Finnair is cancelling all flights to the US between 19 March and 12 April due to the US Government’s travel restrictions. Finnair is also cancelling its flights to Delhi between 15 March and 14 April due to recent visa restrictions. Finnair flies from Helsinki to New York and back until 18 March, in order to fly customers home. For flights departing 14 – 18 March, restrictions on Schengen passengers going to the US will be in effect as specified by the US authorities. Finnair also flies to Los Angeles on Sunday 15 March and to Miami today, 12 March. Finnair is continuously following the impacts of the coronavirus situation. Due to the decreased transfer passenger loads caused by these cancelations, further impacts on Finnair’s narrow-body traffic in Europe are to be expected. Finnair will communicate these changes once such decisions are made. Finnair will communicate flight cancellations directly to customers who have bookings on these flights. Customers can then either seek for a full ticket refund or postpone their travel by contacting Finnair’s customer services. Unfortunately, the customer service lines are very congested at the moment, so we suggest customers who don’t have bookings for immediate departures to contact Finnair’s customer services at a later stage. In addition, Finnair is offering customers with bookings on Finnair flights full flexibility to change their travel dates without a change fee until 30 November, 2020.

Source: Worldairlinenews

The United States will ban nearly all travel from Europe to the United States from 13 March, US President Donald Trump says in an address to the nation. “We will be suspending all travel from Europe to the United States for the next 30 days,” Trump says in a nationally televised address from the Oval Office on 11 March. “The new rules will go into effect Friday at midnight. These restrictions will be adjusted subject to conditions on the ground.” Exceptions will be made for Americans who have “undergone appropriate screenings”, he adds without expanding on what such screening might entail. The restrictions do not apply to the United Kingdom, which is no longer politically part of Europe. The travel ban is designed to prevent further spread of the coronavirus, which has sickened 118,000 people in more than 110 countries. The President referred to the virus as a “foreign virus” because it began in mainland China, where most of the illnesses and deaths have occurred so far. As of Wednesday evening local time, the outbreak has now encompassed 42 states, and more than 1,000 cases have been reported, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). In Europe, Italy has been hit particularly hard, with 10,000 reported cases and almost 700 deaths as of Wednesday.

Source: Cirium

After suffering operational disruptions from the suspension of Boeing 737 Max deliveries and the type’s grounding, South African airline Comair is reassessing its commitment to the new family and is looking to fast-track discussions with Boeing over compensation. Johannesburg-based Comair, which flies franchise services for British Airways, operates 14 737-800s alongside six 737 Classics, according to Cirium fleets data. It had taken its first of eight 737 Max 8 aircraft (below) just prior to the Ethiopian Max 8 crash on 9 March 2019. That crash resulted in the global fleet being grounded and Boeing suspending deliveries indefinitely. “Following the delivery of the first Max in February 2019, the fleet renewal process, which was underway, hit some major [hold-ups],” says Wrenelle Stander, chief executive of Comair. The CEO addressed the UK Aviation Club in London via a video link from Johannesburg instead of a personal visit due to South African coronavirus travel restrictions. Stander outlined the impact of the grounding on the airline’s fleet planned roll-over. “Since [the grounding] we’ve taken delivery of five -800s which is part of the fleet renewal progress. But we’ve only taken one of the eight Max aircraft on order,” she says. “We as an organisation continue to incur cumulative costs and disruption to fleet availability. The grounding also hampers the group’s ability to forecast fleet requirements, because we really don’t know when the Max will be in operation again.” With a year passed since the grounding and no clarity as to when it will end, Comair is upping the tempo in its talks with Boeing. “Comair has contributed $45 million in pre-delivery deposits towards the Max order. And this is, of course, cash which is locked up,” says Stander. “The ongoing uncertainty has prompted Comair now to accelerate compensation negotiations and to explore the legal and financial consequences of where we find ourselves today.” Stander says that the grounding has put much of its fleet-renewal programme into limbo and prompted a reassessment of its original decision to order the Max. “We should have had three Max aircraft delivered by now. Given the grounding, we’ve had to take more expensive short-term options, doubling the costs in quite a number of areas,” she says. The airline has extended the lives of three 737-400s to allow them to remain in service until the end of 2020. But, any further extensions will require investment in heavy maintenance and will not be implemented without an additional cost-benefit analysis. “The Max decision was made in 2012…and there’s a lot of discussion within the organisation about whether that was the right decision,” says Stander. A switch in strategy to take more 737-800s instead of the Max order “is definitely something we’re considering at the moment”. However, Comair is committed to remaining a 737 operator: “We would not contemplate Airbuses or a mixed fleet at this point because we want to standardise and simplify operations,” Stander says.

Source: Cirium