United Airlines has put 14,000 employees on notice that their jobs are once again in danger when the second round of US government financial aid set aside for airline payroll support expires on 31 March. The Chicago-based carrier says in an internal memo on 29 January that it will be shedding the positions if the US government does not approve further coronavirus relief measures for the airline industry, and passenger demand does not improve markedly in the coming weeks. It has sent the so-called Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) letters to many of the same employees it had furloughed last year when the first round of aid ran out. The notice is a federally mandated requirement that requires employers to inform workers 60 days before a potential mass layoff event. “Despite ongoing efforts to distribute vaccines, customer demand has not changed much since we recalled… employees,” the company writes in a note to its workers. “Receiving a WARN notice does not automatically mean you will be on furlough status after April 1 – but it is a sign that we have a reasonable expectation that your job may be affected.” Meantime, Fort Worth-based American Airlines says it has not sent out any of these notices as of 29 January. At the end of September, the two airlines together involuntarily furloughed about 32,000 employees after a first round of $25 billion in government payroll support expired. Initially, United had warned 36,000 employees of impending job cuts, but was able to limit its involuntary furloughs to 13,000 at that time. American furloughed 19,000 employees at the end of September. The airlines hired the workers back when lawmakers approved a second package, worth another $15 billion, at the end of December. According to the conditions of the grants set aside in the second programme, airlines must keep the employees on staff until the end of March. Unlike its peers, the third major US carrier, Atlanta-headquartered Delta Air Lines, did not furlough any employees in September, and reached a deal with its pilots in November to protect them from job cuts as well. Industry observers say it is unlikely that the global coronavirus pandemic – and the ongoing depression in demand – will be over by the end of the first quarter. New travel restrictions, including a mandatory testing requirement for all inbound international arrivals and discussion that this could be extended to domestic flights as well, continue to make travel arduous and complicated, and potential customers are still wary about booking trips. Airline executives continue to hope that confidence and demand will return when nationwide vaccination ramps up in the coming months.

Lessors have been given a deadline to respond to new lease terms demanded by Norwegian ahead of the next hearing in the airline's restructuring process in Ireland. A lessor source says Norwegian has cancelled all of its existing operating leases and is seeking new terms to retain a number of its Boeing 737s. Lessors have to respond to these new terms ahead of the next hearing in its examinership process at Dublin's High Court on 4 February. In a company presentation on 25 January, the airline disclosed that it was seeking "significantly" reduced lease rates from pre-Covid levels, an extension of its by-the-hour agreements with lessors until March 2022, and an agreement there there would be no debt to equity conversion process for any non-paid rent beyond that generated via its by-the-hour agreement. A source says that in addition Norwegian is seeking a waiver on paying maintenance reserves, and comments, with reference to the airline's full name of Norwegian Air Shuttle: "It's like they want a Covid deal on all aircraft for NAS 2.0." In January, The Irish Times reported that Norwegian was seeking court approval to return 36 aircraft to their owners. A source says these would include all of the airline's leased 787s and some of the 737s. Negotiations over some of the aircraft returns are ongoing, the source adds. Norwegian has declined to comment, stating that these are confidential commercial discussions. The Oslo-based carrier last month disclosed its intention to exit its long-haul route network and focus on short-haul and domestic services. In its 25 January presentation, Norwegian said that the remaining financed aircraft in its fleet would be subject to interest and principal deferrals until March 2022. The airline is planning to raise capital of NKr4-5 billion ($465- 581 million) in the first quarter of 2021, out of which up to NKr1.5-2.5 billion will come from existing creditors through a "hybrid instrument". Utilising the examinership process, all large creditors are "assumed to be impaired or part of a scheme of arrangement". A dividend for unsecured claims, assumed by Norwegian at approximately NKr1.6 billion in total, is planned. The majority of this will be converted into equity, although a cash element will be considered. A reduction of vendor debt of approximately NKr1.9 billion will also "improve the equity", says the airline. It estimates that an expected writedown of leased and financed aircraft assets will cause a reduction in equity of approximately NKr10 billion prior to the exit from restructuring.

The UK will prevent entry to passengers who have arrived from or transited through the UAE, Rwanda or Burundi, except those with British or Irish passports or UK residency in order to halt the spread of a variant of Covid-19. The move came into force at 13:00 (GMT) on 29 January, with direct passenger flights from the UAE to the UK also banned. Exempted travellers will be required to self-isolate for 10 days at home, along with their household. Passengers returning from these countries cannot be released from self-isolation through the use of Covid-19 testing. The UK Department for Transport says the decision will help to "prevent the spread of the new [Covid-19] variant originally identified in South Africa into the UK". Worsening Covid-19 cases in the UAE led to the country being removed from the UK's travel corridor list on 12 January. Up until that point the connection between London and Dubai was the 22nd busiest international route globally, data shows, with 950 flights and nearly 400,000 seats between 1 and 11 January. London-Dubai was British Airways' second-busiest route in the first 11 days of the year by flight numbers after London-New York, and the largest by number of seats offered at nearly 90,000. For Dubai-based Emirates, the connection to London was easily the largest connection by both metrics, with 629 services and over 300,000 seats operated in the first 11 days of 2021.