reduction in salary and expenses for pilots, they are supposed to start issuing contract termination letters starting tomorrow.

billy few mates

Gekko wrote: »

Someone should ask the DAA what they’ve done to make the security process with luggage in trays more hygienic...

I wonder how security is going to look now, I would imagine there are going to be massive delays if they have to sanitise the trays between users plus have to change gloves between every frisk
Also thinking about the whole airport travel experience might look, the trip from the car park might take some time if they have to enforce social distancing and limit the numbers of people travelling on the buses.
No duty free shops, limited bar and restaurant options.
They'll need two boarding gates per flight to allow adequate space to queue, 189 people queuing two meters apart is a 376 meter straight line or a massive area of space for a snake queue. There'll also be no more queuing on the stairwell where the priority passengers are normally all crammed together waiting for their aircraft to arrive.
All this before you even get on the aircraft.
Air travel is going to be a horrible experience, I won't be doing it again any time soon.

Micky 32

billy few mates wrote: »

I wonder how security is going to look now, I would imagine there are going to be massive delays if they have to sanitise the trays between users plus have to change gloves between every frisk
Also thinking about the whole airport travel experience might look, the trip from the car park might take some time if they have to enforce social distancing and limit the numbers of people travelling on the buses.
No duty free shops, limited bar and restaurant options.
They'll need two boarding gates per flight to allow adequate space to queue, 189 people queuing two meters apart is a 376 meter straight line or a massive area of space for a snake queue. There'll also be no more queuing on the stairwell where the priority passengers are normally all crammed together waiting for their aircraft to arrive.
All this before you even get on the aircraft.
Air travel is going to be a horrible experience, I won't be doing it again any time soon.

We’ll all have to start buying our own private jets;-). I think realistically this year won’t be comfortable traveling. I’m holding off until next spring. Things should be a lot better by then.

Blut2

billy few mates wrote: »

I wonder how security is going to look now, I would imagine there are going to be massive delays if they have to sanitise the trays between users plus have to change gloves between every frisk
Also thinking about the whole airport travel experience might look, the trip from the car park might take some time if they have to enforce social distancing and limit the numbers of people travelling on the buses.
No duty free shops, limited bar and restaurant options.
They'll need two boarding gates per flight to allow adequate space to queue, 189 people queuing two meters apart is a 376 meter straight line or a massive area of space for a snake queue. There'll also be no more queuing on the stairwell where the priority passengers are normally all crammed together waiting for their aircraft to arrive.
All this before you even get on the aircraft.
Air travel is going to be a horrible experience, I won't be doing it again any time soon.

Its a pretty safe we won't be doing any of that. The official distancing recommendation in Ireland will be down to 1 metre this month (as it already is in France/Germany/etc), and will likely be reduced further/ignored more as time goes by afterwards. Airports won't be closing duty free shops, bars, or having multiple 400metre long boarding queues etc either - because they don't right now, nevermind in the future as things are getting laxer every day that goes by.

Realistically it'll just be the same as public transport is in the more responsible countries now - mandatory facemasks, and hand sanitizer dispensers installed all over the place, but thats about it. No distancing enforced, no limitations on numbers etc.

Long term everything is going to be about whats actually sustainable. Smaller, low cost things will stay, but anything hugely expensive/disruptive can't.

Masala

billy few mates wrote: »

I wonder how security is going to look now, I would imagine there are going to be massive delays if they have to sanitise the trays between users plus have to change gloves between every frisk
Also thinking about the whole airport travel experience might look, the trip from the car park might take some time if they have to enforce social distancing and limit the numbers of people travelling on the buses.
No duty free shops, limited bar and restaurant options.
They'll need two boarding gates per flight to allow adequate space to queue, 189 people queuing two meters apart is a 376 meter straight line or a massive area of space for a snake queue. There'll also be no more queuing on the stairwell where the priority passengers are normally all crammed together waiting for their aircraft to arrive.
All this before you even get on the aircraft.
Air travel is going to be a horrible experience, I won't be doing it again any time soon.

