December 1st 2021

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August

Association of Asia-Pacific Airlines (AAPA) director general, Subhas Menon, remarked this month that travel restrictions in the region were in many cases more restrictive than they were in 2020. Read More » In an interview with FlightGlobal, Menon said those restrictions and a slower than forecast vaccination rollout, meant a recovery in the Asia-Pacific was not yet on the horizon.

One example of the difficulties airlines faced in future planning was the proposed but repeatedly postponed air travel bubble between Singapore and Hong Kong. This month the two governments announced they had decided not to pursue discussions on the scheme due to differences in their respective anti-epidemic strategies.

Another example was in The Antipodes. Air New Zealand chairman, Dame Therese Walsh, said the airline slumped to a full-year net loss of NZ$289 million (US$201.3 million) as it was unable to fly two-thirds of its network during the 2020-2021 financial year due to COVID-19. The Star Alliance member said delivery of two 787s had been deferred to 2024-2026, from 2023-2024, while two A321neos were pushed back three years from 2024 to 2027.

There was five minutes of sunshine during the year, when two-way quarantine-free travel between Australia and New Zealand was in place for a few months, including May. More than 150,000 passengers flew between the two countries under the scheme. But by this month, with the bubble suspended due to COVID-19 outbreaks, passenger numbers had slowed to a trickle.

In Indonesia, Lion Air Group said it intended to stand down about 8,000 staff across its operating airlines – Batik Air, Lion Air and Wings Air in Indonesia, Malaysia’s Malindo and Thai Lion in Thailand – as pandemic travel restrictions impacted demand for air travel. The group was operating between 10% and 15% of normal daily capacity.

Garuda Indonesia continued to have a tough time, reporting a net loss of US$902.1 million for the first half of calendar 2021, slumping deeper into the red from a net loss of US$717.6 million in the same months in 2020.

There were some pockets of positive news, including LCC, VietJet Air, reporting a net profit 14 billion dong (US$617,000) for the six months to June 30, returning to the black from a net loss of 1.4 trillion dong a year earlier. However, the LCC was loss-making for the three months to June 30.

All Nippon Airways (ANA) and Peach began codesharing on five domestic routes in Japan this month. The two airlines have ANA HOLDINGS INC. as their parent company.