Covid-19; Impact on the aviation industry

Tenger

WishUWereHere wrote: »

......
Also, and here I'm not sure, but isn't there a 'bubble' between Ireland and Portugal? And yes, I also think the 2nd home reasoning You mention, might also be a factor.....

Not yet there isnt, but maaybe soon;

https://www.newstalk.com/news/spain-portugal-set-air-bridge-ireland-1033901?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR1m0xPcNjyWXwA7ZyolB-6vFDlWlukb9hNPkWCovu4XVo49r6seTjI75No#Echobox=1592657828

MickeyLeari wrote: »

Pressure will mount shortly on the Irish Government.

I wonder is Lufthansa creating the model with Brussels Airlines?

Pressure from where exactly?

And what "model" are you referring to. It was the IAG CEO who mentioned "carving off airlines" in order to avail of state aid.

MickeyLeari

Tenger wrote: »

Not yet there isnt, but maaybe soon;

https://www.newstalk.com/news/spain-portugal-set-air-bridge-ireland-1033901?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR1m0xPcNjyWXwA7ZyolB-6vFDlWlukb9hNPkWCovu4XVo49r6seTjI75No#Echobox=1592657828




Pressure from where exactly?

And what "model" are you referring to. It was the IAG CEO who mentioned "carving off airlines" in order to avail of state aid.

Lufthansa have indicated they may let Brussels Airlines go - they are effectively passing the parcel to the Belgian Government to nationalise or part nationalise.

Given the similar structures for EI and Brussels Airlines within IAG and Lufthansa, I expect that the corporate thinking will be similar. For part nationalisation to even be considered by the Irish Government (and that is the model DG Comp agreed with Lufthansa), there needs to be some pressure on the Government - job losses and strategic interest are likely to be those pressures.

Obviously speculation but it will be a very interesting week for Irish aviation.

Sheep Shagger

Tenger wrote: »

Exhausting your warchest while rivals get state aid isnt a great move going forward. That warchest is for acquisitions later on.
Better to negotiate for state aid from a strong position rather than beg like some of your rivals. This protects your cash reserves which give you resilience compared to others.

Indeed, if they dont get state aid soon they will literally go bust.

Obviously hard for EU states to be giving money to someone like IAG who have multiple airlines hence the idea to separate some airlines from the group so they can individually be given state aid in a ring fenced manner.

Clearly IE should not be giving money to help out BA or Iberia.

WishUWereHere

Came across the following this evening:

https://paxex.aero/2020/06/norwegian-set-to-restart-european-services-from-1-july/?utm_campaign=PAXEX.AERO%2BEXTRA&utm_medium=email&utm_source=PAXEX.AERO_EXTRA_35

Are Norwegian gone for good from Dublin? I was out in St. Margaret's today and saw the tail of one of their planes parked up among a heap of FR planes.

Or, is it far too early to make any assumptions?

Tenzor07

WishUWereHere wrote: »

Are Norwegian gone for good from Dublin? I was out in St. Margaret's today and saw the tail of one of their planes parked up among a heap of FR planes.

Those are two grounded 737 Max stranded there along with all other Max aircraft.

I believe they used to run services between Dublin and Denmark before Covid.

All other Norwegian Airline services are suspended indefinitely out of Dublin as far as I know.

x567

Pleasant surprise today - a full refund from a Latam ticket. Had thought that was a gonner given their chapter 11 filing...

Inquitus

x567 wrote: »

Pleasant surprise today - a full refund from a Latam ticket. Had thought that was a gonner given their chapter 11 filing...

Probably IATA backed.

Zonda999

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/make-way-for-summer-government-taskforce-says-non-essential-air-travel-ban-should-be-lifted-on-july-1-39308901.html

If this is the case, I think there will be a big increase in demand for flights next month effective immediately.

Nijmegen

Zonda999 wrote: »

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/make-way-for-summer-government-taskforce-says-non-essential-air-travel-ban-should-be-lifted-on-july-1-39308901.html

If this is the case, I think there will be a big increase in demand for flights next month effective immediately.