There is no point in 2 meter distancing in airports to be then be seated side by side on the aircraft. Face masks and hand santising are compulsory to get over the 2mt and that’s the best airports are going to be doing. They won’t be operating as a Tesco etc and limiting the number of people entering the building or setting up a queuing system outside the building. There will be staff insisting on No Mask No entry and insisting that if you not traveling then no entry. The days of half the village coming to meet Johnny who got a bronze medal for Irish dancing in the Irish dancing is gone. They can meet him in the car park from now on

scooby77

smurfjed wrote: »

Qatar Airways have enforced a new 25% reduction in salary and expenses for pilots, they are supposed to start issuing contract termination letters starting tomorrow.

And further reductions at Emirates, from 1st July all staff above Grade 4 down to 50% of basic pay ( were on 75%). Of course flight pay at 0% for most.

Foggy43

scooby77 wrote: »

And further reductions at Emirates, from 1st July all staff above Grade 4 down to 50% of basic pay ( were on 75%). Of course flight pay at 0% for most.

As you are probably aware BA want to sack 1,130 pilots. Yesterday BA told BALPA they want to increase this by further 125 positions. Cabin crew and ground staff were worried why their unions refused to talk to BA unless BA withdrew the job losses and new T's and C's threat. Now they can see why. Were BALPA wasting their time talking?

Tenger

Certainly looks like BA are using this industry wide crisis to maximise “cost efficiency changes” across their company. No sense of “working together” to get the company through the crisis.
It’s a smash and grab from BA Mgmt.

Hubertj

Tenger wrote: »

Certainly looks like BA are using this industry wide crisis to maximise “cost efficiency changes” across their company. No sense of “working together” to get the company through the crisis.
It’s a smash and grab from BA Mgmt.

so there is a feeling they are making significantly more cuts than required? Would that not backfire medium term as demand increases and they don't have enough pilots, crew, ground staff etc?

IngazZagni

Hubertj wrote: »

so there is a feeling they are making significantly more cuts than required? Would that not backfire medium term as demand increases and they don't have enough pilots, crew, ground staff etc?

It's a game of chicken. Management of lots of airlines are trying to force through long term pay and conditions cuts with the caveat of if you accept these proposals we will limit job losses. Management know this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to massively streamline labour costs.

For example Irelands low cost airline saying they need to sack over 3,000 people but at the same time telling investors they hope to return to 2019 capacity in 2021 albeit at lower fares and load factors. How is that suppose to work with 3,000 less staff?

HTCOne

Tenger wrote: »

Certainly looks like BA are using this industry wide crisis to maximise “cost efficiency changes” across their company. No sense of “working together” to get the company through the crisis.
It’s a smash and grab from BA Mgmt.

It's an absolute disgrace and rank opportunism. I saw a Mixed Fleet cabin crew salary scale after they brought that in, poverty wages. They want to extend the same principle to anyone they can now.

Van.Bosch

HTCOne wrote: »

It's an absolute disgrace and rank opportunism. I saw a Mixed Fleet cabin crew salary scale after they brought that in, poverty wages. They want to extend the same principle to anyone they can now.

There argument is that that’s all they can pay as long as everyone wants to pay 100 return for a weekend away in Europe.

Their profits were skyrocketing before the Covid 19 era so it’s probably somewhere in between.

Irish Steve

Van.Bosch wrote: »

There argument is that that’s all they can pay as long as everyone wants to pay 100 return for a weekend away in Europe.

Their profits were skyrocketing before the Covid 19 era so it’s probably somewhere in between.

An interview with Willie Walsh on Sky over the weekend made the point that BA operated just under 500 flights in the entire month of April (or May, can't remember the specifics), and that they'd operated more than that number of flights on the 1 of the same month last year before lunchtime.



The total cost of the operation on a day to day basis is eye watering, staff costs are only one (significant) part of the overall costs of the operation, and if they want to survive, they are having to slice huge chunks out of every aspect of their operation, and hope that they will be able to get back into operation before their reserves run out.

HTCOne

Irish Steve wrote: »

An interview with Willie Walsh on Sky over the weekend made the point that BA operated just under 500 flights in the entire month of April (or May, can't remember the specifics), and that they'd operated more than that number of flights on the 1 of the same month last year before lunchtime.



The total cost of the operation on a day to day basis is eye watering, staff costs are only one (significant) part of the overall costs of the operation, and if they want to survive, they are having to slice huge chunks out of every aspect of their operation, and hope that they will be able to get back into operation before their reserves run out.

