Philippine Airlines has informed its lessors of a plan to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the USA by the end of May. "They are going to file before the end of May as long as they have the requisite support from creditors in terms of the majority they need to get it through and the prearranged fashion they're going for". PAL is putting together a prearranged insolvency, which the person describes as a "halfway house" between a pre-pack and the freeform filing that, for example, some of the Latin American carriers have used. "There are milestones and there are things that the airline then would have to do, there are commitments and DIP [debtor-in-possession financing] that have to materialise," the person adds. "The DIP funding would have to come through and all of that is negotiated with the lawyers. That's the approach they are taking." Norton Rose Fulbright is the airline's counsel on the restructuring. Seabury Capital has been hired as a restructuring adviser. "We're not able to provide any details or confirmation on the type or scope of any planned restructuring at this point. Our management and stakeholders continue to work on the comprehensive restructuring and we will make the needed disclosures at the proper time, once details are finalised." The airline adds: "What we can say is that we continue to build up our operations gradually on both international and domestic routes. The surge in Covid cases and related travel restrictions have been a setback, forcing us to cancel numerous international flights in the past two months, but we hope to get back to incremental expansion as the outbreak abates and our authorities revoke some of the restrictions." PAL has had a Chapter 11 filing on the cards since at least the fourth quarter of 2020. Like many struggling airlines around the globe and in Southeast Asia, the airline has been in talks with its lessors for months about restructuring leases. PAL is looking to reduce its leased fleet and seeking more favourable lease terms on the leased aircraft it decides to keep. Nineteen lessors are exposed to PAL to the tune of 49 aircraft, fleets data shows.

The USA on 4 May will halt travel from India except for US citizens as Covid-19 infections in India have spread faster than during any other single day of the global pandemic, with that nation reporting a record high of 380,000 new infections on 29 April. The White House on 30 April announced the forthcoming temporary ban at the advice of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention because of the multiple Covid-19 variants in India that are spreading at "extraordinarily high" infection rates. Daily new cases of Covid-19 in the Asia-Pacific region have spiked since March, driven largely by an outbreak in India, where each day breaks the previous day's record in the number of new cases reported, World Health Organization data shows. The spread increased exponentially in India during April, as hundreds of thousands of people every day reported new infections of Covid-19. Cases in India have spiked just as new infections in the USA have begun to decline in part due to vaccination efforts.The US State department as of 22 April had already listed a "Level 4: Do Not Travel" advisory for Americans on its website. The State department as of 22 April applied its "do not travel" warnings to more than 100 nations compared with 33 nations at the start of April, and now warns Americans against travelling to nearly every nation in the Asia-Pacific region. Americans are advised by the department to "reconsider travel" to China, Japan and Australia, which are labeled with a "Level 3" warning. The USA since 26 January has required all inbound travellers on international flights to provide a negative coronavirus test that is less than 72h old to enter the nation. A multinational relief effort is sending medical supplies to India, including masks and raw materials for vaccine production. In a statement on Twitter on 29 April, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said “just as India came to our aid early in the pandemic, the US is committed to working urgently to provide assistance to India in its time of need”.

United Airlines has finalised terms with the US Treasury Department for the $2.8 billion the carrier will be receiving under the third iteration of the payroll-support programme (PSP3). The Chicago-based airline has agreed to refrain from administering involuntary layoffs or furloughs through 30 September and to issue warrants to the Treasury to purchase shares of United's common stock. US majors American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines and United during the second quarter will receive a combined $722 million in PSP2 funds and $11.1 billion through the third version of the payroll-support programme, which was authorised by the American Rescue Plan Act signed into law by US president Joe Biden on 11 March. The four carriers' combined operating losses in the first quarter of 2021 reached $5.4 billion.