Health warning that it’s an industry aligned task force rather than public health officials. And by the sounds of it, US is gonna be off the cards if EU extends the ban (even if we have the option to opt out thanks to common travel area, we likely wouldn’t I suspect for fear of it happening the other way round.)

bk

Nijmegen wrote: »

Health warning that it’s an industry aligned task force rather than public health officials. And by the sounds of it, US is gonna be off the cards if EU extends the ban (even if we have the option to opt out thanks to common travel area, we likely wouldn’t I suspect for fear of it happening the other way round.)

Leo was on Primetime last night, he said he hadn't even read the report and reiterated the danger of leaving in cases by flying, but they might look at the air bridge idea.

I don't think this report or task force has much weight in this matter.

Tenzor07

bk wrote: »

Leo was on Primetime last night, he said he hadn't even read the report and reiterated the danger of leaving in cases by flying, but they might look at the air bridge idea.
I don't think this report or task force has much weight in this matter.

Varadkar won't be the taoiseach for much longer if the program for Govt. is agreed soon, so i'd expect to see the recommendations to be approved.

Ireland can't be the outlier in Europe and be weeks or more behind other EU countries..

RocketRaccoon

Swissport in UK and Ireland reducing staff levels by 53%. Over 4500 staff will be out of work.

bk

Tenzor07 wrote: »

Varadkar won't be the taoiseach for much longer if the program for Govt. is agreed soon, so i'd expect to see the recommendations to be approved.

Ireland can't be the outlier in Europe and be weeks or more behind other EU countries..

He will be Tanaiste and a senior member of cabinet and most importantly he is just repeating what NPHET and all the public health experts are saying.

I don't see FF or the Greens going against NPHET and disagreeing with Leo or FG who will still be in government with them and have a big say.

Greens are anti-aviation anyway and FF won't want to be seen to mess up and undo the good work that FG have achieved.

The point I was making is just because one "government" advisory council says something doesn't mean anything. The government is full of such councils and bodies and they often make conflicting recommendations.

In the end, it will be up to the cabinet to make this decision. They will of course take into account this report, but they will also take the advice of NPHET and other public health officials and they will likely look to what the rest of Europe is doing.

The EU doesn't seem to be all that enthusiastic about aviation either at the moment, given that it looks like they are about to restrict flights from the US, etc.

I do think we will see some movement on reducing restrictions to fellow EU countries with low number of cases. But I wouldn't expect much more then that.

Tenzor07

bk wrote: »

I don't see FF or the Greens going against NPHET and disagreeing with Leo or FG who will still be in government with them and have a big say.Greens are anti-aviation anyway and FF won't want to be seen to mess up and undo the good work that FG have achieved.
In the end, it will be up to the cabinet to make this decision. They will of course take into account this report, but they will also take the advice of NPHET and other public health officials and they will likely look to what the rest of Europe is doing.The EU doesn't seem to be all that enthusiastic about aviation either at the moment, given that it looks like they are about to restrict flights from the US, etc.
I do think we will see some movement on reducing restrictions to fellow EU countries with low number of cases. But I wouldn't expect much more then that.

Yea so the politicians have to weigh up the advise from the medical/HSE side and make a Political decision. However right now strong political leadership isn't what we have, so decisions made by a panel of Civil Servants/Hse medical specialists are leading what's happening in the country.
The fact that we're in the EU, we have open borders, we have other EU countries allowing Irish citizens quarantine free travel, we have a low infection rate, we have 10's of thousands of Aviation jobs at risk, and the same for Hospitality jobs.
The time for the Political administration to make travel agreements is now, not in a number of weeks time, €millions per day is being lost out of this decision and we need the 14 day quarantine lifted now for all EU countries who allow Irish citizens to travel.