Which is all true and fine, and why several other aviation companies are entering collective agreements with their staff for voluntary redundancies, unpaid leave, and temporary slashed pay by 50% and other Ts and Cs which are reversed once key milestones are met. It would be fine for BA to say such and such will be reversed once our profit margin returns to x %, or our load factor to y %, but what they are doing is gutting staff so they can wipe out the competition when things pick up. They are getting even with the pilots in particular after last year's shenannigans.

The US3 operate LIFO when furloughing. When things pick up and they need more staff, the first people they call are those they let go. Maybe they'll never need them again, but it's a collective system.

If BA's cost base is significantly lower than their rivals, they'll drive them out of business , because them flying routes at a loss will be so far below what others can do, it will be terminal. BA have a history every bit as predatory as Ryanair.

titan18

British government aren't looking very favourably on it. Talk of taking back the free Heathrow slots from some members of parliament. It's all a giant PR hit for them to be seen as taking advantage of the pandemic

scooby77

Redundancies under way at Emirates. No definite figures yet. Email yesterday, individual meetings this morning...90 days notice, no rehire option. Flight deck, cabin crew and engineering.

Van.Bosch

scooby77 wrote: »

Redundancies under way at Emirates. No definite figures yet. Email yesterday, individual meetings this morning...90 days notice, no rehire option. Flight deck, cabin crew and engineering.

What kind of terms?

WishUWereHere

scooby77 wrote: »

Redundancies under way at Emirates. No definite figures yet. Email yesterday, individual meetings this morning...90 days notice, no rehire option. Flight deck, cabin crew and engineering.

What kind of numbers being mentioned?

scooby77

Flight Deck: I heard up to 700, prune saying 900. Difference could be those in training already let go. Mainly A380. Not first in last out, some senior let go. Apparently any previous disciplinary issues, attendance, illness etc a factor. 90 days on whatever pay currently on with housing, then 29 days grace to stay as per law. Standard end of service benefits, no extras. No right of appeal.No right to rehiring.

Cabin Crew: impossible to say, I've heard a range of figures, highest 7000 but that's speculative. Again anyone with current or previous disciplinary, attendance etc 1st to go. Same deal, no extra benefits.
Harder to get facts re cabin crew, obviously thousands of them, very disparate re nationality, language even areas living in. No union, no one forum for information. Obviously most my info from those might be described as "Westerners"
No figures on engineering yet.

980 sacked. 180 last week were student FOs let go from their courses. 800 today were pilots. 90 days and done. 28-29 days after your last day you have to be out of the country as visa expires unless the country enters lockdown. You can ask for 50% of your end of contract bonus to be paid now to help organise getting your family and stuff home.

Clareman

From the Clare forum, maybe of interest here

Brennans Row wrote: »

Limerick aircraft company given permission to seek arrangement with creditors (Irish Examiner)

The High Court has given Irish based aircraft company Nordic Aviation Capital the go ahead to seek to enter into a scheme of arrangement with its creditors.

The NAC group of companies is the largest lessor of aircraft to regional airlines, and the 5th largest aircraft lessor in the world, and employs over a 100 people at its Limerick Headquarters.

Nordic Aviation Capital DAC wants to enter into scheme with its lenders due to the dire effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the aviation industry.

If approved the scheme will secure a six to 12 month standstill on millions of euro in principle and interest payments due by NAC to its lenders of approximately €5 billion of debt.

The scheme will also allow the group, which owns approximately 500 aircraft to continue to operate.

Some 65 of the group's 75 customers are seeking various concessions on its aircraft leasing agreements.

Sheep Shagger

Cathay Pacific gets a $5bn bail out from the Hong Kong government.

Wonder if they will ever fly here again?

MickeyLeari

Could IAG let Aer Lingus go? Could we see Aer Lingus renationalised?

Widdensushi

As bad as things are Ryanair would probably take over aer lingus if given the opportunity, any rules about competition etc are obviously gone out the window

Tenger

MickeyLeari wrote: »

Could IAG let Aer Lingus go? Could we see Aer Lingus renationalised?

Not a chance.
Why would IAG get rid of an efficient profitable airline?

MickeyLeari

Tenger wrote: »

Not a chance.
Why would IAG get rid of an efficient profitable airline?

Because of the current situation. No airline is profitable and there is massive uncertainty.

opinionated3

Lufthansa to make over 22000 staff redundant. Wonder if that will affect any of their three MRO sites in Ireland?