Delta Air Lines has reached a tentative deal with its pilot union to avoid furloughs at the Atlanta-based carrier until 2022.
The airline’s 13,000 cockpit crew, represented by the Air Line Pilots Association, International (ALPA) must now vote on the preliminary agreement that would keep 1,941 of them from losing their jobs after US government aid to the airlines ran out earlier this month. “Today we agreed on a path forward with ALPA’s Negotiating Committee that, if approved, can ultimately protect pilots from furlough through January 1, 2022,” Delta’s chief of operations John Laughter writes in a memo to the airline’s flight operations employees on 29 October. “While this agreement is still subject to approval…we are confident this can help Delta to be better positioned through the long and choppy Covid-19 pandemic recovery,” he adds. Attempts to reach ALPA for comment were unsuccessful. The airline says that it will push back the date the pilots were to be furloughed, until 28 November, in order to give them an opportunity to ratify the deal. Unlike most other major US carriers, Delta did not furlough any employees after US government aid to airlines, made available through the so-called CARES Act, expired on 1 October. The airline was able to avoid staff cuts after about 40,000 employees chose to take either early retirements or voluntary leave programmes. During the airline’s third-quarter results call earlier this month, chief executive Ed Bastian said the carrier had reached agreements with most work groups and was still negotiating with the pilot union to avoid furloughs in that work group as well. Delta reported a $5.4 billion loss for the quarter that ended on 30 September. Laughter now says the agreement ”contains several quality of life improvements while allowing Delta to generate much needed savings”, without going into further detail. Late last month, rival United Airlines’ pilots agreed to belt-tightening measures, including reduced flight hours, that avoided 2,850 furloughs that had been scheduled to begin on 1 October. The Chicago-based carrier said the planned pilot furloughs for 2020 and 2021, which would have amounted to 3,900 jobs, or about one third of the airline’s total pilots, were now off the table until June 2021 That agreement reduces the number of hours individual pilots fly every month, effectively spreading fewer hours across the pilot population. More-junior pilots give up more hours than those higher on the seniority list and more-senior pilots would be eligible for another early-exit programme.

Source: Cirium

Airbus has delivered the 500th Airbus A320 family aircraft built in its Tianjin plant in China, more than a decade after the Chinese final assembly line began operations. The aircraft, an A320neo registered B-30FX, went to China Southern Airlines. It is equipped with CFM International Leap-1A engines and is configured to seat 166 passengers. Data indicates China Southern to have 35 A320neos in its fleet, with two more on order. The carrier has more than 31 A321neos as well, and operates the A320ceo family aircraft, with more than 200 examples of the type in its fleet. The Tianjin A320 final assembly line began operations in 2008, and is the first Airbus production line outside Europe. Tianjin is also home to an A330 completion and delivery centre, which opened in 2017. Says Airbus China chief George Xu: “The delivery of the 500th A320 Family aircraft assembled in Tianjin is an important achievement of Airbus in China. It is a testimony of the excellent industrial cooperation between the Chinese aviation industry and Airbus, underlining all partners' long-term commitment to the buoyant China market.”

Source: Cirium

Covid-19 and the 737 Max grounding have taken a heavy toll on Boeing Commercial Airplanes' third-quarter results, as the unit's operating loss deepened dramatically year on year, from $40 million to $1.37 billion. Boeing says the division's third-quarter revenue fell 56% to $3.6 billion as a result of lower deliveries because of the pandemic and quality issues with the 787. The airframer delivered 28 jets during the quarter, compared with 62 in the same period last year. The division's operating margin worsened to -36.1%, from -0.5% one year earlier, hit by lower deliveries and $590 million of additional costs related to the 737 programme. In presentation slides accompanying the results, Boeing notes that government support is critical for airlines, which are continuing to adjust fleet planning. The airframer expects passenger traffic to return to 2019 levels in about three years, and the previously seen long-term trends to re-emerge a few years after that. "Recovery continues, but remains slow and uneven," Boeing notes. To deal with the pandemic, the company as a whole has been cutting costs and says more remains to be done. "Boeing expects to continue lowering overall staffing levels through natural attrition as well as voluntary and involuntary workforce reductions, and recorded additional severance costs in the third quarter," it says. The manufacturer is not making changes to previously announced production rates of commercial aircraft but says it will continue to monitor market dynamics. Under those production rates, it will produce six 787s and two 777/777X jets per month in 2021, down from rates of 10 and five per month at present. Boeing confirms that 737 production rates will gradually increase to 31 per month by the beginning of 2022 "with further gradual increases to correspond with market demand". Analysts have suggested that both Boeing and Airbus may need to cut production further in 2021.