How long will it be before individual EU members ignore the EU-US travel ban?
And if for example the U.K allow Americans into the country there's nothing to stop them travelling onwards by boat/plane/car into Ireland or elsewhere.

bk

Tenzor07 wrote: »

Yea so the politicians have to weigh up the advise from the medical/HSE side and make a Political decision. However right now strong political leadership isn't what we have, so decisions made by a panel of Civil Servants/Hse medical specialists are leading what's happening in the country.

What are you talking about, we have very strong political leadership at the moment. They have done a really good job bringing the rate of infection way down here and there is pretty much cross party support for all the steps that have been taken.

If the PfG is passed (a big if given the Greens), then politically little changes. It is still going to be primarily FG + FF as it currently is, with just the anti aviation Greens thrown into the mix. Little will change in this regard.

Tenzor07 wrote: »

The time for the Political administration to make travel agreements is now, not in a number of weeks time, €millions per day is being lost out of this decision and we need the 14 day quarantine lifted now for all EU countries who allow Irish citizens to travel.

When it comes to a virus like this, it is better to be conservative. Leave others countries go first and see if there are any issues or outbreak of the virus due to travel restrictions being lifted is helpful for us to avoid making deadly mistakes.

Tenzor07 wrote: »

How long will it be before individual EU members ignore the EU-US travel ban?
And if for example the U.K allow Americans into the country there's nothing to stop them travelling onwards by boat/plane/car into Ireland or elsewhere.

From what I've read, the way that the system works is any country that ignores the ban, then they get banned from the rest of Europe themselves.

So we get to choose, do we allow unrestricted travel from the US, Brazil, etc. and then get restricted from travelling around Europe. Or do we restrict travel from US, Brazil, but gain less restricted access to the rest of Europe.

I think if you did a poll of Irish people in the morning, there would be almost no public support to leave folks from the US, Brazil, etc. into Ireland given how bad things are currently over there. Politically this is a relatively easy decision.

Tenzor07

bk wrote: »

What are you talking about, we have very strong political leadership at the moment. They have done a really good job bringing the rate of infection way down here and there is pretty much cross party support for all the steps that have been taken.
If the PfG is passed (a big if given the Greens), then politically little changes. It is still going to be primarily FG + FF as it currently is, with just the anti aviation Greens thrown into the mix. Little will change in this regard.
When it comes to a virus like this, it is better to be conservative. Leave others countries go first and see if there are any issues or outbreak of the virus due to travel restrictions being lifted is helpful for us to avoid making deadly mistakes.
From what I've read, the way that the system works is any country that ignores the ban, then they get banned from the rest of Europe themselves.
So we get to choose, do we allow unrestricted travel from the US, Brazil, etc. and then get restricted from travelling around Europe. Or do we restrict travel from US, Brazil, but gain less restricted access to the rest of Europe.
I think if you did a poll of Irish people in the morning, there would be almost no public support to leave folks from the US, Brazil, etc. into Ireland given how bad things are currently over there. Politically this is a relatively easy decision.

As regards the "Very strong political leadership" well that's your opinion, mine is that this has been an Administration that has implemented the guidelines of the NPHET committee over the past 3 months. Leadership would be to clearly make Political decisions such as removing the pointless 14 quarantine for the sake of the economy. So far it looks like it's here to stay for the next few weeks at least. However there's whole forum open to further this discussion elsewhere on Boards.

Be conservative, stay home stay safe, essential services only, protect the health service, download tracking apps, sit and watch the rest of Europe gradually introduce tourism to rescue part of the peak tourist season.


Anyways, on the U.S, they hope to have a travel agreement: https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2020/0624/1149274-us-facing-critical-coronavirus-surge/

Jack1985

There’s plenty of failings too, COVID-19 may have entered by air, that doesn’t mean the high level of fatalities in unprepared nursing homes both state and private and high infection rates amongst our frontline healthcare workers are anything to be admiring political leadership for and these failings can’t be placed at the door of the aviation sector.

The whole mask fiasco the icing on the cake a simple decision can’t be made with the public given altering opinions by the same group.

