Hanjin KAL Corp, the largest shareholder of Korean Air (KAL), intended to raise 300 billion won (US$245 million) through the sale of three-year bonds to fund its involvement in the airline's proposed capital raising, the Yonhap News Agency reported.Read More » In May, KAL announced a one trillion won capital raising through the sale of 79 million new shares at 12,600 won a share – first offered to existing shareholders – to strengthen its balance sheet at a time when the coronavirus pandemic had hammered revenues.
Administrators for Virgin Australia said today the search for a new owner of the financially stricken carrier had been narrowed from five non-binding indicative proposals to two short-listed candidates – investment firms Bain Capital and Cyrus Capital Partners. Deloitte's Vaughan Strawbridge, who is leading the administration team, said in a statement it was still the intention to have a binding agreement in place by June 30, with the next few weeks to be spent "facilitating in-depth bidder engagement with the stakeholders of the business" ahead of binding final offers being received.
India's Minister for Civil Aviation Hardeep, Singh Puri, has responded to calls for the country to restart international flights by saying most countries were still not allowing incoming passenger traffic, except for repatriation of their own citizens or diplomats. Writing on his Twitter page yesterday, the minister said India's metro cities, which he noted carried the bulk of international services, were still under "various degrees of lockdown" and only beginning to be lifted. Finally, he said that as India moved towards a "critical mass of 50%-60% operation of domestic flights, our ability to resume international operations will also improve".
Singapore Airlines (SIA) and its regional wing, SilkAir, have announced plans to reinstate passenger flights to 12 destinations in June and July – Adelaide, Amsterdam, Auckland, Barcelona, Brisbane, Cebu, Christchurch, Copenhagen, Hong Kong, Medan, Melbourne and Osaka Kansai. Despite the additional routes to the skeleton network that had been in place over the past couple of months, SIA said the June and July schedule represented about 6% passenger capacity compared with what had originally been planned for the two-month period before the coronavirus pandemic.
Still in Singapore, the country's Changi International Airport was officially able to take transit passengers today. While the relaxation of a previous restriction prohibiting transit passengers was first announced on May 20, SIA said on its website its passengers would not be able to transit through Changi until its plans for the transit transfer lanes was finalised.
An International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) task force has developed a guidelines to support the recovery of global air travel amid the coronavirus pandemic. The ICAO Council’s Aviation Recovery Task Force (CART) chair, ambassador Philippe Bertoux, said the "Takeoff" guidelines were intended to inform, align and progress the national, regional, and industry-specific COVID-19 recovery roadmaps now being implemented, but not to replace them. "In order to be effective, we need to take a layered and especially a risk-based approach. Measures will be implemented or removed as needed based on the wide-ranging medical and other factors which will be at play," Bertoux said in a statement overnight.
International Air Transport Association (IATA) director general and CEO, Alexandre de Juniac, called on governments to quickly implement the ICAO guidelines for restoring air connectivity. "The Takeoff guidance document was built with the best expertise of government and industry. Airlines strongly support it. Now we are counting on governments to implement the recommendations quickly, because the world wants to travel again and needs airlines to play a key role in the economic recovery," de Juniac said in a statement overnight.
Airports Council International (ACI) world director general, Angela Gittens, also welcomed the publication of the task force report. "Aviation is an interconnected and interdependent global ecosystem and continued global collaboration, cooperation and consistency are key, first for the industry to successfully restart, and then for sustaining a balanced recovery," Gittens said in a statement overnight.
