The airline bloodbath has begun

American will be using their parked passenger aircraft for cargo operations. A 777-300 is departing DFW tomorrow for Frankfurt with 100,000 pounds of various cargo on board. The flight will operate 4x weekly, twice each way.

news.aa.com...

They have started moving to Victorville and other parks

news.yahoo.com...

a reply to: Zaphod58

They must be removing the seats
i cant imagine that kind of weight or storage capacity in the luggage compartments alone

a reply to: all2human

The Triple has a freighter capacity with seats. They could carry a maximum of about 125,000 pounds of freight in the holds. ANA lists their capacity as 67,500 in the forward body, 49,000 in the aft body, and 9,000 bulk. It breaks down to 24 containers/ 8 pallets forward, 20 containers for a -300, 20 containers/ 6 pallets for a -300ER, for 44 containers/8 pallets on a -300, or 44/14 on a -300ER.

The bailouts have begun. Sweden announced a credit line of SKr5B ($488M). About 1.5B of that will go to SAS.

www.flightglobal.com...

Finland announced €600M for Finnair.

www.flightglobal.com...

New Zealand announced NZ$900M ($511M).

www.flightglobal.com...

The US Senate proposed $58B.

www.flightglobal.com...

Republic Airline EMB170/175s out of SDF are flying flights with loads of 5-10 passengers, highest was a single flight from MIA with 30 people normally a completely full flight. Republic Corporate's last update on 3/16 was 10-20% flight cut in April. No lay-offs yet.

Seeing less mainline Delta MD-80s coming through and staying overnight. Trans State is shutting down 9 months early and Compass is closing up shop now too. We just got 30 jets from DELTA that used to be flown by Compass, losing that contract may have accelerated this choice.

a reply to: Pyle

Compass was trying to keep going with American Eagle, but once they lost the Delta Shuttle contract, I suspect they were biding their time until shutdown even without the virus. I don't see Republic getting through this either. Compass made it sound like they'll be back, but the way pilots are talking that's not happening.

JFK tower and part of Indianapolis ARTCC closed for cleaning after workers tested positive.

The "hole" is the ARTCC closure-

a reply to: Zaphod58

Looks like I'll be renting a car and driving this weekend instead of flying.

Zaphod, do you think aircraft maintenance is being impacted by all this, and if so, how so?

a reply to: AutomateThis1

That's going to be a fun question. Pretty much across the board comments are running to smaller fleets and more consolidation, even with bailouts happening. Both those are going to result in redundancies, while more maintenance people are hitting the market due to airlines shutting down.

In theory, over the short term, with aircraft grounded they can catch up on a lot of work that needs doing. But the airlines may hold off on that, simply because we're in uncharted waters and no one knows what is going to happen. I'd be willing to bet that the next ten years are going to be ugly on both sides of the aisle.

South African Airlines is shutting down everything except flights from Cape Town and Johannesburg

businesstech.co.za...

FR24 graph showing air traffic 10% below 2019-



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originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: AutomateThis1

That's going to be a fun question. Pretty much across the board comments are running to smaller fleets and more consolidation, even with bailouts happening. Both those are going to result in redundancies, while more maintenance people are hitting the market due to airlines shutting down.

In theory, over the short term, with aircraft grounded they can catch up on a lot of work that needs doing. But the airlines may hold off on that, simply because we're in uncharted waters and no one knows what is going to happen. I'd be willing to bet that the next ten years are going to be ugly on both sides of the aisle.

Appreciate the reply. I'm well aware of the theory, but my practical experience is that in this type of situation with costs being cut and money trying to be saved that maintenance schedules are pushed out or worse not completed at all.

I would just hate to find myself on a flight that happens to have a critical malfunction on what I thought was going to be a good deal.

I would really hate to see a rise of mechanical failures further impact the issues at hand. As it stands I can still purchase a one way to Virginia for about $100. I'd love to take advantage of that. I'm not typically a fearful person, but after the recent tornado where I live a lot of aircraft were damaged.

a reply to: AutomateThis1

They're actually going to be in better shape short term. They're accelerating retirements of older aircraft, leaving better aircraft in service. The question is if they'll continue with orders that have been placed and basically totally revamp fleets, or if they'll cancel them outright. Delta is following Lufthansa and has announced they're going with a smaller fleet, so it'll be interesting to see what they go with.

I'm going to try to get pictures going back by, but Atlanta is using taxiways and it looked like at least one runway for parking now.

United will end all long haul international flying the 28th. They have flights from Cape Town, Tahiti, and Sydney returning that day. All other flights will be cut the 25th. They'll retain their island hopping Guam flight, and certain short haul flights to Mexico for now. All flights to Canada are suspended.

onemileatatime.com...

A couple things that are significant, and will backfire on the airlines.

First, for British Airways pilots will take a 50% pay cut for April and May, which will be spread over 3 months. And they'll have to take two weeks unpaid in April and May.

Meanwhile the CEO is apparently not taking a pay cut. And the head of IAG, who used to be in charge at British announced his sudden retirement. He'll take a pay cut of 20%.

onemileatatime.com...

Second, ten major cargo and passenger airlines sent a letter to Congress. In it they state that if Congress moves quickly to guarantee at least $29B in loans, they won't lay anyone off until September 1st. They also will place limits on executive compensation, and eliminate stock buyback and stock dividends for the life of the loan. If Congress doesn't act quickly, furloughs are going to be necessary fairly quickly.

www.forbes.com...

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: AutomateThis1

They're actually going to be in better shape short term. They're accelerating retirements of older aircraft, leaving better aircraft in service. The question is if they'll continue with orders that have been placed and basically totally revamp fleets, or if they'll cancel them outright. Delta is following Lufthansa and has announced they're going with a smaller fleet, so it'll be interesting to see what they go with.

Cool, that's good news. That's something I've been looking forward to for quite some time now.

Atlanta today. The 737s are in one of three parking areas, out on taxiways. It looked like they had about a dozen aircraft parked in Atlanta already, including heavies.

Emirates announced today that they're parking all passenger flights March 25th. They're going to continue flying cargo, and will begin salary reductions to keep from laying workers off.

Emirates partially shutting down.