Emirates Airlines will deploy its iconic Airbus A380 on its daily Amsterdam service, and add a second daily A380 service to London Heathrow starting from 1 August. This announcement follows the Emirates A380’s return to the skies today with EK001 to London Heathrow taking off from Dubai International airport at 0745hrs, and EK073 at 0820hrs, carrying commercial passengers onboard this flagship aircraft for the first time since March. Emirates flight EK073 will receive a special welcome on arrival at Paris Charles De Gaulle, as it becomes the first and only scheduled A380 flight to operate at this major European airport since the pandemic began. Throughout the day, Emirates will also mark the restart of scheduled passenger services to seven more cities – Athens, Barcelona, Geneva, Glasgow, Larnaca, Munich, and Rome – offering its customers more travel options. Over the next two days, the airline will resume flights to Malé (16 July), Washington DC (16 July), and Brussels (17 July). Emirates currently serves over 50 destinations in its network, facilitating travel between the Americas, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and the Asia Pacific through a convenient connection in Dubai for customers across the world. Premium customers can enjoy Emirates’ Chauffeur Drive service and relax in its Lounge facility at Dubai International airport, with the restart of these signature services after a full health and safety review. Emirates has also re-opened its dedicated Emirates Skywards counters at Dubai International airport to serve its frequent flyers.

Source: World Airline News

European airfares are likely to hold steady in the coming weeks but reduce as low-cost carriers seek to stimulate demand heading into the winter period, Bernstein analysts have suggested. Their advice to investors is to "look through the trough" and expect airline earnings to recover in the 2022-23 timeframe. Budget carriers are seen as a better bet than network operators. Bernstein's recovery timeframe is echoed in the results of a new industry poll carried out by in-flight connectivity provider Inmarsat and the Airline Passenger Experience Association (APEX). In the April-June period, more than 500 aviation industry stakeholders were polled about the sector's expected post-crisis rebound for the FlightPlan survey, which found that 60% of respondents foresaw a recovery period of between 18 months and three years. The results of the FlightPlan survey also reflect Bernstein's view that low-cost, point-to-point carriers will recover faster than network hub operators. "Seven out of 10 respondents expect point-to-point travel will bounce back quicker than hub-and-spoke routes, with low-cost carriers expected to recover more quickly than full-service carriers (55% versus 45%, respectively)," says Inmarsat. On airfares, Bernstein analyst Daniel Roeska predicts that airlines will "try to keep some price for now, but compete for passengers as they get more comfortable flying" during the third quarter and into 2021. "We would expect most airlines to resist a price war in the immediate weeks as only passengers with a high willingness to pay are boarding planes," he adds. "As the year progresses and customers get comfortable with flying again, we would expect airlines to prioritise building load factors back up into the [European] winter period." This will put pressure on yields as low-cost carriers seek to stimulate traffic, says Roeska, and while network airlines "will likely try to resist where possible, it will not be possible everywhere". Making quarterly financial forecasts will be "almost impossible for the rest of the year", argues Roeska, because there are so many unknown factors at play. "Airlines have been grappling with an unprecedented situation and there are many variables in the restart that will affect when airlines can become cash-flow breakeven," he notes. These variables include "the pace at which new customers book, the share of passengers on flights that are rebookings from cancelled corona flights, and individual choices made in airlines' network and revenue-management departments". Despite the difficulties faced by airlines as they attempt to navigate their way out of the crisis, Inmarsat Aviation president Philip Balaam sees a silver lining when it comes to accelerating the industry's digital transformation. The results of the survey, he asserts, "indicate that the Covid-19 crisis may prove a decisive moment for digital transformation in an industry that's historically been behind the curve, with the vast majority of aviation professionals expecting digital technologies to help drive a stronger return towards profitable growth".

Source: Cirium

Creditors have today approved the business-rescue plan (BRP) for South African Airways. Some 86% of creditors voted to support the BRP, according to South Africa’s Department of Public Enterprises, which includes around $1.6 billion in state funding and the loss of thousands of jobs. The ministry says that it “applauds creditors and all stakeholders for realising that a new, restructured, competitive airline, born out of the old, is the best option to immediately take back to the skies and preserve the brand of a national carrier”. The government had urged creditors and unions to support the BRP, saying that the alternative was to liquidate the airline. SAA’s resurrection involves an initial restart period of eight months, running to January 2021, with around 1,000 jobs being retained and the fleet built up to around 26 aircraft. The long-suffering carrier was placed into bankruptcy protection in December 2019 and immediately appointed business-rescue practitioners. It employed around 4,700 people in March, when the practitioners announced that a consultation was beginning on job cuts. The public enterprises ministry says its priorities are now to “give effect to funding commitments by the government for the business rescue plan” and to “appoint a new, and reconfigured interim board for SAA”. It states that SAA is aiming to “reclaim” its market share, but notes ”the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic… will constrain the aviation industry for some time into the future”. The ministry also announced that Philip Saunders is the airline’s new interim chief executive. Saunders has been chief commercial officer at the carrier since December 2019 – a position he previously held at Kuwait Airways and Air Malta. He was also chief executive of Caribbean Airlines for two years starting in September 2007.