Air Italy is being liquidated and will cease operations on 25 February. Flights that were scheduled to be operated by the airline between 11 and 25 February will be flown "by other carriers", while passengers with flights booked after 25 February will receive full refunds, says the carrier in a statement. The airline, which is 49% owned by Qatar Airways Group, says that the decision to go into liquidation was taken following a shareholders' meeting earlier today. The carrier's majority shareholder is Alisarda. Air Italy was previously known as Meridiana before Qatar Airways took a 49% stake in its parent company in September 2017. The Milan-based airline relaunched under the Air Italy brand in March 2018 with a plan to operate three Boeing 737 Max aircraft along with five Airbus A330-200s leased from Qatar Airways. Qatar Airways had big ambitions for the carrier but the Doha-based carrier's accounts for the financial year ended 31 March 2019 showed that Air Italy had incurred a loss of QR542 million ($149 million). The decision to liquidate Air Italy appears to have been taken by Alisarda, with Qatar Airways noting in a statement that it had been "ready once again to play its part in supporting the growth of the airline, but this would only have been possible with the commitment of all shareholders". Qatar Airways adds: "Despite our minority shareholder's role, Qatar Airways has continuously provided all possible support to Air Italy right from the beginning, from releasing aircraft from our fleet and ordering new aircraft for Air Italy, to backing management choices and injecting capital and investment as required and permitted. "Even with the changing competitive environment and the increasingly difficult market conditions severely impacting the air transport industry, Qatar Airways has continually reaffirmed its commitment, as a minority shareholder, to continue investing in the company to create value for Italy and the travelling public and to provide support for Air Italy and its staff." Cirium fleets data shows that Air Italy operates a fleet of 15 aircraft, comprising four A330s, one A320, four Boeing 737-800s, three 737-300s, one 737-700 and two Embraer 190s. It has five 737 Max 8s on order and five of the grounded jets in storage.

Source: Cirium

Brazil’s domestic air traffic grew in 2019 by only 0.8% while capacity was reduced by 1%, completing a decade characterized by market maturation following years of double digit growth in the early 2000s. According to data published by Brazil’s Civil Aviation Authority ANAC, 96.67 million passengers were transported in South America’s largest market last year, compared to 95.94 million travelers a year before. The disappearance of the country’s fourth largest airline, bankrupt Avianca Brazil, can hardly be noticed in the official traffic figures as its traffic was swiftly absorbed by its competitors. Comparing December figures, more than six months after Avianca Brazil's last flight, Brazil’s third largest airline, Azul, sees its market share jumping from 18.8% in 2018 to 23.3% last year. LATAM Brazil also picked up a significant part of the market abandoned by Avianca Brazil, transporting 37.7% of domestic traffic, compared to 31% in 2018, putting it back into the head-to-head race with Gol with for the market leadership that has dominated Brazil’s aviation market for many years. Gol itself only improved moderately from carrying 37.9% to 38.6% of the local passengers. The combination of growth with a 1% reduction of seat capacity in the market led to a systemwide average load factor of 83.8%, the highest in Brazil’s aviation history. Internationally, and taking into account only Brazilian carriers, the three market leaders together transported 9.1 million passengers last year, led by LATAM, absorbing about two-thirds of the traffic. This is 2.6% less than 2018, a decline that worsened over the year, with a 13.4% drop in international passenger traffic reported in December.

Source: Cirium

Middle eastern nations Qatar and Kuwait have widened travel bans to include Singapore, in response to the coronavirus outbreak. Kuwait is advising its citizens to defer unnecessary travel to Singapore, and urging them to leave the country, media reports indicate. The Qatari embassy issued a similar statement on 9 February, advising citizens to "wait until the conditions related to the coronavirus calms, except for the most urgent need". Singapore is a key regional hub with over 400 connections to nearly 150 cities, according to Cirium schedules data. As of 11 February, there are 45 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the city state, the highest count outside of mainland China if the cases originating from a cruise ship are excluded from Japan's figure. An increasing number of nations have also cautioned its citizens about travelling to Singapore. Neighbouring state Indonesia is warning its citizens to take extra care, while the UK government has advised citizens returning from Singapore, among other nations with a significant number of cases, to monitor for coronavirus symptoms within 14 days of return.

Source: Cirium