BOC Aviation chief Robert Martin foresees that lessors will still have to deal with a "probably a handful" of airline restructurings this year, amid a widening gap between the haves and have-nots among airlines emerging from the pandemic. "I believe there'll be a number of restructurings still this year," Martin says, speaking on a panel session on 10 May at the ISTAT Asia conference in Bangkok. He outlined the profile of such airlines as highly leveraged, largely relying on working capital from the lessors and rather than banks, volatile local currency against the US dollar, and "probably" high domestic interest rates that make it unfavourable refinance in the domestic market. Martin highlights Brazil, and potentially Vietnam, as countries of interest at the moment. "Ideally, all those bankers around there should be helping these people raise equity, but we're not seeing that sign of it yet," he adds. Martin notes that there is a widening gap between well-capitalised airlines and those that are not. "We're seeing a bifurcation of credit markets, so the strong customers are definitely getting stronger – the US domestics, the guys in the Middle East, the big carriers here in Asia, the big carriers in Europe. And so we're not concerned at all about those things, they're all fine. "There is then a group of people who have come through Covid that survived. They've had big deferrals, generally they're in countries where foreign exchange rates against the US dollar are volatile, and they have not finished their refinancing yet… and they haven't raised equity. So this problem, this shoe is still going to fall," he explains. Similar dynamics are at play among lessors, Martin noted, when asked if some lessors could see improvement in their credit ratings. "Some of the stronger leasing companies have got stronger and some of the weaker leasing companies unfortunately will have become weaker, and size definitely plays a role in that. "If you're a large leasing company, you can take some hits during a downturn. You can take the write-offs related to Russia. And so because of that those who made those decisions and took the hard decisions, I think yes, we'll see some of them getting upgraded," he says.

WestJet Group has issued a lockout notice in response to a 72-hour strike notice issued by the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), the union that represents WestJet and Swoop pilots. A work stoppage could occur as early as 19 May at 3 am MT, the Calgary-based airline says in a LinkedIn post. The WestJet Group "has been left with no choice, but to issue our own notice to lockout. This was an incredibly difficult decision to make and we sincerely apologise for the impact and unnecessary stress this will have on our guests ahead of the May Long Weekend", says WestJet chief executive Alexis von Hoensbroech in his LinkedIn post. The WestJet ALPA pilots have called out for a strike starting 19 May if no "meaningful" progress is made in the negotiations regarding a new contract with the airline. Meanwhile, the carrier maintains that the proposed contract makes "generous advancements to address the concerns of WestJet and Swoop pilots surrounding job security and scope. Despite efforts to be reasonable and provide significant improvements to the current contract, the union maintains its expectation of closing in towards US – like wages, despite living and working in Canada. This expectation is not reasonable and is impeding the WestJet Group's ability to reach an agreement in advance of the upcoming long weekend". "Our commitment and priority remains at the bargaining table where we will continue to focus the entirety of our efforts on obtaining a deal as soon as possible, doing our best to protect our guests travel plans," von Hoensbroech adds. "‪I have personally joined the bargaining table and I am committed to coming to a reasonable deal that prevents any labour action and economic damage, rewards our valued pilots and secures a sustainable future for our company".

Thai Airways International plans to fold its wholly-owned regional arm Thai Smile into the mainline carrier as part of its ongoing restructuring. Speaking on 10 May at the recent ISTAT Asia conference in Bangkok, the airline's chief executive Chai Eamsiri made the case for the merger given the low aircraft utilisation of Thai Smile's fleet of Airbus A320s, although he did not give a timeline for this. Eamsiri says the regional airline, which operates mostly domestic and some regional international routes, uses only five aircraft that fly nine hours or less per day, per aircraft - a level that he says "is too low". The solution is to integrate Thai Smile into Thai in order to fold in the 20 A320s into the mainline carrier's fleet, he says, which will increase aircraft utilisation to "more than 11 hours per day". "That means 20% less in terms of aircraft cost," he adds. Fleets data shows that the 20 A320ceos in Thai Smile's fleet have an average daily utilisation of 5.68 hours, with the range between two and slightly over seven hours. This has fallen from the 7.65 hours in the previous 12-months average daily utilisation. The aircraft range between seven and 11 years old, with 15 under operating lease with Macquarie AirFinance, DAE Capital, Airborne Capital, SMBC Aviation Capital, Tokyo Century and Aircastle. Networks data shows that the longest route it flies currently in May is to Ahmedabad in India, a flight time of just under five hours. Eamsiri says the merger will also benefit passengers in terms of access to destinations from long-haul, regional and domestic destinations, especially via Thai's wider range of interline agreements. He notes that Thai Smile has less than 10 interline agreements with international airlines, and when combined with Thai it will grow to more than 60. "So it's very clear when bringing these two together is better… also it's better for the customer." In its financial results for the first quarter published on 12 May, Thai disclosed that it was "proceeding [with] the feasibility study for the entire airline business restructure of Thai and its subsidiaries to mitigate the accumulated losses over the registered capital of Thai Smile" as part of its rehabilitation plan and business reform plan. "The result expected from business restructure plan include improving the efficiency of fleet utilisation, enhancing revenue opportunities from route network with more flights (resulting a better aircraft utilisation, especially international route with high yield and less competition than domestic route)." However, it flags the constraints of procuring aircraft in the short-term amid the continued aviation recovery and limitations of aircraft manufacturers in expanding production capacity to meet the rapid increase in traffic demand. "There are several challenges including the marketing and brand positioning unity by combining strengths in products and services performance, work efficiency improvement in parts of procurement, human resource management and others relevant areas for resources optimisation and reduction of unnecessary redundant costs with full support of Thailand tourism policies," it states. According to its financial statements, aircraft utilisation of Thai and its subsidiaries' fleet of 66 aircraft was 14.1 hours in first quarter of 2023, versus 8.3 in the year-ago quarter, when it had 67 aircraft. As of 31 March, it had total 65 active aircraft including the 20 Thai Smile A320s, 21 in long-term parking and 16 decommissioned aircraft that had been put up for sale.