Future of fleet up in air

QANTAS will ground almost three-quarters of its international fleet as tight border controls and travel restrictions hit home for the airline.

The airline had already grounded 38 aircraft – including eight A-380s – before the government announced mandatory 14-day self-isolation for all passengers arriving from overseas.

In a candid memo to all staff yesterday chief executive Alan Joyce said the demand for international travel is “evaporating” with little “indication that demand will return in the short-term”.

Mr Joyce (pictured), who has stopped receiving pay during the crisis, said the strict quarantine restrictions “will increase the dramatic decline in international bookings that we’ve already experienced”.

The biggest cuts to flights are expected to be international and in line with struggling overseas airlines that have cut services by 70 to 80 per cent.

But the domestic fleet will also be hit.

“We’re now also seeing a substantial drop in domestic travel demand as people begin to retreat from everyday activities,” Mr Joyce wrote. “This will have impacts for all of us. There are obviously major hardships ahead that will impact the entire group.”

Mr Joyce’s memo to staff was slightly more upbeat than the one British Airways chief executive Alex Cruz wrote to his 45,000 staff at the weekend.

“What is happening right now as a result of COVID-19 is more serious than any of these events. It is a crisis of global proportions like no other we have known.”

German airline Lufthansa has grounded two-thirds of its jets and cut its 70 daily flights to the US to just four.