The little experiment of watching other counties and playing with people’s livelihoods can frankly happen elsewhere.

bk

Tenzor07 wrote: »

As regards the "Very strong political leadership" well that's your opinion, mine is that this has been an Administration that has implemented the guidelines of the NPHET committee over the past 3 months. Leadership would be to clearly make Political decisions such as removing the pointless 14 quarantine for the sake of the economy. So far it looks like it's here to stay for the next few weeks at least. However there's whole forum open to further this discussion elsewhere on Boards.

And I would argue that it is strong leadership to follow the advice of our health experts, over the calls from the deep pockets of the owners of the airlines industry. You know, to protect our health service, the lives of the people of Ireland and to protect the majority of our economy.

I would call it poor leadership to simply bend to the will of private industry over the good of the majority of the country. That is Trump and most of us don't want that.

We got into this mess because we ignored the advice of public health experts when they said we should stop flights from China and then from Italy. But no, we couldn't do that, it will hurt the airline industry. Well look at the mess that lead us too....

Fling open the doors to virus ridden US and we will guarantee to have a second wave and another lockdown.

Frankly I'm fed up listening to the leaders of the airline industry on this, they have been wrong time and time again on this, lets listen to the public health experts instead this time:

Public health expert Dr Gabriel Scally said he would favour the continuation of quarantining to achieve a zero-Covid-19 Ireland.

Speaking on the same programme, Dr Scally said he doubts that anyone outside the aviation industry thinks dropping the quarantine period is a good idea and that the quarantine measures should be extended past 9 July.

The only safe way forward, he said, is to keep up the barriers and be a zero-Covid island, before opening travel links with other countries who are in a similar situation.

Dr Scally said the disease was imported by air and the country does not need a second wave when things are going well.

Anyways, on the U.S, they hope to have a travel agreement: https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2020/0624/1149274-us-facing-critical-coronavirus-surge/

LOL, Mike Pompeo, I wouldn't trust a word coming out of his mouth.

Tenzor07

bk wrote: »

And I would argue that it is strong leadership to follow the advice of our health experts, over the calls from the deep pockets of the owners of the airlines industry. You know, to protect our health service, the lives of the people of Ireland and to protect the majority of our economy.
I would call it poor leadership to simply bend to the will of private industry over the good of the majority of the country. That is Trump and most of us don't want that.We got into this mess because we ignored the advice of public health experts when they said we should stop flights from China and then from Italy. But no, we couldn't do that, it will hurt the airline industry. Well look at the mess that lead us too....Fling open the doors to virus ridden US and we will guarantee to have a second wave and another lockdown.
Frankly I'm fed up listening to the leaders of the airline industry on this, they have been wrong time and time again on this, lets listen to the public health experts instead this time:LOL, Mike Pompeo, I wouldn't trust a word coming out of his mouth.

That's it, I mean Michael O'Leary is basically Monty Burns eh? Polluting our skies with noise and smoke...
May be better that the thousands of highly skilled and paid aviation workers continue to get paid via the State getting loans off the Bond markets, money tree! Not to mention the 265,000 people who work in the hospitality industry. Keep them all at home on Govt. furlough until the Cure is found.
Sure NPHET basically let the likes of Richard Branson keep flying plane loads of the Virus into Ireland, without a temperature check, a Covid test or anything...!

Definetly going to have the Second Wave and Second Lockdown soon, the numbers are rising here every day!

bk

Jack1985, I'd agree that our governments response was slow at the start and far from perfect. I'd give it like a C

Czech Republic is an example of an A+ response. Yes they wore masks from that start. But they also stopped flights from China at the start of this, despite complaints from China and the airline industry. Once it hit Europe, they closed their borders, again much to the anger of the airline industry.

Now they have implemented a green, orange, red list for travel from other countries. Green countries (low number of cases) have unrestricted travel, orange or red, 14 day guarantee or even outright ban. No travel from outside the EU.

As a result, they have had 1/10th the number of deaths.

