Airlines reeling over pandemic lockdowns

Travel that came to a standstill during the pandemic is starting to ramp up, slowly. The economic damage to the travel industry is massive.

• Lufthansa may cut 22,000 full-time jobs globally. That’s more than double the number of jobs that the German airline, which owns owns Swiss, Austrian Airlines and Brussels Airlines, had anticipated earlier. Lufthansa employs about 135,000 people and expects to have about 100 fewer planes in operation after

the pandemic.

Delta Air Lines, with its planes flying at a capacity that’s been reduced by 85 percent, is bracing for a 90 percent plunge in revenue this quarter. That would mean the carrier, which posted revenue of more than $12.5 billion last year during the same period, expects revenue of only about $1.25 billion in the three-month period that ends in June.

Delta has slashed costs to offset the decline in travel. The company said in a regulatory filing that it expects cash outflow of about $40 million per day by the end of this month, down from approximately $100 million at the end of March.

British Airways is looking at offering voluntary redundancy to pilots as an alternative to compulsory dismissals and could extend the plan to other workers, the company said in a letter to staff seen by Bloomberg News. The airline aims to cut as many as 12,000 jobs to preserve cash and cope with a slow recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. The carrier warned previously it would dismiss all of its 4,300 pilots and rehire them on new contracts in the absence of a deal to save money

Airbnb said Thursday that demand for trips closer to home is on the rise. The home-sharing company says that in May, 50 percent of all bookings were for travel within 200 miles of home. That’s up from 30 percent the previous month.

Bookings are also up, compared with last year, with more people wanting to spend time near a beach.