South Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) vice chairman, Sohn Byung-doo, told reporters in Seoul today all options were on the table for the future of debt-laden Asiana Airlines. The Yonhap news agency said Sohn made the comments when asked if Asiana could be nationalised by the government. A proposed acquisition of the South Korea carrier from a consortium led by Hyundai Development Company (HDC), formed in December 2019, hit turbulence after missing a recent deadline. Local media reported yesterday HDC had sought another round of due diligence in response to the coronavirus pandemic and the airline's financial status. Read More »
China Eastern Airlines (CEA) said yesterday it had opened a new base in Xiamen on July 25. The SkyTeam alliance member said it planned to have 40 aircraft stationed in Xiamen by 2025. CEA said it was focused on increasing service to the key domestic destinations of Beijing, Kunming, Shaanxi and Shanghai as well as expanding internationally with flights to Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia and Taiwan.
The Shanghai-headquartered airline said its flight operations had grown from a low of about 200 domestic flights a day since the COVID-19 outbreak took hold to about 2,000 flights daily now, which represented about 80% of flights operated pre-COVID-19. CEA said its promotional activity, such as the "Fly at the Weekend" campaign, had helped stimulate travel demand.
Figures from the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA) released today showed airlines in the region carried 724,000 passengers in June, a decline of 97.7% from 31.8 million 12 months ago and below the 785,000 passengers flown in May 2020. Capacity was cut by 93.2% in June compared with a year earlier and load factor dropped 45.8 percentage points to 36.3%. "International travel demand evaporated in the second quarter. Most flights only were operating to repatriate people to their home countries," AAPA director general, Subhas Menon, said in a statement. The AAPA report was based on traffic data from 40 Asia- Pacific based carriers.
Australia's domestic airlines transported 176,400 travellers on regular public transport (RPT) flights in May 2020, down 96.4% from 4.89 million in May 2019, figures from the country's Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE) showed. Despite the year-on-year fall, the May passenger total was up 23% from 143,700 passengers in April 2020. The domestic load factor in May was 40.3%, which although it was down 37.1 percentage points from 77.4% a year earlier, it was up from 28.1% in April.
The Australian government's economic update, published late last week, indicated that from July to December only citizens, permanent residents, New Zealanders and a small number of international students were the only categories of travellers assumed to be able to travel to Australia. Also, the economic update flagged that the country's travel ban could be lifted between January and July 2021, albeit with a two-week quarantine period still in place for those arriving in Australia.
SpiceJet said in a regulatory filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) late last week it has been designated as an Indian scheduled carrier able to operate agreed services from India to the UK and the US. No routes were announced.
India’s grounded Jet Airways has told the BSE in a regulatory filing last week it had received two bids for the airline. Jet Airways, which has not flown since April 2019 due to financial troubles and was proceeding through a corporate insolvency resolution process, said the bid details would be presented to the committee of creditors for consideration.