It is also not true to say most other European countries are opening up. That is spin from the airline industry. Lots of countries with the least amount of cases unsurprisingly still have restrictions.

bk

Tenzor07 wrote: »

May be better that the thousands of highly skilled and paid aviation workers continue to get paid via the State getting loans off the Bond markets, money tree! Not to mention the 265,000 people who work in the hospitality industry.

It sucks, I know, but better then opening up, getting hit by a second wave and the entire country going into lockdown again.

The damage to the country and economy doing that would be far greater then being covid19 free and the rest of the economy operating semi normally.

The rest of the hospitality industry would actually be better served if we were covid19 free and all the pubs, hotels etc. were open. At least then they can serve Irish people staying home and holidaying here.

It would be FAR more damaging for them if we get hit by a second wave from the US.

I've got friends who have a bar in New Zealand. Normally they have lots of tourist trade, that is all gone, but they say business is better then ever at the moment, due to up tick in locals desperate to get back out and spending.

Having said that, I've no problem with easing restrictions to countries that have it under control. But it would be madness and self defeating to fling up the doors to disease ridden US, Brazil, etc.

Tenzor07

bk wrote: »

It sucks, I know, but better then opening up, getting hit by a second wave and the entire country going into lockdown again.
The damage to the country and economy doing that would be far greater then being covid19 free and the rest of the economy operating semi normally.
The rest of the hospitality industry would actually be better served if we were covid19 free and all the pubs, hotels etc. were open. At least then they can serve Irish people staying home and holidaying here.
It would be FAR more damaging for them if we get hit by a second wave from the US.
I've got friends who have a bar in New Zealand. Normally they have lots of tourist trade, that is all gone, but they say business is better then ever at the moment, due to up tick in locals desperate to get back out and spending.
Having said that, I've no problem with easing restrictions to countries that have it under control. But it would be madness and self defeating to fling up the doors to disease ridden US, Brazil, etc.

"Second waves" "Lockdowns" all these terms used suggest all of this in inevitable, like the Flu(where it's a seasonal illness) when the "first wave" is still here, and every day the small number of new cases show it's not ended...and may never end without herd immunity or a vaccine, one or both of which may never come, and without either there will be new infections all the time...So this fantasy of being Covid free is just that... We're not NZ and will never be, and we don't have enough domestic tourists on an Island of 5m to support the tourism sector.

And on NZ, domestic tourism can't support a $16.2 billion industry, contributing 21% of foreign exchange revenue for them either.

bk

LOL, some want to fling open the doors to the US, meanwhile New York and other US states are implementing a 14 day quarantine on those coming in from other worse hit US states like Texas, etc.:

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/24/us/new-york-coronavirus-travel-restriction/index.html

"We have to make sure the virus doesn't come in on a plane," Cuomo said.

"We worked very hard to get the viral transmission rate down, and we don't want to see it go up," he added.

Fines of between $2000 to $10000 for breaking quarantine. US states don't even trust themselves!!!

lintdrummer

bk wrote: »

Frankly I'm fed up listening to the leaders of the airline industry on this, they have been wrong time and time again on this, lets listen to the public health experts instead this time

We have an open border with the UK, talk of eradicating Covid here is fantasy and it's coming from the health experts like you quoted. I don't think anybody here is advocating throwing the doors open, especially to the US. But a common sense approach needs to be taken. We rely on our aviation sector heavily, we can't just shut it down like you seem to be in favour of.

Tenzor07

bk wrote: »

LOL, some want to fling open the doors to the US, meanwhile New York and other US states are implementing a 14 day quarantine on those coming in from other worse hit US states like Texas, etc.:

Many areas of the U.S such as New York have the pandemic under control, opening up limited flights from NY to the EU could be the first step.

Listen before you go off replying about second waves etc, just remember portraying the pandemic as a force of nature that is beyond our control isn't the case.
We have evidence from many countries that a strong public health system (testing, contact tracing, isolation and health support) combined with face masks on flights and in airports, keeping physical distance, hand washing is highly effective at minimising COVID-19 transmission.

