Could the coronavirus pandemic cause a long-term bump in air travel from small- and medium-size airports? Delta Air Lines thinks it might. Work-at-home policies and related Covid-19 factors have already led many Americans to relocate their lives from larger to smaller cities, says Delta senior vice-president of network planning Joe Esposito. “Now big cities are getting smaller,” Esposito says during the Boyd Group International’s Aviation Forecast Summit on 12 October. “The forecast of where people live and move has changed. We are writing that new forecast.” He notes, for instance, that many New Yorkers are moving to smaller cities like Syracuse, and to towns in Connecticut and New Jersey. Others are moving to Florida. “Some people don’t want to live in New York City,” Esposito says. “New York may not come back for more years than we’d like.” Delta in recent years pulled out of some smaller cities and reduced its regional network. In 2011, for instance, eight regional airlines operated 1.2 million flights for Delta. By 2019, that figure had slipped 32%, to 812,000 flights operated by six regional airlines, according to Cirium fleets data. Currently, only three regional carriers – Endeavor Air, Republic Airways and SkyWest Airlines – operate regional aircraft for Delta. Esposito says changing market conditions could lead Delta in the coming years to assign narrowbody jets to routes currently operated by regional aircraft like Embraer E175s, and to assign those jets to routes operated by Bombardier-built CRJ200s. Questions about shifting demand come as international travel remains badly impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic.“People just can’t move internationally,” Esposito says, citing travel restrictions and threats of quarantine. “We have to be really, really careful about how we deploy international… We have to do it at a much more measured pace,” he says. “Domestic is coming back much faster than international, and that will likely be the theme in 2021.”

Source: Cirium

Airbus achieved deliveries of 57 aircraft during September, although order activity remained practically non-existent. Its delivery figure is the highest for any single month so far in 2020, exceeding the 55 achieved in February, just before the onset of the air transport crisis. The only order change registered was the reduction of Macquarie Financial Holdings’ order for 40 A220-300s, which has been revised to 37. Airbus has total orders for 545 A220-300s and a further 94 for the smaller A220-100. It has yet to record the agreement for six A220s in the recently unveiled corporate jet version. The airframer kept its net order figure at 300 for the first nine months of the year – which is actually more than double the 127 it had achieved at the same point in 2019, when the commercial business was heavily affected by cancellations. Airbus’s deliveries so far this year total 341 aircraft including 32 A350s and nine A330s, plus 282 A320-family jets and 18 A220s. This figure is just over 40% lower than the 571 deliveries carried out over the same period in 2019. Seven A350s were handed over in September – two apiece to Cathay Pacific, Delta Air Lines and Virgin Atlantic, plus one to Finnair – along with a pair of A330-900s, both for Delta.

Italy’s government has signed an air transport decree to establish a new national airline to succeed flag-carrier Alitalia. The government is referring the operator as Newco, but transport minister Paola De Micheli signals that the company’s formal name is ITA, adding that the company will “bring Italy to the world”. She says the decree has been signed with finance minister Roberto Gualtieri, economic development minister Stefano Patuanelli and labour minister Nunzia Catalfo..“A national airline is born that will have to play a leading role on the European and international market,” she says. It will represent a “clear discontinuity” with the past, and serve to “relaunch” Italian tourism. Creation of the national carrier follows months of wrangling after plans for an investor consortium to take over Alitalia fell through and the government stepped in to set up a new airline. “Newco represents the first step towards establishing a quality carrier capable of competing on the international market,” says Gualtieri. He says the management team will develop and implement a “solid and sustainable” plan. The board will include chief executive Fabio Maria Lazzerini and chairman Francesco Caio. Patuanelli says the air transport crisis has provided an opportunity to think carefully about the relaunch, while Catalfo says: “We need a national airline to help Italy get back on track.” “With the birth of Newco we are faced with an ambitious challenge,” Catalfo adds, “which must be met in order to equip the country with a competitive and qualified air carrier.” Workers’ representatives have welcomed the ministerial decision. “Finally a stalemate of months has been overcome,” says transport union Uiltrasporti. There is a need to set up co-ordination activity with Alitalia’s commissioner, the Newco management, unions and authorities, it states, to prepare the company for operations – working on the necessary investments in personnel for the airline’s fleet, maintenance and ground-handling. Union FIT-CISL adds that “a new era begins from this moment”, and that efforts to execute the ambitious plan “must not go wrong”. Alitalia recorded an earnings loss of €207 million ($245 million) for the second quarter, the three months which inflicted heavy damage on the European airline sector. The Italian flag-carrier’s commissioner disclosed the figures to a parliamentary hearing on 7 October, indicating that the losses were on a par with those of SAS and Swiss. Revenues over the first nine months of this year reached €716 million, a 70% fall on the same period last year.