Japan's ANA HOLDINGS INC., parent of All Nippon Airways (ANA), said on Friday it had frozen plans to hire 3,200 university and college graduates across its 37 businesses in the 2021 financial year.Read More » The company said in a statement the spread of the coronavirus had caused a sharp decline in demand and made it difficult to formulate business plans.
AirAsia Indonesia said on Sunday it would start nonstop flights from Surabaya to Kuala Lumpur and Johor Bahru in Malaysia from May 18, with other international and domestic services to follow from June 1. The LCC said passengers would have to provide a health certificate that showed a negative result for a COVID-19 test, as well as wear masks at check in, boarding, during the flight and at arrival.
Cathay Pacific Airways (CPA) has postponed its annual general meeting (AGM) from this Wednesday in Hong Kong to a "date falling on or before 30th June 2020". The company said in a regulatory filing to the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong the board of directors considered it was undesirable to hold the AGM this week given social distancing rules in place in the Special Administrative Region.
Singapore Airlines (SIA) said in a trading update on Friday it expected to post a "small operating profit" for its full fiscal 2020 financial year despite suffering a "material operating loss" for the final quarter. The airline group is due to publish its financial results for the 12 months to March 31, 2020 on Thursday.
The SIA group said there had been no "definitive abatement of the COVID-19 pandemic”, with operating cash flows expected to remain negative in the three months to June 30. SIA said it had paused its fuel hedging program due to the uncertainty in the market and the fuel hedging losses suffered as fuel prices collapsed in March 2020.
Air New Zealand (Air NZ) said last Friday it planned to operate to a "majority of its domestic airports" when the country's restriction of movement rules were lowered from Alert Level Three to Alert Level Two on Thursday, representing a return to some regional destinations and a thickening of the schedule on other routes. Air NZ CEO, Greg Foran, said domestic capacity would be about 20% of levels prior to the coronavirus pandemic and added the cheapest lead-in fares would not be available because of higher operating costs related to social distancing rules.
Taiwan Health Minister and head of the country's Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC), Chen Shih-chung, told reporters late last week opening the border to foreigners would be dependent on the credibility of the data provided by those countries, with Taiwan to stay closed to non-citizens for now. Figures from the CEEC showed that as of Sunday, Taiwan had not recorded a domestically transmitted case of COVID-19 for 28 consecutive days.
The Australian government said on Friday it would spend an additional A$50 million (US$33 million) to maintain international passenger flights to London and Los Angeles for the next four weeks, with flights to Auckland and Hong Kong no longer required as immediate demand had been met. These subsidised services, operated by Qantas and Virgin Australia, began in early April.
Qantas told Nine Newspapers in Australia today new aircraft deliveries from Airbus and Boeing would be on hold amid the uncertainty from the coronavirus pandemic. In calendar 2020, Qantas had been expected to take 787-9s and its LCC, Jetstar, was due to receive A321neos. A spokesperson said the airline group did not have a revised timeline for delivery of the new aircraft.