Jack1985

bk wrote: »

We got into this mess because we ignored the advice of public health experts when they said we should stop flights from China and then from Italy. But no, we couldn't do that, it will hurt the airline industry. Well look at the mess that lead us too....

I'm all for frank open and honest debate. Can you please advise me where for example Tony Holohan advised on the cessation of flights from Italy please and China you say? Or are these other experts advising such after the fact?

Airlines made the decision based on lockdowns unfolding in Italy and responded as other countries done same. We did not put preventative measures in place in Airports in Ireland, we handed out leaflets instead and allowed contact between those people arriving with the same group of representatives with no social distancing initially who could be on shift for hours at airports for example (this continued for nearly four weeks). Airlines mandated face masks, in Ireland we had altering discussions from the same group publicly which still to this day shows a low level of mask wearing amongst the public as a result.

The originally quoted argument really loses merit by the day, we know the virus was in Europe in December and possibly in China as of last August. We started talking about this virus in Europe in January 2020, the fact is it was already spreading on the continent. We failed to have adequate stock piling of PPE as did many other countries in mitigating against disease spreading and as a result, we failed our elderly and we failed our healthcare workers but let’s blame aviation for letting it in to create a simplistic argument.

It’s appalling that the last time Ireland acted in sync with it’s European counterparts on travel was last March, this go it alone policy for an island nation is laughable and even more so if Politian’s continue to be led by recommendations (of altering opinions leading to confusion in many instances) instead of having the balls to take ownership of the issues and deal with them collectively. We rely on FDI and an openness in our economy globally, we have an economy the population can’t sustain by itself and certainly not shuttered off from the continent of the neighbouring bloc with a form filling exercise which can subverted by a 90-minute drive from the North to Ireland’s largest population centre.

We have had high levels of fatalities proportionally due to poor and reactive leadership (in some countries due to no leadership at all).

L1011

Jack1985 wrote: »

We have had high levels of fatalities proportionally due to poor and reactive leadership (in some countries due to no leadership at all).

Realistically, we have had what appear to be proportionally high levels of deaths here because we're not lying through our teeth like lots of other countries are. Even the UK.

Jack1985

L1011 wrote: »

Realistically, we have had what appear to be proportionally high levels of deaths here because we're not lying through our teeth like lots of other countries are. Even the UK.

I'd absolutely agree with you, but I'm not for a second going to dismiss our failings here by having the attitude era sure the rest are lying and that's why our numbers are higher.

As a nation we have to accept these failings and prepare to deal with this virus for the long-term, it won't be going anywhere soon. The mindset of let’s stay closed off for the short-term is damaging the economy here every hour, we need to understand why there were such deaths in the first instance, deal with the underlying issues that caused them and mitigate against the virus by being prepared to deal with it.

bk

Jack1985 wrote: »

As a nation we have to accept these failings and prepare to deal with this virus for the long-term, it won't be going anywhere soon. The mindset of let’s stay closed off for the short-term is damaging the economy here every hour, we need to understand why there were such deaths in the first instance, deal with the underlying issues that caused them and mitigate against the virus by being prepared to deal with it.

But likewise the mindset been shown here of simply flinging the door open to all countries with no restrictions is utter madness.

I'm not for a moment suggesting we completely close the borders either. Instead a sensible system like the traffic light system being implemented in the Czech Republic, with different levels of restriction for different countries based on their level of infection seems highly sensible.

If the airline industry here suggested doing that, I'd fully support it. But instead we seem them talking about want to lift all restrictions to everywhere, even countries with very high level of infections, utter madness. And it shows them to be utterly out of touch with reality, public health advice and public sentiment.

dfx-

lintdrummer wrote: »

We have an open border with the UK, talk of eradicating Covid here is fantasy and it's coming from the health experts like you quoted. I don't think anybody here is advocating throwing the doors open, especially to the US. But a common sense approach needs to be taken. We rely on our aviation sector heavily, we can't just shut it down like you seem to be in favour of.

Realistically, the virus was in Ireland long before anyone locked down or showed symptoms, probably in January. Blaming aviation or airport procedures in March is pointless.